view thru my eyes: writer as a rock star

Monday, July 11, 2005

writer as a rock star

NEIL GAIMAN is here in the Philippines.

It was his second day of appearance and book signing for Filipino fans.

I had to cover his second day of visit today at Greenhills. I did not realize his BIG following here in the country. The crowd was swelling today at the branch FULLY BOOKED, a new bookstore specializing in imported books here in the country, at Greenhills.

He came in late, at around 2:30 pm, but everyone was thrilled to see him. He was still able to do a book reading, from one of his novels and answer a couple of questions.

First, would he be able to finish his book, Delirium. He answered, "Hopefully before I die", and the crowd moaned. Second, when will he be back in the country. He is hoping that talks with a Singapore stop will push through in the future, and then he'll connect that visit with that here. Last question thrown was on the realization of his projects as a movie. He said that he is hoping to have Death come soon, since the first draft is already finished.

Then, a guy comes in, probably the one in charge of Fully Booked, saying that he wants to shorten and have some discipline in the book signing for that afternoon, since the previous day signing at Rockwell Mall finished at 1:30 am, with about 3,000 people having their books signed.

I was still able to shoot around and do my shooting assignement, but I was awestruck of Neil Gaiman. And as I review my shots for today, some of them looked bad.

So, I guess, I still have another shot tomorrow with the media/writer's session and the last book signing at the Cubao branch of Fully Booked.

# posted by Paul Mata : Monday, July 11, 2005