"I wrote a poem, sent it in, and it was rejected," he said. "People say 'oh, that Neil Gaiman, he could write a shopping list and it would be accepted', but it's not true. They rejected it on the grounds that they did not want to give children nightmares. It had to be sweet and lovely. Nobody should be waking up at three o'clock in the morning, shivering and screaming because they've read a poem by me."