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[cautiousyoungman]

Let me rephrase, what gave you the idea to call it “good omens”?

We had to call it something. Terry suggested "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" and I suggested "Good Omens" so we compromised and called it both.

I wanted something about prophecies, and something to let people know we were parodying The Omen.

[cautiousyoungman]

I just saw somewhere you recommend writing 300 words a day. I can't imagine how to do that, I will manage 50-100 at most and I will edit endlessly. Do you continuously add to the story without returning to the previous chapters and keep almost everything as it first occurred to you? Is it a matter of practice to become more productive and require less editing? I think I enjoy playing around with details though, is that a bad habit to shed?

Write whatever works for you. I wrote Coraline at 50 words a day because that was the time I had. I wrote American Gods trying for 2,000 words a day (and often failing) because it needed to be a thick book and at 50 words a day I'd still be writing it.

[cautiousyoungman]

When you and Terry wrote Adam Young's dialogue, there are lots of apostrophes in place of vowels and the g in "-ing" words, and phonetically writing things like "could of" instead of "could've" etc, so my question is were those choices meant to simulate a specific accent? Or just to show that the Them speak a bit imperfectly/lazily? Like was it supposed to be an Oxfordshire accent maybe...? I'm not from the UK so I don't know if it sounds like a silly question, but I was curious about what you heard in your heads while writing, thanks!

It's the way William Brown and his friends talk in the Just William books we were emulating.

[cautiousyoungman]

i hate my writing. i hate my ideas. i hate my everything

have you ever had to pass a bridge of hatred to finish a novel?

Yes. Not every time, but enough.

[cautiousyoungman]

Hello Mr. Gaiman, I have recently read your story "Snow, Glass, Apples" for my Folklore class. I found the concept of an evil snow white and the story being told from the perspective of the queen really interesting. I do have a question though, why did you feel the story couldn't be properly brought to life without the strange sexuality? I understand that the purpose of literature is to get your audience to feel something or be able to take something away from it and that definitely happened with "Snow, Glass, Apples". I do think, however, that this goal could have been portrayed without the sexual references and rape allegories. Is there a reason you decided they were necessary to your story?

Well, if the prince (for example) isn't a necrophile it makes his being overtaken desire over the corpse of the young princess in the glass coffin and him ordering it to be taken back to his castle rather hard to understand. And so it was necessary to establish his kink as part of the story.

Mostly it was just trying to follow through the central question of "What if the Wicked Queen actually wasn't wicked? What if we got her story? What if she was justified in cutting out Snow White's heart?" The central idea wasn't "How can I do weird sex stuff in a story?" It was "How can I make this feel real in a story about a woman dealing with a young vampire princess and a necrophile prince."

[cautiousyoungman]

What are your feelings on your book fortunately the milk? It was an important part of my childhood as an aspiring author and I want to know how you think about it.

I'm ridiculously proud of it.

[cautiousyoungman]

What is art? What is bad art? What is the difference between bad art and good art?

I don't know. For me, good art is the stuff I'm trying to make if I can.

[cautiousyoungman]

Did you write this? I absolutely love this paragraph, love the rhythm it has when reading it.

If it's Terry who wrote it ig it gives me yet another reason to start reading his books

That's my passage, yes. But you should read Terry Pratchett books anyway.

[cautiousyoungman]

Who was it that wrote the line “gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide” please and thank you

No, that was Terry.

[cautiousyoungman]

Neil this has been brain tickling me for quite a while Is the world in fact a flat disk like you said ?

It is in Norse Mythology.

[cautiousyoungman]

From the DVD commentary, episode 3:

Neil: I kind of wound up having to write this as a love story, and part of the joy of writing a love story is the break-up, because you can’t get back together again unless you’ve broken up. So this is the break-up.

Douglas: I think you can say it’s two actors working at peak.

Neil: They really are. I mean they’re so good. And I remember watching this being shot, knowing how good it was.

…

Douglas: We landed on that location kind of by mistake through scheduling, and I’m so glad we did it that way in the end.

Neil: Oh yeah, it was origially set in-

Douglas: It was set at night, wasn’t it?

Neil: It was set at night in St. James’s Park.

Douglas: But the Queen wouldn’t let us put on lights in St. James’s Park at night.

Neil: Bless.

[cautiousyoungman]

Neil, I imagine that when you write, you rub your hands together like a cartoonish villan and laugh deviously thinking: "Yes, the gays are gonna LOVE this!". Do you actually do that?

I'm afraid not.

[cautiousyoungman]

Hello Mr. Gaiman, long time listener, first time caller. Are you ever going to make the old men fuck, nasty style?

I’m never sure how to respond to you Shadwell/Job shippers. Perhaps you should expend your energies on AO3.

[cautiousyoungman]

Neil please for the love of god explain the cocoa to me in the go book I’ve been searching for ages and the earliest I can find is “ the cocoa was still untouched “ with no context

The prophecies were numbered, and there were more than four thousand of them. ‘Steady, steady,’ Aziraphale muttered to himself. He went into the little kitchenette and made himself some cocoa and took some deep breaths. Then he came back and read a prophecy at random. Forty minutes later, the cocoa was still untouched.

The context is he made himself cocoa, a hot chocolate like drink. Then he didn’t drink it. During the rest of the sequences with the prophecies we find out what happened to the undrunk cocoa.

[cautiousyoungman]

How're you feeling about David's BAFTA nomination for season 2??

Proud but perplexed. It's hard not to think of him and Michael as a set. I hope Michael gets a nomination for Season 3.

[cautiousyoungman]

How do you feel about the use of AI as a tool for writers? Not to make the writing for us, of course, but to ask for prompts or "chat" about plot points where you're stuck.

Friends are nice. If you can find some human ones. That's how Terry Pratchett and I became friends. He'd call me up when he wanted to chat about plot points when he got stuck.

[cautiousyoungman]

Hello!!!

Love all of your work and huge fan of good omens! When you were filming season 1 and 2 of good omens was there anyone on set who would try to get others to break character at times? Someone who really liked to crack jokes during takes? Would love to see blooper reels one day!

I think that if there had been such a person on set, Michael Sheen would have taken them for a long walk one night and we would never have seen them again.