Category Archives: my rockstar life

In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Amber Benson

So last week I tried something new. I went to a romance convention.

When I was growing up, the only convention I knew about was Gencon. But over the last couple of years, I’ve been around the block a bit. I’ve hit most of the big ones: DragonCon, San Diego Comic-con, WorldCon, as well as at least a dozen others.

Most cons I attend have two things in common.

1. They have had a strong track of writing programming. (Because I like talking about writing).

2. They’re sci-fi and fantasy themed. (Because that’s how I roll).

So how did I end up at a romance convention?

Well, first off. I was invited. Most of the conventions I go to, I go because I’m invited. This is because I’m lazy.

Second off, Romantic Times gave The Name of the Wind Best Epic Fantasy of the year in 2007. It’s nice to go to a convention where they think you’re cool. (Or at least where they thought you were cool back in 2007.)

Third, I was kinda curious as to what a romance convention would be like….

It was like this:

  • At one point I was in a crowded hallway, heading to a panel. Out of curiosity, I looked around to see if I could find another man. I couldn’t. I kept looking, then turned in a full circle. I still couldn’t.
  • The ratio of female authors to male authors attending the convention was at least 20 to 1. It was like the anti-gencon.
  • They have an event called the “Mr. Cover Model Contest” where strapping young men parade about on stage. I don’t know what the winner gets, but I hope the prize package includes a shirt. Those poor boys looked cold to me.
  • I bought a book for Sarah.

Because… y’know…. viking.

And honestly, that’s all I really have to say about the convention.

The other reason I went to this convention is that it’s in LA. I know some people in LA that I don’t get to see very often, so it was a good excuse to visit them.

Now those of you who have been reading the blog for a while might remember my first, shameful meeting with Amber Benson. Since then, we’ve gotten to know each other a bit, and when we were chatting on e-mail we came up with the idea of doing a reading and signing together when I was in LA.

So we did.

We got together for dinner first, and while we ate, we shared war stories about our books. Both of us had just written sex scenes for the first time, and we talked about how weird it was.

Then something happened. I honestly can’t remember the exact details, but I’m pretty sure I suggested that we should read our sex scenes at the event later that night. I was kinda joking, but not entirely.

Then Amber said the equivalent of, “I will if you will.”

Faced with a challenge like that, there was no way I could back down.

So about an hour later, we were standing in front of 100 people, telling them that we were going to read them some sex. They seemed okay with it.

I went first, reading the end of chapter 95. I got a little sweaty and red in the face, but I made it through pretty well, especially considering I’ve never read it out loud before.

Then it was Amber’s turn. We’ve both been busy lately, so we haven’t had a chance to reach each others’ newest books yet. So she’d thought my scene would be more explicit. She was worried her scene was way smuttier than mine. She started to read, then stopped and stepped away from the mic, shaking her head.

Now that I was done with my reading, I was pretty relaxed. I felt great, in fact. My reading was done, and I was all full of adrenaline.

“If there’s dialogue in there, we could read it together,” I joked.

Little did I know there was dialogue. So I was trapped. After an extended bout of being extremely flustered, the two of us read her sex scene together, giggling like third graders all the while.

Luckily, someone caught it on tape. You can witness the glorious debacle here if you want.

All in all, it was one of my favorite readings ever. And as a bonus, I discovered I can do a southern accent if I want to. Who knew?

pat

Also posted in conventions, do I look fat in this, My brilliant ideas, sexy, videos | By Pat85 Responses

Just a little bit rockstar….

So. I’m home again.

The bad news is that I haven’t been online for more than ten days. There are more than 2000 messages waiting for me in my e-mail. More than 500 pieces of fanmail. Two dozen packages are waiting for me downstairs, unopened. I hope none of them contain food. Or, like, a puppy.

The good news is that as of today I’m finally back from my book tour. I have some stories to tell.

In addition to finally being home, something else cool happened today. This might not be news to all of you, but it’s pretty cool for me, so I thought I’d share it…

For those of you that don’t know, every week the New York Times publishes a list of books. Nobody knows exactly how the books are selected for the list. But generally speaking, the more copies of your book you sell in a given week, the higher up you are on the list.

It’s called the New York Times Bestseller list. If your book makes it into #15 or higher, it’s a New York Times Bestseller. It’s a pretty big deal in the publishing world. As I mentioned before on the blog, I was lucky enough to hit #11 with The Name of the Wind.

Here’s a picture of the book section from today’s (Sunday’s) New York Times.

(Click to embiggen.)

Why don’t we get a little closer….

Can you see the coolness yet? No. I’m not talking about the copy of The Guild up there.

Ah hell. Let’s zoom all the way in:

Yeah. There’s The Wise Man’s Fear. Right up there at #1.

Thanks for helping me make it up there everybody…

#1 on the NYT is a pretty big deal, and I feel like I should be doing something monumental to celebrate. Something rockstar. Something with hookers and hot tubs and cocaine. Something that ends with me throwing a television out a hotel window and getting arrested for conduct unbecoming a novelist.

But honestly, I’m too tired for that to sound like a lot of fun right now. Plus I don’t think Stevens Point has any hookers. Besides, my TV is in the basement, so I’d have to carry it up a flight of stairs before I threw it out the window. And then tomorrow I’d have to clean it up off my own porch. Maybe I’m getting old, but that just doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me.

So I’m guessing I’ll probably hold off on the rockstar celebrations for now. Instead, now that Sarah and Oot are asleep, I think I’m going to install Dragon Age 2 and make some Mac & Cheese.

That’s right. I’m not going to dig into my e-mail at all. Not tonight. Tonight it’s just Dragon Age 2 and Mac & Cheese. I make some badass Mac & Cheese, let me tell you. I put all sorts of cheeses in there. Plus spices and shit. And corn. It’s really something.

Man. I’m really looking forward to it. You really have no idea.

Maybe I will also drink some rum while I play Dragon Age. Because…. well… because I can. And because that makes it just a little bit rockstar. It doesn’t hurt to be just a little bit rockstar sometimes…

Night all,

pat

Also posted in cool things | By Pat230 Responses

A few updates: Coolness and Prizes

Those of you who read last week’s blog about the Gaiman-Day scale of coolness might be interested in this picture:

(Click to Embiggen)

These are just the weekly stats, and my numbers are artificially inflated by my recent blog post. But still, if you’re like me, it’s nice to get to play with the cool kids, even if it’s just for a week or so.

In other news, we’re still dealing with the aftermath of this year’s fundraiser. It’s going a lot slower this year because we’ve got WAY more stuff to sort, package, and ship out.

Just to give you a basis for comparison, this was our prize shelf last year:


I was really proud of that shelf and all the authors that contributed to it. But still, you can see that a lot of the books on there are mine.

These are our prize shelves this year…

(Click to Embiggen)

Huzzah.

This doesn’t even include all the swag from Subterranean Press, as they’re shipping out their own books. (God bless them.)

Try not to be distracted by the extreme coolness of my brick-and-board shelves which, I would like to mention, I put up by my very own self.

As you can see, a *lot* more authors chipped in this year. Which gives me a warm, glowy feeling of goodwill toward the entire sci-fi & fantasy community. It goes without saying that the donations from DAW and Gollancz made a world of difference, too.

And just so you know, we’re not contacting all the winners beforehand. It would be *way* too much work. You’ll know you’ve won something when a package shows up in the mail. Please don’t e-mail to ask if you’ve won….

[Edit 2-2-10 Answers to a few questions:

I’m not going to post up a list of everyone’s names that that won, because not everyone wants their name posted up on the internet. Just in case any of you were wondering, it’s not cool to post personal information about people on the internet without asking first.

I’m not going to e-mail everyone asking if I can post their info up on the net either. Because, well… duh.

What I will be doing is asking folks to take pictures of themselves and their prizes, then we’ll post them up here. That way, even if you didn’t win something yourself, you can live vicariously through the joy of others. That’s kinda what worldbuilders is all about.

The big winners I’ve already contacted personally. The people who won Gaiman and Sanderson’s books, as well as the guy who won the golden ticket. I’ll be putting up some information about them, if they’re cool with it.

We can ship to PO boxes just fine. Don’t worry about it. If something is strange or confusing about your address, rest assured that we’ll contact you to sort it out.
End edit.]

More blogs on the way….

pat

Also posted in Subterranean Press, Worldbuilders 2009 | By Pat40 Responses

Is Patrick Rothfuss Fashionable?

In my last post I said in an offhand way, “fashionistas among you will note my stylish geekware.”

The joke, of course, lies in the fact that I am about as unfashionable as a person can be. I expect that the fashionistas pay as much attention to me as I pay to being fashionable. Which is to say, none. I am many things, but I am not one of the gliterati.

However, after that post, someone sent me a link to a blog that asked the question I thought nobody in their right mind would ever ask. Namely: Is Patrick Rothfuss Fashionable?

Share and enjoy,

pat

Also posted in do I look fat in this | By Pat29 Responses

Muahahahahaha!

Right now I’m at GenCon, hunting the wily catgirl in her natural habitat.

While I’m busy, here’s something interesting from the New Yorker.

Yeah. Seriously.

pat

Also posted in accolades | By Pat64 Responses

My Trip to LA: Part One

So, it’s been about a month since my trip to LA.

Now some folk will quibble and say that I was in *Pasadena,* not LA. But that is a distinction that matters primarily to folks who live in the LA area. To the rest of us, that entire gob of city there in Southern California is all LA.

It’s best not to split hairs about these sorts of things. If we’re going to get technical, I would have to explain to people that I’m not originally from Madison proper. I’m actually from the Town of Burke, right next to Madison. And right now I’m not in Hayward, hiding from the world and writing, I’m in the nearby township of Lenroot, or something like that.

These are pointless little truths that don’t do anyone any good.

This is the art of storytelling, you see. Telling small lies in pursuit of a larger truth. The art of being a reader is being willing to work a little to get at the meat of the story, while at the same time accepting the occasional bent technicality and comma splice.

Anyway. LA was awesome. I was flown out by the lovely folks responsible for one of the winning pictures in the photo contest. Not only are these ladies lovely and willing to get naked for my book, but they are also rocket scientists. Seriously. So while I was out there, I got to take a tour of JPL and look at cool spaceship stuff.

I got to see oranges growing on trees. Which might not seem like a big deal for most of you, but for me it was pretty cool. I also saw lizards running around wild, and can now identify a eucalyptus tree. I got to play some new board games and walk around outside without wearing a coat or hat or anything.

The book signing itself turned out to be a marvelous success. We had a surprising number of people show up, I’m guessing 100 or 120. They had to bring out a bunch of extra chairs, and even then people were standing in the isles and sitting on the floor.

It was a good crowd. I read a few Survival Guides, a poem, and a snippet of book two. I told some stories, answered questions, and got a few laughs. Afterwards, I signed a buttload of books and got to chat one-on-one with folks. Someone brought me wine, someone else brought me an entire care package including memory sticks and tickets to Disneyland.

Though I love the swag, I feel obliged to remind folks that the “Something Cool” rule only applies to books you’re mailing in for me to sign.

That said, if you have something you’d *really* like to give me, far be it from me to stop you….

Of particular interest was something that happened halfway through the reading. I was answering some question or another, and I looked out and saw Felicia Day sitting at the back of the crowd.

Now this is the point in the story where I don’t exactly know what I should say. Normally when I’m telling a story out of my real life, I go with the truth, even when it’s embarrassing or unflattering. I don’t know exactly why I feel obliged to do this, but I do.

But for some reason, as I tell this story, I want to lie. I want to pretend I was laid-back about it. Pleased, of course, but also nonchalant. I’d like to portray myself as relaxed… cool. Like the Fonz from Happy Days. Or like the modern-day fantasy author version of the Fonz: Neil Gaiman.

I’ve seen Neil Gaiman a couple times. He’s a great public speaker, funny, insightful. He knows how to work a crowd, and he’s irritatingly good at reading his own work out loud.

Even better, he’s terribly gracious in person. I once watched him get ambushed by a fan who was desperate to have Gaiman read his manuscript. The guy clung to Gaiman and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I found it irritating from a distance of fifteen feet, but Gaiman was unfailingly polite through the whole exchange.

I’m not graceful in that way. I honestly don’t know how I come across in public, but sometimes I expect that it’s something like the way my old dog, Pup, used to behave.

He was a big liony mutt that I grew up with as a kid. An outside dog who never knew a fence, as we lived out in the country and let him run wild. He a smart dog, and a vicious hunter. He patrolled our house, protecting us from pretty much anything.

Despite the fact that he was a great hunter and defender, he was also very friendly. Unfortunately, it was like he never figured out that he wasn’t a puppy anymore. When someone came over for a visit, Pup would jump up on them, putting his paws up on your chest (or your shoulders, if you were shorter) and lick your face.

This is fine behavior if you’re a fluffy puppy with milk-breath, or if you’re an adult dog hanging out with your family. But Pup treated everyone that way, even when he was full grown, shaggy, and smelling of whatever interesting he had found to roll in.

I suspect that’s what I must be like when I’m in public most of the time. I’m this great shaggy beast who gets excited about meeting new people, and does the conversational equivalent of jumping up on people and licking them in the face.

This means that when I want to be socially graceful, I need some sort of internal touchstone about how I should act. So when I see Felicia Day sitting in the back of the room, I think to myself: WWNGD?

I’m guessing he would not, for example, stand up at his own reading and say: “Holy shit everybody! Felicia Day is here!”

So I didn’t either. But I tell you, it was a near thing. I’m pretty sure I kept my game face on, and kept answering whatever question I was in the middle of. But the truth is, inside I was standing up and pointing, shouting: “Holy shit! Everybody! Felicia Day!” with all the enthusiasm of a four-year-old who has just seen his first real firetruck drive by on the street.

(Re-reading this, I think I need to add another item to my ever-growing list of Things You Should Never Compare a Woman to Under Any Circumstances. Number Seven: Firetruck. Perhaps any type of truck.

For the record, please note that this particular use of firetruck is being used to describe my reaction to Felicia, not Felicia herself.)

Anyway, after the reading, I managed to grab Felicia and chat for a bit before I started signing books. By this point I’d settled down a bit and was able to behave like a regular human being.

But still, every once in a while, my head would spin around a bit and I would think, “Wha? Who is this? Holy shit. I’m talking with Felicia Day!”

*****

Well folks, due to my tangential nature, this particular blog has ended up being WAY longer than I’d intended. I’ll post the rest of it in a day or two, how’s that?

In the mean time, if you don’t know what the big deal is, you can go check out Dr. Horrible, where Felicia plays Penny. Or The Guild, which Felicia writes and produces in addition to playing the part of Codex.

Later,

pat

Also posted in a billion links, BJ Hiorns Art, Felicia Day, meeting famous people, Neil Gaiman, tangentality | By Pat24 Responses

A writer’s job…

Friend and fellow fantasy author Drew Bowling just sent me the following story. It amused me, so I thought I’d share….

I keep running into random people who have read The Name of the Wind. Most of these incidents are pretty damn funny, but I usually forget to send them your way. Here’s the most recent:

New Years Eve, I’m partying in Bethesda (city on the edge of Washington D.C.). The ball drops, and a girl starts kissing one of my buddies. When that’s all over and done with, I decide to say hi to her, in order to make sure she isn’t a succubus (sober, I was not).

We trade pleasantries, and I tell her I’m a writer. She thinks this is cool, especially since I write fantasy, because she loves fantasy.

“What’s your favorite book?” I ask. Well, it turns out to be your book, Pat. So I tell her I’ve meet you, that you’re a cool guy, and that no, I doubted you actually knew a name for the wind – other than wind – which would make it do magical things (yes, she really asked me this, and yes, she also had been drinking).

At that point, I suddenly become very cool, or at least much cooler that I was before (which, in hindsight, wasn’t cool at all, but rather something of a sweaty mess). So my friend wanders over, and I, being a pillar of loyalty, wander away – but not before I hear the girl say: “I wish Pat had been here at midnight.”

I love a story with a happy ending.

If only I *had* been there. I can picture it clearly in my mind. The party is dimly lit, she sees me across the room, her eyes widen in surprise. Then I hear the three words every man longs for…

“It’s a bear!” she screams drunkenly. Then, mad with terror, jumps through a plate glass window and falls three stories to her death. Probably landing on my car.

Seriously though. How come I never end up at parties with hot qua-succubi who want to get all makey-outy with a fantasy author? We need kissings too, you know. For research. Into…. verisimilitude. Kvothe does eventually engage in the wicked co-mutual pressing of lips, you see. And I worry if I don’t gather enough data before finishing those scenes I won’t be able to make it really *real* for the reader.

Yeah. That’s it.

pat

Also posted in musings | By Pat36 Responses
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