This is a Worldbuilders blog.
Time for another interview folks, this one with Brent Weeks author of the Night Angel Trilogy.
Heya Brent. Let’s say you’re at a party and you meet someone you wanted to impress. What sort of things about your writing career would you casually drop into the conversation to prove that you’re awesome?
Oh, I’d definitely drop the NY Times bestselling author bit, though with a self-deprecatory asterisk.
Yeah. That carries a ridiculous amount of weight. A couple months after I hit the Times, an editor at Penguin asked me, “How do you like your new first name?”
I gave her a dumb look.
She said, “You’re not Pat Rothfuss anymore. Now you’re New-York-Times-bestselling-author-Pat Rothfuss.”
And it was totally true. That’s how everyone introduced me at conventions for almost a year.
What’s your asterisk, by the way?
There are more NY Times lists than people think. There’s a fiction hardcover list, a fiction mass-market paperback list, non-fiction lists, self-help lists, and children’s lists. The list goes to 35, but due to… well, heck, I dunno, the cost of paper? the lists that get printed go only to 20.
I was on the list for 3 weeks, but I topped out at 29. One publisher who I gave a blurb to said, “Oh, we only count authors who hit the printed list as NY Times bestsellers.” Oh. I feel snobbed on.
Thus: Hi, my name is New-York-Times-bestselling-author-but-only-on-the-internet Brent Weeks.
Oh man… you’re only on the extended list? Good lord, why I am I even bothering to talk to you?
I kid, I kid…
If you had to pick your favorite book of all time, what would it be?
The Name of the Wind?
Ahh… That’s why I’m talking to you. You’ve got me all blushy. Seriously though. What would your favorite be?
The monstrous compendium of Calvin & Hobbes.
Good choice. You’re relatively new to the publishing world. How often do you check your amazon sales rank?
Oh, hells, busted. I used to check it all the time. Then I found this service that would do the dirty work for me…free. Check out titlez.com. Then I would check that sucker every couple of days. But I can proudly say that I’ve been Amazon sober for several months–with only a teeny little bit of backsliding.
What’s the most shameful self-promotional thing you’ve ever done?
I joined Twitter? No, wait, I’ve done worse than that. I made some Stormtroopers pose with my books.
How about you?
Oh man. I don’t know if it’s the *most* shameful, but I have a bad habit of sending copies of my book to anyone I think might be remotely interested in it. Bloggers. Webcomic artists. Other authors. Everyone.
When The Name of the Wind was first published, I shotgunned books at least a hundred books out there, desperately hoping someone would read it, like it, and tell their friends.
What’s your revision process like? How many drafts do you go through? What’s the biggest cut you’ve ever made to a manuscript?
I cut the first thirty thousand words of The Way of Shadows. Then, much later, my agent told me to cut ten thousand words from Shadow’s Edge. I went through seven hundred pages with a red pen, hacking out everything that wasn’t necessary, and cut twenty thousand words. (Possibly a hundred pages, depending on spacing.)
I actually like revising. When you finish the first draft, a novel’s such a rough stone, flawed and ugly, with only little glimmers of what it could be. Revising makes it a polished stone, flawed and ugly, with medium-sized glimmers of what it could be.
We sound pretty similar there. I actually cut the first chapter of Name of the Wind before we published it. It was cool worldbuilding, but it slowed the book down too much.
How about this? We take both of our cut beginnings, polish them up, then find a few other authors and start an anthology. How does that sound to you?
Man, I dunno. I mean, you HAVE a reputation to crap on. Me? If I sink any lower, I’ll be the William Shatner of epic fantasy.
No… hold on a minute. I think this is a workable idea. If we got a few other authors who were willing to kick in their discarded chapters, it would be a cool collection that would give a peek into the creative process. It would show some of the behind-the-scenes worldbuilding we do that never makes it into the finished product.
Hell, we could call the anthology Worldbuilders. Then maybe donate some of the money it makes to next year’s fundraiser…
C’mon. Say you’ll do it. Remember: “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few…”
After computer switches and computer crashes… Man, I have no idea where that chunk is. Believe me, I’m all about cashing in for work I’ve already done, and giving proceeds to charity sounds good, too, but even if I found it… there’s polishing a raw gem, and there’s polishing poo. No matter how long you do the latter, it ain’t gonna shine.
Maybe it isn’t as bad as I remember. If I find it, I’ll let you know.
I’ll hold you to that. I like this idea….
What’s the most hurtful thing someone has ever said in a review of your book?
It wasn’t a review, but on a forum, someone posted a topic of “Brent Weeks raped Robert Jordan.” That was pretty cool, especially because RJ was pretty much a hero of mine.
Will you tell me yours?
I think it might have been the Amazon reviewer who said all my female characters were whores or June Cleaver clones. That stung a bit.
If you could punch one literary figure in the face, who would it be?
Hold it, you never said you were going to ask about Twilight. Bollocks to Team Edward. Come here, you shiny pansy! Oh, um… I mean, not gonna go there.
Author D. H. Lawrence confessed that he enjoyed climbing mulberry trees while naked. Do you have any little rituals that help you write?
He did that first? Ah, man… You’re telling me I have to come up with a new zany writer quirk for people to share about me?
I’m afraid so. You don’t want people starting a forum thread titled: Brent Weeks raped DH Lawrence.
Seriously though. No little quirks about your writing process? No little superstitions or foibles?
I have these three balls, labeled 1000, 1500, and 2000. I juggle them in increasingly difficult patterns until I drop one. Whichever one I drop is the number of words I have to write that day.
I also make up lies to tell on the internet.
I recently made a joke about “transition putty” on my blog. That being, of course, what we writers buy at Home Depot to smooth out our rough transitions.
If you could have some sort of handyman tool like that, something like Plot Spackle or a Character Level. What would it be?
So you’re the guy who’s buying up all the transition putty? They keep telling me it’s back ordered!
I do love !Vivify! brand Character Resurrection Screws. I had this guy who kept falling off my plot by dying, and a few of those suckers put him right back in place. I also have six–nope, nope–seven Plot Hole Shovels. I might need more…
Thanks again for agreeing to the interview. And for all the lovely swag you’ve donated to the fundraiser. You’re a champ.
As you’ll see below, Brent really went above and beyond in his donation, sending along a bunch of different signed versions of his Night Angel Trilogy. Ready for them all? Here we go….
- Two boxed sets of the Night Angel trilogy. Signed by the Author.
- Two sets of The Way of Shadows, Shadow’s Edge and Beyond the Shadows. Signed by the Author.
- Two hardcover collections of the Entire Night Angel trilogy. Signed by the Author.
- An ARC of The Way of Shadows. Signed by the Author.
- Two sets of the audio books The Way of Shadows and Shadow’s Edge. Signed by the Author.
As you can see, Brent Weeks is one of those fancy lads who have already finished their trilogy. Three books, no waiting. Unlike some slackers out there…
A lot of folks have been raving about his books, but I’ll just stick to Terry Brooks when he says: “I was mesmerized from start to finish. Unforgettable characters, a plot that kept me guessing, non-stop action and the kind of in-depth storytelling that makes me admire a writer’s work.”
Remember folks, the fundraiser is over on January 15th. Until then, for every 10 dollars you donate to Heifer International, you get a chance to win these books and hundreds of others like them.
I’m matching 50% of all donations made. So the money you kick in goes farther if you donate before the 15th. So why not head over to my page at Team Heifer and chip in. Trust me. You’ll feel great afterward.
Or, if you want to go back to the main page for Worldbuilders to read the details and see all the cool prizes, you can click HERE.
With thanks to our sponsor, Subterranean Press.
The Final Day, our Final Goal, our Final Donations.
Our Final Day:
Tomorrow, Worldbuilders is over for another year.
More precisely, after Friday Dec 17th 2:00 PST Worldbuilders will be over.
While this has been our best year so far, I feel a little bad that I wasn’t a little more organized.
I was planning on doing more author interviews like the ones I did last year. I wanted to write a blog about my adventures on House on the Rock to accompany Gaiman’s book. I wanted to write another about how I met Paolini at Comic-con to go with his donations. I’d planned on finishing the second half of my Perils of Fanfiction post from months ago.
Unfortunately, edits on book two took a lot more time and energy than I expected. And as a result, I had to let some of those plans go.
Because of that, we have a lot of items in this final blog that are cool enough to be set aside in blogs of their own.
But there’s just no more time. So you’re getting them all at once. Try not to let their combined awesome overwhelm you.
A Final Goal:
So yesterday in the blog that posted Neil Gaiman’s donation, I said I hoped we might be able to hit 150,000 dollars before the end of the fundraiser.
We hit that goal in less than ten hours. So I’ve decided to re-set the donation thermometer one last time.
Our last goal, the goal that I really don’t know if we’ll be able to meet, is going to be 166,700 dollars.
It’s an odd number. But if we raise that much money on our Team Heifer page it means that after Worldbuilders makes its matching donation, we will have raised a quarter million dollars for Heifer International this year.
That would be an amazing milestone. Plus when I’m trying to persuade people to donate books next year, I could say to them, “Last year we raised a quarter million dollars.” That’s a persuasive piece of information…
I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it. But I’m excited to try…
I did an interview with Brent Weeks last year. And this year he’s not only kicking in some books, but stepping up to the plate and helping me match donations as well. This earns him a warm place in my heart forever.
Black Prism is his new book, and BSC review says that it’s full of “Multiple twists and compelling characters…a page-turner.”
“I was mesmerized from start to finish. Unforgettable characters, a plot that kept me guessing, nonstop action and the kind of in-depth storytelling that makes me admire a writer’s work.” – Terry Brooks
As I mentioned above, this is one of the donations I wanted to set aside in its own blog.
You see, I met Paolini at Comic Con this year. He’s a hell of a nice guy. He conducted an interview with me on Suvudu. It was the first interview he’d ever conducted, and he did a way better job with it than I did with my first interview earlier that day with Sandeep Parikh.
The blog I was writing was a tricky one, and I talked a lot about the strange place Paolini occupies in fantasy. In some ways he is the biggest rags-to-riches story we have in the genre. Young kid writes a book, gets published, gets a movie, becomes an international bestseller.
A ton of people read his books. A ton of people love his stuff. Published in 50 countries.
On the other end of the spectrum there’s a big camp of people who get all bitchy and snarky whenever his name comes up. They talk about plagiarism and such.
My blog talked about my own preconceptions about Paolini’s work. Most importantly it talked about something embarrassing: that I judged his books without ever reading them. That’s a hard thing to admit, because I like to think that I’m better than that.
After months of tinkering on the blog, doing research, finding links. It was finally finished. It was about 2000 words long. I was going to post it last Sunday night. It was going to lead off our final week of the fundraiser. I even got my friend to illustrate it, depicting me in all my ignorant judgmental glory:
Then, about 45 minutes before I was finished with the blog, my computer crashed and I lost it.
I’ll reconstruct that blog eventually. Then everyone will get a chance to voice their opinions and discuss in the comments.
But not today. This isn’t the time or place for it, understand? During Worldbuilders geeks of all genres come together and make the world a better place. We do not snark and froth at each other no matter what our differences of opinion. Follow me?
In addition to these signed books that we’re adding to the general lottery, Christopher has offered up another set of books for auction….
If you win this auction, Christopher Paolini will sign and personalize these books to you however you like.
To see more pictures or bid on this auction you can follow this link.
“This is a beautiful book. The illustrations are wonderful. It definitely rocks! I ought to know.” – Iggy Pop
Another donation from Katherine Kerr who was nice enough to donate an original manuscript to the auction this year. Sorceries has been out of print for a while, so this signed copy is pretty cool.
Here we’ve got three different anthologies; a veritable buffett of new authors and stories to sample from. You have twisted faerie tales, hard sci-fi, epic fantasy, urban fantasy. A little bit of everything…
This anthology only needs two words to describe it: Zombie Romance.
Yeah. A whole anthology of Zombie Romance. I’m going to have to pick this one up…
“A refreshingly original story told in a wry, confident voice. Rosemary and Rue is a treat to read.” – Kelley Armstrong
If you’re a geek trying to raise geek children, you might want to check out this charming picture book for kids. It’s received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and is a 2011 ALSC Notable Nominee.
Here we have some lovely donations from Apex Books.
“Fresh, inventive, stylish and captivating, the work of a writer of unusual promise.” – Dean Koontz
“This literary window into the international world of imaginative fiction, the first in a new series, is sure to appeal to adventurous sf fans and readers of fiction in translation.” – Library Journal.
“Burrow’s debut is a swift-moving, pathos-free, creatively amusing riff on zombies from the zombie perspective.” – Publishers Weekly
“Braoddus and White are an unlikely pairing of talents that works astonishingly well. Orgy of Souls is a powerful, innovative work of fiction and one I recommend wholeheartedly. A damned fine read.” – James A. Moore
“Michael A. Burstein is an Isaac Asimov for the new millennium” – Robert J. Sawyer
“A remarkable collection, bursting at the seams with thought-provoking ideas and shattering visions.” – Brandon Massey
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Earlier this year, I got a bit of thrill when I was mentioned on Penny Arcade on their blog.
Okay. That’s a slight understatement. I was giggly as a schoolgirl. It might even be fair to say that I was twitterpated.
When it happened, I realized that my life was pretty cool. I also decided that since I don’t get to play many video games these days, I was going to start celebrating the cool things that happen to me by giving myself achievements.
Getting mentioned on Penny Arcade, I decided, would be the first achievement I officially unlocked.
I even got a friend to do an illustration to commemorate the event:
Note to people who don’t read Penny Arcade: Wanged is a technical term.
Suffice it to say that I love me some Penny Arcade, and these books are lovely collections. If you want more details than that, you can read the interview with Jerry Holkins I posted up just a couple hours ago.
“Sanderson knows how to wrap things up cleanly. He spins a world that’s easily complex and mysterious enough to warrant sequels, but prefers to end it climactically, answering many of his biggest questions, while leaving others to the imagination.” – The Onion
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Lastly, we have another set of donations I wanted to put into its own blog.
The lovely folks at Badali Jewelry make rings, necklaces, pentants and pins. What’s more, some of the stuff they make is based off the jewelery in fantasy novels.
They got in contact with me recently in order to talk about plans for… things. Secret things. Things which will be revealed in the near future.
When they found out about Worldbuilders, they were eager to donate some of their stuff to the fundraiser.
Then I dropped Brandon Sanderson a line and asked if he’d be willing to donate some books to go along with the Jewlery. He said he would, because Brandon is a hell of a nice guy.
With accompanying Steel Alphabet Medallion from Badali Jewelry.
“Intrigue, politics, and conspiracies mesh complexly in a world Sanderson realizes in satisfying depth and peoples with impressive characters.” – Booklist
With accompanying set of Asha’man Dragon pin and a Dedicated Sword pin from Badali Jewelry.
“The Wheel of Time . . . is a fantasy tale seldom equaled and still less often surpassed in English.”—Chicago Sun-Times
With accompanying Aon Omi Love Pendant from Badali Jewelry.
“Outstanding fantasy debut . . . . The intrigue and excitement grow steadily in this smoothly written, perfectly balanced narrative; by the end readers won’t want to put it down.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
I think that’s a great item to end the fundraiser on, don’t you?
I don’t need to mention that I can actually read what’s written on this ring, do I? That I can actually recite it from memory… in the original language?
No. I didn’t think so. Let’s pretend that I’m not quite that much of a geek.
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Well folks. That’s it for this year. Remember that for every 10 dollars you donate on the Team Heifer page you get the chance to win these cool donations and hundreds of others.
We also have a few auctions that are still running for a little while. You can find them here.
Lastly, here’s the link to the main Worldbuilders page. You can head over there to see all the other donations and cool things.
Thanks again for eveything folks. Here’s hoping we can make our final goal.