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Okay. I’m back from ComicCon, and I have stories to tell.
Unfortunately, I also have a backlog of about 800 e-mails to slog through. Many of them involving serious business-type things that I should really attend to sooner rather than later.
Rest assured that I’ll be sharing some of the stories here on the blog. Probably tomorrow.
But for now, if you’re perishing for lack of awesome geekery, watch this:
That should tide you over for a while….
Share and Enjoy.
pat
It was a good weekend. On Saturday Sarah, Oot, and I drove down to Madison to celebrate Father’s Day. We hung out with my Dad, my aunt, my sister, and her boyfriend.
It may not seem like many people to you, but I don’t have much family. For my side of the family, this is a pretty big gathering.
My dad grilled and my sister and her boyfriend cooked. I removed the lids on the various types of side dishes that I’d lovingly bought from the store. We ate brats and pasta salad and hung out on the deck. We tried to fly a kite and utterly failed.
Oot was in fine form, and charmed everyone with his ability to cram food clumsily into his craw, speak broken English, and walk around without hardly falling over at all. Seriously. He’s like a little rockstar.
It was a great day. My father summed it up best when he said, “Good weather, good food, nudity, and kite flying. What more could you want in a party?”
Today (Sunday) was more low-key. I slept late, and when I got up I learned that Sarah had been coaching Oot to say, “Happy Father’s Day!” He did this with great enthusiasm. Over and over. All day.
But you know what? It never got old.
In fact, when we got back from dinner tonight, I grabbed a little video of it.
You know what? I think this is the first video that I’ve ever uploaded. Look at me striding boldly into the year 2007.
After this touching moment, Oot began to say, “Humdyfal!” over and over. It only took me about 30 seconds to figure him out. You have to do a lot of interpreting with kids this young. They’re not really good with words, yet.
He was saying, “Humpty Fall.” He wanted to hear about Humpty Dumpty.
So I picked up one of his nearby toys. If I call it a plush toy you’ll get the wrong impression. It’s a turtle packed tight with some kind of beans. It’s the size of a round loaf of bread. It’s about as plush as a sandbag and it weighs more than hardcover of my second book.
I put it on my knee and said, “Humpty Dumpty sat on the….”
“Wall!” Oot finished.
“Humpty Dumpty had a great….” I pushed the turtle off my knee and it hit the ground hard. It sounded like someone dropping a heavy workboot onto the floor.
“Fall!” Oot shouted excitedly.
Then he picked up the turtle with both hands and affectionately smashed it into my nuts.
I made the sort of noise you make when you’re trying not to roar and scare the hell out of your kid. Sarah laughed. Then looked guilty about laughing. Then laughed again.
“Fall!” Oot said.
I removed the turtle and put a protective hand over my groin. It took a moment, but eventually I figured out what he was trying to say. You have to do a lot of interpretation with someone this young. There’s a lot of reading in between the lines.
After about a minute or so, I realized Oot was making it clear that he respected the vasty strength of my generative organs. He was trying to indicate that he understood where he’d come from, that he knew exactly whose godlike loins had helped bring him into this world. He was trying to say….
“Happy Father’s Day!” he said, throwing his hands into the air.
Yes. Exactly that.
Happy Father’s Day.
pat
While I was on tour, I did quite a few interviews, but because I was so busy with the tour itself, I never had a chance to post any of them up here on the blog.
The most elaborate of these was a interview I did with Peter Orullian out in Seattle. He had three cameras and everything. Very posh.
The interview was at The Signed Page, and I was about to knuckle down and sign the books that people had ordered. You see those boxes in the background? They’re full of The Wise Man’s Fear. There’s another 40-50 boxes behind the camera too. I signed 1500 books later on that day.
This interview was on February 28th, the day before my book was released, so it was still the day before my tour started. You’d think I’d be a little more bright-eyed and bushy tailed. But the truth is, I was already exhausted. I was in a rush getting ready for my trip, and so I hadn’t slept at all the night before I got on the plane.
So the downside is that I’m not as perky as I might otherwise be.
But the upside is that sleep deprivation probably causes me to rave deliriously on a few topics I’d otherwise stay quiet about.
As always, I’m a wordy bitch. So the interview is broken up into three pieces:
One:
Two:
Three:
I wish I could give you some idea what we talked about, but, as usual, I can’t bring myself to watch videos of myself. So I really have no idea what I said in these interviews.
That said, I do remember we had a good time recording it, and I wouldn’t have talked for 45 minutes if he hadn’t been asking me good questions….
Share and enjoy,
pat
So last week I tried something new. I went to a romance convention.
When I was growing up, the only convention I knew about was Gencon. But over the last couple of years, I’ve been around the block a bit. I’ve hit most of the big ones: DragonCon, San Diego Comic-con, WorldCon, as well as at least a dozen others.
Most cons I attend have two things in common.
1. They have had a strong track of writing programming. (Because I like talking about writing).
2. They’re sci-fi and fantasy themed. (Because that’s how I roll).
So how did I end up at a romance convention?
Well, first off. I was invited. Most of the conventions I go to, I go because I’m invited. This is because I’m lazy.
Second off, Romantic Times gave The Name of the Wind Best Epic Fantasy of the year in 2007. It’s nice to go to a convention where they think you’re cool. (Or at least where they thought you were cool back in 2007.)
Third, I was kinda curious as to what a romance convention would be like….
It was like this:
Because… y’know…. viking.
And honestly, that’s all I really have to say about the convention.
The other reason I went to this convention is that it’s in LA. I know some people in LA that I don’t get to see very often, so it was a good excuse to visit them.
Now those of you who have been reading the blog for a while might remember my first, shameful meeting with Amber Benson. Since then, we’ve gotten to know each other a bit, and when we were chatting on e-mail we came up with the idea of doing a reading and signing together when I was in LA.
So we did.
We got together for dinner first, and while we ate, we shared war stories about our books. Both of us had just written sex scenes for the first time, and we talked about how weird it was.
Then something happened. I honestly can’t remember the exact details, but I’m pretty sure I suggested that we should read our sex scenes at the event later that night. I was kinda joking, but not entirely.
Then Amber said the equivalent of, “I will if you will.”
Faced with a challenge like that, there was no way I could back down.
So about an hour later, we were standing in front of 100 people, telling them that we were going to read them some sex. They seemed okay with it.
I went first, reading the end of chapter 95. I got a little sweaty and red in the face, but I made it through pretty well, especially considering I’ve never read it out loud before.
Then it was Amber’s turn. We’ve both been busy lately, so we haven’t had a chance to reach each others’ newest books yet. So she’d thought my scene would be more explicit. She was worried her scene was way smuttier than mine. She started to read, then stopped and stepped away from the mic, shaking her head.
Now that I was done with my reading, I was pretty relaxed. I felt great, in fact. My reading was done, and I was all full of adrenaline.
“If there’s dialogue in there, we could read it together,” I joked.
Little did I know there was dialogue. So I was trapped. After an extended bout of being extremely flustered, the two of us read her sex scene together, giggling like third graders all the while.
Luckily, someone caught it on tape. You can witness the glorious debacle here if you want.
All in all, it was one of my favorite readings ever. And as a bonus, I discovered I can do a southern accent if I want to. Who knew?
pat
I manged to get out of New York just before they got buried in snow. I’m glad for many reasons, but mostly because I really, really missed Oot on my trip. And as cool as it was to see my book in print after all these years, it was much cooler to see my baby after I’d been away from him for a week.
Much to my relief, he still recognized me. We hung out in the airport for a while, catching up on all the news. He poked at my shoes and said, “boots.” Then tugged up my pantleg, found my leg, and told me it was there. I was relieved.
Then we went for a walk. He informed me that the baggage carousel was a “vroom,” and I had to agree.
He also let me know that clocks are still the in thing. That’s reassuring to me, as I was worried the fashion might have changed while I was gone. But no, he continues to point whenever he sees one, announcing to everyone who cares to listen that there is a clock. I agree to this as well, even if that particular clock happens to be, say, a thermometer.
There is an art to conversation, you see, and part of that art is the ability to occasionally let a trifling difference of opinion slide by without making a federal case out of it.
So he says, “Clock,” and I think, Okay. Fair enough. I see your point.
“Clock,” I agree.
At some point Sarah asks me if I’m crying, and I tell her that no, in fact I’m weeping, thank you very much. Because weeping is slightly more dignified, as it’s derived from the Old English wepan shedding of tears, not the the sissy Old French crier which implies a wailing noise.
Oot says, “up,” and I pick him up. Then he pushes my nose and says, “beep.” It’s impossible to explain how cute this is. Then he pushes his own nose, which is exponentially cuter.
After dinner and more hanging out with Sarah and Oot, I slept from 9:00 PM until 4:00 AM. Then, after a little e-mail, I decided that getting a full eight hour’s rest was so much fun that I might as well do it again, so I went to bed and slept from 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM.
In brief, it’s good to be home.
I’m well aware that Wednesday’s picture of The Wise Man’s Fear rather resembled a grainy photo of bigfoot. I wasn’t being coy, it’s just that I was using the camera on my little netbook. Functional, but not elegant by any means….
Here’s what it really looks like.
Strangely enough, the book is just about the same size as The Name of the Wind, but The Wise Man’s Fear has 994 pages, compared to Name’s measly 662. From what I understand, they did this using some manner of tesseract. Or perhaps through the sacrifice of a black she-goat. Or thinner paper. Whatever the source technology, the result is that The Wise Man’s Fear is feels really solid. As if each revision I did somehow increased the gravitational density of the book.
Have I said that it’s pleasing to hold? It is. It very is.
Back in July when I was out at Comic Con, I did an interview with Shawn Speakman. (He’s the lovely gent that’s selling signed versions of The Wise Man’s Fear for those of you that can’t make it to a signing.)
Anyway, Shawn recently posted it up on Suvudu, so I thought I’d share it around for those of you who might be interested….
We chat about a bunch of things, and at the end of the video I answer a bunch of questions that readers sent in.
Honestly? I can’t remember a damn thing I said, as at that point in the convention I was in a fugue state brought about my overexposure to cool people, catgirls, and caffeine.
Share and enjoy….
pat
Our Final Day:
Tomorrow, Worldbuilders is over for another year.
More precisely, after Friday Dec 17th 2:00 PST Worldbuilders will be over.
While this has been our best year so far, I feel a little bad that I wasn’t a little more organized.
I was planning on doing more author interviews like the ones I did last year. I wanted to write a blog about my adventures on House on the Rock to accompany Gaiman’s book. I wanted to write another about how I met Paolini at Comic-con to go with his donations. I’d planned on finishing the second half of my Perils of Fanfiction post from months ago.
Unfortunately, edits on book two took a lot more time and energy than I expected. And as a result, I had to let some of those plans go.
Because of that, we have a lot of items in this final blog that are cool enough to be set aside in blogs of their own.
But there’s just no more time. So you’re getting them all at once. Try not to let their combined awesome overwhelm you.
A Final Goal:
So yesterday in the blog that posted Neil Gaiman’s donation, I said I hoped we might be able to hit 150,000 dollars before the end of the fundraiser.
We hit that goal in less than ten hours. So I’ve decided to re-set the donation thermometer one last time.
Our last goal, the goal that I really don’t know if we’ll be able to meet, is going to be 166,700 dollars.
It’s an odd number. But if we raise that much money on our Team Heifer page it means that after Worldbuilders makes its matching donation, we will have raised a quarter million dollars for Heifer International this year.
That would be an amazing milestone. Plus when I’m trying to persuade people to donate books next year, I could say to them, “Last year we raised a quarter million dollars.” That’s a persuasive piece of information…
I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it. But I’m excited to try…
I did an interview with Brent Weeks last year. And this year he’s not only kicking in some books, but stepping up to the plate and helping me match donations as well. This earns him a warm place in my heart forever.
Black Prism is his new book, and BSC review says that it’s full of “Multiple twists and compelling characters…a page-turner.”
“I was mesmerized from start to finish. Unforgettable characters, a plot that kept me guessing, nonstop action and the kind of in-depth storytelling that makes me admire a writer’s work.” – Terry Brooks
As I mentioned above, this is one of the donations I wanted to set aside in its own blog.
You see, I met Paolini at Comic Con this year. He’s a hell of a nice guy. He conducted an interview with me on Suvudu. It was the first interview he’d ever conducted, and he did a way better job with it than I did with my first interview earlier that day with Sandeep Parikh.
The blog I was writing was a tricky one, and I talked a lot about the strange place Paolini occupies in fantasy. In some ways he is the biggest rags-to-riches story we have in the genre. Young kid writes a book, gets published, gets a movie, becomes an international bestseller.
A ton of people read his books. A ton of people love his stuff. Published in 50 countries.
On the other end of the spectrum there’s a big camp of people who get all bitchy and snarky whenever his name comes up. They talk about plagiarism and such.
My blog talked about my own preconceptions about Paolini’s work. Most importantly it talked about something embarrassing: that I judged his books without ever reading them. That’s a hard thing to admit, because I like to think that I’m better than that.
After months of tinkering on the blog, doing research, finding links. It was finally finished. It was about 2000 words long. I was going to post it last Sunday night. It was going to lead off our final week of the fundraiser. I even got my friend to illustrate it, depicting me in all my ignorant judgmental glory:
Then, about 45 minutes before I was finished with the blog, my computer crashed and I lost it.
I’ll reconstruct that blog eventually. Then everyone will get a chance to voice their opinions and discuss in the comments.
But not today. This isn’t the time or place for it, understand? During Worldbuilders geeks of all genres come together and make the world a better place. We do not snark and froth at each other no matter what our differences of opinion. Follow me?
In addition to these signed books that we’re adding to the general lottery, Christopher has offered up another set of books for auction….
If you win this auction, Christopher Paolini will sign and personalize these books to you however you like.
To see more pictures or bid on this auction you can follow this link.
“This is a beautiful book. The illustrations are wonderful. It definitely rocks! I ought to know.” – Iggy Pop
Another donation from Katherine Kerr who was nice enough to donate an original manuscript to the auction this year. Sorceries has been out of print for a while, so this signed copy is pretty cool.
Here we’ve got three different anthologies; a veritable buffett of new authors and stories to sample from. You have twisted faerie tales, hard sci-fi, epic fantasy, urban fantasy. A little bit of everything…
This anthology only needs two words to describe it: Zombie Romance.
Yeah. A whole anthology of Zombie Romance. I’m going to have to pick this one up…
“A refreshingly original story told in a wry, confident voice. Rosemary and Rue is a treat to read.” – Kelley Armstrong
If you’re a geek trying to raise geek children, you might want to check out this charming picture book for kids. It’s received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and is a 2011 ALSC Notable Nominee.
Here we have some lovely donations from Apex Books.
“Fresh, inventive, stylish and captivating, the work of a writer of unusual promise.” – Dean Koontz
“This literary window into the international world of imaginative fiction, the first in a new series, is sure to appeal to adventurous sf fans and readers of fiction in translation.” – Library Journal.
“Burrow’s debut is a swift-moving, pathos-free, creatively amusing riff on zombies from the zombie perspective.” – Publishers Weekly
“Braoddus and White are an unlikely pairing of talents that works astonishingly well. Orgy of Souls is a powerful, innovative work of fiction and one I recommend wholeheartedly. A damned fine read.” – James A. Moore
“Michael A. Burstein is an Isaac Asimov for the new millennium” – Robert J. Sawyer
“A remarkable collection, bursting at the seams with thought-provoking ideas and shattering visions.” – Brandon Massey
* * *
Earlier this year, I got a bit of thrill when I was mentioned on Penny Arcade on their blog.
Okay. That’s a slight understatement. I was giggly as a schoolgirl. It might even be fair to say that I was twitterpated.
When it happened, I realized that my life was pretty cool. I also decided that since I don’t get to play many video games these days, I was going to start celebrating the cool things that happen to me by giving myself achievements.
Getting mentioned on Penny Arcade, I decided, would be the first achievement I officially unlocked.
I even got a friend to do an illustration to commemorate the event:
Note to people who don’t read Penny Arcade: Wanged is a technical term.
Suffice it to say that I love me some Penny Arcade, and these books are lovely collections. If you want more details than that, you can read the interview with Jerry Holkins I posted up just a couple hours ago.
“Sanderson knows how to wrap things up cleanly. He spins a world that’s easily complex and mysterious enough to warrant sequels, but prefers to end it climactically, answering many of his biggest questions, while leaving others to the imagination.” – The Onion
* * *
Lastly, we have another set of donations I wanted to put into its own blog.
The lovely folks at Badali Jewelry make rings, necklaces, pentants and pins. What’s more, some of the stuff they make is based off the jewelery in fantasy novels.
They got in contact with me recently in order to talk about plans for… things. Secret things. Things which will be revealed in the near future.
When they found out about Worldbuilders, they were eager to donate some of their stuff to the fundraiser.
Then I dropped Brandon Sanderson a line and asked if he’d be willing to donate some books to go along with the Jewlery. He said he would, because Brandon is a hell of a nice guy.
With accompanying Steel Alphabet Medallion from Badali Jewelry.
“Intrigue, politics, and conspiracies mesh complexly in a world Sanderson realizes in satisfying depth and peoples with impressive characters.” – Booklist
With accompanying set of Asha’man Dragon pin and a Dedicated Sword pin from Badali Jewelry.
“The Wheel of Time . . . is a fantasy tale seldom equaled and still less often surpassed in English.”—Chicago Sun-Times
With accompanying Aon Omi Love Pendant from Badali Jewelry.
“Outstanding fantasy debut . . . . The intrigue and excitement grow steadily in this smoothly written, perfectly balanced narrative; by the end readers won’t want to put it down.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
I think that’s a great item to end the fundraiser on, don’t you?
I don’t need to mention that I can actually read what’s written on this ring, do I? That I can actually recite it from memory… in the original language?
No. I didn’t think so. Let’s pretend that I’m not quite that much of a geek.
* * *
Well folks. That’s it for this year. Remember that for every 10 dollars you donate on the Team Heifer page you get the chance to win these cool donations and hundreds of others.
We also have a few auctions that are still running for a little while. You can find them here.
Lastly, here’s the link to the main Worldbuilders page. You can head over there to see all the other donations and cool things.
Thanks again for eveything folks. Here’s hoping we can make our final goal.
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
I was going to post up a little story about my recent Halloween adventures at Neil Gaiman’s House on the Rock shindig. But I can’t find the right pictures I need to illustrate it, so I’m guessing it will have to wait a little bit.
In the meantime, I have a link to a video of the panel I was on about Contemporary Mythology.
I post this link with some trepidation, as I don’t remember exactly what I might have said on the panel. This isn’t anything odd. I rarely remember more than a few snippets after I’m done speaking on a panel. But the snippets I remember from this panel particular panel make me vaguely uneasy. I dimly remember saying something about “the revolution” and something else along the lines of “you can all roll around in your own filth if you want.”
Soooo…. yeah. It seems like I should remember more than a handful of words out of a 45 minute panel. But I don’t. I wonder if that’s weird. Maybe I have a disorder or something.
Anyway, feel free to watch it if you’re interested.
The picture is a little fuzzy, but then again, so am I….
pat
