Not since the advent of personal blogs on MySpace has something impacted the way I gather info like Twitter has. Twitter is a constant stream of tiny messages, and since Twitter can be updated on the fly via text message and iPhone, people tend to filter much less. And every day it seems like more and more creators and celebrities are joining Twitter, sending their mostly unfiltered thoughts out to the masses.
One of the most prolific Twitterers is Neil Gaiman, who has been keeping up a steady stream of updates and pictures as he promoted Coraline and keeps going now that he’s back at home. With two books hitting this year and a Coraline musical, it seems likely that Neil will be updating a whole lot for the foreseeable future.
Many of Neil’s Tweets are charmingly mundane, but every now and again he’ll drop something very interesting. He essentially announced the fact that he won the Newbery for The Graveyard Book via Twitter, and today he let out a tiny bit of info:
Showered. Shaved. Now to write until Stephin Merritt arrives this afternoon to <strikeout>work on secret project </strikeout> have some tea.
Stephin Merritt is, of course, the guy behind The Magnetic Fields. Merritt has also contributed a number of songs to a number of kid-oriented projects, including a whole album for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (the books, not the movie). Merritt also wrote the music and book for the aforementioned Coraline musical.
So what could Merritt and Gaiman be secretly meeting about? Is Neil being cute, and they really are having tea, or is there another Merritt and Gaiman musical in the future? Or another project altogether – perhaps a musical accompaniement to one of Gaiman’s two new kid’s books this year, Crazy Hair with Dave McKean illustrating or Blueberry Girl with Charles Vess illustrating? Or could it be for something totally different – maybe a concept album that comes from original ideas.
Or maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just a cute Tweet that really is about getting tea. But at the very least now you’ve read about the Coraline musical and two new Neil Gaiman books that are illustrated by astonishing artists. So this wasn’t a total waste.
If you want to follow me on Twitter and speculate about what I’m up to, I’m at www.twitter.com/devincf.