Category Archives: Sarah

Published: February 18, 2010

Signs of things to come…

Well, it took a little doing, but at this point we’ve got 99.9% of the raffle prizes packaged up and in the mail.

(Note: Oot is not a prize.)

Valerie did most of the packing and mailing, with solid assistance from a few others including Sarah and Oot. Though really, I don’t know if what Oot does can be considered assistance. Personally, I think he’s the weak member of the team. But Sarah and Valerie place great stock in cuteness, cooing, and the desire to bounce up and down while being held.

I don’t doubt that some of the books have already started arriving at the winners’ houses. If you’d like to send in a picture of you loving you cool new books, feel free to mail them to: paperback.contest [squiggly atsign thinger] gmail.com.

I helped with some of the packaging, but Valerie has perfectionist tendencies, and I tend to be a hardline proponent of function over form. After one particularly ugly wrapping job, I was told that my time would perhaps be better spent doing something else, like bouncing little Oot.

Personally, I thought the package was a marvel of engineering. Nigh-indestructible, in fact.


Sure it’s ugly, but it gets the job done. (I’m talking about the package.)

Anyway, the upshot is that the girl members of Team Elodin did most of the post-fundraiser sorting and shipping. Which is nice, as it freed me up to concentrate on the book.

And yes, I’ll be posting up news about that soon, so y’all can stop asking.

And no, there isn’t a publication date yet, so y’all can stop asking about that too.

I mean seriously. If the book had a solid pub date, don’t you think I’d mention it? Do you think I’d sit here at home, rubbing my hands together and chortling: “Yes! If I withhold this information another week, I’m sure to get another 100 e-mails asking me about the book!”

Yup. That’s exactly what I’d do. Because obviously I am some sort of alien life form that lives on snarky fanmail and bitchy blog comments. Since I became stranded on your strange world years ago, they have been my only means of sustenance.

That’s really the only explanation that makes any sense… Unless, of course, the reason I haven’t posted up any news is simply because there *isn’t* any news.

Now that I *do* have some news, I’ll write a post about it. It’s that simple. These things don’t happen faster because you ask for them, you realize. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So, if you care about that sort of thing, stay tuned. I’m planning on titling the post: “Why I Don’t Talk About Book Two.”

Oddly enough though, I *will* be talking about book two in that particular blog. Go figure.

pat

Also posted in book two, Oot, Valerie, Worldbuilders 2009 | By Pat105 Responses
Published: February 12, 2010

From the Archives: V-Day

I’ve had several people e-mail me in this last week asking for Valentine’s Day advice.

Unfortunately, I’m at the end of a long stretch of revisions right now, and it would break my stride to write an appropriately frothy, bile-filled screed about this most abhorrent of qua-holidays.

Then I realized I didn’t need to write a new screed. I probably had an old one on file from when I wrote a weekly advice column for the college paper.

So I dug around in my files a bit and found one. Actually, I found several, but here’s the one I liked the best.

Share and Enjoy:

*****

Dear Pat,

What are your feelings towards Valentine’s Day? Personally, I believe it is just another Hallmark holiday in which consumerism reaches its ugly hand in the picture, forcing couples to exchange gifts and singles to feel like crap.

By the way, what are you getting your girlfriend/sister? Teehee.

Jessie

For those of you who missed last week’s column, the last line of Jessie’s letter is a reference to a joke I made. Just so nobody is confused let me re-state again, for the record, that I am NOT dating my sister.

Not that there’s anything wrong with my sister, mind you. She’s great: smart, funny, and hot. It’s just that we’re really good friends, and I worry that getting into a relationship might jeopardize that.

*ahem* Okay. Moving on.

Honestly Jessie, I’d all but forgotten that Valentine’s Day is coming up. You see, I don’t pay much attention to crap like that. And that’s what VD is: a big, steamy pile of crap in a shiny heart-shaped box.

You were right in your letter. As a holiday, it’s made-up bullshit. But Hallmark didn’t start it, Chaucer did. He wrote “The Parliament of Fowles” back in the late 1300’s. I tell you, there’s only one time in history that more crap has been spawned from bad poetry, and that’s the musical Cats.

Now I don’t want to get a bunch of huffy letters with people telling me VD all started with St. Valentine, the priest who was imprisoned and fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. If it were true, February 14th would be Go-Fuck-A-Priest day. A holiday, I might add, that I would wholeheartedly endorse.

But no, what we have is Valentine’s Day. The day designed to convince you that if you don’t spend money on someone, right now then you’re not really in love. Prove your eternal devotion through a four-dollar greeting card sporting some freakishly deformed bug-eyed puppy on the front. Go ahead and give someone the severed sexual organs of a plant. Diamonds are forever. Every Kiss begins with Kay.

(You can tell it’s an older column, because Brett’s illustration
is in B&W and optimized for newspaper printing.)

Now I’m not just saying this because I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m frothing at the mouth with bitter loneliness and rage. Contrary to what you might think, I do have a girlfriend.

I know, it seems to go against all the laws of god and nature. But not only do I have a girlfriend, not only have we been in a happy, healthy relationship for almost six years, but Sarah is sweet, kind, smart, funny, and almost unfathomably hot.

I know, it boggles the mind.

There are many theories among my family and friends as to why someone like her would take time to smile in my direction, let alone date me for six years.

Some of my more religious-minded friends used to believe that she was working off a hefty karmic debt from a previous life. But this theory lost credibility when one of my calculus-savvy Buddhist friends did the math for me, showing how much bad karma Sarah was actually burning off by dealing with me on a daily basis.

What it boils down to is this, if Sarah had, say, beaten a nun to death with a bag of kittens in a previous life, she could have worked that off in about three weeks of putting up with my endless bullshit. In fact, after six years of living with me she’s built up so much good karma that she’ll most likely reincarnate as a transcendent being composed entirely of white light and multiple orgasms.

Other theories held by my friends and parents include: blackmail, Truman-Show style conspiracy, and the suspicion that she is performing a prolonged psychological experiment.

What does Sarah herself say? I’ll go ask….

In response to the question, “Why the hell do you love me, anyway?” Sarah responded thusly:

“Some part of my soul recognizes part of your soul as being really awesome. And sometimes you take out the trash.” Sarah then made several sexually explicit comments that cannot be reprinted here. Suffice to say that apparently I possess certain skills that shall remain nameless.

Lastly, she gazed rapturously at me and said that I was “gorgeous.”

All this seems to confirm my personal theory, that she has some kind of brain tumor that makes her love me. Really, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

The only other explanation is that I treat her with kindness and respect. Or because when I give her a gift she knows it comes from a sincere upwelling of emotion, not because it’s National Buy-A-Gift Day (TM). Maybe it’s due to the fact that I make a habit of not taking her for granted, and I tell her I appreciate her, rather than buying a card that says it for me once a year.

Yeah. I know. Too crazy. I’m sticking with the tumor theory myself.

*****

That’s all I’ve got for now, folks. I hope each of you end up enjoying V-day in your own special way. If that means drinking a pint of rye whiskey and cursing the unfeeling sky, more power to you.

pat

Also posted in BJ Hiorns Art, College Survival Guide, Fanmail Q + A | By Pat61 Responses
Published: February 5, 2010

Elodin Enterprises: Making Tomorrow’s Mistakes a Reality Today.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about women.

When I was younger, I was the guy all the girls came to for relationship advice. Don’t ask me why. I’d never actually had a relationship. But I was thoughtful, and a good listener, and I didn’t openly gawk at their breasts. (I did gawk, of course, I just wasn’t rude about it.)

These three things may not seem like much, but from what I understand they rarely come together in a 16 year old boy. The result was that most girls found me to be trustworthy, fun to be around, and neuter as a Ken doll.

But I learned a lot by listening to their relationship problems. I learned what irritated them, what they really wanted in a relationship (or said they wanted, anyway), and the sort of jerky things guys were capable of.

Eventually I started to develop a list of things you should never do in a relationship. Rules of conduct that should never be broken. I continued building that list all through college.

Now I’m not talking about the obvious stuff here. Rules like, “Don’t sleep with your girlfriend’s sister.” or “Don’t jab her in the eye with a pointy stick.” Shit like that is obvious.

My rules were more specific, but other people had paid for them in blood.

A few real examples:

* Never tell a woman she looks like her pet.

* Never compare a woman to a cow.

* Never compare a woman to any sort of cheese.

Maybe those last two don’t happen so much outside of Wisconsin. But trust me, you really can’t pull them off. Dairy products are fine. If you’re careful, you can use creamy or milky. You can even, depending on the situation, get away with buttery. But cheese is right out. It can’t be done in a good way.

Later on in life, as I started to date more, I began to add new rules based on my own experiences. Things like:

* Don’t break up with a girl then send her roommate a love letter.

* Don’t invite four different women to the same poetry reading. Especially if one of them is your ex-girlfriend, one is your current girlfriend, and one is the girl who kinda wants to be your girlfriend.

That last one might seem a little specific, and it is, I suppose. But if I can keep even one other person from making that mistake, I will be doing the world a very big favor.

Now some of you may scoff at my list of rules. Thinking them bizarre and overly specific. I don’t really feel the need to defend myself or prove the efficacy of my system. Simply look at me, then look at my past girlfriends, all of whom have been lovely, intelligent, and sexy as hell. My results speak for themselves.

I’m not claiming to have it all figured out. Far from it. I’m still adding things to my list all the time.

For example, the other day I’m laying in bed with Sarah and little Oot. Because Oot is a happy little bundle of cute, Sarah experienced a moment of what I call Mom Bliss. I’m pretty sure this is an evolutionary thing. Specifically, it’s a rush of endorphins designed to make moms adore their children, rather than devour them.

So we’re all on the bed and Oot kinda squirms around, looks up at us, and gives us one of his trademarked triple-distilled cuteness grins. Then he makes a happy little shriek that sounds like he’s trying to speak dolphin.

This presses Sarah’s mom button, and the endorphins hit her brain like a pixie stick dissolved in a jam-jar full of heroin.

“Oh!” Sarah says, her eyes all dewy with Agape-style love. “This is so great! I’m in bed with my two favorite people!”

“Yeah,” I say, pretty much agreeing with her. “It’s kinda like a lame three-way.”

New rule: Do not refer to quality time with mom and baby as “kinda like a lame three-way.”

Here endeth the lesson.

pat

Also posted in day in the life, my dumbness, Oot, small adventures | By Pat77 Responses
Published: January 20, 2010

Aftermath and an Introduction

Y’know, as much as I love doing the fundraiser, I’m glad it’s over.

I started writing this blog mostly to relax, share interesting news, and amuse myself. I like to cuss in my posts and make the occasional odd joke about clown sex. But, strangely enough, I don’t feel comfortable doing those things in the middle of a charity fundraiser.

Now that we’re done being all charitable on the blog, I can get back to buisiness as usual here. Which is to say I can get back to not doing business and start screwing around instead.

Rest assured that in a week or so I’ll post up some final details about the fundraiser, and some exciting news about a few things that happened right at the end. But right now we’re dealing with the aftermath, assigning prizes, waiting for checks to clear, and preparing to wrap and package roughly a zillion books.

[Editorial note: Don’t email me asking if you won anything. Seriously.]

As many of you might remember from last year’s fundraiser, Sarah was my plucky assistant who worked tirelessly behind the scenes, helping me manage donations, take pictures of books, and package all the prizes.

This year, however, she’s been absolutely no help at all. When I asked her why she was being such a slacker, she reminded me that we had a baby now, and that boobing him took priority over pretty much everything else.

What’s that? Can I post a picture of him? You bet your ass I can….

(Click to Embiggen.)

Here Oot accompanied by one of his compatriots: Friendly Carrot. Not pictured here are Crazy Chicken, Subtle the Colorful Not-Mime, and Perverted Elephant.

Anyway, since Sarah is busy cooing and gurgling, I needed someone else to help me tend to the shop, as it were. That meant that until little Oot is old enough to copyedit, I needed an assistant.

So, without any further ado, I’d like to introduce you to Valerie:

(Say it with me now, “Hi Valerie!”)

Valerie has been helping me take care of a lot of the epiphenomena that tend to clutter up my life. She does research, organizes stuff, takes care of mail, runs errands….

Generally speaking, she takes care of a bunch of stuff for me, leaving me more time to work on the book.

Over the last two months, that means Valerie has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes of Worldbuilders. She takes pictures of the donations and has managed all the personalized books and posters people bought to support the cause.

She’s also been stockpiling the materials we’ll need to package up this year’s prizes.

(It’s fun to play with big rolls of bubble wrap.)

Suffice to say that without her help, Worldbuilders would have been a chaotic mess, and I wouldn’t have gotten a lick of work done on my revisions.

Anyway, she’s been working really hard on all this stuff. So I figured it was high time I introduced her…

Say hello Valerie.

Hello.

No. Sorry. That won’t work. You can’t be purple, Sarah’s purple. There will be mass confusion. You’ll have to pick a different colour.

I like green. Can I be green?

That suits you, but it’s a little too bright. Could you bring it down a bit?

How about this?

Perfect.

Everyone, meet Valerie. Valerie, this is everyone.

Say hello, everyone.

pat

Also posted in Oot, Valerie, Worldbuilders 2009 | By Pat130 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, side projects, Subterranean Press | By Pat54 Responses
Published: September 25, 2009

What all the Fuss is about….

It’s been a busy couple days over here.

Because:

There are many of you out there who deserve to hear this news by phone. Or by getting an e-mail. Or through a sarcastic gorrilagram of some sort. But I just can’t manage it right now. As you can see by the picture, we’re all pretty tired around here.

Everyone always says things like, “The labor was 8 hours long…” or “She was in labor for 15 hours.” Or something like that. I don’t know where to officially start counting the official labor, but she started having contractions Friday night, and we had the baby Tuesday morning. So no matter how you count it, it was long.

The end result is pretty good though. Little Oot is healthy and happy. He resembles his daddy in that he likes boobs and sleeping. Everything else will be sorted out later.

I won’t trouble you with his measurements. I’ve never really understood the desire people have to quantify a baby. “He’s X big and Y long,” As if the baby is a fish you’re not sure you’re going to keep. Or some prize potato you’re hoping will win a prize at the county fair.

Rest assured that he does posses mass and volume. He has all three dimensions and the requisite number of usual parts. He is a boy child. A Libra. Full of grace. An ox. Pinkish in color. Soft. And we have just received independent verification that he is cute as a button.

I’ve been stockpiling blogs over the last couple months, so you’ll see some of those when I’m too busy writing and being domestic to write a new one. If anything, posts will probably be more frequent for a while.

If you have a piece of baby advice (and it seems like everyone I meet does) feel free to post it below. I will also accept cute baby stories. Everyone likes cute baby stories.

Sweet dreams everyone,

pat

Also posted in babies, Oot | By Pat317 Responses
Published: August 21, 2009

Living a life of the mind

So the other day I’m in the car with Sarah, and I say, “Last night I had a dream where Nathan Fillion was teaching my dad how to use the computer.”

In order for you to appreciate this, I should mention that I don’t usually remember my dreams. Sarah does. She has a vivid dream life. Crazy dreams. Every night.

So I’m thinking that Sarah will be impressed. Not only did I remember this dream, but you have to admit it’s reasonably weird. Plus it has Nathan Fillion in it, which shows that my internal casting director is finally getting a decent budget to work with.

So I summarize my dream for Sarah. There isn’t much more to it other than the fact that Nathan Fillion was teaching my Dad some of the finer points of computer programming. Except, perhaps, to mention that Fillion was quite gracious about the whole thing, and was willing to come out to our house in order to make things more convenient for my dad.

When I finish, I expect Sarah to say something appreciative. Something like, “Wow,” or “Freaky,” or “You’ve really got to get over Firefly.”

But instead, without missing a beat, Sarah says, “I had a dream where I was going to marry Nathan Fillion, but I was really nervous because he had a horrible addiction to hobby farming. He was working really hard to overcome it, but I knew he was probably going to relapse pretty soon.”

She shrugged. “Still, I was going to help him get through it. I knew I’d stay by his side no matter what. Very loyal of me. I think there were sheep involved.”

And the winner is….

She’s all mine, boys. Stay away…

pat

Also posted in BJ Hiorns Art, dreams, Firefly | By Pat54 Responses

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