Category Archives: emo bullshit

“Through Dangers Untold and Hardships Unnumbered….”

(This blog got real long and rambly, even for me. The TLDR is here, if you want.)

*     *     *

Okay. For the avoidance of doubt, this isn’t a blog about Labyrinth.

I *could* write a blog about Labyrinth. Hell, I probably *should* write a blog about Labyrinth.

Did I ever tell the story of the time I dressed up as Jareth from Labyrinth?

(You *can* click to embiggen this, but you probably shouldn’t.)

Yes yes. I know. The resemblance to David Bowie is uncanny.

But as I’ve said, this isn’t a blog about Labyrinth. It’s a blog about being nervous and not understanding why.

Which means, I suppose, that this might be a blog about anxiety.

*     *     *

I’ve been meaning to write a blog on mental health for the whole month of May (It’s mental health awareness month.) And there’s a certain grim humor attached to the fact that I haven’t had my shit together enough to actually finish any of the blogs I started *because* of… Mental health stuff. But all roads lead to Amber, I suppose. So here we are, and what I meant to be a blog about the kickstarter I’m launching tomorrow has the most ADHD opening ever, and then segues into me talking about anxiety.

Here’s the thing. I’ve had a vast, pervasive, and widely assorted grab-bag of mood disorder experience over the course of my life. It’s only over the last 10 years or so, since I’ve been doing a lot of therapy, that I’ve put names to things. The most notable of these is probably my relatively recently being diagnosed with  ADHD.

That said, looking back, it’s obvious that some of these things have been with me through the course of my whole life. What I used to think of as my “Hamlet Moods” back in high-school had more than a passing resemblance to depressive episodes. One of my earlier diagnoses was Cyclothymia, which means I go a little higher than most people, then a little lower than most people. So I get a taste of both the manic and the depressive.

But never anxiety. Or at least not until recently. It’s only over the last 5-6 years that I’ve had a taste of Anxiety that. And I have to say, I don’t care for it. Maybe I’m just more familiar with it, but pound-for-pound it’s harder to deal with depressive symptoms.

I once had someone describe Anxiety to me as, “Hearing that tense music that plays in a video game before the big boss fight… but then no boss shows up and you’re all keyed up, thinking, where is it? What do I have to fight?”

I like this description because it makes it clear that the feeling isn’t the problem. The feeling of being a little scared and keyed up and nervous isn’t bad or wrong. It’s the way you *should* feel during a boss fight. But if you feel it so strongly you can’t fight the boss, then it’s a disorder. It’s disruptive. Alternately, what makes it a mood *disorder* is when that feeling happens and there’s no boss to fight. Otherwise it’s just a mood.

So I should make it clear. What I’ve had over the last couple years has been a disorder. Waking up in the middle of the night sweating. Being unable to sleep in the first place. Being scared at nothing. Jumping at small noises. Things like that are disproportionate and disruptive.

What I have tonight is probably just nervousness. Just feelings. I’m nervous about the kickstarter we’re going to launch tomorrow, and I don’t know why, and that’s been making me more nervous. Which sucks.

But I think I’ve finally figured it out.

*     *     *

As I mentioned on the blog months ago….

Huh. I just spent 10 minutes looking through my old blogs for the post I made about Digger. I know I talked about it back during the fundraiser. We made the big announcement then. But I guess that blog is one of the hundreds I’ve half-written then left unfinished. Damn.

For those of you who want the whole story, here’s that video:

For those of you who want the short version: I found out a comic I love had gone out of print, one thing led to another, and now I’m finally doing something I’ve dreamed about for ages. I’m starting my own tiny publishing imprint: Underthing Press.

(I’m really happy with how the logo turned out.)

The first book we’re publishing is Digger. It’s our maiden voyage. Nooo… That sounds wierd. Our first try? Our… dry run?

It’s our first time. And I’m nervous. Really really nervous. Which feels so odd to me, as I’ve done a *ton* of kickstarters before. The first one we did went over really well. The Tak kickstarter blew the doors off and we raised well over $1,000,000 dollars. The card kickstarter went really well too…

So why am I so nervous about this one? I don’t mind being nervous, but I hate not knowing *why* I feel a way. If there’s actually a boss here to fight, I’ll fight it. But if not, then I need to realize I’m maybe having a problem…

I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I think I’ve finally manage to put my finger on what makes this kickstarter different.

First, the other kickstarters were all based in my world, based on my books. My thought was always, “I’ll put this out for people, and if they want it, they can buy it. And if they’re not interested, no hard no foul.”

But this *isn’t* my book. It’s someone else’s book that I’m trying to bring back into the world. If I do a bad job, I’m letting down someone else…

Another issue is that we were actually going to launch this kickstarter waaaaay back in August of 2021. But various things kept spiking our wheel. Covid problems. Paper shortages. Printers going out of business. Quotes changing. Shipping being *wildly* disrupted. As a result, what I’d initially thought of as being an easy first project for Underthing has take a lot more time and energy than I’d anticipated, as we’ve had to solve some problems multiple times….

I’m worried because we can’t fill this kickstarter with stretch goals the way I like to because we want these books to be beautiful right from the beginning.

I’m worried because we’re doing this one as a 21 day kickstarter, instead of my typical 31 that I’ve always done before….

And of course, I’m not looking forward to the people who are going to come after me for doing *anything* other than working on Book Three. That’s a persistent dread. Every time I tweet, whenever I leave my house for a walk, I know there’s probably a 50/50 chance of someone coming up to me and asking me about it. Sometimes it’s just casual, sometimes it’s aggressive, but it’s always a possibility.

But even as I type those up, I realize they’re not my real fear. The other kickstarters were side projects. They would succeed or fail. But Underthing press… It’s something I’ve kinda wanted to do for a decade. A place where I can bring books I love back into print. A way to maybe revive series that have been canceled or abandoned by other publishers.

And, of course, a place where I can publish some of my own odd little projects without having to worry about making the project appealing to a publisher. I want to do my own weird shit in my own weird way. The second book I want do publish with Underthing Press is the graphic novel of The Boy the Loved the Moon that I’ve been working on with Nate Taylor for years now. I had fun working on the Rick and Morty Vs. Dungeons and Dragons comic. But boy I felt my hands were tied in so many ways with that. There was so much I *couldn’t* do….

Yeah. Writing this down, I realize that’s the real thing. This kickstarter isn’t just me trying to bring a book I love back into print. It’s also testing the waters to see if we can make Underthing Press work. It’s seeing if people will show up after all these years of me not being able to finish my book, and trust me to at least give them a book. If this kickstarter flops, it’s not just a single project, it’s maybe the future projects, too…

So… yeah. Yay? I solved my anxiety puzzle. It still doesn’t feel great, but it feels better knowing *why* I feel nervous.

Anyway… This blog was supposed to be a kickstarter announcement, and I’ve kinda done everything but that.

What’s more, it’s no longer the night before the kickstarter, it’s the morning of. We’re going to be launching it inside the hour.

So here it is….

Here’s a link to the kickstarter page, if you’re interested. If you get there before it launches, you can click the button to be notified as soon as things go live…

If any of you have any questions about the kickstarter or Underthing Press, feel free to drop them in the comments below, we’ll try to answer them. But please be patient. As soon as the kickstarter launches, we’re going to have a busy couple days, as the first 36 hours or so of a kickstarter can determine how the whole thing turns out…

Later space cowboys,

pat

  • [Edit: 2:18 PM] Kickstarter launched at 1:30, and funded in less than 5 minutes. Kinda stunned, honestly. We’re at over $50,000.

I did a livestream for the launch. Nothing fancy, mostly just me fretting and being surprised. Here’s the archived video on twitch, if you’re interested.

  • [Edit: 4:02 PM] Whelp. Just got back from picking the boys up from school and saw this.

Almost at 100,000 and we’re not even three hours in. I’m honestly, legitimately surprised. Maybe I shouldn’t be, after all these years. But I still am.

Today’s a good day.

 

 

Also posted in Nathan Taylor Art, Underthing | By Pat56 Responses

A blog, if only barely.

Hey there everyone,

You know that thing that happens sometimes, when you slowly drift out of contact with a friend? Something changes in your life, or maybe a few things, and you slowly start to see them less often. Call them less often. Talk less often.

And before you know it, it’s been *ages* since you’ve talked. And it just feels weird reaching out for no reason? And it feels weird reaching out when you *do* have a reason too, because then you worry that it seems like you only give them a call when you need help moving a couch or digging up an old friend’s address.

I don’t know if that makes any sense to you. I kinda hope it doesn’t. It’s a lousy feeling. It sucks to drift away from friends.

For those of you who do know how it feels, or can imagine it…. well…. that’s how I’ve been feeling about the blog lately.

Except it’s not that simple. I still think of stories that it would be fun to tell…. but the thought of putting them up here? It wearies me. I feel so tired all the time lately. And it’s not just that I’m too busy, underslept, and behind on everything. It’s not just that the world is very heavy on me lately, and I’ve been having trouble finding joy. It’s not just that my dad passed away last year….

Did you know I’m the oldest person in my family now? I have no grandparents left. No parents. There are four of the Rothfuss name left in Wisconsin. One is my little sister, and the others are my boys. I love my sister, and the boys are a delight. But it is strange to be eldest. And it is strange to be so alone.

This is the other reason I don’t write much in the blog lately: A lot of my thoughts are not cheerful. I am not full of cute kid stories and musings on the nature of love. Lately I think about the fact that I need glasses to read. Which may seem like a small thing to you, especially if you’ve always worn glasses. But for me? I’ve read a book or two a day for my entire life. I’ve spent more time in my life reading than… probably any other activity. I’ve always been able to pick up a book and just… go. Just leave for somewhere else. I’ve lived so many other lives in so many other worlds.

And now I can’t do it any more unless I wear glasses. It’s like I’ve spent my whole life being able to travel to Narnia and now someone put a lock on the wardrobe door….

See? That’s some bummer shit right there. Who wants to read a blog about that? And I don’t know if it’s good for me to spend  hours of my life writing down my grim maunderings about the shape of the world and my own impending mortality. It would be like a shittier version of The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock where I replaced all the literary allusions with me shouting the word “fuck” all the time.

Anyway, I was just poking my head up on here to say… well… I guess I’m saying that I’m sorry we’ve been drifting apart, you and I. (And by you, I mean my blog, and the people who used to enjoy reading it.)

I hope we can figure out how to have fun together again at some point. I’m going to try posting up some little blogs soon. Just small things so that maybe  can remember what it was like when we just goofed off on here. I could show off presents people have sent me. Or talk about the time I got to hug Telly.

Poor telly. What a terrible expression of existential dread. I’m so sorry.

Anyway. That’s all I have for now, folks.

Take care of each other.

pat

 

P.S. Also, for those of you who are into games, stories, and/or The Name of the Wind, there’s a cool storytelling game happening on kickstarter right now. The folks from Brotherwise games reached out to me a while back, and I liked the game enough to let them develop a 75 card expansion for it based off my books.

There are only 3 days left in the kickstarter. So if you’re the sort of person who loves kickstarter exclusives, you might want to hop on over there and check it out. 

Sorry that I haven’t mentioned it before now, but like I said. The blogs… they haven’t been coming so easy lately.

Maybe I’ll try to do a little blog where I show off some off some of the cards they’re prototyping for the game tomorrow. That might be an easy one to do… Help me get back into the swing of talking about fun things.

Anyway. Yeah. If you’re curious, here’s your link.

Later Edit: I just left a comment on my blog for the first time in a while. That new Gapcha is…. interesting. I think it’s going to be irritating in the long run though. I’ll see if I can find something a little less time consuming….

Also posted in a ganglion of irreconcilable antagonisms, gaming, musings, the man behind the curtain | By Pat427 Responses

Thoughts on Pratchett – [Part 1]

Earlier this year, when I was in Germany on tour, Terry Pratchett died.

It didn’t come as a complete shock. We’ve known for ages that he was sick. We’ve had years to brace for the inevitable impact.

Even so, it hit me surprisingly hard. I hadn’t expected that.

Odds are, if you know much anything about me, you know I’ve been a fan of Pratchett for years. If you follow me on goodreads you’ve seen me write reviews so gushy that they border on the inarticulate.

Terry Pratchett – Facing Extinction

I didn’t know him. Honestly, I didn’t even know too much about him. I saw him speak once at a convention in Madison, and got to meet him very briefly. I wrote about it on the blog.

The fact remains that his work (and a few of the things I knew about him) had a huge impact on me.

So… yeah. It hit me kinda hard.

If you’re in your 20’s and 30’s and reading this blog on the interweb, it may be hard for you to understand that our opinions about authors used to come almost entirely from reading their books. Even after the internet crawled gasping onto the devonian shore of the 1990’s things like social media and author blogs simply didn’t exist in any meaningful way.

As a result, one of my first exposures to Terry Pratchett as a person was in an interview in the Onion back in 1995. Just to give you an idea of the time frame. That was back when you could pick up a copy of The Onion printed on paper. What’s more, it available *only* on paper, and even then, you could only get it in my home town of Madison, WI.

What Pratchett said in that interview had a big effect on me, as I’d been working on my own novel for a couple years at that point.

It took some digging (as I said, this was published pre-internet) but here’s the interview:

O: What’s with the big-ass hat?

Pratchett: Ah… That’s the hat I wear. I don’t know, it… It… That hat, or types like it, I’ve worn for years and years. Because I bought one, and I liked it. And then people started taking photographs of me in it, and now, certainly in the UK, it’s almost a case of if I don’t turn up in my hat people don’t know who I am. So maybe I could just send this hat to signings. I just like hats. I like Australian book tours, because Australians are really, I mean that is the big hat country, Australia.

O: You’re quite a writer. You’ve a gift for language, you’re a deft hand at plotting, and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You’re so good you could write anything. Why write fantasy?

Pratchett: I had a decent lunch, and I’m feeling quite amiable. That’s why you’re still alive. I think you’d have to explain to me why you’ve asked that question.

O: It’s a rather ghettoized genre.

P: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book— I think I’ve done twenty in the series— since the fourth book, every one has been one the top ten national bestsellers, either as hardcover or paperback, and quite often as both. Twelve or thirteen have been number one. I’ve done six juveniles, all of those have nevertheless crossed over to the adult bestseller list. On one occasion I had the adult best seller, the paperback best-seller in a different title, and a third book on the juvenile bestseller list. Now tell me again that this is a ghettoized genre.

O: It’s certainly regarded as less than serious fiction.

P:  (Sighs) Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy.

Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.

(Pauses) That was a bloody good answer, though I say it myself.

I’m looking forward to buying myself a cheese hat.

O: Back to the hat.

P: Let’s go back to the hat… Everybody needs an edge, and if the hat gives you an edge, why not wear a hat? When you get started writing, you’re one of the crowd. If the hat helps, I’ll wear a hat— I’ll wear two hats! In fact, I’m definitely going to buy a cheese hat before I leave here. We’ve never heard of them in the UK, and I can see it as being the latest thing in fashion.

Okay, you can turn the tape back off again.

I actually remember where I was when I read that. Right now, twenty years later, I remember where I was sitting as I held the paper and read it.

I’m not going to be cliche and say it changed my life.

You know what? I am. I’m going to say it. It changed my life.

Remember what year this was. It was 1995. This was before Harry Potter was written. Before Neil Gaiman wrote Neverwhere.

Pixar has just released its first movie. There was no Matrix. No Sixth Sense. No Lord of The Rings movies. Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy were a decade away.

There was no Game of Thrones on HBO. Hell, there wasn’t even Legend of the Seeker. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was 2 years away, and even more years from being recognized as brilliant television, rather than silly fluff with vampires.

I had been writing my fantasy novel for about two years, and while I loved fantasy, I knew deep down, it was something I should feel ashamed of. Fantasy novels were the books I read as a kid, and people picked on me for it. There were no classes on the subject at the University. I knew deep down in my bones that no matter how much I happened to love fantasy, it was all silly bullshit.

Even these days, people look down on fantasy. They think of it as kid stuff. They dismiss it as worthless. They say not real literature. People say that *NOW* despite the fact that Game of Thrones and The Hobbit and Avengers and Harry Potter are bigger than The Beatles.

That’s NOW. If you weren’t around back then, you really can’t begin to understand how much worse it was. When I told people I was working on a fantasy novel, a lot of people wouldn’t even really know what I was talking about.

I would say, “I’m writing a fantasy novel” and people would look at me with earnest confusion and concern in their eyes, and they would say, “Why?”

Then I read that article, and it filled me with hope. With pride.

*     *     *

I’ve got more to say on this, but this blog is already really long. And I’m leaving for PAX in the morning, so I’ll save the rest for next week

Be good to each other everyone,

pat

Also posted in European Adventures, Fantasy, Stories about stories., the longest fucking blog ever, the man behind the curtain, travel abroad | By Pat103 Responses

The Slow Regard of Silent Things

So my book is launching today, and so far I’ve spent the day trying not to think about it.

I am not a nervous person, but I’ll be honest with you. This book has me tied in a bit of a knot. I didn’t feel this way when Name of the Wind came out because I knew that book was good. I’d carried it around next to my heart for 14 years before it was published. I was confident in it.

But this book… When I finished it, I honestly expected it to just sit in a trunk for years. I knew I liked it. But I also knew it wasn’t like any sort of fantasy story I’d ever read before. At best it was arty, at worst it was incomprehensible. Bizarre. I mean, just look at the title: The Slow Regard of Silent Things. What does that even mean? My translators can’t figure it out, and I can’t articulate it in any sensible way. So in the rest of the world, the book is going to be “The Music of Silence.”

10455302_803231523020247_6671642388373659392_n

And yes, yes, I liked it, but it was *my* book. Of course I like it. An author’s view of their own work is never objective.

So today I’m nervous. I’m resisting the urge to go look for reviews. Actively fighting the urge. The almost overwhelming urge. That way lies madness.

So I go onto twitter instead. The first, best refuge of a desperate man looking for substanceless distraction. And instead I and see people talking about the book. They’ve already read it, and before I can look away, I see this:

@PatrickRothfuss Just finished the book. I can only compare it to Ulysses, but not boring. You just made art. Makes the world brightier.

— Deoch y Stanchion (@DeochyStanchion) October 28, 2014

And it helps. A little. The twitter handle lets me know the reader isn’t exactly objective either. They’re obviously a fan…

But the more I roll this around in my head, the more it troubles me. Ulysses was one of those books that I was supposed to read for class but I never did. All I really know about it is that it’s one of the all-time front runners for pretentious, literary self-indulgence, right?

So I turn off twitter. I avoid reading e-mails that might even imply they have anything to do with my book. Then I grit my teeth and answer them anyway, because most of them are from my publisher, and I can’t just leave them hanging.

book

I just went online to find a copy of the US cover to post up, and I found this. This sort of thing warms my heart. Y’all are so enthusiastic and encouraging and kind. It makes me smile. It makes me think that things will be okay. My readers are up for something a little different. They’re geeks. They’re smart.

Then I picture the person above reading the book, their forehead furrowed, their expression screaming, “What the actual fuck Rothfuss? What the hell is this story even about?”

I hate the thought of disappointing people. And this is something that I didn’t understand until I was a parent. The more someone loves you, the more you have the ability to disappoint them. I love my little boy, and I get so irritated with him sometimes. Oot loves me beyond all reason and sense, and when I tell him no, I have hours of work to do, I can’t play, his face falls. Then he smiles a fake smile at me and tells me it’s okay. He’s only five and he already knows how to fake a smile to hide his disappointment. It breaks my heart.

I’m doing an event in Portland tonight in just a couple hours. It will be a good time. The Doubleclicks are opening for me, and last I heard we’d sold over 700 tickets.

What’s the point of all of this? There’s no point. I’m just rambling. Fretting.

I should go take a shower and see if I can do something to make myself look slightly civilized. Maybe eat some dinner. I should definitely Coffee-Up for my performance. Caffeine will probably help.

I hope all of you are well. If you’re reading the book, I hope you’re enjoying it. If you’re not reading the book, I hope you’re enjoying not reading it.

As always, yours in verbosity,

pat

Also posted in things I shouldn't talk about, trepidation | By Pat268 Responses

Fanmail Q&A: Convention Adventures

Pat,

I know you just did some touring around. You hit a bunch of conventions in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Seattle…

Why don’t you tell us about your trips? Not a lot of us can make it to your events, but we’d love to hear some cool stories from the road…

What was you’re favorite part of your travels?

Joe.

*     *     *

Joe,

The truth is, I always mean to write about my conventions/readings/adventures when I get back from them. Because honestly, something interesting always happens.

(What happens in Austin, stays in Austin.)

The problem is, when I get back from these things, I’m exhausted. Plus the travel has usually put me behind on a bunch of other projects. So I spend a couple days answering e-mail and trying to get caught up with things. By the time I *am* caught up, the convention has usually been over for a month. Or two. Or ten.

In fact, when I was at Gencon, someone asked me a question similar to yours. Except they asked about the book tour I did last year. 21 events in 21 days, all over the country.

“You never wrote about it on the blog,” she said.

“Oh sure I did,” I said.

“A little,” she said. “But not much at all. And I should know. I just recently found your blog and read the whole thing.”

“Wow,” I said. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I twisted my ankle so I couldn’t go hiking. It took me about three weeks and I kinda I read it all. The baby ducks. Your Aslan Story. The  Gaiman-Day unit of coolness…

I thought about it for a second, and realized that while I had *planned* to write blogs about some of my road adventures, I’d probably never gotten around to it.

Alternately, sometimes I start writing a blog, and never finish it because other things come up. I have a blog titled: “why people kill themselves in hotel rooms” that I’ve been trying to finish for more than a year now….

“So what was your favorite part of the tour?” she asked.”What was cool?”

I thought about it for a bit. Then told her the truth: There were a lot of cool things that happened. I met a lot of lovely readers. I got hugs and cookies and whiskey and knives…

And a plush unicorn Pegasus kitten.

I did a midnight reading in San Fransisco for the people that couldn’t fit into my earlier reading. Much to everyone’s surprise, more than 300 people showed up despite the ridiculously late hour.

My first signing was over 600 people. So many that I couldn’t take a picture of them all at once. So many that they filled two levels of the bookstore. I got to read in the Library of Congress. I met people that actually squeed with delight.

I met someone who had my name tattooed on her arm…

…which is a level of devotion that is equal parts flattering and terrifying. Especially given that book two wasn’t even out yet.

I got to do a reading at the Library of Congress. People dressed up in costumes….

But honestly? My favorite part came right at the end of the tour, when I met up with Sarah and Oot right at the end of the tour in Boston. I hadn’t seen them in a long while, and I missed Oot terribly.

Oot was barely a year an a half old at that point, so me being away for three weeks was a big deal. I got to see him at various points in the tour, but it was only for an hour or an evening at a time. And as I’ve made clear on the blog, when I’m away from him for a long period of time, I start to lose my shit. Around day five I become a wretched weepy thing, unable to go out in public without embarrassing myself.

It was even worse back then. He was so young. I was worried he wouldn’t remember me. Worried that he’d be shy of me….

So the first morning after the tour was over, we hung out in the hotel. We cuddled a little, and when he got bored with that, I asked him if he wanted to make a pillow fort.

He did. So we made a fort using the ridiculous number of pillows that those posh hotels feel obliged to put on your bed.

To all you parents out there. If you’re not making pillow forts with your kids, you’re really missing out. You don’t need a lot of pillows. Three or four is plenty. In some ways, it can be better without a lot of pillows, because then you can make yourself *part* of the fort. If your kid isn’t a big cuddler, you can get some clandestine snuggling that way.

Sarah and my dad went out for breakfast. Oot and I didn’t. We stayed in the hotel room and continued to made forts.

I told Oot that he better be careful, because there was a creature called the Goonch that would nibble his feet if they were hidden under the pillows. Then I would sneak my hand under the pillow and tickle him.

It has been more than a year since I started that little game, and it still hasn’t gotten old. Not for either of us.

He had a few plush toys with him, and I thought that maybe they would try to break into the fort. Add some drama to the game.

But Oot thought that if they wanted to come in the fort, that was fine by him. That made me unreasonably proud. No pointless antagonism. No warmongering. He just wanted to hang out in his fort with his friends.

So it went for about two hours, until Sarah and my dad got back from breakfast.

That was my favorite part of my book tour….

[Editorial note: I just searched my computer for an hour, looking for the pictures I know I took of little Oot in his pillow fort. I can’t find them and it breaks my heart a little.

Instead, please accept this picture of comparable cuteness]

(Click to Embiggen the Cute.)

I know we’re all programmed to think our kids are cute, but seriously. Look at him.

And that hair. I can’t bring myself to cut it. He’s just too pretty. About 80% of the people who meet him think he’s a little girl because of it. But I love it. Plus  can’t help but feel that will probably be healthy for him in the long run. Maybe if folks think he’s a girl for another couple years he’ll be slower to absorb some of the gender bullshit that’s constantly fucking up our culture.

*     *     *

Anyway Joe, I hope that kinda answers your questions. For one, it’s not that I try to keep these stories secret, it’s just that I tend to be busy and forgetful.

For two, generally speaking, my favorite part of these adventures is coming home to my little boy.

Rest assured that I’ll be sharing at least one cool story from Gencon in the semi-near future. One that Scalzi has already mentioned on his blog.

In the meantime, here’s one cool thing that happened in Chicago.

I wore a tux:

Oot wore a tuxedo shirt. We were quite the dashing pair….

Later all,

pat

Also posted in book two, conventions, fan coolness, Fanmail Q + A, Oot, Surreal enthusiasm, Tales from the Con | By Pat60 Responses

A New Addition to the Family

So just a couple days ago, The Wise Man’s Fear came out in trade paperback.

(Cue the music from 2001.)

The new format looks even more monolith like than the hardcover. And in fact, there’s only a few differences between the two:

1. It’s cheaper.

2. It’s smaller.

3. We fixed a couple typos.

4. The front cover is slightly different. Now instead of saying, “New York Times Bestseller Patrick Rothfuss,” it says:

Which, I have to admit, makes me feel a little cool….

The last big difference is that this version has blurbs for The Wise Man’s Fear on the back.

(Click to embiggen.)

A lot of these quotes I hadn’t actually seen before. So that was pretty cool…

I got to actually hold my first copy a couple of days ago. They used the same nice paper as the hardcover, so the book still has a solid weight to it. A satisfying feel. But the way I feel holding this book is far from objective….

The cherry on top of the book release sundae was a four-color ad in the New York Times Review of Books.

The ad quotes from the extraordinarily flattering blog George Martin wrote a while back when he was talking about who he was going to nominate for the Hugos this year.

You’ll notice that this picture is not guest starring my thumb, which is usually the case. This is actually guest starring the thumb of Amanda, one of the assistants I mentioned in my last blog.

It’s odd to me that out of all of this, that one small thing is what strikes me as most odd about all of this: Her thumb.

You see, four years ago, my publisher took out an add in the New York Times to help promote the paperback release of The Name of the Wind. At that point in my life, I’d barely been published for a year. I was a complete fluffy puppy of a newbie author, and the fact that my book was being advertised threw me for such a loop that I wrote a blog about it called Following Diogenes.

Then I walked to the grocery store to buy a copy of the paper so I could see the add for myself.

Now, four years later, I’ve got another ad. This one is in color and features glowing praise from an author who is, if not the biggest name in fantasy today, is at least in the top three.

And today, instead of walking to the store myself, my assistant grabbed me a copy.

It’s not just my assistant, either. One of my *several* assistants. I am now a corporate entity. I can’t do my own taxes anymore. Today I was talking to a friend and when I stopped to count, I realized that I employ nine people. Ten if I count myself.

I mean, what the hell is up with that? What has happened to my life that I now employ myself? I actually write myself a paycheck.

In what world does that make fucking sense? Am I supposed to give myself performance reviews and shit? Should I give myself a stern talking to if I’m late to a meeting with myself? At some point in the future, if I get increasingly insubordinate, will I be forced to fire myself and bring in someone else to do my job?

I know I’m into The Meta and everything, but all of this seems recursive to the point of absurdity.

(Recursive Absurdity would be a good name for a band, by the way….)

What’s my point? Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t mean to imply that I’m not happy with the way my life is going. I know I’m very lucky. I’ve met with more success than I have any right to.

But on the other hand, for someone whose personal philosophy has always been to strive toward simplicity, I seem to be doing kind of a shit job of things.

Gech. I’m rambling. And this blog has gone from fun and informative to something bordering on existential angst. What can I do to bring it up out of a nosedive before the end?

Ah. Of course. I’ll focus on my favorite complication. Little Oot.

Quick story: A couple weeks ago, Oot was nursing after a nap.

Then he stopped nursing, hugged Sarah’s breast, and said, “This is my birthday Christmas boob!”

I swear I didn’t make that up.

Lastly, here’s a picture of Oot wearing a Jayne hat that a fan made for him. The picture is pretty old at this point, but it’s got cuteness in spades….

Rather cunning, don’t ya think?

pat

http://www.blackcoffeepress.net/shop/article_15/PREORDER-Already-Here%3A-Long-Poems-Matt-Bialer.html?shop_param=cid%3D1%26aid%3D15%26
Also posted in book covers, book two, Diogenes, Oot | By Pat52 Responses

My Fictional Nature

It’s strange to me, knowing that if I write a blog, thousands of people will read it. Thousands and thousands. A ridiculous number of people, really.

It was less strange when I wrote the College Survival Guide for the campus paper. With the column, I knew what my job was. I wanted to make people laugh, and maybe, occasionally, slip a bit of reasonable advice to my unsuspecting readership.

Pure advice is unpalatable. It’s preachy. But if you make people laugh a little, they may not notice you’ve slipped them a little bit of truth. And even if they do notice, they’re more likely to forgive you for it.

I was a tiny bit of a local celebrity when I wrote that column for the campus paper. A few hundred people read it every week. On rare occasion people would recognize me as that-guy-who-writes-that-column. Once, the guy delivering a pizza to my house looked at my name on the credit card receipt and said, “Are you THE Pat?”

I laughed. “I didn’t know I’d become superlative,” I said.

I haven’t done the column for a couple years. These days I channel my humor writing into the blog instead. But there’s a difference. Back then I was a little bit famous because people read my column. Now people read my blog because I’m a little bit famous.

There’s more to it than that, of course. People read the blog because it’s amusing, or because they’re interested in news about upcoming projects and appearances. They tune in because they’re curious about book two, or because they’re looking for writing advice.

But mostly, people read the blog because they read my book and were curious about the author.

So I tell stories and post pictures. I screed and opine. I post up little pieces of my life. Then y’all take those pieces, fit them together, and you form an impression of me in your heads.

This is the interesting thing. It’s something I think about a lot. That person you create in your head out of these bits and pieces. That Pat Rothfuss you get to know from the blog, he’s fictional.

(It’s true that you could say the same thing of anyone. You could say that you don’t really *know* any of your friends or family, you just have flawed impressions of them based on your limited perceptions and experience.

This might be true in some small theoretical way, but in a bigger more practical way it’s pure bullshit. You know your friends. Let’s not become hopelessly meta here. If you follow that line of reasoning too far you end up in the pointless philosophical morass of relativistic solipsism.)

Anyway, my point is this: I think about this fictional Pat Rothfuss sometimes. I wonder what he’s like.

I expect in some ways, fictional Pat is pretty much like me. I’m honest to the point of blinding stupidity, and I talk about things here on the blog that any sensible person would keep quiet about. Anyone who’s ever seen me speak in public can attest to the fact that I can’t help but express myself freely and clearly, even if it’s not entirely appropriate.

Still, I can’t deny that I present an edited version of my life on here. The blog lies by omission. I talk about my signings and answer fanmail. I post a cute picture of my baby and talk about the new foreign edition of my book. I link to an interview and do a fundraiser for my favorite charity.

Given all of that, fictional Pat seems to have a pretty swank life. He seems really nice. He seems kinda cool.

And that makes me feel dishonest, because it’s not really true. You’re putting together the fictional me without the grubby bits. The truth is, I am at times a contemptible human being. The truth is, I have deplorable habits.

For example, when I go on Facebook, I post status updates talking about Dr. Horrible. Or I joke about the dream where I ended up in bed with Willow and Spike. I don’t mention what happened the other day with Oot.

You see, right now Oot loves my beard. In terms of desirability, beard ranks #3 in all creation. Boobs hold the top spot, of course, and the telephone is currently a strong #2. But other than that, he loves nothing more than to clutch at my beard.

I think gripping it appeals to some primal, monkey part of him. He gets his sticky little hands tangled up in the beard, and some piece of his primal baby brain thinks: “Good. I’m safe. If we’re attacked by a predator and forced to run to safety, I won’t be left behind.”

The problem is this: if you don’t have a long beard, you have no idea how painful it is to have it pulled. He could swing from my hair from all I care. He’s even managed to kick me square in the junk several times in an ongoing  campaign of sibling prevention. Those pains are nothing by compairison. Having your beard pulled hurts as much as when you’re walking around barefoot in the middle of the night and you stub your little toe really hard against a table-leg.

Usually I’m able to head him off when he grabs for it, but his motor skills have really been developing lately. So the other day, before I know it, he has both drooly little hands in it up to his forearms, then he yanks on it for everything he’s worth.

“Ahhh!” I shout. “Stop it you little fucker!”

Oot doesn’t seem to mind in the least. For all he knows I’ve just called him by one of his other countless names, (Thunderbutt, Prancibald, The Dampener…) He just laughs and tugs the beard some more, happy to be safe from prowling lions and packs of hyenas.

Still, it’s a shitty thing to say to your baby, and I feel bad about it.

The point is this: I suspect that fictional Pat would never refer to his adorable baby as, “you little fucker.” I suspect he’s better than that. I expect he’s a nicer person than I am.

Part of me thinks, even as I write this, “Of course you don’t talk about those things on the blog. Why *would* you? That’s not why people read the blog. You’re supposed to be putting your best foot forward….”

But then I think about that fictional Pat again, and I feel dishonest. There’s a difference between putting your best foot forward and subtly misrepresenting yourself.

The thing is, professionally, I should be careful here on the blog. If I was going to be smart about this, I’d never talk about sex or politics or religion, never make any jokes that could offend anyone, never tell you a story that makes me looks like the idiot I sometimes am. The smart thing for me to do is carefully groom and maintain this fictional Pat and use him as a promotional tool.

But the truth is, the thought of maintaining that sort of professional persona makes me distinctly uncomfortable. Given the choice, I think I’d rather be too honest and have you like me a little less. I’d much prefer to look like a bit of an ass, because… well… I am a bit of an ass.

So tomorrow I think I’ll post up a story of one of the countless times I’ve made an fool of myself in public. Maybe I’ll tell a few of those stories. I don’t know if they’ll help round out the fictional Pat some of you have come to know, but I expect it will make me feel a little bit less like a poser.

Barring that, it should be good for a laugh or two.

See y’all tomorrow….

Pat

Also posted in a few words you're probably going to have to look up, BJ Hiorns Art, blogging, College Survival Guide, ethical conundra, my beard, Oot, things I shouldn't talk about | By Pat113 Responses
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