Mistborn: Interviews, Superstars Writing Seminar & Updates

This past week's WARBREAKER annotations cover the writing rule that characters who do things are more interesting than those who don't, who followed Vasher into the palace, naked athletic competitions, and Lightsong's indolence.

In the most recent Writing Excuses episode, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and I are again joined by John Brown to discuss writing the second book. We cover both writing your second book ever and writing the second book in a series.

There's a new interview with me in the New Zealand Herald here. I did this interview when THE WAY OF KINGS was coming out, and it talks about that book as well as how I got into writing, plus other questions such as how I became involved in the Wheel of Time.

During my TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT tour, I sat down for a video interview with fellow Tor writer Peter Orullian, whose debut novel THE UNREMEMBERED comes out in April. We discuss a bunch of topics including the following:

My work ethic
How my writing has evolved and how the field has changed
The future of the Stormlight Archive anmd the ELANTRIS world
Defining epic fantasy
Fantasy as one of the last great genres to explore the dichotomy of good and evil
The familiar vs. the new
Self-censorship and whether there are certain topics that I won't write about
Whose books I rush out to buy and books I've read that I wished I had written
The degree to which fiction writing is autobiographical
Music I listen to while writing or driving
Simple advice to aspiring writers
What color I play in Magic: The Gathering

Finally, a note on the upcoming Superstars Writing Seminar that I'm helping teach in January. Last year, I'll admit I didn't know how I felt about this. Were we really offering something worthwhile? Particularly at the somewhat high cost?

I have to say that after doing it once, I was blown away by how awesome an experience it was. It was an all-around incredible mixing of creativity, information, and fun. I think it was not only worthwhile, but a bargain. Dave, Kevin, Rebecca, and Eric know a ton about this business. And having only broken in a few years ago, I was able to add a bit of unique information. I think this will be an extremely helpful event for anyone aspiring to break into publishing.

At last year's conference some of the attendees recorded these testimonials about their experiences there.

Marc Scott Zicree