Category Archives: side projects

Published: October 18, 2012

The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle

Those of you that have been around for a while probably already know about the picture book I did with Nate Taylor a couple years back: The Adventures of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed.

The book was published back in 2010, but it’s been out of print for a long while. With the exception of the few copies we’ve had up in the Tinker’s Packs, people haven’t been able to get hold of it anywhere….

But now it’s being re-released in paperback. It’s got a new cover and everything….

They’re also doing a limited edition with a color version of the old cover, too.

[Edit: this limited edition version has a color cover. Just like I said above. Just the cover is color. Not the whole thing.]

What’s really interesting to me is that Nate (who did the coloring here) obviously thought of her dress as pink, whereas I’ve always thought of it as blue.

The new versions of the book have an new author’s note from me, if you’re into that sort of thing. But better than that, they have pages of Nate’s original concept sketches with both of our handwritten notes all over them. It was really neat for me to see those again after all these years….

Best of all, the folks at Sea Lion books are kicking a portion of all the profits raised from the sale of the book toward Worldbuilders this year. To start off, they’re donating 10% of each sale toward the fundraiser, but if they sell enough books, they’ve agreed to boost that percentage up to 15% 20% or even 25%

Personally, I think that’s really cool.

So. If you’d like to get a copy and help out Worldbuilders at the same time, you can pre-order it directly from Sea Lion over here. (The limited edition color-cover version is currently on sale, too.)

You can order it from other places, of course, but if you pre-order it there, then Sea Lion makes more money on the deal. Which means that Worldbuilders makes more money. And, in the interest of complete honesty, Nate and I get more money too.

Fair-warning: the pre-order sale will be done pretty soon, as the books will be shipping before Halloween.

Also I’m not sure how quickly the limited-edition color ones will sell out. The limited copies of Unfettered sold out pretty fast after I posted up the link….

Just so you know,

pat

Edit: A few more questions that Sea Lion noticed in the comments below and has asked me to answer.

1. The limited edition *will* come with the “This Shit is Not For Kids” sticker.

As always, I feel a slight twinge about this sticker, which on casual inspection makes my book look like a Caldecott Award winner. But then I remind myself that any parent that buys a book for a child based on an award sticker they don’t even read, deserves what’s coming to them.

2. The limited editions will still be for sale after Halloween, but they won’t be on sale. That’s just for the pre-order.

 

Also posted in cool news, Nathan Taylor Art, The Adventures of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle, Worldbuilders 2012 | By Pat54 Responses
Published: November 2, 2011

The New Coolness or How I Accidentally Published a Calendar

So a couple months ago, I went to Worldcon in Reno. While I was there, I had dinner with some friends of friends. One of those people was artist and illustrator Lee Moyer.

I like graphic artists. I like them because they do something I can’t, which effectively makes them magicians.

They’re also fun to have dinner with. You can get them all worked up about the weirdest shit. They’ll get all frothy talking about color. They’ll doodle on napkins. They’ll criticize the layout of the menu.

Best of all, if they have an ipad with them, you can look at their stuff while you’re waiting for your food to show up. This is not something you can do if you are, say, an author who writes 400,000 word fantasy novels.

At that particular dinner in Reno, Lee did have his ipad on him. He showed me some of his work: book covers, posters, commissions….

“Hold on,” I said, pointing at a tiny thumbnail. “What’s that?”

“Oh,” he said, “That’s a project I’m working on. They’re pin-ups based on literary figures.”

He brought it up on the screen:

“That’s really cool,” I said.

He smiled and pulled up another one:

I had to look at this one for a while. The Twain reference was obvious, but this…

“Oh god,” I said. “That’s Hawthorne, isn’t it? It’s Hester Prynne from the Scarlet Letter. She’s got an A tattooed on her chest!”

He brought up another one:

“That’s got to be Dickens, right?”

Lee nodded.

“What are these for?” I asked.

“A calendar,” he explained. “Literary pin-ups.”

“That’s something I’d hang on my wall,” I said. “Sexy but not smutty. Clever. Bookish. Where can I buy one?”

“I’m having trouble finding someone to print it,” he admitted. “I think people would love it, but the big calendar companies don’t seem interested.”

“You have twelve of these?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s pretty much all ready to go.”

I looked at the sexy chimney sweep. She smiled at me.

“Hell,” I said. “I’ll print it.”

Lee looked at me oddly. This is not a thing authors normally say to illustrators.

“You see,” I said, “I run a charity called Worldbuilders….”

*     *     *

Fast forward to today.

The calendars are back from the printer and they’re gorgeous. We pulled out all the stops with satin finish and nice heavy paper. They really turned out nice.

I was going to wait until we officially started Worldbuilders to put them up in the store. But the truth is, I’m too excited to wait….

So instead, I’ve decided to give y’all a chance to order the calendar before the fundraiser officially starts up this year. Not only can you get some of your holiday shopping done a little early, but if you order now, we’ll be able to ship them out to you right away, before Worldbuilders starts making things crazy busy around here.

If you’re curious what some of the other months look like, here’s a peek at the back cover:

(Click to Embiggen)

A few additional notes:

1. As always, all the money you spend in The Tinker’s Packs goes directly to Worldbuilders.

2. If you order three calendars, you can get free shipping anywhere in the US. (Or 8 bucks off international shipping.) Just enter the code: LITERACY when you’re checking out.

3. You might want to order sooner rather than later. We’re probably not going to do a second print run of these, so when they’re gone, they’re gone….

4. [Edit 7:30 AM] Please be aware that there are two *different* calendar listings in the store. One of them is for art collectors. It’s signed by the artist, and it doesn’t have any holes punched in it. We’re only doing 50 of those, and we’re selling them for 75 dollars. The regular calendar is much more reasonably priced….

And one last time, just in case you missed the link to the store.

Share and enjoy, folks.

pat

P.S. If you don’t know what Worldbuilders is, you can take a peek at last year’s fundraiser over here.

Also posted in cool things, sexy, The Tinker's Packs, Things I Like, Worldbuilders 2011 | By Pat47 Responses
Published: September 20, 2010

New Publication: Clash of the Geeks.

When The Name of the Wind came out back in 2007, something strange started to happen. Occasionally someone invited me to write something, usually a story for an anthology.

It was a new experience for me. But despite the fact that I was flattered, I turned all the invitations down saying, “I don’t really write many short stories. Besides, I really have to work on getting my second book out.”

I didn’t meet that first deadline for book two for various reasons. But still, I felt like turning down those offers was the responsible thing to do. I was trying to behave like a grown-up, you see.

In 2008 the paperback came out and I hit the New York Times Bestseller list. Because of that I got even more attention. Offers to write comic books, video games,  and more invitations to anthologies.

Again, I turned them down, saying, “I don’t have much experience writing short stories. Besides, I really need to focus on book two.”

A lot of these offers were for really cool anthologies, mind you. It was hard to turn down the chance to be published alongside some other big-name authors. Still, I felt morally obliged to refuse and focus on book two. I was trying hard to be a professional.

I continued along these lines until early this year when Suvudu held their cage match. They paired up various fantasy characters in head-to-head fights. I was flattered that Kvothe was included, but looking at the brackets, I saw that if Kvothe made it to the second round, he’d have to go up against Aslan.

That’s not an easy fight to win, and I kept thinking about how the scene would play out. How exactly, I wondered, would Kvothe win that fight?

Then the folks at Suvudu asked if I’d like to write up my version of the scene. So I did.

And you know what? It was fun. It was amazingly, delightfully fun. I’d actually forgotten how nice it was to write something just for pure shits and giggles. It didn’t eat up my precious writing time as I’d been fearing. Instead, it reminded me how much fun writing could be.

I thought to myself, “Fuck being a grown-up. I started writing to have fun. Now that I’m published, I should be doing fun things…”

And you know what? As soon as I gave up trying to be all professional and responsible (things that don’t come naturally to me, as a rule) my writing immediately improved. I wrote faster, and better, and I had more fun doing it.

Fast forward to earlier this year. I get an e-mail from John Scalzi. He sends me an e-mail that says (This is a paraphrase, mind you.)

Question: Would you have space on your schedule for a short (about 2K) story? It would be for a short (silly) story collection designed to raise money for the Lupus foundation. Deadline end of July-ish. Story doesn’t necessarily have to be “good” in a classic sense; in fact, it might be better if it’s not.

I think to myself. This sounds fun. It’s for charity. It’s short (I can do 2000 words standing on my head.) And he’s pretty much said it’s okay if my story ends up sucking. He’s practically encouraging me to suck.

So I e-mailed Scalzi back, and our e-mail exchange went roughly like this.

ME: Okay, I’m interested. What are the details?

HIM: Write a story about the events leading up to, and culminating in, the attached picture (which is a rough sketch; final picture to come).

(Click to embiggen)

ME: WTF?

HIM: For the sake of clarity, the person at the top is Wil Wheaton; the person at the bottom is me.

ME: Merciful Buddha…. Can you give me any context? Some framework I can use to cage this madness?

HIM: No. No context. Just write something. No slash. Otherwise, knock yourself out.

So there I am, utterly confusticated and bebothered. This is the first piece of short fiction I’ve agreed to write, and all I can think is, “What the fuck can I possibly write about this?”

This question spins around in my head for a couple days. I think, “Can I write a story about Scalzi and Wheaton playing D&D? Is that too geeky?  A holodeck adventure? Too cheap? Do I dare write the absolutely forbidden, ‘It was all just a dream’ story?”

Then it occurs to me that I’m approaching this from the wrong direction. I shouldn’t be trying to turn this picture into a joke. I shouldn’t try to be cute or gimmicky.

No. The events taking place in this picture are obviously epic. My story needs to be epic. And since it can’t be epic in length, it has to be epic in form….

So that’s how I ended up writing a poetic edda. For those of you who aren’t complete geeks, an edda is an old alliterative poem. Like Beowulf. Or the old Norse legends Tolkien ripped off when he was writing the Lord of the Rings.

Once I knew how to handle the story, I ended up having a ton of fun with it. I even brought in a certain celebrity in a cameo role…

Of course poetic edda aren’t supposed to be written in modern English, so I ended up spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to get the meter right. But you know my motto: if it’s worth writing, it’s worth obsessively revising.

And now, months later, I’m finally able to present you with the finished project:

(Beware, lest the awesome blind you…)

Check it out. I get third billing. How cool is that shit?

You can download the anthology for free, but I’d like to politely ask y’all to keep in mind that we’re trying to raise money for the Lupus foundation. For all intents and purposes, these stories are brought to you by the Lupus Foundation.

That means if you can afford it, donating to the cause would be a terribly kind thing to do. I know you have it in you. Make me proud.

You can download the anthology and revel in its majesty over here.

Share and enjoy,

pat

Also posted in being awesome, book covers, calling on the legions, cool news, Wil Wheaton | By Pat80 Responses
Published: June 17, 2010

A New Addition to the Family

Much to my delight, something arrived in the mail today:

(Click to Embiggen.)

That’s right, I was so excited about finally holding a real-life copy of The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle that I actually went outside to take a picture of it.

It was strange outside the house. Everything was very bright and green. There was some sort of fiery orb in the sky that burned me….

Seriously though, I’m so happy with how the book turned out. It’s gorgeous.

Best of all, since these boxes of books showed up today, I’ll be able to take them down to my reading near Milwaukee this Saturday.

That means if you swing by the reading, you’ll be one of the first people to hear me read the whole story. And, if you want, you can buy a copy before they’re even in stores.

The books literally just got in from the printers. So the folks at Subterranean Press are still busy processing them. That means they won’t be shipping for a little bit. But the good news is that if you haven’t ordered it yet, you still have a day or so to get free shipping.

Or you can come down to Waukesha on this Saturday and pick up a copy. Did I mention I’m doing reading and a signing there? I’m pretty sure I did.

Man, I really need to get some sleep. Even new-book excitement can’t change the fact that I’ve been up for 40 hours.

Sweet dreams everyone,

pat

Also posted in appearances, cool things, signing books, The Adventures of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle | By Pat58 Responses
Published: December 8, 2009

Coming Soon: The Adventures of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle.

Let me tell you a story.

Or rather, let me tell you a story about a story. (For those of you who know me, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.)

Back in 2001, when I was toiling in the salt mines of grad school, my girlfriend Sarah and I had very different sleep schedules. I was up late, and she went to bed early.

One night, when she was going to bed, she jokingly asked me to tell her a story.

So I did, starting with with the most saccharine faerie-tale beginning I could think of: “Once upon a time,” I said. “There was a Princess who lived in a Marzapan castle….”

The story was so cute and sweet that it began to irritate me even as I was telling it. And so I twisted it around until it was something entirely different. Something dark and strange. An older sort of Faerie tale.

When I finished, Sarah lay in bed, looking up at me with big eyes. “Now I can’t sleep,” she said.

So I told a second ending to the story. A sweet ending. A funny ending. A happy ending. An ending that made everything all better again. Sarah relaxed.

But that second ending irritated me again. It was too sweet and perfect.

So I gave the story a third ending. The perfect ending. An ending with teeth in it.

That night Sarah didn’t get to sleep in any sort of timely fashion, but the next day she told some friends about it. I repeated the story for them, and one of them said, “I’d love to draw that.”

Now a lot of times, that’s where things would stop. But the friend who spoke up was none other than Nathan Taylor: he’s the guy that drew the map for the US edition of the book. And he turned my puerile scrawlings for the Worldbuilder logo…

Into something cool and respectable looking:

I knew Nate was a great cartoonist and illustrator, as you can see for yourself over here or here.

But he completely blew me away with the illustrations he did for the Princess book. Here’s a little taste:

(Awww…)

Just yesterday, Subterranean Press announced The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: the Thing Beneath the Bed on their website, making it available for pre-order.

So I wanted to mention it here on the blog as quickly as possible. Apparently it’s been selling really quickly, and the limited leatherbound edition they’re printing is already half sold-out. So if you want one of those, you should get over there and order it sooner rather than later.

Edit: Apparently everyone wanted a limited edition, so they sold out about 9:00 this morning. Sorry about that. I don’t think anyone expected it to sell quite so quickly as that.

That said, it’s only the limited edition that sold out. There are still regular hardcovers available.

Also, Bill over at Subterranean Press has offered to throw five ARC copies of the princess book in with his other donations to Worldbuilders. If you win one of those, you get to see the finished product months before it comes out.

  • Five ARC copies of The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: the Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss and Nathan Taylor. Signed by the Author.

It’s a picture book that’s not for children. I can say with some certainty that it should never be read to children. But it’s perfect for adults with a dark sense of humor and a love of old-school faerie tales.

Stay tuned. We still have a lot more to come. New blogs every day or so…

pat

As always, with thanks to: Subterranean Press.



(Huzzah for Subterranean Press! Double Huzzah!)
Also posted in cool things, Nathan Taylor, Sarah, Subterranean Press | By Pat54 Responses
Published: August 12, 2008

Conventions, Forwards, and Jetlag.

So right now I’m in LA. I’m in the eye of the storm, schedule-wise. I was at Worldcon last weekend, and I’ll be at GenCon in a couple of days. Right now I’m helping out a little bit with the Writers of the Future workshop.

And when I say, “a bit” I mean just that. The workshop is run by Tim Powers, who (whom?) I’ve mentioned before on the blog, albeit briefly. He’s one of my favorite authors. And not only does he have an amazing grip on the craft of writing, but he’s a great teacher to boot. That means, for the most part, I feel my best contribution to the workshop is to nod and occasionally chime in with an emphatic “hell yes.”

Worldcon was cool. I sat on some panels talked about writing, and generally avoided making too much of an ass of myself. That’s about as much as I can hope for, overally.

I got about 30 people for my reading, which was nice. I read some poetry, a couple humor columns, including one of my old favorites about guinea pigs, and a tiny piece of book two. Not even hardly a taste, just a tease.

I also had my first experience of randomly seeing someone reading my book in public. Unfortunately, it was at a convention, so it only counts for half points, but it was still pretty cool.

I think I freaked out the woman who was reading it though. I walked up to her and said, “That’s my book!” She looked up at me with mingled surprise and horror. Understandable really, that’s how I’d feel if I looked up and saw some freakish hobo-muppet crossbreed grinning down at me.

Next weekend I’ll be at Gencon, doing all manner of panels, readings, and signings. I’ll also be making appearance at the local library, accompanied by the awesome costumers who won the photo contest. A good time will be had by all.

And in related news, I’ve written my first-ever introduction. It’s for the new Order of the Stick collection.

Gech. Stupid hotel computer. I can’t make it display the cover of the book. You’ll just have to follow the link, I guess.

If the comic sounds familiar, it should. Rich Burlew was the cartoonist who did the lovely tribute to Gary Gygax that I linked to a while back.

It was fun writing the forward for the book, as I really love the comic. Plus Rich drew a comic version of me which is pretty dead on. If you’re interested, the book will be available for sale at Gencon, and can be ordered off Rich’s website.

That’s all for now folks,

Pat

Also posted in conventions, hodgelany, recommendations | By Pat34 Responses
Published: June 2, 2008

A Glimpse of Things to Come.

I thought I might mention this, on the off chance that any of you might be interested….

What’s this? An anthology of some sort? Nice cover by Dave McKean. Wow. It’s got a story by Tim Powers. Oooh, one by Kage Baker, too. And another by… me?

Honestly, it’s just weird to see my name included on the cover with these other folks.

So… yeah. There I am in a book that will be coming out in a couple months. And no, I haven’t been dicking around, writing other stories instead of working on the second book. You see, the story included here is actually FROM the second book. It’s called “The Road to Levinshir.” It’s an excerpt from “The Wise Man’s Fear.”

So. Looking for an early taste of book two? Look no further.

Enjoy,

pat

Also posted in recommendations | By Pat25 Responses

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