Postcards, Pre-orders, and the Quest for Imperfection

So over the last couple months, I’ve meant to write about two dozen different blogs. The upcoming book got a cover, for example:

(As always, guest starring my thumb.)

But I’m guessing by now you’ve already seen that. We have a UK cover too. There’s some promotional stuff going on with the book, where if you pre-order The Narrow Road Between Desires, you not only can get a signed copy, but you’ll also get one of the promotional postcards we made to showcase some of the fabulous art Nate Taylor did for the book:

(Sleepy child shown for scale.)

By the way, if you haven’t pre-ordered a copy yet, there’s still time to do that. I signed a *bunch* of books so that they could be available everywhere, B&N, Books-a-Million, as well as a any indie bookstores that would like to prepare. You can pre-order and get a signed book and postcard at the Worldbuilders Marketplace too, of course. But we wanted you to be able to buy from your local bookstores, too. Because we *love* local bookstores around here.

If you don’t have a local bookstore, here’s a link that will show you all the different places where you can buy the book.

But back to my point, I’ve had a bunch of things to share with you. A lot of things I’d love to talk about…

…but I haven’t posted any of them. Partly because… I’ve signed more than 30,000 books over the last month (some for the US, some for the UK) so that (hopefully) y’all can get copies even though I’m not doing a signing tour. Partly because I’m helping my boys with school and trying to be a good dad, partly because there’s a lot of other stuff in my life that eats a truly unfortunate amount of my time and energy…

I’ve also been doing interviews, livestreams, and other things to promote the upcoming book, of course:

(I’ve got one of these happening tomorrow, FYI.)

The other reason I haven’t written about a lot of this stuff is that… well… it’s important to me. And if it’s important, I want to do it really well. REALLY well. Perfectly, in fact. And it takes a long time to write a perfect blog… More time that I usually have.

So today I’m trying to change that by writing an imperfect blog. This is it, by the way. It’s a blog where I just tell you some things and try to come to grips with the fact that the blog isn’t as funny, or detailed, or clever as I’d like it to be.

So… with that in mind. Here’s the most recent piece of news I mentioned at the end of last week’s livestream….

Yeah. It’s a Bast-themed calendar.

It started as a joke. I was working on the illustrations for Narrow Road, and getting some feedback from Julia Maddalina, (an amazing artist I’ve worked with for years. You’ve seen her work in the worldbuilders store.)

While we’re chatting, I made some comment about Bast being sexy, it’s a shame he doesn’t have a pin-up calendar, etc etc… Then 20 minutes later, Julia sent me a sketch Bast. I honestly can’t remember what the first one was, because we joked about it for weeks, and she sent me sketches of him washing a car in daisy dukes, dressed up as a lumberjack, and just generally being the hot fae he is.

Then eventually, it started seeming less like a joke and more like a fun side project I could release alongside the book to make some money for Worldbuilders.

I hesitate to call it a pin-up calendar. As there’s a lot of baggage that goes along with that term, a lot of sexism and objectification. But we *have* pulled a bit from that tradition for some of the images.

 

(This is one of my favorites)

But a lot of the art we developed doesn’t follow in the pin-up tradition. It’s just playful, and silly, and fun…

(Not really a pin-up)

While working on the calendar, I never really talked about it, as I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get it finished this year, and the last thing I wanted to do was get people excited about something and then not be able to deliver it on time. But it’s at the printers now, going through final proofs, and now I wish I *had* been talking about it for months, because Julia’s art is amazing, and this has turned into something I’m really proud of.

(Yeah. That’s Bast as a sexy Mr. Tumnis…. Plus Noir. I don’t know why I’m proud of it. But I am. I’m really, *really* proud of it.)

Last week, I was showing the finished project to a friend who runs a bookstore down in Madison because I was excited about it being finished, and they ended up ordering a hundred copies for their store. It was only then that I realized that some of you were in direct contact with a bunch of people who would love to buy something like this….

Aaaand. That’s it. An imperfect blog. The story of how I accidentally made a Julia draw bast without his shirt off a bunch, for charity.

Here’s the tricky bit. We’ve done calendars in the past and learned the hard way that they’re not an evergreen product. I don’t want to print, like, 150 of these, then run out and have a bunch of people be sad because we ran out and they can’t have one.

On the other hand, I also don’t want to throw away a thousand calendars when February rolls around. It’s a huge waste of money, and feels like an ecological hate-crime.

So right now we’re doing a pre-order sale in Worldbuilders online store.  For a couple days, if you buy multiple copies, you can get a big discount. (That sale is going to go away when we put in our final order this week.

You can also put together a bunch of different bundles over there, where people can get a discount by buying a bunch of things at once. Like a copy of the new book, a calendar, and one of the new coins we make with shire post to celebrate the release of Narrow Road.)

(These show up in the book, and I’m *really* happy with how they turned out.)

So… there you go. Many announcements made imperfectly. Hopefully I’ll be able to come back and go into more detail about some of these things later, but at the very least I’ve managed to mention them to y’all.

And now, I’ve got to go make breakfast for my boys.

Later space cowboys,

pat

P.S. If you happen to be a cool indie bookstore, and want to sell some sexy Bast during the holidays, drop us a line over at: [email protected].

Posted in a billion links, book covers, The Quest for Non-Perfection | By Pat40 Responses

New Novella – An announcement in Three Parts

Hey there everybody,

Later this year, I’m publishing a new novella.

In a lot of ways, it’s going to be similar to The Slow Regard of Silent Things. It’s set in Temerant. It’s going to be illustrated by the fabulous Nate Taylor, and it centers on one of the secondary characters from the Kingkiller Chroniclers: Bast.

[You’re never secondary in our hearts, Bast.]

 

The Novella is called The Narrow Road Between Desires.

I’ve always said when a new project was happening, you’d hear it here first. So here it is, first.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know how I typically communicate. I tend to go on tangents, digress, maunder, and only then do I get to the point and share the news.

So… Surprise. That’s the news. Right up at the top. Hope that me changing it up a bit isn’t too disconcerting.

If you want more details about the novella, odd context, and a few tangents, that’s down below the scene break. Because this is my blog, and I can put a scene break in it if I want.

* * *

Part 2: Cookies and Communication

(That’s right, not only a scene break. I’m giving it a subtitle, too.)

Ever since book two was delayed more than a decade ago, I’ve promised y’all that when a new book is going to be coming out, you’ll hear the news from me first.

The reason for this is a little complicated. But it boils down to this:

When you create something people like, they want to know when you’re going to make a similar thing so they can enjoy that too. If they like it a *lot* then they *REALLY* want to know when you’re doing it again.

If the thing you create is say… a batch of cookies for your kids, this isn’t a problem. They want more cookies, so you can let them know the cookie release schedule. If they forget, you can remind them. If the schedule changes, you explain why.

Even if your kids want more cookies than you can produce, and they complain, or whine, or nag at you, the whole thing is still manageable. (Though as anyone who has dealt with kids can attest to, dealing with over-insistent kids can be rough.) But it works because the number of kids is (statistically speaking) only about 2-3. This makes clear and consistent communication possible. Since you’re all on the same page, everyone gets to anticipate cookies together.

All of this goes out the window if, say, instead of making cookies, you make a book. And instead of a 2-3 kids, you end up with several million readers.

When I was first published. I thought communicating with folks online would be easy. I post an update, everyone reads it. Easy peasy. Right?

It only took a couple years to realize it doesn’t work that way. I can spend 10 hours writing a blog about how my Dad’s in hospice, explaining how the whole thing’s upheaved my life, been hard on my boys, and utterly destroyed any semblance of normalcy in my world…. Then later that day still get half a dozen people pinging me on different platforms asking me why it’s been years since my last book was out.

I can post updates on my blog, on twitter, on facebook, on Twitch, but that doesn’t mean people will read them. What’s more, all it takes is a rumor on a reddit thread to spread bad information and make people think there’s a new book coming out. If amazon’s ordering system auto-fills a publication date for Doors of Stone, people think it’s real, then get pissed when no book comes out on that not-real timeline.

It’s something that I still don’t know how to come to grips with. And the only solution I do have is the promise I made years back: That when there *is* a publication date for DOS, or I put out a different book, you’ll hear about it directly from me first. And no matter where else I make the announcement. (Like today on Twitch, for example.) I’ll also post about it here on the blog.

It’s not a perfect solution, but this way, if people hear a rumor, they can at least come over here and check out whether or not it’s real.

When I first promised that, I thought it would be easy. But at this point, I think we all know that I can be terribly naive….

* * *

Part 3: Visions and Revisions

So. For those of you who haven’t already guessed, while it’s easy for me to say “You’ll always hear about new books and their publication dates from me first.” It’s *way* more complicated than that. Truth is, things like this, can only work if your publisher has your back….

While I write the books myself, publishing them is a team effort. And as many of you already know, my publisher is DAW, and my editor is Betsy Wollheim. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

When I told Betsy I wanted to be first to break news like this to y’all, she agreed. And since then both Betsy and the other lovely folks on the publishing team have gone along with it, despite the fact that it makes things harder for them.

They have to do extra work in order to keep things secret, and it ties their hands a little. Believe it or not, promoting and marketing a book is way harder when nobody knows a book is in the works. Despite all this, we’ve all been keeping news about the novella secret, and the lovely folks at DAW have done that extra work so that I can make the announcement here first.

There are some downsides, though. If I’m going to be the first to break the news, I have to do so fairly early in the publication process so that marketing and PR people can do important things like… talk to bookstores and see if any of them would be interested in, y’know, putting it on the shelves so people can buy it.

The bad news is that since this is early in the process, it means the book is still in development. I’m still tweaking the text. Nate and I are still finishing the art. We don’t have the cover finalized yet:

 

[I know it’s hard to believe, but this is not, in fact, the final cover.]

The good news is that as new things *do* get finished, I get to show them off to you. That will give me stuff to share here on the blog for the next couple months. But I do still have some stuff to share:

  • The publication date will be Nov 14th 2023.
  • There will be opportunities to get signed copies. (More on this later, as we solidify promotional plans.)
  • The book will be longer than The Slow Regard of Silent Things.
  • It will have more illustrations than Slow Regard, too. (More than 30.)

The last of these is really exciting for me, as it’s been a lot of fun working on this with Nate:

(Click to Embiggen.)

We ended up with least 5 different graphics full of potential Bast faces that we developed while working on the illustrations….

For those of you who are into more of the professional ad-copy sort of stuff. Here’s one of the *many* different versions of the promo copy that we’ve tossed around. I’m notoriously bad at writing this sort of thing, so my main contribution is to go into their draft, re-write pieces of it, get increasingly frustrated, then eventually send it back to them saying, “Use any of this that you want to and throw away the rest!”

It’s not a *great* process, but it’s what I have.

 

#1 NYT bestselling phenomenon Patrick Rothfuss returns to the wildly popular Kingkiller Chronicle Universe with a stunning reimagining of “The Lightning Tree.” Expanded to twice its previous length, and lavishly illustrated by Nathan Taylor, this touching stand-alone story is sure to please new readers and veteran Rothfuss fans alike.

No one taller than the stone. 

Come to blacktree, come alone. 

Tell no adult what’s been said, 

lest the lightning strike you dead.

When you come to the lightning tree to trade with Bast, your mortal money isn’t worth much. What holds true value are older things: secrets and favors. Buttons and flowers. Lies, tricks, riddles, stones, and whatever else your heart truly desires.

Follow the Kingkiller Chronicle’s most charming fae as he schemes and bargains his way through the small town of Newarre. While at first it seems that Bast must be master of this tiny domain, but while he cares nothing for the laws of man, there are older, deeper laws that bind him. And for all his cleverness, Bast finds himself trapped in ways he has never experienced before, and make hard choices and help an enemy.

Playful, sweet, and sly as Bast himself, The Narrow Road Between Desires is Bast’s story. In it he traces the old ways of making and breaking, following his heart even when doing so goes against his better judgement. For after all, what good is wisdom if it keeps you from finding your way to danger and delight?

 

So… yeah. There you go. Announcement made.

Final notes: Because I have an addiction to bulleted lists:

  • If you want to know more details as they become available, finished cover, how to get signed books, sneak peeks at art, etc.) here on the blog is the best place to keep checking back. But we’re also spinning up a mailing list over here at RothCo (TM) so if you want to get updates sent to you about potential events and signings and other promo stuff, you can sign up here.
  • Want to pre-order a copy but don’t know where your closest indi bookstore is? You can find one here. (Indibound)
  • Are you in the UK? Here’s a link to Waterstones.
  • Do you run an indi bookstore and want to be part of some of the cool promotions our PR and Marketing people are planning? You can ping DAW over here.

That’s all for now.

Later, space cowboys….

 

Posted in book covers, cool news, Nathan Taylor Art | By PatComments closed

“…an odd, maundering aggregation of anecdotes and elegy.”

So there’s one day left on the kickstarter, and among the many stretch goals we’ve unlocked while bringing Digger back into print, was one where I said folks would get a sneak peek of the foreword.

So I’m going to throw that up here today.

But first, I want to show you the graphic that I made with Julia on the livestream a couple days ago, that shows nice mockups of the books and gives details about them, including all the upgrades we’ve been able to include.

And you know what? I’m going to do you one better than that.

Right now the kickstarter is at $339,827. But I’m going to show you the graphic we have ready for when we hit $350K because that’s kinda the final big goal for us.

Because at $350,000 every Softcover and Hardcover book people get through the kickstarter will include a special bookplate with new, original art by Ursula Vernon.

Here it is.

(Woo!)

Here’s the thing: I know everyone jumping into the kickstarter would like a signed book. But there’s just no way we can do that. The books are *way* too big, and shipping them to Ursula would take a truck, then a crew of people to unload, unbox, present, re-box, and re-load. Pallets of books. Shipping cost both ways. Plus the books get damaged boxing and unboxing. Plus the time. And hassle. And extra money.

Even a bookplate is tricky. It ads more art design. We still have to do a proofing process, pay to get things printed and shipped to Ursula, then shipped back. And god help us if we lose a box…

But the kickstarter has done well enough that we can manage it. And Ursula has been gracious enough to agree to sign *all* of them.

So that means everyone can get their book signed, after a fashion.

But anyway. Here’s the promo graphic I was talking about…

(Click to Embiggen)

That was a ton of fun to make with Julia and the folks on the stream. I’m trying to do my best on this project, because I love Ursula’s book. But I do my best work when I don’t take things *too* seriously.

And now, without further ado, here’s my rambling mess of a foreword. (Forgive the occasional error, this is the raw text, not the nicely trimmed and copy-edited version that exists in the book itself.)

*     *     *

Hello there. My name is Patrick Rothfuss. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

That’s the gist of it right there. You have permission to skip this whole foreword and get straight to the good stuff. I don’t know what you might be expecting from a forward, but odds are you won’t find it here. This is, at best, going to be an odd, maundering aggregation of anecdotes and elegy.

So go on. Get in there. Read it.

*     *     * 

Okay. I warned you.

Once, years and miles away, I stumbled onto a comic called Digger.

I was on a book tour, which meant I needed something to read in airports and hotel rooms. I found this comic in the store after I was done with my signing. I looked it over. Good blurbs. Playful tone. Hold on, Phil Foglio wrote the foreword? I’ve loved his work for ages, especially Girl Genius.

But luggage space was limited, and this book was beefy. Thick as a cinderblock. I wasn’t sure I had space for it…

I flipped a couple pages to look at the art and suddenly there was a full splash page showing Ganesha.

That was enough for me. I rolled the dice, bought it, and ended up having to throw away two t-shirts so I could fit it in my bag.

Every once in a while, apparently, I make a good decision.

*     *     * 

Whenever I write a foreword or introduction, I feel the need to explain that I don’t like introductions. That I don’t read introductions. I find the entire concept baffling at best. More often I think of them as belonging in the same circle of hell as spoilers, paid endorsements, and people who talk in the theatre.

Simply said, I don’t want to tell you about this book. I believe a story should stand on its own, and that the first time you experience it is precious. Sacrosanct.

If my job here is to introduce you to the book… shouldn’t I do it in the same way I introduce people? “Hello there, Reader. I hear you like Books.” I turn to face Digger with an expansive gesture. “What a fortunate happenstance, my good friend Book! I suspect the two of you will form a delightful acquaintance.”

And then I should leave. I shouldn’t stand around, hands in my pockets, eyeballing you intently while rocking back onto my heels, like I’m expecting the two of you to immediately kiss.

So. Reader, meet Book. Book, Reader.

*     *     * 

Giving people books is my love language. And these days, my older son bears the brunt of the impulse. The only thing that keeps me from burying him in books is the fact that I only want to bring him truly good things to read.

Also? He’s 12, and I’ve tried to keep the worst of the world from poisoning him. As a result, he’s crushingly literate with a tender heart and has a real distaste for what he refers to as “Dead Dog Books.” Which is to say, books where there’s needless tragedy, cruelty, violence, etc.

This was more than two years ago, so he was only 10, and even though I loved Digger, I didn’t know if I should share it. Violence, but it’s not gratuitous. Big feelings, but nothing overwhelming. Complex story and relationships, Non-western philosophy but presented with care and clarity…

I rolled the dice again and gave him the book.

He read the whole thing. Then he read it again. On his third time through, he read big chunks of it to his younger brother.

When I asked him what he thought of it, he lit up and said, “It’s almost as good as Bone!”

Trust me, this is stunning praise. I gave him my Omnibus edition of Bone back when he was 7. He’s read it dozens of times. The thing is in absolute tatters. This isn’t him giving Digger second place, he’s saying he loves it infinity –1.

Here’s the hard truth: I’m biased toward digger. You can’t trust me to be impartial about Digger. Hell, I’m publishing it. It’s kinda my job to say nice things.

But my kid? He’s better than me. You can trust him.

*     *     * 

Fast forward. I’m still brimful of New Relationship Energy toward Digger. So I take it on a trip and give it to a friend who lives a thousand miles away.

Again, giving books is one of my purest joys. I get to share something I love with someone I love. And when I replace it, buying a new copy supports the author, publisher, and bookstore.

But it turns out my local bookstore can’t order it. Neither can Room of One’s Own in Madison. Neither can Barnes and Noble…

It isn’t anywhere. Eventually I find a copy for $600 on a rare book site, but that’s it. How could this be out of print? It’s an amazing story. It won a Hugo….

So, using all my vast publishing-world clout, I ping Ursula Vernon on Twitter to ask her what was up. She directed me to Sofa Wolf Press and I learn the harsh truth: The omnibus is, as I mentioned, a *really* big book. They simply couldn’t afford to bring it back with the cost of paper being what it is these days.

I asked if I could help. I have a little experience bringing books back. When my weird picture book went out of print, we brought it back and sold it through the Worldbuilders store, making a *lot* of money for charity while accidentally scarring an entire generation of geek children.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that bringing Digger back was going to be harder. For one, Digger was a thousand pages long. For another, Covid was ruining everything. There were paper shortages, printers I’d worked with in the past had gone out of business…

So I called Shawn Speakman, cool guy, experienced book-doer, and founder of Grim Oak Press. We talked. Made plans. One thing led to another, and I ended up finally pulling the trigger on a project I’ve daydreamed of for over a decade: Starting my own publishing imprint.

(I’ll never get tired of showing off the logo.)

As I’ve already said, sharing books is one of my favorite things. I do it so much that I buy my favorite books in bulk, so I always have a copy I can hand to someone. Bringing a book back into print is pretty much the same thing, just on a vaster scale.

Thanks for taking a risk on us. This is the first flight of Underthing Press. I hope it goes well. I hope you enjoy the books I want to share.

*     *     * 

When I was 8, while walking through the woods with my father, he asked me to wait a moment, then rolled up his sleeves and casually pushed over a huge, fully-grown tree.

Later in life, I realized the tree had been long dead. Nevertheless, the effect was that young Pat thought of his father as the strongest man in the world, immeasurably cool.

Earlier today, I told my boys I’d be working on this foreword for the same reason my father pushed over that tree: a desperate desire to look cool in front of my kids. It worked pretty well, because, as I’ve said, my kids love Digger.

On a whim, I asked what they would say if someone asked them for a promotional blurb. (They know what this is because daddy’s an author.)

My 8-year old immediately stomped out with: “It’s wonderfully story-rich!”

My 12 year old said he wanted to think about it a bit, then a couple hours later he came back and said: “Digger is a beautiful story that rambles, but in a good way.”

So there you go. If anyone knows rambling stories, it’s my kids.

And I’m guessing if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this foreword, you might be one of the folks who enjoy that sort of thing as well….

*     *     *

So… yeah.

If that seems like something you might be interested in, you’ve got about 24 hours left to jump in and back it over here.

Later space cowboys,

pat

[Edit: 2:33 PM – We’ve hit $350K, so it’s official. Everyone gets one of the cool new signed bookplates. We also added another 50 Limited editions, as they sold out again.

Also, Shawnposted an update announcing an add-on that folks requested in one of our early brainstorm session, and we’ve been working on for a couple of weeks. Specifically, it’s a way for those of you who love books (and libraries) to add a discounted copy of digger to your order and then we at Underthing Press will donate those books to underserved libraries around the country where they can get the love and attention they deserve.)

Posted in book covers, cool news, cool things, side projects, Stories about stories., Underthing | By Pat59 Responses

The Best Laid Plans….

Greetings true believers!

Ech. I remember back in the beforetimes. I remember the long long ago when I refused to resort to gratuitous Exclamation Marks. And yet here we are. I fought the tide and fell before the waves. Now I’m like the rest of the plebeians, promiscuous with my punctuation to the point of profligacy.

As I finally begin to write this blog, it is 2:58 AM on Friday morning. I’d planned on writing about taking my kids to the local pride festival and doing some art design for the Digger Unearthed kickstarter on the livestream this week. But the best laid plans of mice and men do often go awry. And my plans are more prone to that than most. Complicating things were a tornado, two power outages, a medical crisis, a grade-3 internet kerfuffle, and a child with a tragic case of night-yertz.

Everything said, it wasn’t a good week to decide to wean myself off coffee.

The good news is that with 5 days left to go, the kickstarter is trundling along quite nicely. We’ve unlocked a lot of stretch goals, most of which directly relate to improving the books themselves. Better covers, acid-free paper, fancy foil, and silk bookmarks. At the start of all of this, I’ll admit I was kinda hoping we might get as high as $200,00o. But we’ve outstripped that, and are currently standing at $288,017, more than ten times our starting goal.

If you want to dig into more of the particulars of what’s being done to improve the books, you can head over here to see for yourself. There’s a couple updates as well as fancy graphics that show what we’ve unlocked, and what we’ve got on the near horizon.

But the big news for today, is that we’re going to be doing a live discussion and Q&A with Ursula Vernon herself.

Here’s the deets.

 

Ursula is a delight, and I’m excited to get the chance to chat with her. You can show up to enjoy the Q&A live over here, or catch the VOD after we’re done.

Thanks again for all your support, everyone. And I’ll see you on the stream tomorrow.

pat

Posted in a few words you're probably going to have to look up, Ask the Author, Underthing | By Pat21 Responses

Playing Fiasco With Polygon

In an attempt to work through my vasty backlog of half-finished blogs. I’m going to be posting up a few little short ones here and there.

It’s wild to me when I stop to think that back in the day, I used to post up blogs at the rate of 2-3 a week, whereas now it’s more usual for me to post one every 2-3 months.

Though to be fair, a lot was different back then. It was before I had two kids, back before I was trying to run a charity (as opposed to sometimes just running a fundraiser, which is a big difference.) Back in the beforetimes of covid…

Anyway, one of the things I regret leaving by the wayside is posting up blogs of stuff I’d done that you could access online. That way even folks who didn’t go to a convention could watch the panels I was on. Or even people who don’t subscribe to it, could hear me guest star onto a podcast, or catch me do a writing Q&A or play D&D or some other sort of game.

I feel like over the last 4-5 years, I haven’t shared more than 10% of the stuff here that’s available online.

Like, (Pat said, doing an expert segue) the time I played Fiasco with the folks over at Polygon.

(I’d be angry about this screencap if I hadn’t made it. As it is, I’m just angry about my face.)

If you’ve never heard of Fiasco before…. boy. I don’t know if this is a good introduction to the game or not. It’s a delightful collaborative storytelling environment to be sure, and I *love* me some worldbuilding as you know. But… it kinda went off the rails.

In a good way, I feel. And it was certainly a ton of fun. And it certainly shows how flexible the game is in terms of what you can play. But, as is often the case when I play a game, I kinda push at things to see what I can get away with narratively and creatively. It’s not that I want to break anything, I just get kind of excited full of ideas, and when you get to play with a group of folks as delightful as this….

Let’s just say it was a wild ride…

Also, I would like to go on the record as saying that I didn’t go into this game with *anything* planned. It all happened organically. My hand to glob.

Polygon posted up an article about the game, titled “Fiasco proves how fun it is to role-play without a DM.

They even generously subtitled the article, “Patrick Rothfuss joins us for some collaborative storytelling” instead of something more realistic like, “Rothfuss weirds up our game and then drives us off a narrative cliff.”

But yeah. It was a ton of fun.

Extra points anyone who can guess in the comments below as to where I stole the inspiration for the voice and demeanor of my character….

Later space cowboys,

pat

P.S. We’re slightly more than one week into the Kickstarter, and we’re currently at $247,283. (SO close to cracking a quarter million.) We’ve unlocked a lot of stretch goals, most of which center around making the books cooler and better when we go to press, and the team is actively investigating what else we might be able to add if things keep going this strong.

But yeah. It’s been a delightful launch of the first book from Underthing Press. Thanks so much to all of you who have helped by jumping in and spreading the word.

 

Posted in appearances, Beautiful Games, cool things, gaming, geeking out, meeting famous people, Stories about stories., videos | By Pat30 Responses

“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.

 

 

Posted in emo bullshit, Nathan Taylor Art, Underthing | By Pat56 Responses

Total Party Kiss and Architect Update.

Heya everybody,

Quick post today, as I only have two hours before I’m going to be playing some D&D over on my twitch stream at 2:00 CST today with these fabulous people….

Aaand apparently I can’t upload the title card. Great. Great great. Ugh. It seems like every time I try to post up a blog, even a quick one. It involves 30-40 minutes of me writing things, and two hours of me trying to sort out technical problems and getting formatting to not be shit.

*sigh* Fine. I’ll just use that title card for twitter. Instead I’ll just say that it’s the follow up to this game that we did back in December. Those of you who watched it might remember it as the session where someone (it might even have been me) coined the term, Total Party Kiss.

 

So… yeah. Feel free to show up and watch us D&D it live later today if you like.

In other news, we’re finishing up the behind-the-scenes work for the Worldbuilders Architects program. (If you don’t know what that is, you can look over here.) We want it to be something special, and so we’ve been looking into what we can do to make it a good experience AND also have it run as smoothly as possible.

Right now one of the main things we’ve discovered is that I can never. EVER spell the word “Archetects” right on the first try. And, in fact, I can misspell it up to 5 different ways in a single newsletter.

But yeah. Despite these hurdles, we’re putting the final touches on our initial e-mail, that lets you know what’s up, and includes a poll so we can gather your thoughts about what you’d really like out of Archetects in the coming year so we can focus our energies there. So if you’re signed up, keep an eye out for that in the next day or two.

Thirdly and lastly, if you’re into newsletters, or just want news and don’t mind it coming in a letter-y format, you can sign up for a couple over here.

That’s all for now, Gotta go dig up my character sheets and dust off those dice.

pat

Posted in cool news, cool things | By Pat28 Responses
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