Search Results for: Concerning love

Concerning Anime

Pat,

After taking note that you’ve repeatedly referenced Cowboy Bebop, I’d like if you could include in a blog any favorite/recommended anime. I understand that you are busy or may not have enough interest in writing such a blog. Or may be hesitant to receive the potential fan outlash because you didn’t mention “insert anime name here” or haven’t seen “insert more different anime name here”.

But I would just like your opinion, as that is one of the primary reasons I read the blog – to learn more about the author. I’d like to think I’m not alone.

Until next time, fellow space cowboy!

Ben (Twin Cities, MN)

First off, Ben. I have to say I love the term “outlash.” It fills a good linguistic niche. It’s different from backlash. Outlash is less of a reaction, more of an upwelling of directionless vitriol. It’s less justified than backlash.

Off the top of my head, I’d say that roughly 27% of the internet is composed of outlash.

Here’s my utterly off-the-cuff top five Anime recommendations.

1. Last Airbender.

First off. We’re not talking about the movie. We’re talking about the animated series. I hear the movie sucked to such a degree that words cannot fully encompass it.

This series was absolutely brilliant. I could easily hold forth for an hour on the clever storytelling techniques they use. I’m looking forward to the day that little Oot is old enough so that I can watch it with him.

2. Princess Mononoke.

Out of fairness to all other anime, we’ll only include one Miyazaki title in this list. Though it’s hard to narrow it down, this one has to be my favorite. Probably because the translation and dub is absolutely first rate.

Normally I’m a subtitle guy. 99% of the time, I go for subtitle. But this is one of the rare cases where I really do like the dub more. It made me feel better when I learned that Neil Gaiman was in charge of anglicizing the screenplay for the English version.

3. Cowboy Bebop.

A true rarity. A brilliant Japanese Anime series that doesn’t turn to total bullshit at the end.

4. Trigun.

Piece and Love!

5. Akira.

Okay. You know that crack I made up there in #3 about anime turning into total bullshit at the end of the series/movie? This is the perfect example of that. The last 10 minutes of the movie are like a bad acid flashback.

But you know what? This still makes the top five despite the fact that the movie as a whole makes no goddamn sense. The music and cinematography are enough make up for the largely nonsensical story/plot/character conflict.

And believe me, that’s probably nothing you’ll ever hear me say again, that the cinematography alone makes something worth watching.

But in this one case it’s really true. Despite the fact that this is largely an action movie, I consider it a brilliant study in silence and stillness. If you’ve watched it closely, I’m sure you know what I mean.

*      *     *

Now before y’all start your anguished screeling that I didn’t include Inuyasha or Witchunter Robin or  whatever your favoritiest BFF anime of forever is. Keep in mind that I might not have seen it. If you look at the dates of the above titles, you’ll see that I’m not really on the cutting edge here. I haven’t watched hardly any TV at all in two years. I’ve heard of Bleach but never watched it. Same thing with Death Note. (I read it.)

Then again, it’s quite possible your favorite show simply didn’t flip my switch. I watched Full Metal Alchemist, and while parts of it were cool, as a whole it felt draggy and slow. Though it came highly recommended, Monster just bored me, and I quit watching halfway through.

So much of this is a matter of taste, you realize.

Honorable mentions:

  • Ninja Scroll. Subtitled. (I once watched it three times in a row.)
  • Anything by Miyazaki.
  • Lupin the Third.
  • All Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku. (Seriously. It was great.)
  • Cutey Honey. (Because you have to respect the concept.)
  • Paprika.
  • Millenium Actress. (A story about stories.)
  • Ghost in the Shell.

If any of y’all have some particular favorites, I’d love to hear about them. Not that I have much time for watching TV these days. But someday I hope to be able to veg out in front of the tube again….

pat

Posted in Fanmail Q + A, recommendations, Things I Like | By Pat189 Responses

Seven Stories Concerning Joss Whedon – or – The Road to Damascus

This is a Worldbuilders blog.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s come to my attention that some of you out there might not know about Joss Whedon. This worries me.

Even more troubling is the thought that some of you might know of Whedon, but still haven’t taken him into your heart or witnessed his glorious work.

I used to be like you. I used to live in darkness. Let me share my story with the hope that you might come to know him as I do….

* * *

It’s 1999. Home from college, I go to a New Year’s party with some old friends. Halfway through the evening, someone mentions Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Never seen it,” I say.

Suddenly they’re all bleating like sheep about how much they love the show. Everyone feels compelled to tell me their favorite line. Their favorite part. The time this character did this thing in this place.

“Yes yes,” I said. “I’ve heard it all before. Honestly, it sounds pretty dumb to me.”

Things get heated. It turns out I’m the only person there not actively following the show. They can’t believe how ignorant I am. How can I not be watching it?

Finally I’ve had enough. I hold up a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Listen,” I say. “I’m a huge geek. I’ve written a fantasy trilogy that will never be published. I once dressed up as Pan for Halloween. I have LARPed.” I looked at them all seriously. “And you people embarrass me. I am ashamed to be standing close to you right now. Kindly shut up about your stupid vampire cheerleader show.”

It’s 2002. I’m in grad school, covered in a thick, greasy layer of drudgery and helpless rage. I’m fighting as hard as I can, only to realize that academia is a tarbaby made out of bullshit and willful ignorance.

One of my friends buys the first season of Buffy on DVD and leaves it in my house. That’s it. No sales pitch. I just come home from class and it’s sitting on my coffee table.

And that’s where it stays. I’ve made my feelings clear. I’m getting my Masters in English Literature. I’ll be god-damned if I watch a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But, eventually, there’s nothing else to watch in the house, so I plug it one evening while I eat my dinner.

And it’s exactly what I expected. It’s trash. It’s heavy handed. The plot is predictable.

Worse of all, there’s a showdown between the plucky blond eye-candy and the bad guy at the end of the first episode.

Buffy: Well you forgot about one thing!
Vampire: Whats that?
Buffy: Sunrise!

She breaks a window behind the vampire and rich amber light pours in, making the vampire howl in fear.

I roll my eyes. I’ve seen this cliche a dozen times before. I’d be bored if I wasn’t so insulted. I reach for the remote.

But it isn’t sunlight pouring through the window. It’s just a lightbulb in the alleyway. The vampire looks out the window, confused.

Buffy: Its not for another 9 hours, moron.

I start to laugh, realizing whoever wrote this knows exactly what he’s doing. This isn’t cliche. This is whatever the opposite of cliche is.

I watch the second episode.

It’s 2003. I’m out of grad school and teaching my own classes for the very first time.

I’ve made contact with a big-name New York literary agent. He’s read my book and thinks it has potential. He says I’m a good writer, but my book has structural problems. There are plot issues. Am I willing to revise?

I am. But I have no idea where to start. I read a book called Writing the Blockbuster Novel and it makes no sense at all to me. I re-read my novel and realize I don’t have the slightest fucking idea what I’m doing.

Fall semester ends, and the university tells me enrollment is down. Quick as that I’m unemployed.

So I go out and buy my very first home theater system. Bose speakers. Subwoofer. I fill up the credit card, figuring that if I’m going to be unemployed, I might as well enjoy my free time. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be able to get any writing done….

The first thing I watch is the second season Buffy.

It opens a window in my head. It changes the way I think about stories.

It’s 2004. Despite the fact that I’m not really interested in space cowboys or whatever, I buy a copy of Firefly.

It’s 6:00 AM when I sit down to watch it. After half an hour, one of my roommates wanders blearily into the living room.

“Wassis?” he asks.

“Firefly,” I say. “First episode. I can start it over if you want…”

He lays down on the other couch and we re-start the episode.

Ten minutes later he looks at me. “They canceled this?” he asks.

“Apparently.”

He looks at the screen, then back at me. “I’m so fucking pissed!”

I nod.

Six years later I’m still pissed. I’ll probably be pissed about Firefly until the day I die.

It’s 2006, and I’m attending one of my first conventions. I’ve sold my book, so now my job is to make friends in the fan community. Mingle. Rub elbows. Network.

I get invited to a party. I drink a drink. I end up talking with a beautiful young woman in a tight red dress.

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she says. “I watched some Buffy, couldn’t get into it. Firefly was boring. I just don’t get what I’m supposed to be missing.”

“Well…” I said thoughtfully. “Have you ever considered the fact that you might not actually have a soul?”

It’s 2008. Dr. Horrible goes online. I’m giddy as a schoolgirl. I write a blog about it. I bring my friends over to watch. I leave it playing on my computer while I do work around the house, while I check my e-mail, while I eat lunch.

This continues for weeks.

Then one day while I’m singing “A Man’s gotta Do…” in the shower, I have an idea for a short story. This is a rarity. I don’t do short stories. Better yet, it’s a short graphic novel.

So I sit down and start to write it out. It’s fun. I’ve never written a script for a graphic novel, and it’s tricky thinking in terms of page layouts, paneling, and dialogue placement. I break out my copy of Understanding Comics and start making notes for a friend who could do the illustrations.

Two hours later I realize I’m writing Dr. Horrible fanfiction.

Four hours later I’m still writing it.

It’s 2009. While playing Guest of Honor at a convention, I end up on a panel about Joss Whedon.

Much to my surprise, I hear people nitpicking. They say, “Buffy was great until season four.” “I got bored with Dollhouse after two episodes.” “Angel was too dark.” “Buffy got weird in season five….”

Finally I’ve had enough. I hold up a hand to get everyone’s attention.

“Listen,” I say unto them. “You’re all a bunch of whiny little titbabies. Joss Whedon is a storyteller and you’re upset because he isn’t acting like a music box, playing you your favorite song again and again.

“Joss Whedon made me care about the X-men, even Cyclops. He sold me on space cowboys. He made me sing in the shower and write fanfiction for the first time in my life. He told me a subtle story with Dollhouse and gave me the best character arc I’ve ever seen with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.”

“Why don’t you marry him?” someone shouts from the audience.

“Because of Proposition 8,” I shot back. “And because he never returns my calls.”

* * *

So that’s the story of my conversion to Whedonism. I’ve pulled a Saul of Tarsus and these days I’m a full-blown missionary. In fact, Sarah has informed me my man-crush is about to step from being cute to creepy, so I’m trying to reign myself in a little bit here.

For example, I’m not going to post up any of my Whedon-tribute macaroni art. Neither will I trouble you with any of the sonnets I’ve composed.

Instead, I’ll add some Whedon stuff to the Worldbuilders lottery. That means if you donate money to Heifer International before January 15th, you have a chance of winning this stuff in addition to all the other cool prizes.

  • All seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the five seasons of Angel, and the first five graphic novels composing “Season Eight”of Buffy.


About a year ago, I went to talk to a bunch of high-schoolers as part of a book festival.

As per usual, I read a bit, then did some Q&A.

One of the kids asked a question about character building. I thought of the perfect example that would answer his question and said, “Have you seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

I meant it to be a rhetorical question. I mean, everyone’s seen Buffy, right?

He hadn’t. I was a little surprised. So I asked the whole auditorium, “Who here has watched Buffy?”

Only about three hands went up.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. But I was. What’s more, I was actually mad. I turned to the teacher that had arranged for me to come out and talk to the kids and demanded, “What the hell are you teaching these kids?”

  • Both hardcover volumes of the Astonishing X-Men, containing the entire story arc written by Joss Whedon.


Even if you don’t read comics, you will enjoy this. Even if you don’t care about the X-Men, you will like this story. It’s wonderfully self-contained, so you don’t need to know the last 40 years of x-history to follow what’s going on.

  • The complete series of Firefly and the sequel movie Serenity.


If I ever get to teach a creative writing class, I’m assigning Firefly as a textbook. Everything you need to know about storytelling is right there in the pilot episode.

Side note: if you watch the movie before watching the series, I will magically appear and choke you.

  • The first season of Dollhouse.


Some people I normally respect are all snarky about Dollhouse.

Fie, I say unto them. If you can’t handle a subtle story, feel free to go watch MTV cribs. The rest of us will be right here, enjoying the awesome.

It’s a different sort of story. That means, of necessity, it has a different tone. But it’s still Whedon, and that’s all that matters.

  • Two copies of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.


For concentrated cool, it’s hard to beat this disk. Not only is DR. Horrible like a primer on how to create a realistic villain, but the commentary track is a musical too. I’m not even kidding.

God. Just looking at the cover makes me want to listen to it again….

That’s all for now folks. Remember that the fundraiser is over on January 15th. So if you want to get in on the action, you better do so soon.

Money raised by Worldbuilders goes to Heifer International, which helps people all over the world raise themselves out of poverty and starvation. If you’d like to donate directly you can head over to my page at Team Heifer and I’ll match your donation by 50%. Trust me. You’ll feel great afterward.

Or, if you want more information about the Worldbuilders fundraiser itself, you can head to the main page HERE.

With thanks to our sponsor, Subterranean Press.

Posted in Firefly, geeking out, Joss Whedon, my dumbness, Subterranean Press, Worldbuilders 2009 | By Pat128 Responses

Floating on a Sea of Love.

Gech. After I wrote that title, I threw up a little bit in my own mouth.

But just because it’s nauseatingly sweet, doesn’t mean it’s not true. Since I posted the Longest Blog Ever about a week ago, I’ve received roughly one billion messages. There were e-mails, phone calls, facebook wall posts, strip-o-grams, and alien beams shot directly into my head from the icy depths of space.

Yeah. They read my blog in space, apparently. Who knew.

Seriously though, the vast majority of these messages have been displays of loving support and kindness. Many of them terribly sweet, funny, or touching in turn. Only a very few were snarky.

And yes, there was one turd. But it was a tiny thing among all the rest. A turdlet. And it didn’t spoil my day. Instead I laughed a great booming laugh at his ineffectual flailing rage.

On synchronicity:

Now, I should mention that I don’t actually read any blogs myself. There are a few I peek in on occasionally, but my addictive web-wanderings lean more toward comics.

So after I posted my blog, I was surprised to learn that George RR Martin wrote a blog on a similar subject about a week before I posted mine.

I saw Mr. Martin at Worldcon last year. And I almost went up to him and asked, “How have you gone this long without killing someone?” Because however much flak I happen to get from fans, he has to get a thousand times more.

In my opinion, he’s a saint. If I had to deal with that level of fan dickishness, I would have already lost my shit in some spectacular way. There would be a video of me on youtube, gone all berserk with nerd rage, holding someone up by the neck, shouting “I’ve got your sequel right here, bitch!”

I didn’t actually approach him and say that though. Because it seemed a weird way to introduce myself. Still, know that I’m on your side Mr. Martin. Slow writers represent. Um. Yo.

Several of you also brought Scalzi’s post to my attention as well. Apparently, just a couple hours before I posted up my blog, John Scalzi over at Whatever wrote a blog on the topic of authors. It’s a good read. Not only did we make a lot of the same points, we even made some of the same jokes. It was more than slightly eerie, to tell you the truth.

I just wish I’d skipped the last revision, and posted my blog a day earlier. That way it would have looked like he was ripping me off instead of the other way around.

Concerning the flood of love: (Ew)

I just wanted to mention that I did read all the messages. All of them. Though I only responded to a small fraction of what came in because there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

While I was reading through them, I snipped out some of the clever, bizarre, and funny things people wrote.

Then I cleverly lost the file I saved those quotes into. And I just don’t have time to winnow through several hundred messages again to dig them out. Rest assured that I enjoyed them all. Even the turd.

There is one message that I got after I made the post that just about knocked me over though.

My husband reads fantasy and I, the English teacher, prefer “real literature.” The Name of the Wind is what I get for being so smug. It is an incredible novel! Our first baby is due this April and I’m not sure what the two of us anticipate more: our new daughter or the Wise Man’s Fear!

Well done, Mr. Rothfuss, well done!

If that isn’t intimidating, I don’t know what is. I have a terrible mental image of a woman going into labor in the fantasy isle of Borders.

Oh, and here’s something else I thought y’all might get a kick out of:

You might have to click on it to see the joke.

It’s here…

I’m guessing that someone at B&N has a sense of humor, or there’s a profoundly weird glitch in their system.

(Edit: B&N insiders reveal the truth about this in the comments below. Thanks for the clue-in folks.)

Either way, I would just like to say I’m confident of my ability to get book two out before this deadline. Rest assured.

That’s all for now. I just wanted to thank everyone for their support. I’ll be posting up a few other blogs this week, so stay tuned.

Fondly,

pat

Posted in book two, fan coolness, love | By Pat103 Responses

Concerning the Release of Book Two

Huzzah.

Okay folks, here’s the deal….

Whatever release date you’ve heard for book two is simply untrue. There is no release date because the book isn’t finished yet. I’m working on it right now. Or rather, I would be working on it if I wasn’t writing this blog.

Yeah. It sucks. I wish it was finished too. My life would be really great right now if book two were done.

I’ve been avoiding writing this blog for a while. It’s not fun to write, and it’s not going to be fun for most people to read. The truth is, I’d much rather work on the book.

But recently, a remarkably courteous and lucid e-mail from a fan made me realize that a lot of people out there are more curious than pissed about it.

So. There’s the news. The Wise Man’s Fear won’t be out for a while. This won’t come as a surprise to many of you. Especially those who know not to trust everything Amazon says. Plus, I’ve been pretty open about the fact that I’m still working on revisions.

You see, even if I finished the book today and it was perfect, it couldn’t be on the shelves by April. It takes a long time to get a book into print. Months and months. There are a lot of steps.

Since many of you will be disappointed by this news, I figure the least I can do is explain why it’s taking so long.

If you don’t care about that, skip down to the bottom and check out “The Upside.” That’s the good news.

For the curious among you, here are some of the reasons My revisions are taking so long.

My book is long.

Over the last six weeks, I have written roughly 60,000 words. Pretty good words if I do say so myself.

To give you a bit of perspective, there are entire novels that are only 60,000 words long. Stardust, for example. Coraline was only 30,000 words long. (I mention these two because I just listened to an interview with Neil Gaiman.)

That means that since the beginning of the year, I’ve already written an entire novel’s worth of text.

The Name of the Wind is bigger than that. It was over 250,000 words. The Wise Man’s Fear is looking to be even longer, maybe more than 300,000 words.

Why did my book need these 60,000 words? Well, I realized part of the book wasn’t as well-developed and satisfying as it needed to be. It needed more action, more tension, more detail. It needed to be re-worked, expanded and generally betterized.

It took 60,000 words to do the job. My book effectively ate an entire novel’s worth of text. A short novel, admittedly. But still, it gives a sense of perspective.

My book is different.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the story I’m telling is a little different. It’s a little shy on the Aristotelian unities. It doesn’t follow the classic Hollywood three-act structure. It’s not like a five-act Shakespearean play. It’s not like a Harlequin romance.

So what *is* the structure then? Fuck if I know. That’s part of what’s taking me so long to figure out. As far as I can tell, my story is part autobiography, part hero’s journey, part epic fantasy, part travelogue, part faerie tale, part coming of age story, part romance, part mystery, part metafictional-nested-story-frame-tale-something-or-other.

I am, quite frankly, making this up as I go. If I get it right, I get something like The Name of the Wind. Something that makes all of us happy.

But if I fuck it up, I’ll end up with a confusing tangled mess of a story.

Now I’m not trying to claim that I’m unique in this. That I’m some lone pioneer mapping the uncharted storylands. Other authors do it too. My point is that doing something like this takes more time that writing another shitty, predictable Lord of the Rings knockoff.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to write a that sort of book. It would be nice to be able to use those well-established structures like a sort of recipe. A map. A paint-by-numbers kit.

It would be so much easier, and quicker. But it wouldn’t be a better book. And it’s not really the sort of book I want to write.

I’m still pretty new to all of this.

Two years ago, I was a part-time teacher. I was poor, obscure, and pretty content to stay that way. I learned to write as a happy, carefree nobody. No deadlines. No editors. No stress.

Since then I have somehow become an international bestselling author. I’ve paid off my credit card debt. I own a house. I own a car. I get fanmail and invitations to conventions.

And, honestly, for big parts of this time I have been pretty miserable.

The reason for this is Psyke 101 simple. Stress is caused by change, and the last two years of my life have been nothing but change. Some bad. Some good. But it all boils down to the stress of suddenly having a completely different life.

It’s taken me the better part of these two years to get my feet under me again. It’s been hard for me to get back to the familiar headspace where my good writing happens.

I’m glad to say I seem to have finally made it. My writing is finally going well. I’ve made great additions to the book over the last three months, where before that when I sat down to write it was like masturbating with a cheese grater. (Vaguely amusing, but mostly painful.)

Not only do I seem to be back in my happy place, but I’ve managed to do it without destroying my relationship, developing a substance abuse problem, or getting all twisted up and bitter inside. I’m pretty pleased about that.

Best of all, I feel like myself again. But it was a long, slow while in coming.

I am obsessive.

A week or so ago, I wrote a sentence that wasn’t quite right. It bothered me like a popcorn husk stuck in the back of my throat. The problem was the word ‘girlish.’ It wasn’t the right word. Close, but not right.

I thought about it when I went to bed that night. I thought about it in the shower. And the next day when I was driving into town to buy groceries it came to me. ‘Childlike.’ That was it. The perfect word.

You need to understand that I am a freak, and words are just the tip of the iceberg. The order of scenes, characterization, tension and subplot. I obsess about these things. I don’t want them good. I want them perfect.

I like to think this obsessive attention to every little thing is a part of what makes my books worth reading twice. Worth telling your friends about. Worth writing smutty yaoi fanfic about. But it takes time.

One word down. 299,999 to go.

I have a life.

Last but not least, I do have a life.

I have everyday things that need doing. I have a sidewalk to shovel, a lawn to rake, groceries to buy, and dishes to do. These things take time.

Okay. I lie. Sarah does the dishes.

I have a job. Part of that is writing book two, true. But part of it is also working with my foreign translators. We’ve sold The Name of the Wind in 27 countries so far, and there are a lot of seemingly innocent things in the first book that are important later on. I have to try to make sure these things are not lost in translation. That takes time.

Part of my job is also going to conventions, doing readings or workshops. I have taxes to manage. (And I fucked that up this year, let me tell you.) Part of my job is talking with movie people, or game people, or comic book people. This takes time.

Also, I like to have fun. I have a girlfriend who is good at kissing. I like to play boardgames. I enjoy role playing, though I don’t get much chance these days. I like reading books and watching movies. These things are important. Without them I would become a dry, joyless husk of a man.

A dry, joyless husk cannot write a book that is full of wonderful things.

“Gee Pat, what can I do to help?”

Goodness. What a considerate question. Thanks for asking.

In concrete terms, there’s not much you can do to speed book two along. Ultimately, nobody can write it but me.

That said, it would be nice if everyone was conscious of the fact that I am a person, not a whirling machine that does nothing but churn out EFP.

It would also be nice if folks avoided bitching to me about the delay. It’s really counterproductive. I actually do read all my e-mail and the comments on my blog. When someone goes out of their way to snipe and bitch at me… Well, the best possible outcome is that it makes me tired and depressed.

At worst it makes me think things like, “You little fucker, I’ll be damned if I write you a book! I’m going to play Spore for 15 hours just to spite you!”

Now I’m not saying you can’t be pissed. Feel free. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t express those honest emotions. Don’t keep it bottled up. It’s not healthy.

What I *am* asking is that you don’t bring your frothy rage round here to my house. Screed away on your own blog, curse my name on a discussion board, punch your pillow. By all means, vent your spleen. Just don’t vent it at me. It makes me hurty inside.

I say that as a joke, but like most jokes it has a grain of truth to it. That’s the reason I’ve turned the comments off for this blog. I know they would break down roughly like this:

30 considerate, supportive comments.
20 touching, heartfelt comments.
15 funny comments
10 comments saying, “Meh, I already knew.”
5 passive-aggressive snarks masquerading as one of the above.
1 comment from some anonymous frothy dickhole.

And you know which comment I’d focus on? Yeah. The last one. It would sit there like a steaming turd in my bowl of cereal. It doesn’t matter how delicious the cereal is. It could be Fruity Pebbles, or even Cookie Crisp. But in a situation like this it doesn’t matter. You can’t just eat around it. All you can do is focus on the turd.

That’s why I’ve turned the comments off for today. I’m really fond of y’all. Over this last year, interacting with my readers has been one of the true, rare joys in my life. You have shown yourselves to be intelligent, funny, and generous. And many of you continuously surprise me with how are gracious and kind-hearted you can be. Many of you are enthusiastic to the point where it gives me a tingle.

I’m not just glad to have you as readers, I’m proud to have you as readers. You are my Cookie Crisp, and I don’t want one turd to spoil how I feel about you.

Good lord. I’m pretty sure I just wrote a completely new sentence. I’d be willing to bet what I just wrote up there has never, ever been said before in the history of history. Hallmark should turn that into a Sweetest Day card. I’d buy one.

Okay. We good here? Yeah. We’re good. Let’s move on to….

The upside.

A while back, I was thinking to myself, “This fictional release date is going to cause problems. My lovely readers will be powerfully ensaddened. What could I possibly do to ease the sting of it a little?”

Then someone sent me a link to something Brandon Sanderson was doing.

So here is the silver lining. I’m going to hold a lottery, and the winner will get to have their name in book two. Maybe your name, or your mom’s, or your kid’s. Your choice.

Now I’m not saying that I’ll stick *any* name in. If your WOW character is named Wonkerbee Bumchuck, it just won’t work. But I’m sure the two of us will be able to get to a place where you’re happy, and the name is a welcome addition to The Wise Man’s Fear rather than something that compromises the integrity of the story.

I’m still working out the mechanics. But it will be free, and it will be open for everyone. When I get all the details worked out, I’ll make an announcement here on the blog.

This is my way of apologizing for the delay. It’s also my way of thanking you all for being gracious and patient with me. This I appreciate more than words can say.

[Edit: The name raffle has already happened. If you’re interested, here’s a link to the blog that talks about it.

We raised over 20,000 dollars for Heifer International, which you have to admit is pretty cool. If you missed it, I’m sorry. But rest assured we’ll probably be doing something similar for book three….]

Fondly,

pat

Posted in book two, the craft of writing, the longest fucking blog ever | By PatComments closed

Concerning Fanmail: Part Two – Hubris


I’m in Vancouver right now, working at a computer in the hotel lobby. I’m going to blame any sloppiness in this post on that. Fair?
As promised, here are a few quotes from fanmail that’s been sent in over the last year. It’s by no means comprehensive or scientific list. Just a random sampling of quotes that happened to strike me as funny, flattering, or odd.
As you’d probably suspect, a lot of these are good old fashioned compliments. How can I tell? Well, sometimes because they actually make a point of telling me:

Your book is gonna be bigger than any fantasy book that has ever been made. If I was Rowling I would kill you now. That is a compliment.

This is surprisingly helpful, because sometimes I can’t tell the messages are supposed to be flattering or not….

If Noam Chomsky can provide his email address and invite questions on his website why can’t you? After all, Prof. Chomsky probably receives more email than you do and obviously does more important work than you.

Lazy bones.

You’re a good writer though.

Ummm…. Thanks?
Some people explain how the book has effected their lives:

I am a closet geek. I suspect no one would ever think of me as a fantasy reader. Yet I have recommended your books to colleagues, my wife and friends. Effectively, you outed my geekiness.

Some folks tell me about the nature of their obsessive relationship with my book:

We left the house the other day, and I made a mental note of the page I was on in your book. While we were out, we stopped at a book store for a couple of hours. So I found a copy of the book and read it until we left.

*****
If Name of The wind was a woman, I’d find out her address and move next door to her with the hope of making her mine.
*****
When my home was threatened by fire 2 weeks ago your book was one of the few things I packed in my handbag on my way out the door.
Here’s one that struck me as being very sweet in its honesty:
I love “The Name of the Wind” like I love my picture in the mirror.
More than a few have contained various flavors of delicious blasphemy:
You are something very similar to God, with The Name Of The Wind being the Bible me and my close friend worship on a daily basis.
*****
For the first time in a long time: a class Fantasy novel. Burn everything else you own, roll in the ashes, read this book and make it your new god.

Some have been…. surreal:
I’m almost done with your book. Its fantastic. I LOVE it.

I also like the cover. Its really fun to feel. When I touch it I get these weird spit thing in the back of my throat. But its a good spit thing. When I swallow it it makes this nice noise.

Some have been flabbergasting:

So, my daughter, who’s twelve and has read NOTW twice now, lists you as one of her very favorite authors (she’s got great taste–Buffy’s her favorite show ever too.)

Anywho, she had an assignment in class–part of a “Who am I?” sort of assignment. One of the questions that she was asked to answer was, “If I had 24 hours to live, I would…”

Her answer: “I would donate all my saved money to Perfect Pals [a cat shelter hereabouts] and then read Name of the Wind one more time.”

Wow. Warm Fuzzies don’t get any warmer and fuzzier than that…..

Lastly, I seem to be showing up in people’s dreams. A lot.

I dreamed that I was walking through a mall or whatever in Kansas City and I saw you working in a cell phone kiosk. I was like “Holy shit, you’re Patrick Rothfuss! I loved The Name of the Wind!” to which you replied “Thanks man, always great to hear. So….you wanna buy a phone?” Then I woke up.

Very random, and a little strange. Not sure why you were trying to sell me a cell phone.

*****

I had a dream last night that we watched TV together. No Joke. At one point I went to the fridge to find you a drink and found that everything was moldy and old. Then you told me we have to watch a certain movie next time we meet. Then you gave me your telephone number, but told me that it wouldn’t work in a week or so because you had to keep on changing it since so many fans would find it out and call you.

So I just wanted to stop by and thank you for being so kind as to drink the crusty old Snapple I had lying around. Thanks for also not kicking my dog as some people tend to do in my dreams.

*****

Pat, I dreamed about you last night. You came to Austin, I was so happy. Then you turned into a girl….

Please note that those final ellipses at the end are from the guy that wrote the e-mail, not me.

Personally, I’d like to know a few more details. Was I pretty? Did I still have my beard? How can I not be curious?
Soon we’ll have part three of the fanmail series: Some gentle advice on what you might want to consider including (or avoiding) in your fanmail.
Later all,

pat

Posted in BJ Hiorns Art, Fanmail Q + A | By Pat29 Responses

Concerning Fanmail: Part One

So while I wasn’t paying attention, I apparently received my 1500th piece of fanmail.

Rather, I should probably say I recently received mail from my 1500th fan. There’s been more mail than that, because sometimes I end up e-mailing back and forth with people who drop me a line. Interviews. Witty banter. Coy flirtation. Geek talk. That sort of thing.

But yeah. 1500, people have sent me messages. And that’s just through the contact form on my webpage. That doesn’t count the people who have dropped me a line through Myspace, or Facebook, or sent me a physical letter. I’m guessing that if I counted those, the number would rise up over two thousand.

It’s a little stupefying now that I’m stopping to think of it.

I won’t lie to you, fanmail is great. There have been occasional exceptions to this, like the guy who sent me a message saying that he hoped a dog would bite me on the nuts. But even that made me laugh.

I’ll even go so far as to say that over the last year or so, fanmail has significantly improved the quality of my life. I’ve had some real emotional low points since the book came out. But many’s the time when I’d get a little note from someone and it would salvage what was shaping up to be a real turd of a day.

Like today, for example. Today someone sent me a pair of fucking nunchucks. I’m not even kidding. Look:

Okay. This picture is crap. But the nunchucks are cool. They’re heavy, solid. Not toys at all. And the only thing keeping me from swinging them around as an idiot is the thought of showing up as Guest of Honor at V-Con having broken my own nose.

They were sent to me as the “something cool” part of the package so I’d sign someone’s book. I was understandably delighted.

Then, later, I was out running errands and found out my favorite restaurant had just shut down. This place made sandwiches so good that they were sexual. Not just regular sexual either. These sandwiches were transcendent. They were the sandwich equivalent of a three-way. It was like you, the sandwich, and a sexy god made entirely of bacon got together for a friendly yiff.

Anyway, my point is that my favorite restaurant closed. Depressing. I was ready to be really bummed out. Then I thought to myself, “Someone sent me nunchucks today. I have nunchucks at home right now that I can go and play with.” And my day was saved.

Of course, not all fanmail is physical. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t lovely. Take this excerpt, for example.

I want to thank you so very much. Your book brought me and my girlfriend closer together. Life is tough, my girlfriend and I have a 15 month old son (named after me!) and it seems all we do is work and work and occasionally work some more. Money is always tight and stress is always high, but your book brought a respite from our monotonous routine. J—- loved it (as I hope you guessed already). I had so much fun discussing the book with her I can not even put it to words.

Needless to say, reading something like that is every bit as good as getting nunchucks in the mail. What’s more, that e-mail has the added bonus of having absolutely no chance of breaking my girlfriend’s coffee mug. Which I just did.

In part two of this post, I’ll share more of my favorite fanmail excerpts. Y’all have said some crazy stuff over the last year.

Stay tuned.

pat

Posted in fan coolness, fanmail, my rockstar life | By Pat31 Responses

Losing Wagers, Doubling Donations, and Playing a Beautiful Game…

So for today’s blog to make sense, you might want to go back and read the one I wrote a couple days ago.

It’s was my favorite blog I’ve written in a while, with some quite nice faerie-tale flavor in parts. So even if you don’t care much about the charity stuff I’m doing, there’s something for you to enjoy there.

For those of you who can’t be bothered, here’s the gist: A couple days ago, I wagered the community that they couldn’t raise $333,333 on my team page before I beat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.

And… well… y’all did it. Handily.

More than that, once I posted the blog and shared it, y’all stormed so hard I didn’t even have time to hit send on a tweet I’d typed up using this graphic:

The Details of The Wager

(Made by the fabulous E’lir Lisa.)

Truth is, this is exactly what I was hoping for. That people would hear the news, get excited, then come in and make it a race. Then we’d play together, have some fun, raise scads of money to feed hungry kids, and make the world a better place.

But… it kinda worked *better* than we’d anticipated. Y’all came in and just trampled things to the extent that we burned through *all* our stretch goals within hours, leaving us without more cool stuff we could immediately offer. Let alone graphics to show them off.

Pat's Streaming Schedule for 12/14

(Graphics like this.)

And so while it was cool, it was also a bit of a shame. We were left with nothing else to offer up despite the fact that the fundraiser is still going on and all donations are still being matched.

First off, let’s be clear. Y’all won the wager. So:

  1. I’ll be reading the prologue of Doors of Stone and doing a Q&A on my Twitch Channel.
  2. I’ll be showing off some of the finished pages of the The Boy That Loved The Moon.
  3. I’ll be releasing a chapter of Doors of Stone into the wild. (When? I’ talk about that below.)

But it seems a shame to stop there. For one thing, I still haven’t beaten the Ender Dragon.

And also, we still needed more stretch goal prizes for the team page.

And also also, I really liked those graphics that E’lir Lisa came up with, and we barely got to use them…

So here’s what we’re doing:

(Warning, this graphic on the blog won’t be updated as frequently as over on Twitch Team Page.)

You see the stretch goals on the left? Those are going into the prize draw as soon as folks hit the donation amount.

That said, if y’all manage to hit those goals *before* I beat the Ender Dragon, I’ll donate TWO of each prize.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “What’s that thing way down at the bottom there?

Here’s the thing, I’ve met a lot of cool folks over the years. Voice actors, comedians, musicians, audio narrators, performers, actors, puppeteers….

I think that sounds like a fun way of releasing the early peek of the book. I’m hoping some of my friends will like the idea too.

So I’m going to cast my net among my friends and see who might like to come help me read the chapter of Doors of Stone for y’all. Then, if we hit $666,666, I’ll  assemble the Geek Glitterati equivalent of the Avengers and we’ll record it for you. It might take a bit to assemble, as cool people tend to be busy, and there’s no way I’m going to ask them to do it during the fundraiser. But I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get it done early next year. February at the latest.

Okay. We ready? Here we go.

My team page is already over $420,000.

All donations are currently being matched.

The Fundraiser runs until midnight on the 14th.

Race you to the end…

pat

Edit: 1:31 pm – In the last 12 hours, through the dark hours of night when I was mostly asleep, the team page has raised another $60,000 unlocking double sets HeroQuest and the cool, Wooden-box version of Risk from Avalon Hill. AS WELL AS two copies of the limited edition cover of of Vault of Magic from Kobold Press that I wrote a part of, personalized by me, with some of the rare D&D cards.

Y’all are amazing…

Posted in Achievement Unlocked!, Acts of Whimsy, Beautiful Games, Book Three, calling on the legions, contests, cool things, Worldbuilders 2021 | By Pat50 Responses
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