Category Archives: contests

Three Threes or Who Wants to Be A Beta Reader?

Hey there folks,

We’re coming up on the end of the fundraiser. As I type this, we’re at $417,000 and we’re closing in fast on last year’s total of 433,000 dollars.

Traditionally, this is the time of year where I kick something into the fundraiser that’s a little… unique. Something to give a little extra incentive for people to donate here at the end of things.

This year, I have three items that might be extra-appealing to readers of my books….

ALL THE COINS 2

Here are the three things I’m putting into the lottery today:

1. Prototype sets of Cealdish currency

2. Faerie stones

3. The chance to be one of my beta readers

I’m putting three of each of these into the lottery. Hence the title of today’s blog. Three threes.

Now, if you’re interested in winning these things, I need you to read carefully, because there’s a potential problem:

Back in the day, Worldbuilders used to mostly be fans of my books. But it’s grown over the years, and now we are strong with the collected might of many different geek clans.

And that’s a good thing. A *great* thing.

The problem is this: the things I’m putting into the lottery today are a little…. specialized. They’re the sorts of things some of you are going to geek out about. But other people aren’t going to care about them at all.

I’ve been trying to figure out how I give the hardcore Kingkiller geeks a chance to win these items, while keeping them out of the hands of people who aren’t interested. How can the Worldbuilders team pull some folks into a super-special Rothfussians-only lottery for these nine items?

So here’s what we’re going to do.

If you want to be eligible to win these items, you have to go and make a donation to Heifer International on the Worlduilders Team Page. Same rules as before: every $10 you kick in gets you another chance to win.

But if you want to be eligible to win these things, your donation should end with .33 cents.

Enough for honeybees? $30.33. Enough for a goat? $120.33. A Heifer? $500.33

You follow the pattern here?

If you donate with .33 at the end of your total, in addition to being entered in the main drawing for tens of thousands of dollars worth of books, you’ll also get entered into this smaller, side-lottery for the hardcore Rothfuss fans only….

What’s more, if you made other donations under the same name, we’ll include them in this separate lottery too.

So. Just to be clear. Let’s say you donated 60 bucks back in December. But you read this blog and want a piece of the action, so you go log onto our team heifer page and donate $33.33. That means your total donation would be $93.33. So you’d have nine entries in the main lottery, and nine entries in the Rothfuss-specific one too.

You got it? You can donate over here.

1. Three sets of prototype Cealdish currency.

Coins closeup

Here we have an iron drab, a copper jot, a silver talent, and a gold mark.

A few of you have seen the jots and drabs before, but this is the first time I’ve had a full set to show off.

I’m a bit of a geek for old coins. So I’ve been working with Tom Maringer from the Shire Post Mint to develop currency for my world. If Tom’s name sounds familiar to you, it should. Last week we showed off some of his handiwork when he donated a bunch of currency from Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones.

For the Cealdish currency in my world, we’re doing something a little different. Rather than starting with the modern coins (The coins that Kvothe would be using.) We’re actually developing the historical coins first, then evolving the currency forward in history.

This set of coins would have been from about 500-600 years ago. Back when they were only a few short steps removed from bartering tokens.

The jot is solid copper. The drab is steel with a fusion crust.

The talent is made of an alloy called billion. It’s 20% silver and 80% copper. It was commonly used for coins here in the real world. It’s normally a rosy color, not bright silver like these. You see, if you heat billion in a furnace, some of the silver naturally migrates to the surface. Then, if you hammer it, it spreads the silver out so it looks much brighter, like a solid silver coin.

That’s what they used to do before electroplating. And that’s what we’ve done here.

The gold mark actually has gold in it. Not a *ton* of gold, but a little. (Even a little gold is pricey.) The rest of it is silver and copper. It’s an odd molten red color I’ve never seen before, and it’s polished and buffed to the point where it looks like it’s been enameled.

We’re doing a limited run of these. We only made 1000 jots. And there will be fewer talents and marks. When they’re gone we’re moving on to the next batch. That set will be from 300 years in Kvothe’s past. The designs will be more developed, the alloys different, and the maker’s marks more complex.

We’ll be selling these in the store eventually, but first we have to make more of them, get packaging straightened out, develop the product descriptions, etc etc…

But I have three sets now. And you can win them if you donate.

2.  Three Faerie Stones.

Fairy Stone

For those of you whose educations have been sorely neglected: a faerie stone is a stone you find on the shore with a hole bored all the way through it. They’re supposed to protect you from the fair folk. The specifics vary from story to story, but it’s generally agreed that they help you see through glamour and guard you against their charms.

When I was in Brighton for World Fantasy last November, I went looking on the beach for faerie stones. And I found some. And I brought them home.

I gave one to Oot, who promptly used it to wish for a horse. I gave one to Sarah, because I don’t want the fae to be getting all seducy on her, or pulling any changeling shit with Cutie.

Why would I give them away? Well, here’s the thing…. Some traditions say that faerie stones are only effective if they’re given to you. A freely-given gift.

I have three of these stones left, and I’m putting them in the lottery.

3.  Three chances be my beta reader.

So ever since I talked about my writing process on the blog a couple years ago, I’ve had hundreds of people e-mail me, asking how they can get to be one of my beta readers.

Generally speaking, the simple answer is this: go back in time 15 years and get to know me back before I was published.

You see, back in the day, anyone could be my beta reader provided they were willing to slog through 250,000 words of unpublished fantasy novel.

These days, the main requirement is that I trust you.

Why? Because if an early version of Book Three gets leaked onto the internet, the results will be catastrophic for both me and my publisher.

But I *could* let someone beta my new novella about Auri….

AuriAmyWinterbreeze

(Art Courtesy of Amy on Deviantart.)

You’ll sill have to sign a truly draconian non-disclosure form. Then I’ll mail you a copy of the story with some instructions and a red pen. After you’ve had a chance to read it, and scribble some notes, I’ll give you a call, see what you thought, and pick your brain a little bit.

And maybe, *maybe* if things work out well, and I feel I can trust you, and the stars align. Then I might add you to my list of permanent beta readers….

If any of these things seem like they might be up your alley, remember, all you need to do is head over to the Worldbuilders Team Page and donate directly to Heifer International.

And don’t forget, end your donation with .33….

Good night, Nightvale.

Goodnight.

Also posted in calling on the legions, Worldbuilders 2013 | By Pat177 Responses

Twitter Contest – The Memes, Cleverness, and Prizes….

So we’re almost a week in, and the twitter contest is ticking along nicely….

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out the first blog explaining the game here.)

TheRealRothfussUpdate

There’s been a lot of discussion as to the best way to refer to a group of Rothfi. A ponderance? A blither? Someone very clever suggested “Pontography.” Someone else proposed “Pisser” as the proper collective noun. There were a lot of good ones.

Personally, I think a group of us should be “a maunder of Rothfi.”

And don’t bother running off and seeing which of the profiles has mentioned that. I just made it up right now. I’m not going to tip my hand here.

Grammatical flummery aside, so far the contest has been a ton of fun. I’ve enjoyed it immensely, and it seems like most of the spectators are digging it too.

And honestly I’m amazed at the level of competition. Amazed. I knew I was bringing in clever people here, but I didn’t give them *nearly* enough credit.

But it hasn’t all been sunshine and kisses in the shade. There have been a few problems, and the biggest of these has been…

  • Verification:

Normally, getting verified on twitter is something you strive for. It’s a stamp of legitimacy. It shows you’re *really* Neil Patrick Harris, and not just some schmoe that grabbed a picture off the internet.

Before I started this contest, I thought verification was something you applied for. I thought there was some arduous process, some gauntlet you had to run. A quest you needed to complete that would please the distant ineffible twitter gods, high on their mountain.

And apparently, that’s kinda true. There is a form you can fill out. There is an application you can submit. Many do strive for verification. Apparently John Scalzi himself has been trying to get verified for ages and hasn’t managed it.

But look at what happened to us about 18 hours into our contest:

First Verification

See that little blue checkmark? That means that they *verified* one of our accounts.

What’s really funny is this. We created all these accounts using throwaway e-mail addresses *literally* named like this: [email protected][email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

What’s more, the accounts were all identical except for the name and the picture. They all followed the same 7 profiles. They all had the same tagline: “It’s my job to break your heart.” They all listed my blog as their website. They all had one identical post.

And they’ve all sat there, inactive for more than a year.

Then the contest started, and within 18 hours, one of them got verified.

This is because, in addition to having an application process, twitter has a bot that searches around for people and auto-verifies them.

We were all a little stunned when this happened. We figured it was an odd fluke, and figured out how to remove the verification by changing the name on the profile and changing it back.

Then less than a day later….

The second verification

Re-verified.

We don’t know what sort of algorithm the twitter-bot uses. Nobody does.

After the shock wore off, I realized how hilarious it was. You see, this means is that one of us has completely convinced twitter that this profile is Pat Rothfuss.

And I think this is awesome.

A lot of people have taken this to mean that the contest is over. That it’s spoiled. But nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is, the only information the twitter-bot has access to is circumstantial. It’s deciding based off the tweets themselves. The friends added. The links linked. I dunno. Maybe the picture, too?

It’s making a judgement based on those things. The same information you have access to.

All this really means is that the twitter-bot has decided to cast its vote early in our contest.

You can trust it if you want. It seems pretty sure of itself.

But personally, I’d like to think that my readers are more independent than that.

In fact, one of my favorite things about the contest so far is watching people declare their allegiance, sometimes just due to a turn of phrase:

@PatRothfuss Header Photo

Or a piece of punctuation:

@patrickrothfuss4

Some folks are just having fun with it:

Beautiful game 2

I see folks planting their flags, then sometimes spinning 180 with such force that you’d be amazed they don’t break their own necks.

beautiful game 4b

Here’s one of my favorites:

Beautiful game 1

I love this. These guys are fucking *into* it. They are using their vasty human intellect to crack this puzzle.

This is the very essence of a #BeautifulGame.

So… yeah. If you want to pick a profile based exclusively on what some computer algorithm thinks. That’s your choice. But honestly? I’m a little sad for you….

  • Other ways to screw yourselves by being too clever.

I know a lot of you are game players. Probably excellent game players. And if you like my books, odds are that you have at least a passing interest in looking for hidden clues.

So when I put this contest together, I knew I had to thwart those tendencies. For example, if you try to guess based on what device different profiles are twittering from? You’re probably going to be wrong. Why? Because one of the requirements for all the players is that they tweet from all manner of different platforms and devices.

Also, you should be aware that some of the profiles started this game with 5000-6000 more followers than others. In the year the profiles sat around, some collected 6-7 thousand followers. Others only collected 1-2 thousand.

So if you look at a profile and think, “Wow, this one has 4000 more followers, obviously that’s the one pat would pick to use as his own.” or “Wow, this is the one pat would pick because this twitter name is more like something he’d want.” you’re kinda screwing yourself.

First, because you’re missing the main point of the contest, to see who’s best at being me.

And second, you’re screwing yourself because when we assigned these profiles, we pulled names out of a hat for each one. They’re deliciously random.

Ultimately, this game is based on skill. It is a contest of trickery, persuasion, and cunning.

If I were you, I’d base your choice off that….

  • What’s still to come.

Two weeks is kind of a long time.  Particularly with something that moves as fast as twitter.  Maybe I should’ve thought of that before, but I had no way of knowing.

Lest things start to get a little same-y. We’re going to add a few things to the contest just to keep things interesting.

One of the suggestions someone made to me was that if I’m selling out and getting on twitter, I might as well go whole hog and start making memes too.

I don’t know if they were being snarky or not, but either way, I think it’s a great idea. I think memes and twitter go together like…

Like a…

Like a pithy writer and a good analogy.

So I’m going to challenge my fellow competitors to meme everyone’s new favorite pet from the photo contest.

That’s right: Ugly Cat.

I’ve never memed before. So we’ll use this as another piece of the puzzle that will help people discover #TheRealRothfuss.

UC-Holding

(Oh Ugly Cat, you still fill me with such joy…)

Are you good to go, gentlemen?  Ready… set…. meme!

  • On Being A Winner.

After my first blog post, there was some confusion about how the money was going to go to the charities in question.

So. Just to clarify, when the contest is over, there will be a great voting. The profile that gets the most votes, wins. The person running that profile will be the winner, and the charity they chose will get the $1000 from DAW.

Originally, that was my entire plan. But now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t see why y’all can’t be in the running for some cool things too….

Iron Drabs resized

These are some prototype drabs we’re working on. They’re not ready to go up in the store yet. But do I have a few we can give away as prizes….

So here’s what we’re going to do.

The whole point of this contest is for people to be clever and have fun. To play a beautiful game.

So starting now, if you do something on twitter that strikes me as particularly cunning, or funny, or sly, or smart. I will make a post along these lines.

“Congratulations, @JoeTwitter. That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen today. You know how to play #ABeautifulGame.”

Or

“That’s a really good point, @JustSusan. I bow to your unassailable Aristotelian logic. Congratulations on #ABeautifulGame.”

Then one of my lovely assistants will get in contact with you, get your mailing address, and we’ll mail you one of these prototype drabs. You can then use that drab to taunt your friends until they cry.

Each of my five Rothfussian comrades will be doing the same thing, of course.

This is a new part of the game. Not only do you have to guess at what might tickle the fancy of the Rothfi, but seeing what behavior each profile rewards should give you a lot of insight into which one of us is #TheRealRothfuss.

Have fun, everyone.

pat

Also posted in a few words you're probably going to have to look up, Beautiful Games, My brilliant ideas | By Pat58 Responses

Twitter – A Beautiful Game

So for a couple of years now, I’ve been a bit of a laughing stock in the geek community because I’m a luddite.

You see, I did not posses a smartphone. Neither did I have a twitter account.

This might not seem like a crippling social affliction, and most of the time it’s not. Most of the time I’m at home in Wisconsin, writing and hanging out with my little boy.

But then I go to a convention, like Origins, and while I’m there, I hang out with John Scalzi, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton. And while we’re playing games, someone snaps a picture. And then, when they’re posting it up online, someone looks at me and says “I’ll tag you here, What’s your twitter handle?”

And I say, “I’m not on twitter.”

Keep in mind who I’m hanging with here. Wil, John, and Felicia. If you added some sort of animal sidekick to this mix, I’m guessing they could join together and form a giant robot that would somehow defend the internet. The looks they give me are the worst sort of mingled pity and scorn….

Ah hell. I just realized *I’m* probably the animal sidekick in that group. I’m Lubar, the great shambling bear-man from the frozen tundra who is charmingly baffled by the subtle magic of the interweb.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve finally, *finally* taken the leap.

20131016_165726

But that’s only the beginning. The phone itself isn’t enough. To really wire myself in, I know I need to get on twitter.

*     *     *

Part of the reason I want to get on twitter is because it will save me time. I tend to be… um…. wordy. Verbose even. Sometimes a blog that starts out as a simple announcement turns into a 500 word screed.

Twitter will help me reign that impulse in a bit. I’ll be able to mention things to y’all without feeling the obligation to make a meaty blog about them.

The other reason I need to get on twitter is to stay in better touch with my readers.

You see, I’m not a total technological schmendrick. I’ve been on facebook since before it was cool, and I’ve slowly built my army over there. For years I’ve used facebook to clue-in readers when I’m doing events, running contests, or going to conventions….

But these days Facebook deliberately throttles back the reach of most pages. These days I’m encouraged to “boost” my posts by giving facebook money. If I don’t boost the posts (and I never do) the things I write there only show up on *half* my reader’s news feeds.

It happens all the time. I schedule a signing in Boston. I post on facebook letting people know about my signing in Boston. I go to Boston. I get home and later that day I see someone howling on my wall “You Were In BOSTON!!??!?”

Twitter doesn’t have this problem. If you follow me on twitter, and I post something on twitter, you’ll be able to decide for yourself if it’s worth reading.

But here’s the problem. I don’t want to spend ages slowly building up my twitter following.

Also, you only get to lose your twitter virginity once.

My thought is, why not have a little fun with this?

My thought is, why don’t we play a little game?

*     *     *

So here’s what I’ve done.

I’ve created six twitter accounts, all versions of the name “Pat Rothfuss.”

I’ve recruited 5 members of the geek glitterati. Friends who are good with words. They’re witty, wired-in, and social media savvy.

Starting today, each of them will claim one of those accounts at random and do their best to convince the world they’re the *real* Pat Rothfuss.

They’ll connive and scheme. They’ll share links, twitter at you, and generally attempt to exude an aura of Rothfuss-y-ness.

I will take the sixth profile and attempt to do the same.

The contest will run for two weeks and finish on Halloween at midnight.  Then everyone will vote on who they think the real Pat Rothfuss is.

CSG_WhatDoILookLike_Reveal-smaller

The winner gets that most valuable commodity of all: Bragging Rights.

Even better, the winner will have 1,000 dollars donated to the charity of their choice. The prize money being provided by DAW Books, my lovely publisher.

I might also see if I can find a trophy of some sort.

  • The Rules:

It should be blindingly obvious to everyone that I could win this game pretty easily. I could post up a selfie with today’s newspaper and that would be the end of it.

But what would be the fun in that?

The five other people who are playing are going to have to win through sheer cleverness, trickery, and guile. I plan on winning the same way.

What I’m getting at here, is that I’m looking to play a beautiful game. Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?

Aside from my self-imposed handicap, there are only two rules:

1. Players can change anything on their twitter profiles except for their pictures. Those will remain the same throughout the contest. Otherwise things would just be too confusing.

2. Stories about Oot are out of bounds.

You see, I love telling stories about my little boy: (Codename Oot.)

A lot of the stories I tell are funny, silly, or irreverent. For example, on facebook I recently shared how Oot spent 20 minutes running around shouting “Gangnam Style!” and dancing naked.

I shared the story because it’s funny, and because he has no sense of shame at this point in his life.

But the thought of someone *else* making up a story along those lines…. It creeps me out a little bit.

So. No Oot stories. He’s out of bounds.

That’s it though. Everything else is fair game.

  • The Charities:

The charities are people are backing:  WorldbuildersArchitecture for HumanityTeach for America826LACon or Bust or Project Nightlight.

(Here’s a hint. I’m playing for my home team, Worldbuilders.)

If you want to know more about these charities, you can read some brief summaries over on the page where you can see all six twitter feeds at once.

TheRealRothfuss

Fair warning: We kinda threw this page together. If it gets hammered with 100,000 visitors in the next two days, it might crash.

So if you want to follow the contest, you might consider following all six of these accounts right now. That way you can watch the entire beautiful game without fear of tech glitches getting in the way.

As of right now, each profile is virtually identical except for its name and the profile picture. While the pictures will remain the same, (as per rule #1 above) the profiles will doubtless change as soon as the players take charge.

A careful observer will notice that each of the profiles has one tweet from Oct 14th saying, “I am the real Pat Rothfuss.”

A *very* careful observer will notice that that post is actually from Oct 14th 2012. That’s how long I’ve been planning to do this contest, but I’ve never managed to get around to it until now.

Because the profiles have been sitting around for a while, some of them have collected different numbers of followers.

I’m guessing that in the next couple days they’re going to get a few more….

In case you’d like it again, here’s a link to the page where you can see and follow all of the accounts.

Game on,

pat

P.S. Just now, minutes before we launch this blog, it has occurred to me that we should have some sort of official hashtag associated with it.

I consulted with my staff, and my twitter-smart assistant Amanda has confirmed that yes, this is a good idea.

What’s more, she has implied to me that this tag could even be used to ask a question of all the different accounts at the same time. Something along the lines of “If you’re the *real* Pat Rothfuss, what’s your favorite flavor skittle?”

And then you’d somehow… um… hash things. Together. I guess that’s another thing I’m going to have to figure out…

Anyway, how about we use #TheRealRothfuss. Using it all the time would would probably be cumbersome and cluttery. But now it’s there for people if they want it. (Sorry to make y’all use caps, but otherwise it looks too much like “There Al Rothfuss.” Which would be some other, entirely lamer game.)

Also posted in Achievement Unlocked!, Beautiful Games, My brilliant ideas | By Pat93 Responses

GenCon Badge Giveaway, My Convention Schedule, and a Reading in Indianapolis…

Heya everybody.

Sorry I haven’t gotten around to posting up details about the TV deal yet.

(Oh yeah. For those of you who haven’t heard, there’s a TV deal.)

Things are still in very early stages, and a lot of the brief articles that are out there are only about 60% accurate.

I’m putting together an official announcement post that is full of all manner of True Facts ™. But it’s taking a while, and I have to run it by PR people. It’s taking a while.

So for now, some other news…

  • Gen Con Badge Giveaway  

As you know, I’m going to be at GenCon next week.

What you might not know is that I’ve got two 4-day Gen Con badges to give away.

These were generously given to us by the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium, which is the group running all of the cool author panels at the con.

The great thing about the writing track is that most of their events are free. So getting a free badge means you can go to the con and soak up as much writing panel-ness as you’d like and it won’t cost you an extra nickel. If you go to the Writer’s Symposium website, you can see a full schedule of what sorts of things they’ve got going on.

And there’s a lot of other cool stuff you can do at the con, of course. You could take a whole day just browsing through the dealer’s room.

If you’d like a chance at winning one of these badges, just drop a comment down below. It should say, “I’d like a badge” along with…. um….

How about with your favorite quote from the book?

Make sure you have a current e-mail address listed in your profile, as that’s how we’ll end up contacting you.

Post a comment by Saturday at Midnight, CST. That’s when we’ll be picking the winners.

  • Cool Things at Gencon – Booth #661

So this year at Gencon, Worldbuilders will be having a booth. We’re sharing with Badali Jewelry  at booth #661.

266696_287860688003317_1310606195_o

(Look at us, being all fancy with our signage….)

This is a new thing for us, and we’ll be doing pretty much what you’d expect. I’ll be hanging out, signing books. And we’ll be selling some of the stuff that’s available in The Tinker’s Packs with the added bonus that you don’t have to pay for shipping.

And we’ll have other things too. Stuff we’re debuting at the convention. Stuff you can’t get in the store, at least not yet.

For example, we’ll be selling Boss Monster, a game by Brotherwise Games.

In this game, there are a bunch of hero cards that pay homage to characters from classic fantasy video games and/or literature.  In the prototype deck, there was a “Quothe Ladykiller, The Polymath” hero card.

BMA073_Quothe_Ladykiller,_the_Polymath

That’s actually how I first found out about this game. Someone sent me a link to a picture of this card. I was amused by it, and called them up to ask if they’d be willing to let us sell some for Worldbuilders. They agreed.

But here’s the thing, the Quothe card didn’t make it into the final game. It was just one of the prototypes.

But because they’re awesome, the guys over at Brotherwise made a special promotional card just for us. They printed 200 copies of the Quothe card so that we can use them as a special promotion when we sell our copies of the game.

So not only are these cards limited edition, but buying them from us is the only way to get them, and we’re debuting them at GenCon.

Right now, we’ll be making 50 of the decks available each day of the con. That way, while it’s still first-come first-serve, you have a chance of getting a deck even if you’re only coming on Saturday or Sunday.

And we’ll have other things too we’ll be launching at the con. Cool things. Trust me. Stop by.

(As always, all profits from The Tinker’s Packs go to Worldbuilders.)

  • My Schedule in Indy

Thursday, August 15th

12-1:45 Signing at the booth
2PM The Art of Storytelling – Moderator ICC Room 245
3PM Dynamic Characters ICC Room 245
5PM Literary Alchemy ICC Room 245

(Unfortunately, I’ve had to bail out of that last panel, as I need to get to my Reading/Signing event at the Central Library on time.)

Friday, August 16th

10:30-11:45 Signing at the booth
7:30-9PM – An Evening with Pat Rothfuss – ICC Room 243

Saturday, August 17th
12 NOON Reading ICC room 244
2:00 – 4:00 pm: True Dungeon
4-6 Signing at the booth

Sunday, August 18
11-1 Signing at the booth
2-4  Signing at the booth

  •  Getting Your Books Signed

Here’s the thing, GenCon doesn’t want us to have a huge line that will block traffic and people’s access to other booths.

So if you want to get something signed, you’ll need to swing by the booth to pick up a ticket. They’re free, but we’re using these to organize things. That way you don’t have to stand in line for an hour, and we don’t get in trouble with the con.

If you can’t get to the booth during one of my signing times, or your time slot is full when you try to get a ticket, I’ll be signing things at my “An Evening with Pat Rothfuss” panel on Friday at 7:30, as well as my off-site event at the Central Library (see below).

Both events will be nice, relaxing places to hang out, get stuff signed, and listen to me to me either rant or ramble, depending on my bloodsugar levels.

  • Library Reading in Indianapolis – With Goodies… 

For those of you who aren’t really into the con scene, I’ll have my off-site reading and signing at the Central Library at 7:00 PM. I’ll be reading some stuff, answering questions, and signing books for everyone who’s interested.

Central Library – Clowes Auditorium
40 E St Clair St
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Facebook Event

Since we’re going to be in town running a booth at Gencon, we’re going to be supplying our own books for this event. And since we’ve got some *other* cool stuff with us for our booth, we’re thinking we could bring those things out to the library event as well.

But for logistical reasons, we can’t pack up our whole booth and bring it with us. We simply can’t bring *all* the t-shirts in *all* the sizes.

We will be bringing a selection of stuff, but if you’re coming to the library reading and there’s something in particular you’d like for us to bring, it might be best if you mention it down in the comments. We’ll do our very best to bring it along for you.

Please be clear and specific in your comment, lest we descend into madness. Something like this would be ideal:

“Could you pleas bring a woman’s L Greysdale Mead shirt, a copy of Unfettered, and Denna’s Ring in a 6.5 with the antiqued finish. My name is Laurie.”

I’ll be seeing you soon….

pat

Also posted in appearances, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat202 Responses

Ghost Stories, Writing Contests, and Sad Puppets

I would just like to say that the above might be the best title I’ve ever given anything in the history of forever.

Today we have some cool news.

Wisconsin Life Flash-Fiction Ghost Story Contest

The folks at Wisconsin Public Radio sweet-talked me into judging a writing contest for them. And by “sweet-talked,” I mean they pretty much just asked me and I agreed. I have a bit of a weak spot for ghost stories.

Some points of interest:

  • You don’t have to live in Wisconsin to participate.
  • The contest deadline is October 7th.
  • Stories must be 600 words or less.
  • Winners will be read on Wisconsin Life. Maybe by me.

All the other details you can find over here on their website.

Though I do feel compelled to mention one other thing.

Please note that Flash Fiction refers to the brevity of the piece of writing. As in, it’s something so short you can read it in a flash.

It is not (and I can’t stress this enough) something you *wrote* in a flash. These stories should have some polish on them. If you’ve only got 600 words, you better make them count.

I’m looking forward to seeing what y’all come up with….

Since we’re talking about writing, I should probably put up a link to the second episode of Story Board that we recorded a couple weeks ago.

We talked about what makes characters tick with our lovely and talented guests: Amber Benson, Bradley Beaulieu, and Mary Robinette-Kowal.

And if that weren’t enough, we ended up with a surprise guest star at the end of the show….

If my background looks different there, it’s because I was in Seattle, mooching a computer off Shawn Speakman, who runs The Signed Page.

I think it turned out pretty well, despite the fact that I’d just done two conventions and three events in five days. Plus I suck at at making things work on a Mac. The lack of a second mouse button freaks me out….

We’ll be having another episode of Story Board in just a week or so on October 2nd at 8:00 PM Pacific time. I’ll be home in Wisconsin for this one, and we have another all-star line-up ready to talk stories.

Hope to see you there….

pat

Also posted in my rockstar life, the craft of writing, The Story Board | By Pat42 Responses

Two great books, and a chance to win a free DeLorean

Commander Harken: Seems odd you’d name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.
Captain Reynolds: May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

That’s all I feel like saying on the subject of the recall election right now.

*     *     *

There are two things happening this week that all proper geeks should be aware of.

First off, Redshirts, is hitting the shelves.

I know, I know…. you can’t really judge a book by its cover. In my opinion, if you’re going to judge, you should do it by the blurbs on the back:

(Click to Embiggen.)

As I mentioned on the blog a couple months back, I got an early read of the book early on this year. As a result, I ended up laughing my ass off at a local restaurant, while everyone stared at me like I was a crazy person. Which is fair enough, I suppose.

If you’re interested, you can read the review I wrote, including the bit where I threaten Scalzi with violence, over here.

The second piece of vital geek news today is the fact that Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, went on sale in paperback this week.

Now this would be news enough by itself, because honestly, Ready Player One was probably the best book I read last year. (And I read a lot.)

But no, the REAL news is that to celebrate the paperback release, Ernest is giving away a DeLorean. Which is somehow manages to be the coolest AND the geekiest promotional thing that I’ve ever run into.

(Seriously, he’s giving away a DeLorean.)

How can you win it? Well, he’s hidden clues in his book. You find the clues, you play some games, you can win his sweet ride.

For the details, you can head over here.

I’ll also mention, just as an aside, that both John Scalzi and Ernest Cline were very cool about donating stuff to Worldbuilders last year. So if you were right on the edge, and just needed one more reason to rush out and buy their books, there it is…

pat

Also posted in cool news, geeking out, recommendations | By Pat28 Responses

Photo Contest: Prelude

So for a while now, I’ve been sifting through all the photos that people submitted to the contest. More than a thousand photos in all.

Needless to say, it’s been taking a lot longer than I expected.

It’s not just that life seems determined to get in the way. Neither is it the fact that there are more photos than I expected, or that so many of them are clever. It’s not even that so many of them were so obviously taken as an act of love. (And I mean that literally in some cases.)

The real problem is that so many of the pictures are really good.

While I’ve been sifting through them, organizing them into categories, and trying to winnow some of them out. I keep thinking of what happened last year when I went to Neil Gaiman’s House on the Rock shindig on Halloween.

He had a costume contest there, American Gods themed. And the winners were going to get to ride the carousel. Yeah. The carousel that nobody gets to ride.

Needless to say, the competition was fierce. Of the thousand or so people that attended, I’m guessing almost half dressed up.

(One of these days I’ll get around to telling the whole story of that day, the story of how I got to ride the carousel with Gaiman, but for now I’m just going to tell a tiny piece of the story.)

Anyway, the vast array of costumes paraded in front of Gaiman. The line went on and on. The outfits were clever and funny and elaborate.

And, more than anything, they were acts of love.

It goes on for hours. Sexy costumes, smart costumes, detailed costumes. Then, eventually, after everyone has had their turn in the spotlight, Gaiman goes up to the microphone, shaking his head.

“I hate you all,” he said.

He gets a big laugh, because he has enough charisma to pull off a line line that and make it charming.

He explains that he was expecting maybe a hundred costumes. He said he thought it would be fairly simple to weed out the rubbish ones, and pick the good ones as winners. (I specifically remember that he said “rubbish,” because that’s a word you can only really get away with if you’re British.)

There were too many good costumes, he complained, and he only got to let 8 people on the carousel. There could only be 8 winners.

Then he settled down to the hard job of picking the winners.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot these last couple weeks as I look through all the photos that were sent in for the contest. Honestly, I’m amazed at the lengths people went to for some of their pictures.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you’ll start seeing the results of the contest soon.

Soon….

pat

Also posted in fan coolness, Neil Gaiman, Photo Contest 2011 | By Pat31 Responses
  • RSS info

  • Visit Worldbuilders!

  • Our Store

  • Previous Posts

  • Archives



  • Bookmark this Blog!

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