WMF Photo Contest Part V: Arts, Crafts, Hugs, and Cuddles

Over the last couple years, I’ve developed several fairly large, persistent sources of guilt.

I’m not talking about normal guilt, like knowing I should really floss more. That I should do a better job separating out my recyclables.

That’s just low-grade background guilt. A faint misting of guilt. Even the constant feeling that I should be a more patient, understanding father is hardly more than a drizzle compared to the near bottomless wells of guilt I’ve discovered in the last several years.

For example, I have a backlog of more than two thousand unread pieces of digital fanmail at this point.

Worse, I have more than 200 pieces of actual print mail I haven’t managed to read or respond to yet. A year’s worth of letters from all over the world. Messages that people took the time to write down or type up, put in envelopes, address and mail to me. They are tangible acts of love and affection, and I haven’t been able to find the time to sit down, read, and respond to them.

Something always seems to be eating up my time instead….

20140911_045217

(For example.)

But the thing I feel guiltiest about from these last few years, the worst of my broken promises, is the photo contest. Hundreds of you participated. Thousands of pictures were sent in….

And now, three years later, I still haven’t managed to finish posting up the pictures, let alone send prizes to the winners.

But I have been making an effort. Amanda has been helping me sift and sort pictures into categories. And Jessie, new addition to our team, has been lending a hand as well.

I’ve made a promise to myself to get the photo contest finished before The Slow Regard of Silent Things comes out at the end of the month.

We have the earlier blogs here: [Prologue] [Part I] [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV]

Today we’re have part five, providing warm fuzzies in two categories:

  • Hugs and Cuddles:

A lot of people sent in pictures of themselves just… well… loving the book.

Sun and hugs for book

The pure look of contentment on her face makes me want to smile.

Better than a teddy

The title of this one is “Better Than a Teddy” and I’ll admit that’s the reason we picked it to include in the blog. I know I’ve fallen asleep more than a few times cuddling a beloved book.

025-1

Jessie commented that she thought it was pretty telling that while this woman was wearing a shiny wedding ring, the look of adoration is all for the book. But I don’t like to think of my novel as a home wrecker. Can we just assume she’s in a relationship *with* the book?

Rest

I hope this one was a loving cuddle, and not a situation where the book fell onto this woman’s hair, pinning her to the ground because it was too heavy for her to move….

TWMF3

Here’s our winner for this category.

Part of me wants to say something like, “This is a wonderfully composed picture.” But the truth is, I don’t know anything about visual composition. All  I know is that when I look at this picture and it makes my heart happy.

So. Winner.

Even broken up into many blogs and categories, there are still too many pictures for us to put them all up in the blog. But we *have* posted the rest of this s category up in its own Photostream.

  • Arts and Crafts:

I am not by my nature a crafty person, and I view folks who do crafts like this with a sort of baffled wonder and confusion. I don’t have the right sort of mind to make something small and particular with my hands.

Like this:

 

WMF_photoContest

Because this is nothing I would ever do myself, it strikes me as so phenominally cool. Even though I’m not skilled in the dark arts of the crochet, I know that all those tiny, tight stiches have to be hard…. 

readingwithgoblin

That’s right. These ladies took the time to have the cover of WMF printed onto cloth and then sew that cloth into bikinis. That’s something that I never, ever in a million years would have guessed people would do.

Amount of paper used to make that swan

We got several pieces of origami. But this one was unlike any I’ve ever seen before. The title was “The Amount of Paper Used to Make That Swan.” Which Jessie guesses is a reference to the fact that it probably took the amount of paper in WMF.

(You can see the other pieces of origami in the photostream a the end of the blog.)

downsized_0516011317c

We’ve got this cute guy in the garden. 

hero1a

And a dog in a hammock. But you should really click that one to look at it more closely. How it’s constructed is really cool.

Puzzle

Here we have the prize winning honorable mention. Not only were these people nice enough to send me this puzzle back in the day, but Amanda was particularly tickled by it. “The idea of these books putting together the map puzzle… I just can’t stop giggling at it.”

But we have one entry that honestly just blew the top off my head.

Remember the guilt I mentioned up above? This final entry, the winning entry in this category, is why I feel this guilt.

This person made something truly amazing. Something flat-out fucking awesome and it’s taken me more than three years to thank her properly and show you the coolness.

She sent in these three images:

EreaderHorizontal

You can’t appreciate these without looking at them more closely. So here’s each image separately. You have to click them to embiggen them…

Rooftops

The amount of detail here is awesome. The first thing Amanda noticed was that the chimney is made of a bra. It took us a long time before any of us noticed that the moon was actually a dinner plate.

I don’t want to steal the joy by pointing everything out. Click it and look at it more closely. Look at what everything is made of. It’s so, so cool….

Fishery

The chapter in the ebook has even been turned to chapter 44, “The Catch” where Kvothe finishes and presents his arrow catch to Master Kilvin.

The Cthaeh

This is the Cthaeh in its tree. It has all of the butterfly wings scattered on the ground, all made out of tissue paper, and the tree itself is made of a sweater. Kvothe’s even naked. And, again, the ebook is turned to chapter 104, “The Cthaeh.”

The winners and our honorable mention will get their very own sets of the rare gold talent pipes.

Thank you everyone. You have delighted and amazed me. I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to show off all of your awesome.

Speaking of, here’s the other arts and crafts pictures in the Photostream!

Feel free to “Oooh” and “Ahhh” in the comments below. These folks deserve it.

This entry was posted in fan coolness, Photo Contest 2011. By Pat20 Responses

20 Comments

  1. Schwartz the Younger
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 4:28 AM | Permalink

    WOW!!! These pictures are great! They make me feel so…so boring and untalented. I envy their craftiness and their ability to have artistic “composition”.

    But…I do take solace in the fact that I gave you “a good belly laugh”.

  2. lykashii
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 4:39 AM | Permalink

    Yey awesome pictures! I live for the photo contest blogs! (Maybe a bit extreme… But it beats living for the next book ;) )
    I love the winning cuddle one, what a beautiful picture!

  3. landlouper
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 7:10 AM | Permalink

    The bikinis kill (apologies to the band). I find the placement of the book title significant and hilarious.

    I’m thinking Amanda was not angry (“ticked”), but rather, “tickled”.

    Fun contest, fun blog. The crafts winning pics are awesome, and I like the cuddles winner, too. Well done!

    • Posted October 3, 2014 at 7:45 AM | Permalink

      You are correct. Fixed.

      • Amanda
        Posted October 3, 2014 at 10:49 AM | Permalink

        Maybe I was ticked at how awesome they were….

  4. ripshin
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 7:17 AM | Permalink

    Hahaha! It appears, that not only is Kvothe naked in the “Cthaeh” photo, but he’s also anatomically correct(ish). (Probably just got out the very cold lake…) Too funny!

    rip

  5. firebird
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 8:21 AM | Permalink

    I really like that the proper chapter is on the ebook in each picture. Those pictures a flippen sweet.

  6. BeasMeeply
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 9:29 AM | Permalink

    Pat, a lot of red haired ladies like your books, and I like that.

  7. BJE
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 9:54 AM | Permalink

    I love that circular desk. I get an image of you sitting in the middle like Ron Swanson and being grumpy due to the amount of work you have.
    Although what looks like flannel pajamas and a half empty tray of some sort of baked good seems pretty great too.

  8. Posted October 3, 2014 at 10:48 AM | Permalink

    Guilt shouldn’t be attributed to how hard you’re working. Think of us as people who love your work, we write to inform you we loved your work, maybe ask you a question or two.
    We know how busy your life is, and you have a little one. You keep an outstanding blog and you have a loyal fan base who love what you write. This page is third on my google homepage. Only netflix and reddit are in front of it. Keep your head high.

    In regards to the photo contest and those crafts. They’re brilliant. I can’t even understand how incredibly happy and just, warm, that must make you feel.

    Keep it up, man. Don’t shave your beard for no one.

  9. bobcat
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 11:11 AM | Permalink

    Oh my, do I, disturbingly, recognize that you are sitting at the table signing, in your DINING pants????

    • Posted October 3, 2014 at 2:28 PM | Permalink

      Visigoth that I am, you should be moderately surprised I’m wearing any pants at all….

      • SporkTastic
        Posted October 4, 2014 at 4:04 PM | Permalink

        And here we have the rare pant-wearing Rothfuss in his natural habitat…

  10. cynrtst
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 12:02 PM | Permalink

    That stack of unsigned pages would make me blanch. Thank you for cramping your hand for us.

  11. hasjisj
    Posted October 3, 2014 at 12:46 PM | Permalink

    That book may not have pinned the lass by her hair, but it did pin my mind just as surely!

    I remember, it was 01:45 Monday morning, I have to be at work by 07:00, and by 18:00 I was back where I left off, my thanks to you sir, after Dune I though my mind was blown for life, but of course…

    I was wrong.

  12. Posted October 3, 2014 at 10:36 PM | Permalink

    Do you have any male readers?

    • falsig
      Posted October 5, 2014 at 10:13 PM | Permalink

      I was wondering that myself. Are the winners that show people all girls because only girls submitted such photos? Or is there sexist bias at work here?

      • Posted October 7, 2014 at 3:34 AM | Permalink

        As you can see in if you look at all the photos in the photostream, there weren’t many/any guys in this particular batch.

        These particular categories seemed to be mostly women. I suspect a cultural bias that makes displaying physical affection more acceptable behavior for females. Ditto for crafty behavior.

  13. SporkTastic
    Posted October 4, 2014 at 4:06 PM | Permalink

    These photo compositions (if I call ’em that, I sound fancy, right?) are *wonderful*! I might be a bit biased, but you have some truly amazing fans. And, it seems, more than a few who are truly talented, as well. :-)

  14. hasjisj
    Posted October 9, 2014 at 4:35 PM | Permalink

    We male readers are there, but simply too awestruck by his work. We don’t so easily submit photo’s or talk about it, for us it is a more private thing. My friend slipped me the Name like a drug deal in a parking lot, but it is more addictive than mere chemicals.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • RSS info

  • Visit Worldbuilders!

  • Our Store

  • Previous Posts

  • Archives



  • Bookmark this Blog!

    (IE and Firefox users only - Safari users, click Command-D)