Category Archives: conventions

Published: August 27, 2008

How David Anthony Durham Saved My Life

A year or so ago, I made the online acquaintance of fellow fantasy author David Anthony Durham.

Normally, I don’t associate with people who have three names. It’s just intimidating. Plus, on a practical level, it’s hard to deal with. Does he go by the full “David Anthony?” Is he a “David” a “Dave” or an “Anthony.” Hell, he could even be a “Tony.” I have a real problem remembering names. Even the simple first names of my friends. That means someone with three to seven different potential names is going to give me a lot of trouble.

I can’t remember how we first got in touch. But I do know that our first contact was over e-mail. And, to tell the truth, I was more than slightly intimidated by him.

Part of this was due to the fact that before his most recent novel (an epic fantasy called Acacia) he wrote literary fiction. While I’m not one to engage in genre snobbery. The fact remains that to Lit Fic has a certain amount of cultural cache. A certain gravitas.

Another intimidating thing was the fact that he had a tenure-track job teaching creative writing, which means he’s got some hefty edumication under his belt.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, this picture was the the first I ever saw of him:

Not only was he thinner and more attractive than myself. But to me this picture says: “I’m going kick a man’s ass, then go read some Coleridge. You have a problem with that? No. I didn’t think so. Move along.”

I know, I know. It’s wrong to judge a book by its cover. It’s doubly wrong to judge an author by his jacket photo. If you were to do that with me, you would be forced to assume that I was some sort of rogue Muppet, eremite priest, or Russian dictator.

When I finally met him at a convention. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that most of what I’d assumed about him was off-base. He wasn’t pompous, or stiff, or academic. He was relaxed and friendly, with an easy laugh.

At the last convention we hit together, Wiscon, we sat at the bar for an hour or two and had a lovely argument about Heinlein, and a different argument about C.S. Lewis, and a discussion about purpose of literature and the ethical responsibility of the author. We disagreed a lot.

It was lovely. I love few things more than a conversation with an intelligent person who is passionate in their beliefs and willing to disagree with me.

In short. He turned out to be my favorite sort of person. The sort of person that I wished lived closer to me so that he could come over to my house, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and get his ass solidly handed to him at Settlers of Catan.

Because, as I’ve said before, I cannot be beaten at Catan.

Lastly, though not leastly, David may prove instrumental in insuring that y’all get to see books two and three.

Let me explain. At World Fantasy convention last year his hotel was hell and gone from the convention center, and I had rented a car. So one night when things were winding down, I offered to give him a ride.

We wandered out of the hotel to the parking lot. After we had climbed into the car, he looked at me and said, “You’re not wearing your seatbelt?”

It wasn’t the sentence itself, it was the way he said it. He wasn’t chiding, or disapproving. He was honestly shocked. More than that. He was aghast. It was the same tone I use when I say, “You smoke?”

When I say this, usually the unspoken part of my comment is clear, “What are you, a fucking idiot?”

When he looked at me and said, “You’re not wearing your seat belt?” I thought to myself, “Of course. I should wear my seat belt. I’d be an idiot not to.”

And ever since then, I’ve worn my seat belt. This means that I’m much more likely to live long enough to get you day two and three of the trilogy, and many more after that.

Despite all of his coolness, it took me a long time to get around to reading David’s book. I did mention his book, right?

It’s epic fantasy. A nice mix of big empire-level stuff and character centered story. He’s a great worldbuilder, which is where my heart lies, and his cultures are varied and well-developed. He leans more toward description, where I tend to do more dialogue. But we’re playing a similar game in many ways. Odds are if you dig on Tolkien, Acacia will be right up your alley. Check it out.

That’s all for now,

pat

Also posted in meeting famous people, recommendations | By Pat24 Responses
Published: August 20, 2008

Convention stories

It seems like every time I’m at a convention, a thousand small, cool things happen. There’s usually a dozen or so that catch at me, and I think, “I’ll write about that in the blog when I get home.”

But then I actually get home, and I’m tired. Then the next day I need to do laundry, and answer about 800 e-mails, and make lusty snugglebunnies with my girlfriend.

And sometimes I write, too. I don’t know if y’all have heard, but there is a book that I’m supposed to be working on.

Typically, by the time I’m caught back up with my life, the memory of those cool little moments has faded somewhat. And so most of them just gently evaporate without ever being written down. Which is a shame, really.

So, instead of trying to weave all of these things into any sort of consistent narrative, I’m just going to bang a few of them out there. If you’re one of those literary folks, you can think of these as vignettes. If not, you can just pretend you’re reading a Vonnegut novel.

*****

I hate it when you’re at a crowded convention, and people stop in the middle of the hallway to talk to their four friends.

I know that one of the great joys of the convention is running into people and having a nice chat. I myself have been known to stop and talk with friends I haven’t seen in a long while. However, the center of the hallway is not the place for this conversation. A coffee shop? Yes. Over dinner at the Italian place? Certainly. How about over in the lounge there, on the couches? Why that sounds lovely too….

The hallway? No. That is not the right place for your reunion.

You see, the purpose of a hallway is to allow people to move from one place to another. That is its primary function. That is key to the platonic form of the hallway. If you stop in the hallway to talk, you are acting contrary to the fundamental nature of the hallway. This angers god and all clear-thinking individuals. Including me. Yes me, the person standing behind you. Yes me, the person standing motionless behind you in the hallway. Yes the person who looks as if he is thinking about howling with rage, punching you in the neck, then stepping over your doughy, twitching body.

In the interest of politeness and civilization, I resist my urges. However, I am tempted to do something. Like make buttons that read: “Hallways? Ask me how!” or a pamphlet entitled: “Hallways: a user’s guide for getting the fuck out of my way.”

*****

Bad – My cell phone went off during a panel.

Worse – I was one of the panelists.

Worst – I was the moderator.

P.S. Then it went off again.

*****

When did clocks become unfashionable? Am I the only one who remembers when you could go into a store and there would be a clock on the wall? You know, for the telling of time? Who decided that wasn’t cool anymore?

Yes I know most people have cell phones these days. But that shouldn’t make any difference. People used to have watches. You know what’s easier than digging around in your backpack, pulling out your phone, then opening it? Looking up on the fucking wall and seeing a clock there. That’s what.

*****

Fans are cool. My fans are cool to an exponentially higher degree. At gencon, after my first panel, a lovely young lady came up and handed me this….

This isn’t a terribly good reproduction of the watercolour, as I just snapped it with my digital camera. But the picture is obviously a likeness of me from when I dressed up like a gnome at gencon last year.

Did I ever post up a picture of that? I can’t remember. Here it is, just in case:

I never remember to take pictures of myself at these things, so I owe this picture to the fan who sent it along to me. When e-mailed it, she told me the story of how her daughter laughed when she saw it.

Her mom though that she was laughing at the obvious thing: a man dressed like a gnome. But apparently that wasn’t it at all. The little girl reached out, brushed at my face in the picture, and said, “I like his fur.”

Score another point for the beard.

*****

Though I’ve done a bunch of traveling lately, I’ve never flown on Southwest Airlines before. They don’t have assigned seating. Every ticket has a number, you board the plane in that order, then you pick whatever seat looks best to you, depending on what’s left. It was a little weird. Not bad, just unfamiliar.

Also, Southwest apparently has the only funny flight attendants in the whole business. I’ve tuned out the standard safety procedures for over a year now. You know what I’m talking about: that little pre-flight spiel where they explain how the seat belt works and lie to you about your seat cushion being able to float.

But on Southwest, the woman said, “Please listen closely while my ex-boyfriend and fiance demonstrate the safety procedures.” And I did pay attention, especially when she started to make fun of one of the guys who couldn’t get his life jacket on quickly enough for her taste. Later, when she was walking down the isle, one of the guys got on the intercom and made a boom-bada boom-bada noise in time with her walk. It was good fun.

Lastly, on Southwest, they don’t cheap you on the snacks. They go around with a big box of different goodies, and if you say, “I want one of each.” Then they just give you one of each. They didn’t act like the CEO was going to count the packets of peanut butter crackers at the end and beat them if one is missing. Plus you got a whole can of soda and not just a cupful, which I appreciate.

These may not sound like much, but life, like writing, is built from small details. If I’m going to pay 400 bucks for a plane ticket, then I want a whole can of soda and an extra packet of peanuts. Does it make me feel better? Yes. Yes it does. It’s like being given the choice between sodomy and sodomy with a little lube. You’re going to have the sodomy either way, so you come to appreciate whatever small pieces of consideration the airline overlords grant you.

*****

That’s all for now. More later. Off to bed.

pat

Also posted in cool things, fan coolness | By Pat37 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 hodgelany, recommendations, side projects | By Pat34 Responses
Published: July 12, 2008

On not being a winner

A week or two ago a fan wrote in with the following:

Mr. Rothfuss,

Sorry to hear you didn’t win the Locus award for Best Debut Novel of the year. Still, I hope you got to rub elbows with the famous people and wear a tux at the Locus awards.

I’d already had a handful of people send me their condolences about not winning. Some were gentle commiserations, while other folks were frothy with rage, upset at the sheer injustice of me not winning every award in existence. Even the ones that were given out before my book was published. Even the ones that were given out before I was born.

Regardless of the tone, all the messages were sweet. And I told them the same thing: the winner, Heart Shaped Box, was a good book. A really good book, actually. I enjoyed it a lot. (Though I did something I rarely do, and listened to it as an audiobook without actually reading the paper version first.)

For the more morally outraged folks, I explained that Joe hill has actually been writing short stories for a while, so he had a bit of a pre-established readerbase even before his novel came out. Plus, he writes in the thriller/horror genre, which tends to have a bigger readership than epic fantasy. Both of those things, I explained, couldn’t help but get him more votes, and that’s the cool thing about the Locus Award – everyone gets a vote. It’s like a democracy or something.

Plus, Hill’s acceptance speech was very gracious. He mentioned all the other nominees, myself included. That’s classy.

As for the Locus Awards themselves – they really weren’t a tuxedo sort of affair. They’re more of a Hawaiian shirt deal. Which, personally, I found kind of refreshing.

I also didn’t get to do much elbow rubbing while I was out there. I had some sort of strange fever that left me exhausted and sweaty. Really sweaty. There were occasions where I was literally dripping, and that’s not the best way to make a good impression on folks. So, for the most part, I just hung out.

I did get to hear William Gibson talk, which was pretty cool. And I got to hang out with Peter S. Beagle for a while (for reasons that I will discuss in a later blog.) That was terribly exciting despite the fact that I didn’t feel very well. My only anxiety is that I looked like I was having the worst panic attack ever. But sweaty exhaustion aside, the fact remains that getting to talk with Mr Beagle made the whole trip worthwhile.

And that, I thought, was the Locus awards in a nutshell.

But it wasn’t. Just a couple days ago, someone sent me an e-mail saying it was a shame about the awards. I was robbed, etc. etc.

I bounced them back the same response: Lost to a good book, established writer, classy speech.

Then the fan replied and said, “You do know that they changed how the votes were counted after the polls were closed, don’t you?”

To which I said, “What?”

So he sent me a link or two explaining what had happened.

For those of you without the inclination to click and read the details on your own, here’s the short version. After the polls closed, Locus apparently decided to count their subscriber’s votes twice when tallying things up.

Which changed the results, obviously. Cory Doctorow’s story collection Overclocked would have won first place if everything was even. But after they weighted their subscribers votes double, he came in third.

And, apparently, if they hadn’t changed things, I would have won in my category.

So now I really don’t know how I feel. Honestly, it would be way easier for me to form an opinion if my book weren’t one of those affected by the change. (or should that be “effected?” I can never remember….)

Changing the way the votes are tallied after the polls are closed looks pretty dodgy though, no matter how you shake it. It makes it seem as if things got counted up, then folks started saying, “Hmmmm…. Well, how does it turn out if everyone who lives in New Hampshire gets two votes? No. Not what we’re looking for. How about people with a GED only get three-fifths of a vote? Still no good. Starbelly sneeches get ten votes? Yes. Perfect. That works. Let’s go with that.”

I don’t really have a good note to close on. The fact remains that Hill’s book is still great and his speech was still classy. If I didn’t mind losing to him before, logic says that it shouldn’t bother me now.

On the other hand, winning awards is cool. Aside from the warm fuzzy, it creates publicity, and that helps spread the word about the book.

Plus, this award was a plaque of some sort. I could have used that for all sorts of things. Obviously it would be useful for decorating the barren walls of my house and intimidating my enemies, but that’s just for starters. I could have also used it for serving drinks when company comes over. It also looked pretty heavy, so I could have used it as a projectile in the eventuality of a zombie attack.

Meh. That’s all I’ve got. I should get back to working on the book.

Later all,

pat

Also posted in awards, recommendations | By Pat39 Responses
Published: June 29, 2008

Confusion Podcast.

For those of you who are interested, here’s a recording of a panel I was on earlier this year out at Confusion. You could consider it a podcast, of sorts. I have to say, it wasn’t my most gripping performance ever, as I was on a panel with a bunch of smart people with some good stuff to say on the subject.

However, to make up for my own lacking, you get the inestimable John Scalzi as moderator. He’s a fun guy to listen to. If you haven’t given his website a lookie-loo, you probably should.

Later all,

pat

Also posted in appearances | By Pat5 Responses
Published: March 28, 2008

Interview part II and a local convention.

Part two of the Peter Hodges interview is now live over HERE, for those of you who are into that sort of thing….

Also, for those of you that are hanging around here in Central Wisconsin, I’ll be at a little one-day convention in Wausau tomorrow. You can find some details HERE.

And lastly, for those of you on Facebook, we’re having a bit of a shindig to celebrate the paperback release of the book. There will be cake* and fabulous prizes for people who are interested in participating. So stop on by if you’re interested.

pat

* (The cake is a lie.)

Also posted in appearances, Interviews | By Pat16 Responses
Published: January 10, 2008

A Convention, A Trip to Boston, and a Touching Story

First, an announcement for those of you Michigan area. I’m going to be at Confusion Jan 18th through the 20th. I’ll be signing books, speaking on panels, and generally getting my geek on. Stop on by if that sort of thing sounds like a good time to you….

Second, an apology. Over the last year I’ve fallen into a bad habit. I post a blog announcing some appearance I’m going to make, then, when I come back, I make a post along the lines of, “Whew. I’m back. It was cool, I’ll give you the details later.”

But then, of course, I never do.

This isn’t because I don’t love y’all. It’s because this past year I’ve been really over-busy. Typically I spend all weekend at a con, come back exhausted, then spend most of the week catching up on everything I’d fallen behind on because I was out of town. Then, by the time I’m caught up, it’s usually time for me to leave town again….

As a result, there are a bunch of stories I’ve been meaning to tell, but haven’t. I’ve met cool people, discovered cool games and books, and frequently made an ass of myself in a variety of amusing ways. The last one, if you haven’t guessed yet, is a particular specialty of mine.

So expect to see some of those convention stories popping up over the next couple months. Hopefully they’ll be somewhat amusing, if not particularly timely.

Thirdly and lastly, the story.

My recent trip to Boston was, by and large, a lot of fun. The trip itself was made extra exciting by the fact that I was traveling through airport security without a form of government ID.

You see, just before the holiday season, I accidentally left my driver’s licence at K-mart when returning a defective broom (It sounds like there’s an interesting story there, but trust me, there isn’t.) Afterward, K-mart called to tell me my licence was there, but because I went home for the holidays instead of rushing to their store to pick it up, K-mart decided to be helpful and drop my ID in the mail.

Of course I didn’t find this out until three hours before my plane was supposed to leave for Boston. Making things even more lovely was the fact that they had mailed it out in the middle of the holiday post office crunch. And that they had mailed it to the wrong address.

Rather than take this opportunity to invent scathing new cusses and inflict them on the hapless K-mart employee, I took the high road with the hope that it will help me accumulate good karma. so that the next time I reincarnate I get to come back as something really cool.

For those of you who don’t know, karma is like…. Well, you know how you can collect box tops, or Camel-cash or Kool-aid points and trade them in for prizes? I’m a little fuzzy on the concept, but I’m pretty sure that’s what Karma is like. It’s like Kool-Aid points for your soul. I want to collect enough Karma Points so that I get to reincarnate as Optimus Prime, Allyson Hannigan, or a glowing orb made entirely out of fluffy puppies and orgasms.

What was I talking about again…? Oh yeah. Boston….

Anyway, I made the trip with much anxiety, but no actual trouble. Despite my fears, they did not probe me in any unseemly ways. In fact, they tossed my luggage a lot less viciously than they normally do when I’m trying to play by the rules. Maybe I’ll make a habit of leaving my

Out in Boston I met up with the publicity people from my UK publisher. They were a lovely crew and we shot a bunch of video interview footage. Among other things I told a joke about a gorilla, and attempted to speak with a Norwegian accent. The Gollancz marketing people were a blast, and I hope that had as good a time as I did….

I’m told that we might get to see some of that footage eventually on youtube, I’m told. If that happens, I’ll post it up here….

We had a remarkably good turnout at Pandemonium books despite the bitter, bitter cold. I read a little and answered questions. I really enjoy doing Q&A, talking about writing and the world I’ve created.

However, one question caught me off guard as I’d never been asked it before. It was, “How cool is it to be you?” I didn’t really have a good answer for that….

I also got to sign a book “To E-bay” which is something I’ve always wanted to do.

If you’re interested in more details, an attendee posted up a blog about the signing HERE including several pictures of me. Yes, I know that the shirt I’m wearing to the signing is the same one I’m wearing in my author photo on the webpage. It’s not a coincidence. The truth is, I only own one shirt.

I did not, as many of you speculated, get my ass handed to me at Catan. But that’s only because we didn’t actually get a chance to play. Two lovely people showed up and informed me that they actually worked on the computer version of Catan. One of them had a cool travel set of Catan with her, and I got the feeling that if we did get into it, I’d start off winning a game for fifty cents and the evening would end with me stark naked, owing each of them thousands of dollars.

The next day before I flew home, I went to the Boston aquarium. Where I formed the following opinions: penguins stink, seals are cool, fish are weird.

I also got to touch a sea anemone with my finger. And, no offence to the other cool things that happened out there, I have to say that that was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the trip….

Seriously, it was really cool.

Later all,

pat

Also posted in appearances | By Pat16 Responses

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