Well folks, we’re at the final day of the fundraiser. As I write this, we’re about 24 hours away from the finish line.

The last couple days have been amazing. A lot of folks have chipped in with last-minute donations. Others have come back to donate a second or third time. A lot of people have been spreading the word, blogging, twittering, and shouting out of windows at unsuspecting persons on the street.

The end result is that we’ve raised far more than I’d ever hoped this year, far beyond the 250,000 dollars I expected to be our high water mark.

I just have a few things to mention before everything’s done.

First: In the last blog I accidentally said that the ARC of Redshirts that John Scalzi donated was going into an auction. That was a typing mistake brought about by lack of sleep. Redshirts is going into the general lottery so that anyone who donates at least 10 bucks has a chance of winning it.

Second: Since I did the post that talked about the odds of winning something from the prize lottery, we’ve had a lot of donations.

So, in the interest of keeping this a prize-rich environment, I’m going to donate another 100 books to the fundraiser. I tend to be a book hoarder, and I have duplicates and triplicates of some books that I’m very fond of. I have extra signed copies that I keep tucked away for a rainy day, too. And some limited edition stuff.

The upshot is that even though you don’t see any pictures of it here, there’s now officially more cool stuff to win. Because I love you.

Third: For the last couple months, I’ve been getting e-mails from people telling me stories about their donations.

I’ve heard from parents who have talked to their kids about Heifer International, then later had their kids write to Santa asking for a goat that they could give to someone who needs it. There have been families that exchanged animals instead of presents this year. Book clubs and church groups have done fundraisers of their own, pooling their resources then donating to Heifer through Worldbuilders.

There isn’t space to share all their e-mails with you, but I thought I might share one….

Hi Pat!

I love, love, love Worldbuilders, but as a broke law student I can’t afford to donate much…So this year, my fiance and I had a fun idea. We agree with your take on Valentine’s Day, so this year as our “Valentine’s Day present” to each other, we donated in our name to Worldbuilders.

We thought setting aside money for goats was way more important than setting aside money for unnecessary trinkets, and what better way is there to celebrate loving each other and wanting to spend our lives together than by making the world we want to live in even better, and honoring an author whose work we adore?

We put it on facebook too, here’s hoping more people might follow the lead!

W–

I like your style, W. Thanks for thinking outside the box and helping to spread the word….

Fourth: There’s only one auction left: the Golden Ticket. Bidding has already topped 4,000 dollars, and I’ll admit to feeling equal parts curiosity and anxiety when I wonder what the winner will ask of me….

Fifthly and Lastly: Ever since I posted up the 150K blog, people have been e-mailing me, asking me to share the video that I made of me reading Beatrice’s Goat to little Oot.

I still feel self-conscious about the fact that my voice gets higher when I read to him. And because we had to cut together a couple of different readings of the book, my voice back and forth between my reading-to-Oot voice and my regular voice, which makes it seem like I’m flirting with puberty….

But people asked for it, so here it is. Not posting because I’m a little vain is just silly.

Plus I figure Oot’s natural cuteness will eclipse any shortcomings on my part….

So there you go, folks. If you didn’t get it before, now you do. That’s what Heifer International does in a nutshell.

If you’d like to make a donation, the Worldbuilders Team page is over here.

If you’d like to read more details about the fundraiser or browse through the thousand odd books donated by authors and publishers, you can head over to the main Worldbuilders page.

Thanks for being awesome,

pat

Imagine my surprise when one of the shirts I loved went straight to the bottom of the pack and stayed there.

It made me glad that I’d decided to put things to a vote. But still, I was sad that I wouldn’t get a chance to see that shirt made.

Fast forward to a couple months back when I got a flurry of messages from people asking if we would ever print kid’s shirts. Or baby onesies.

So, behold:

We decided to turn my favorite design into some onesies you could buy to support Worldbuilders.

If you want to see a closeup of the design, here it is:

What I really like about this image is that it relates a lot of The Name of the Wind without being in any way language dependent.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this shirt would be way easier for kids to appreciate because they could identify the pictures themselves.

So as soon as the onesies came in from the printer, I showed one to Oot.

I point at the lower-leftmost speech bubble. “What’s this?” I ask, thinking, this one should be pretty easy. He knows what a heart is….

“Crab,” he said without any hesitation.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.” I point at the book. “What’s this?”

“Choccate!” (Chocolate.)

“And this?” I ask, pointing at the cloud.

“Skis,” he says immediately. The word is completely clear. When did he learn what skis are?

“And this?” I point at the musical notes.

“Shopping cart.” Again, he’s absolutely sure of himself.

“Who’s this in the middle?” I ask, pointing at Kvothe himself.

“Issa boy,” he tells me. “Shouting.”

If you’re one of those “pics or it didn’t happen” people, here’s a video where Valerie quizzes Oot about what’s on his shirt.

His answers are a little different there, as he’s obviously gained a clearer understanding of the shirt after re-reading it a couple times.

So there you go. If you’d like to buy a onesie with a boy shouting about crabs, chocolate, skis, and a shopping cart, today is your lucky day.

Because we have them available now in the Tinker’s Packs.

We’ve priced the same as our t-shirts at 20 dollars. I wish I could sell them for less, but the onsies are actually way more expensive to buy than the t-shirts. The printing is more expensive, too, because it uses so many colors.

Rest assured that all the money from the sale of the shirts goes directly to Worldbuilders. It’s not like I’m spending it on hookers and PEZ.

And just for one last piece of cute, here’s a picture of Oot wearing it.

(Click to Encutenate.)

This picture cracks me up a big because Oot looks like such a smooth player in it.

“Hey sweetie,” he says. “What? This shirt? Just some old thing I threw on. You know, this scene is played out. What say you and I go back by the couch and I show you how high I can stack some blocks….”

One more time, just in case you need it: the link to the Tinker’s Packs.

Lastly, a final heads-up for those of you in Northern Michigan and the UP. I’m doing two signings in those parts this weekend, and I probably won’t be back in the area for a while.

Catch me while you can….

pat

Blearily, I washed my face and trudged upstairs to check my e-mail. Because I was really behind on my e-mail and the weekend is a good chance for me to catch up.

When I got to the top of the stairs, Sarah was there, staring at me, her hands on her hips, her expression exhasperated and vaugely accusitory. “Well,’ she said, “he’s a boy!”

I’d only been awake for about three minutes, so I just stare at her in confusion. I was pretty sure we’d sorted that out fairly early on.

Then I hear Oot shouting from the bedroom, “I pee in the CORNER!”

Yup. He’s just like his dad. By which I mean he’s got good comedic timing.

Rest assured that later on, after I had showered and was fully awake, I did my fatherly duty and had a talk with Oot. I explained that we pee in the toilet. We also pee in our diapers. That’s good too. We sometimes can pee outside, which is cool, so long as nobody’s watching. And the bathtub is fair game too. But that’s pretty much it in terms of kosher places to pee. Although, come to think of it, the sink is also acceptable in certain rare situations. The corner is almost never a good place to pee, except in rare situations when you might be making some sort abstract political statement or attempting to connect with your roots as a true cynic.

At this point Sarah said that my talk probably wasn’t helping much.

Parenting is kinda hard if you’re an ethical relativist.

Anyway, the real point of this point is to mention that I spent most of the day reading all the short stories, novelettes, and novellas that were nominated for the Hugo awards this year.

For those of you who don’t know: the Hugo awards are kind of a Big Deal in the sci-fi and fantasy community. If you win one, you are offically awesome. Plus they give you a statue that looks like a rocket ship. Which you have to admit is pretty cool.

The Hugos are awarded every year at Worldcon. If you attend the convention, you get to vote on who’s stuff you think is best.

In the past, I’ve been bad about voting on the Hugos. But this year I’m making an effort to change that. I’ve decided I want to be a responsible member of the community, so I’ve been reading all the books and graphic novels and stories so I can cast a smart vote.

Just like any election, more informed votes = better results. So I thought I’d post up a friendly reminder for those of you who are like me. Specifically, for those of you who tend to put things off to the last minute, then occationally forget about them until it’s too late.

So yeah. If you’re heading out to Worldcon this year, and you haven’t voted yet, you might want to get on the stick.

Voting on the Hugos closes tomorrow (Sunday the 31st) at 11:59 PST.

pat

I don’t care to talk about the details, but it wasn’t anything life-threatening. It was just one of those things that we needed to do if we were going to be responsible parents.

Still, it involved putting my baby under heavy anesthesia and having someone cut him. It’s really hard to express how unacceptable I found this. You know how sometimes you can shrug something off and be cool about it? Yeah. I was the other thing. Whatever the farthest edge of the spectrum is from cool, that’s where I was, emotionally.

I tell you. I never knew what it was like to be afraid until I was a parent.

Anyway, rest assured that he’s happy and healthy. He’s taking it easy, reading books and playing with duplo.

When I asked him how he felt today, he said, “Iyhava owie belly.”

“You have an owie on your belly?” I asked.

“Owie *inna* belly,” he corrected me. He does this with only a little reproach in his voice, as if he knows that I can’t help being stupid.

This is something that’s been happening a lot over the last couple weeks. He’s been shocking me with how fine-tuned his conversation is becoming.

For example, on Friday when we were in the hospital, after he’d come out from under his anesthetic I asked him if he wanted some juice.

“Okay,” he said blearily.

I know how thirsty you can be when you come out of surgery, so I hurried to his bag and rummaged around quickly. I couldn’t lay hands on a juicebox, but I found his sippy cup full of water and flipped up the top so the straw came out.

I handed it to him, and he took hold of it kinda unsteadily. Then he got the straw into his mouth. Suck. Suck.

He swallowed and looked up at me. “Dat’s wadder inair,” he said.

At first I thought he was just making an observation. He’s a good talker these days, but still, a lot of our conversation is limited to making observations about the world, or asking and answering simple questions.

Then I realized that wasn’t what he was saying at all. I played it through my head again and caught the emphasis. “That’s wadder inair!” His tone was thick with disappointment. “Wannet JUICE,” he said, sounding hurt and more than a little betrayed.

And you know what? That’s fair. I’d promised juice and delivered water. That’s a shitty thing to do to a guy who’s just been through surgery. I hurried to get a juice box and appologized.

Still, I’m kinda stunned that he’s already at the level where he can communicate reproach. If he’s doing this at 21 months, I can’t even imagine where he’ll be in another year.

That’s all for now folks. Keep a close eye on the blog for the next couple days. I’m going to be posting up a bunch of things before I leave for ComicCon.

pat

The thought of getting a book signed is an odd one to me. In these last several months, it’s possible that I’ve signed thousands of books. Many thousands. I’ve signed books to families, to kids, to grandparents. I’ve signed books in warehouses, libraries, bookstores, and colleges….

But honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever approached someone to get their autograph. Not in a formal setting. And certainly not anyone of Terry Pratchett’s status. Not someone I’ve been reading since I stumbled onto a copy of Sourcery in Shopko in 1989….

By the time Monday rolled around, I’d been at the convention for three solid days. And truth be told, I was kinda hoping that I might run into Terry at some point in that time. Maybe we’d be in the elevator together. Maybe we’d meet in the hallway on the way to a panel. Maybe someone would introduce us and I’d get a chance to say a few words….

But it didn’t happen. I wasn’t surprised or disappointed. I know how these things work. It’s a big con, and Terry’s the star of the show. They have to work hard to protect the Guest of Honor at events like this or they’re mobbed by fans. If they aren’t careful, a guest like Terry will have a hard time finding a moment’s peace to eat. I’ve seen some titan-level writers who have trouble simply walking down a hallway at a con without a handful of people asking for an autograph or a picture.

So I didn’t stalk Pratchett. I didn’t arrange an introduction, or just happen to bump into him somewhere. Even when I found out that his room was right next to mine in the hotel, I didn’t do anything like leave a copy of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle outside his door. I didn’t want to be that guy.

The signings were carefully controlled, too. They have to be. Terry has written more than 50 books, and everyone there would like nothing more than to get a bunch signed. If they let everyone get as many books signed as they’d like, Terry would have spent the entire length of the four-day convention signing books.

I’m not being hyperbolic here. It’s the literal truth. He could easily have spent 70 hours signing books if the convention didn’t work hard to control the situation.

This is something I understand only now that I’ve been on my first signing tour.

Take me, for example. I’m a newbie author. I have two books out (compared to Pratchett’s 50+). I’ve been published for four years (compared Pratchett’s 40.)

To put this in different terms, I am currently hovering around 2300 Gaiman-Day units of cool, which isn’t bad.

But Pratchett probably ranks in at more than 60,000. I mean, when you write so well they actually knight you, you’re kind of a big deal.

Despite my relatively newbie nature, when I showed up in Houston back in March, I signed books for 9 hours straight. Given that I’m about 2% of a Pratchett, you can see how quickly one of his signings could spiral into madness if it wasn’t carefully controlled.

My point is, I knew Pratchett wasn’t going to be signing books all higgledy piggledy at the con. Even if he signed a single book for every person there, it would take him 12 hours. Because of that, I knew I probably wasn’t going to have a chance to get anything signed.

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when the guest liaison for the convention told me that if I wanted, he might be able to pull a few little strings for me. Maybe enough for me to get a book signed. Maybe.

I was honest, and said I’d be grateful for the chance. If I could get a book signed, I’d be able to use it for the charity I run every year.

He said that if the book was for charity, we could almost certainly make it happen.

So I bought a copy of Nation from Dreamhaven in the dealer’s room, and on Monday, I wandered to the hall where Terry was signing. He was mostly autographing stuff items that had been sold at the charity auction the day before. I’d had to miss the auction because I was doing some paneling. But it was probably for the best, as I’d already spent more money than I should on swag.

The guest liaison motioned me over and told me it was cool if I got something signed. It really didn’t have to be for the charity, either, he said. I could just get something for myself.

Suddenly I was really conflicted. I’d brought a copy of Where’s My Cow? to the convention, because whenever we travel with Oot, we need to bring about a dozen books to keep him happy. (He’s like his dad that way.)

I’ve been reading Where’s My Cow? to Oot since before he could talk. It’s a great book, and the ending makes me a little weepy, because I’ve turned into a total soppy git ever since I became a dad.

Oot knows what noises the animals make, even the  Hippopotamus. He really likes the page with Coffin’ Henry on it, too, and asks to see it again and again.

He also enthusiastically says, “Buggrit!” Which is a little troubling to Sarah, but pleases me to no end.

So when the guest liaison says I can get any book signed, I realize I have Where is My Cow? in my backpack. I could get Pratchett to sign the book to Oot….

It’s a hard moment, but I decide to get Nation signed for Worldbuilders instead. Because personal isn’t the same as important. The signed book will be a nice draw for Worldbuilders if we throw it into the general mix of prizes. And if we auction it, I’m guessing it will bring in at least a couple hundred bucks. That’s enough for a couple of goats….

I consider trying to get both signed, of course. Because I’m only human. Terry is a nice guy, and accommodating, so I’m guessing if I pulled a second book out of my bag when I was at the table he’d go for it….

But I shake off the thought fairly quickly. I am not a special snowflake. I don’t deserve to get two books signed when everybody else gets one. If everyone tried to pull that shit, Terry would have an extra 2000 books to sign.

The guest liaison brings me up to the table and introduces me, explaining that I’m fellow author and that I’ve hit the New York Times with both my books. That’s nice of him. It lets me stand a little taller.

Terry looks up at me and says, “I’m guessing you’re fantasy, not science fiction.”

I grin and nod. “We do have a certain look, don’t we?”

I’m pleasantly surprised by the fact that I don’t feel terribly tongue-tied or shaky or awkward.

[Author's note: Sarah just brought Oot in after his shower. He grinned at me and, "Bugit! ... Hand and shrimp! Fow Ron!" (This will only make sense if you've read a lot of Discworld or Where's My Cow?)]

I hand over the copy of Nation and say, “This book was absolutely gorgeous. It might be the best book I’ve ever read.”

“I got a lot of letters from children,” Terry says. “They were upset because it didn’t have a happy ending.”

He opens the book and signs his name. His signature is way loopier than mine.

Terry keeps talking as he signs, “But I always reply, ‘It has a ending. It has the right ending.”

“It has the perfect ending,” I say. “It was beautiful. It absolutely broke my heart.”

And that was it. I moved away and made room for the rest of the folk who had things for him to sign.

Would I have liked to talk longer? Maybe chat about writing and the art of ending? Of course. Who wouldn’t?

But there’s only so much time. And honestly, I was happy to wrap things up before I accidentally made an ass of myself.

Besides, though Pratchett didn’t know it, he’s said about the best thing possible to me. I worry about the ending of my story sometimes. I worry that people won’t like it. Most of my readers are hoping for a particular type of ending. They e-mail me with their theories and their hopes. They want X to hook up with Y. They want Z to get his comeuppance. They want such and such story tied up in a certain way….

I know it comes from a place of love. But it makes me nervous.

After talking to Terry, I’m less nervous. I can’t give each of you your own personalize ending, containing everything you specifically wanted out of the story. That’s impossible.

But I can give you the right ending. A perfect ending.

That’s all for now. If you have a spare moment, send a good thought this way tomorrow.

I don’t want to give any specifics, but tomorrow is going to be a little rough for us. If everything goes well it won’t be a big deal. But still, if you have a spare thought, Oot and Sarah and I could use it, just for luck.

Later,

pat

It may not seem like many people to you, but I don’t have much family. For my side of the family, this is a pretty big gathering.

My dad grilled and my sister and her boyfriend cooked. I removed the lids on the various types of side dishes that I’d lovingly bought from the store. We ate brats and pasta salad and hung out on the deck. We tried to fly a kite and utterly failed.

Oot was in fine form, and charmed everyone with his ability to cram food clumsily into his craw, speak broken English, and walk around without hardly falling over at all. Seriously. He’s like a little rockstar.

It was a great day. My father summed it up best when he said, “Good weather, good food, nudity, and kite flying. What more could you want in a party?”

Today (Sunday) was more low-key. I slept late, and when I got up I learned that Sarah had been coaching Oot to say, “Happy Father’s Day!” He did this with great enthusiasm. Over and over. All day.

But you know what? It never got old.

In fact, when we got back from dinner tonight, I grabbed a little video of it.

You know what? I think this is the first video that I’ve ever uploaded. Look at me striding boldly into the year 2007.

After this touching moment, Oot began to say, “Humdyfal!” over and over. It only took me about 30 seconds to figure him out. You have to do a lot of interpreting with kids this young. They’re not really good with words, yet.

He was saying, “Humpty Fall.” He wanted to hear about Humpty Dumpty.

So I picked up one of his nearby toys. If I call it a plush toy you’ll get the wrong impression. It’s a turtle packed tight with some kind of beans. It’s the size of a round loaf of bread. It’s about as plush as a sandbag and it weighs more than hardcover of my second book.

I put it on my knee and said, “Humpty Dumpty sat on the….”

“Wall!” Oot finished.

“Humpty Dumpty had a great….” I pushed the turtle off my knee and it hit the ground hard. It sounded like someone dropping a heavy workboot onto the floor.

“Fall!” Oot shouted excitedly.

Then he picked up the turtle with both hands and affectionately smashed it into my nuts.

I made the sort of noise you make when you’re trying not to roar and scare the hell out of your kid. Sarah laughed. Then looked guilty about laughing. Then laughed again.

“Fall!” Oot said.

I removed the turtle and put a protective hand over my groin. It took a moment, but eventually I figured out what he was trying to say. You have to do a lot of interpretation with someone this young. There’s a lot of reading in between the lines.

After about a minute or so, I realized Oot was making it clear that he respected the vasty strength of my generative organs. He was trying to indicate that he understood where he’d come from, that he knew exactly whose godlike loins had helped bring him into this world. He was trying to say….

“Happy Father’s Day!” he said, throwing his hands into the air.

Yes. Exactly that.

Happy Father’s Day.

pat

Details on the tour page or on the Facebook event here.

Second, a story.

It’s a story about stories, actually. That hopefully shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone here….

These days, little Oot has all sorts of words. The days of his vocabulary being a handful of words, most of which sound like “duck,” are long past.

What amazes me is how quickly some things are developing.

Today he wanted to make a pillow fort. So we made a pillow fort. Because pillow forts are awesome.

(Box forts are also awesome.)

After the fort was done, he walked across the bed, picked up a book, and brought it back to me.

Oot loves books. Sarah reads to him all the time. I read to him a lot, too, but Sarah beats me out in sheer hours, as she spends all day with him, while on a good day, I’ll only have three or four.

So he brings me a book, but it wasn’t a picture book. It’s the book that Sarah’s currently reading, my copy of Brandon Sanderson’s The Hero of Ages.

He holds the book out to me and says, “Daddie.”

This means many things. His inflection tells me that he knows its my book. But it also means he wants me to read it to him as well. He can say a lot with just one word, and I’ve become very good at interpreting in this last year.

He sits in my lap, and we put the book in front of us. (We only had three pillows, you see, so I was the back wall of the fort.)

I open the book up to the middle and point at the text. “Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Oot,” I say. “He was very nice. One day, he wanted to go for a walk. So he went outside with his momma, and he got in the wagon.”

I know he doesn’t understand all of it. But he can catch the gist. He can use a lot of these words himself. I think it sounds kinda like this to him:

“Xxxx xxxx x xxxx, xxxxx xxx x little xxx named Oot. He xxx xxxx nice. One xxx, he wanted xx go xxx x walk. Xx he xxxx outside xxxx his momma, xxx xxxx xxx in the wagon.”

I would bet serious money this is what it sounds like to him. Because these last couple of weeks, this is exactly what he talks like.

He says: “Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya daddie,” and points at a picture of me on the fridge. He’s obviously saying something about the picture of me, but he doesn’t know that the rest of the words should be. “Ya ya ya ya ya book. Ya ya ya ya ya eyaphant. (elephant)”

Anyway, I’m making up a little story for Oot. After every couple sentences I turn a page, because that’s what happens when you read a book. I know the game. We’ve done this before.

But this time things are different.

“…and he got in the wagon,” I say.

“Dog!” Oot interjects. “Bark.”

It takes me a second to figure out what he’s talking about. We keep his wagon in the garage, and sometimes the next door neighbor’s dog is out there.

“And Oot saw a dog,” I say. “And the dog barked and barked. Then momma put Oot in the wagon and pulled it.”

“Stand!” Everything he says has an exclamation point at the end of it. It’s said with such certainty. These words aren’t exclamations as much as they’re declamations. Assume that what I’m using is a declamation point at the end of his sentences.

I continue: “Then Oot tried to stand up in the wagon, but his momma said, ‘Oh no. Be careful.’ So Oot sat down in the wagon again and his momma pulled it.”

He seems satisfied with this. I turn a page.

“On their walk, they saw a tree, and a rock…”

“Geddit!” he says. “Trowit!” he moves his arm excitedly, like he’s throwing. “Air!”

“And Oot took the rock and threw it through the air.”

“Bird! Fly! Up!”

“And they saw a bird flying high up in the sky.” I pause. “Is a bird big or little?”

“Eeedie beetie,” he says in a high voice, holding out two fingers pinched close together. (itty-bitty)

“What does the bird say?”

“Teet.”

“Does a bird say, ‘Toot?’”

He shakes his head. “No.”

This makes me sad. Birds used to say, “toot.” I really liked that. It was cute as hell…

I turn the page. “Oot and momma go and have some dinner. They have soup and carrots….”

“Candy!” he says. This word is perfectly enunciated, though a little long on the “a” sound. “Caaandy.”

“First they eat soup,” I say. Doing my best to maintain rule of law, even in the story. “First chicken and pickle. Then candy.”

“Choccat!”

I didn’t know he knew that word. He must have learned it over Easter.

“Yes,” I concede, “then they had chocolate. Then they came home.” I close the book. “The end.”

This is how deeply rooted stories are, folks. We crave them before we can walk, and we start telling them before we can talk.

That’s all for now, be good to each other.

pat

Next on my list is going through the 600 or so pieces of fanmail that have built up while I was gone. These are mostly e-mail too, though I do have a couple dozen old-fashioned envelopey messages too.

I used to respond personally to every message. But those days are long gone. I just don’t have the time anymore. But I do read them all. I don’t have anyone filter or pre-sort them for me.

On the home front, I’m having a good time hanging out with my baby. Little Oot is 18 months now, and he’s picking up words like crazy. When I came home on the 7th, after a week of touring, I found out that he had learned how to say “Monkey.” I was impressed, but also kinda sad that I hadn’t been the one to teach him this word. Because… y’know… monkey.

I’d been home for about 10 minutes when Sarah said, “What did we eat for the first time today?”

Oot gave her a look that wasn’t exactly blank, but let her know that he needed a little more help.

“Did we eat hummus?” Sarah prompted.

“Hummus,” Oot said. He said the word with a particular intensity. It wasn’t: “Hummus!” Not an exclamation. But it really wasn’t just “hummus,” either. It said it with emphasis. “Hummus.”

He pronounced it “haahmis.” With a tiny bit of a lisp on the s. It was, quite possibly, the cutest thing I’d ever heard.

“Haahmis….” he said again. “Haahmis.” A two-second pause. “Haahmis.” Another pause. “Hummus nummus,” he said. Expressing the opinion that hummus was, in fact, delicious. (Yummy = Nummy. Nummy ~ Nummus.)

I quickly had to revise my cuteness scale. “Hummus Nummus” was now top of the cuteness chart.

He then proceeded to say nothing but “hummus” for the next ten minutes.

And you know what? It never stopped being cute. Why? Because my baby is fucking adorable.

(Click to encutenate.)

In other news, (for those of you who have been asking) I’ve made my first tentative steps into playing Dragon Age II. I’ve only played 6-7 hours or so, and thus far my feelings are mixed.

More soon, including news of a few more signings, and stories from the tour.

pat

Much to my relief, he still recognized me. We hung out in the airport for a while, catching up on all the news. He poked at my shoes and said, “boots.” Then tugged up my pantleg, found my leg, and told me it was there. I was relieved.

Then we went for a walk. He informed me that the baggage carousel was a “vroom,” and I had to agree.

He also let me know that clocks are still the in thing. That’s reassuring to me, as I was worried the fashion might have changed while I was gone. But no, he continues to point whenever he sees one, announcing to everyone who cares to listen that there is a clock. I agree to this as well, even if that particular clock happens to be, say, a thermometer.

There is an art to conversation, you see, and part of that art is the ability to occasionally let a trifling difference of opinion slide by without making a federal case out of it.

So he says, “Clock,” and I think, Okay. Fair enough. I see your point.

“Clock,” I agree.

At some point Sarah asks me if I’m crying, and I tell her that no, in fact I’m weeping, thank you very much. Because weeping is slightly more dignified, as it’s derived from the Old English wepan shedding of tears, not the the sissy Old French crier which implies a wailing noise.

Oot says, “up,” and I pick him up. Then he pushes my nose and says, “beep.” It’s impossible to explain how cute this is. Then he pushes his own nose, which is exponentially cuter.

After dinner and more hanging out with Sarah and Oot, I slept from 9:00 PM until 4:00 AM. Then, after a little e-mail, I decided that getting a full eight hour’s rest was so much fun that I might as well do it again, so I went to bed and slept from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM.

In brief, it’s good to be home.

I’m well aware that Wednesday’s picture of The Wise Man’s Fear rather resembled a grainy photo of bigfoot. I wasn’t being coy, it’s just that I was using the camera on my little netbook. Functional, but not elegant by any means….

Here’s what it really looks like.

Strangely enough, the book is just about the same size as The Name of the Wind, but The Wise Man’s Fear has 994 pages, compared to Name’s measly 662. From what I understand, they did this using some manner of tesseract. Or perhaps through the sacrifice of a black she-goat. Or thinner paper. Whatever the source technology, the result is that The Wise Man’s Fear is feels really solid. As if each revision I did somehow increased the gravitational density of the book.

Have I said that it’s pleasing to hold? It is. It very is.

Back in July when I was out at Comic Con, I did an interview with Shawn Speakman. (He’s the lovely gent that’s selling signed versions of The Wise Man’s Fear for those of you that can’t make it to a signing.)

Anyway, Shawn recently posted it up on Suvudu, so I thought I’d share it around for those of you who might be interested….

We chat about a bunch of things, and at the end of the video I answer a bunch of questions that readers sent in.

Honestly? I can’t remember a damn thing I said, as at that point in the convention I was in a fugue state brought about my overexposure to cool people, catgirls, and caffeine.

Share and enjoy….

pat

To be completely honest, I wasn’t really a student at that point in my life. But the only real difference between 2003 and 2000 was that I was teaching classes rather than taking them. My habits, hobbies, and income hadn’t really changed from my student days, and I still felt like a student at heart.

A couple days before the real Thanksgiving, my friend Ian said to me: “We should get people together and have Thanksgiving tonight.”

“My stove doesn’t work,” I said. “And I don’t know how to make stuffing.”

He shook his head. “No. We should all go to the store and buy some kind of food we’re thankful for. Then we get together and share it.”

And that’s what we did. That night we ate taco dip and poppin fresh biscuits. We had fried mushrooms and shrimp and mountain dew. We had nutty bars and ice cream and a bunch of other things I can’t even remember.

We gathered round, ate these wonderful things, enjoyed each other’s company, and watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Times have changed since then. These days, most of my friend have left town. I miss them terribly, but I have a different sort of family now. More specifically, I have a baby.

I’m going to post up a picture of him. Because it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want.

Apparently megalomania is genetic.

Today I’m taking a break from copyediting and posting more Worldbuilders books. That means I have time to do one of my favorite things. I get to have lunch with Sarah and Oot at the Olympic.

The Olympic is a restaurant I’ve been eating at for years. Sarah and I had one of our first dates there. And she tells me that once, years before we met, she watched me from a nearby booth, eavesdropping, lust simmering in her innocent young heart.

These days going to the Olympic is fun for me because I get to feed little Oot.

For months I had nothing to do with this. Sarah breastfeeds, and because she’s stay-at-home Oot can get a snack pretty much whenever he wants, straight from the tap. But now he’s over a year old, and while he still loves the boob, he’s eating solid foods too.

I order the chicken soup and give him parts of it. A noodle. A little chicken. A bit of celery. A little piece of carrot that’s soft enough for me to cut up with my spoon.

Oot investigates these things. He pokes them with a finger, then crams them into his mouth. It is not unlike the way his daddy eats, though his daddy tries to be more genteel in public.

I have a lot to be thankful for. My first book has met with stupefying success. I have an understanding editor who has given me the time to turn my second book into something I can be proud of. My work is being translated into thirty languages. I have awards. I have money in the bank.

But none of that makes me as happy as lunch with Oot. I give him a piece of lettuce from my sandwich. A piece of tomato that I bite in half for him. A little bit of turkey. He moves them around on his little plastic mat, then pokes them happily into his drooly little baby maw.

I was a fan of Heifer International long before I ever considered having a kid. I donated money. I got weepy when I read Beatrice’s Goat.  I gave goats and chickens and sheep as Christmas presents.

But now that I have a baby, it’s something else entirely. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I couldn’t get enough food for my baby.

Actually, that’s not true. I have a very good imagination. I can imagine exactly what it would be like to not have enough food for my baby. It’s a horrifying feeling. It’s a huge feeling. When I think about not being able to feed my baby, my mind brushes up against the edge of something very big and dark in my head. Like nighttime swimmer who feels something firmly bump against his foot.

They say any civilization is three meals away from barbarism. And now, having a child, I believe it’s true. If I couldn’t get Oot the food he needed, I think I would do monstrous things. Barring that, I think some part of me would break and never, ever be right again. Not ever.

Still at the Olympic, I give Oot my whole deli pickle mostly out of curiosity. He pokes it, then picks the whole thing up and bites off the end. He makes an indescribable face. Then he takes another bite. At first it looks like he’s going to eat the whole thing. Then he holds it out to me, and I take a bite. I made a face and he laughs. He takes another bite, then holds it out for me again.

I am very lucky. I think this all the time. I have a warm house. I have a healthy baby. Not only do I have food for him, but we have food enough so that eating it can be a form of play.

This is why I started Worldbuilders.

When I started making serious money off my first book, it was nice. I paid off my credit card. I earned enough so I could get a mortgage on a house. But other than ordering a slightly better brand of frozen burrito, my lifestyle hasn’t changed that much. It’s nice to be able to order Chinese takeout whenever I want. But really, money hasn’t made me noticeably happier.

Matching donations through Worldbuilders makes me happy. It’s my new hobby. I look forward to it all year long.

Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I see the donation thermometer jump up by a thousand dollars and I flinch a bit.

Then I remember that 120 dollars buys a family a goat. I think about children drinking milk. Not just one morning. Every morning. I think about children eating eggs. I think about mothers and fathers selling the extra milk and wool and eggs to buy things they need to have a better life.

And then I’m happy.

After we finish up at the Olympic, I run some errands. At Shopko, I see a little bath set. It’s got a little comb, and some bubble stuff, and a yellow sponge duck.

Oot loves ducks. It’s one of his favorite words. We could play with this in the bathtub.

And I almost buy it before I realize how stupid this is. We have combs at home. We have stuff that makes bubbles. I would be paying twenty bucks for a bunch of plastic packaging and a sponge duck. For twenty bucks, I could get a flock of chicks from Heifer.

And once I think of it in these terms, it’s easy not to buy this useless piece of crass commercial shit. Oot is deliriously happy playing with a cardboard tube or one of the rubber ducks that we already have in the house. He doesn’t need this.

When I get home from errands, the first thing I do is check the donation totals. I’m really hoping we can get the thermometer up to 130,000 dollars again this year. Maybe more. It would be great if we could beat last year’s total.

The thermometer has gone up another 500 bucks. That’s good. That’s another $250 I’ll be kicking into the pot. That’s six goats and a bunch of chickens.

That’s a lot to be thankful for.

Have a good turkey day everyone,

pat

P.S. Just in case you want to wander over to the Worldbuilders donation page, here’s the link…

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