Monday, November 28, 2011

Official NaNoWriMo Pep Talk + Updates

My assistant Peter has uploaded a new Twitter posts collection and another MYTHWALKER chapter. This is a novel that I abandoned back in 2001, but I cannibalized the parts that were working into WARBREAKER when I started writing that. This chapter contains the first scene that another scene in WARBREAKER parallels, though I rewrote it entirely from scratch.

In this week's Writing Excuses podcast episode we discuss mystery plotting. We also recently put out very short pep talks for people participating in National Novel Writing Month: from Dan, Mary, and me.

I also did an official pep talk for the NaNoWriMo folks that you can read here. Here's an excerpt:

In the year 2002, Thanksgiving in the U.S. fell relatively late in the month of November. So it was that on November 30th, I found myself at my mother’s house, home from college for the weekend. I lay on the log bed in the guest room, my stomach full of turkey leftovers, furiously pounding at the last novel I would finish before landing a book deal the following year.

I’d done NaNoWriMo the previous year, and had found the experience to be wonderful. This year, my friends and I were holding a competition to see which of us could finish first, and it came down to the last day. I won. And I didn’t.

You see, while I’ve had a lot of fun with NaNoWriMo over the years, I think it’s time to come clean. Though I’ve participated seven times so far, and I’ve never actually won. Oh, I’ve completed the fifty thousand words. I commonly write 50k words in a given month these days, as writing is my profession. However, what I’ve never done is start a brand new project on the first of November, then keep writing straight through on it.

Read the rest on the NaNo site.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Mistborn & Stormlight gamer bags + Updates

In the most recent Writing Excuses podcast episode, Dan, Mary, Howard, and I talk about characters who do dumb things. There are a lot of traps that writers fall into involving this, and we talk about how to avoid them.

InkWing has a limited number of Mistborn- and Stormlight-themed gamer bags for sale. They're also running another T-shirt giveaway contest.

This week's chapter of my abandoned 2001 novel MYTHWALKER features Siri's wedding. And there's a new Twitter posts archive uploaded.

Several of the stores I've signed at recently have autographed copies of my books that they can ship to you. Forbidden Planet in London, Murder by the Book in Houston, Joseph-Beth in Lexington, UBooks in Seattle, among others. Check my Facebook past events page and give the store nearest you a call. (You don't have to be a Facebook member to see the info.)

And I'll be signing throughout the UK all the rest of this week, so check out my events page to find the signing nearest you.

Also, this year's Great Hunt is still going, even though industrious readers have already pretty much decoded the entire excerpt. So we've added some new surprises that further codes will unlock.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

ALLOY illustrations, Blood and Bloody Ashes Shirt + Updates

I'm in the middle of my tour for THE ALLOY OF LAW right now; I'm in Houston today and will be in London by Saturday. If you want email reminders when I'll be near you, sign up and tell me your city. Meanwhile this year's Great Hunt continues, and readers have gone a long way toward deciphering the encoded file from Robert Jordan's notes.

By the way, THE ALLOY OF LAW was one of five write-in candidates to be added in its category as a 2011 Goodreads Choice Award semifinalist. If you think it deserves the award, you can vote for it here. Competition is pretty stiff, though!

This week's Writing Excuses episode features Andrew P. Mayer joining Howard, Mary, and Dan at Dragon*Con to discuss taking ridiculous-seeming over-the-top concepts and using them to create brilliant literature.

In the newest chapter of MYTHWALKER, my abandoned novel from 2001, the switch is on. You knew it was coming.

Yesterday on Twitter I participated in a #torchat. The first half of it is also up in my newest Twitter archive post, and I'll put up the rest next week.

Several readers have reported that the ebook version of THE ALLOY OF LAW has images that are hard to read. Tor is working on a solution right now, but in the meantime, I've uploaded all of the images to their own page here. You can see them below. I'm including a color version of the Elendel city map (by Isaac Stewart, who also runs the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive T-shirt store) that doesn't appear in the book. And you can download a full-resolution broadsheet PDF if you are a Tor.com member. By the way, broadsheet (and Shallan's sketchbook) artist Ben McSweeney will be with me at my Houston signing today, so fortunate readers there can get his autograph as well.

Ta'veren Tees has a new T-shirt available for preorder. I think I'll let it speak for itself.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Mysterious Galaxy can ship you THE ALLOY OF LAW

Hey all, just a quick note that Mysterious Galaxy, where I signed last night in San Diego, now has a bunch of autographed copies of THE ALLOY OF LAW. If you want a copy and couldn't get one from Sam Weller's before they sold out, give Mysterious Galaxy a call. They can ship worldwide.

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111
Phone: (858) 268-4747

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

New Wheel of Time Great Hunt

Well, I’m off on my tour. The THE ALLOY OF LAW release party was a blast, even though the bookstore was a little light on copies. We managed to get everyone a book, I think. So huzzah, and forward.

One of the things I announced yesterday on Twitter and Facebook was another Great Hunt to coincide with my tour. If you aren’t familiar with it, this is a concept from the Wheel of Time books which I (very loosely) adapted into a scavenger hunt to hold while on tour. I leave codes hidden around the world for Wheel of Time fans to locate, and they collectively input them into a web page which slowly unlocks text for everyone to see. (You can read a recap of last year's Great Hunt here.)

I have some thirty codes to reveal, hide, or otherwise give out while on tour this time. I may hide some inside books in certain bookstores. I might give them to individuals (like Tor employees) for safe keeping, and require you to figure out who they are. Or, perhaps, you might have to do something else. Whatever strikes me.

Before we go farther, however, some ground rules:

  1. The codes are inside envelopes this year, with a label requesting that a bookstore employee NOT open the envelope and read the code over the phone. I’ll probably prepare the bookstore employees for what is coming. You are required to fetch the codes yourself, or at least send someone you personally know to get the code. I don’t want you bothering employees of any store—whether it be bookstores or someone from a store next door—to do the work for you. They aren’t being paid to fetch codes. If you know someone in the area and can send them, go for it. Avoid bothering strangers.
  2. All but four of the codes need to be entered in order to reveal the secret, but each one inputted will reveal small bits. This is a collective endeavor. Share information, work together. Once you find a code, input it on this page. Everyone else, feel free to watch the page and try to figure out what the secret is going to be as more is revealed.
  3. It is okay to try to guess codes. They have something in common. In a way, they are some fun information themselves.
  4. If you want to get involved, both Theoryland and Dragonmount (among others) are likely to have threads where you can post, participate, and see what codes have been found and what others have been tried. You can follow the hunt's progress by searching for the hashtag #wotgh on Twitter.

Now, as to the secret itself, I feel I should manage some expectations. Last year, we revealed a chapter from the upcoming Wheel of Time book. There are no chapters that are ready this time; they’re all in first-draft stage. So the secret this time will not be something quite so earth-shattering. (Sorry.)

I still think it is cool, though it is more in the ‘cool curiosity’ category rather than the ‘sneak peek’ category. This is something that was written by Robert Jordan himself, and is taken directly from his notes. People have frequently asked us to show some of the notes, and Harriet agreed to let us show you this chunk. It is illustrative of the kinds of things you’d find in the notes themselves.

So, swear the hunter’s oath and get to it! Let’s have some fun. I plan to give away some of these in each city I visit, so UK Wheel of Time fans, you should have plenty of opportunities this year to help out.

Best,

Brandon

Monday, November 07, 2011

THE ALLOY OF LAW midnight release tonight, Fan Trailer + Updates

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode features Jonathan Mayberry talking with Mary, Howard, and Dan about avoiding pigeonholing yourself as a writer.

There's a new chapter of my unfinished 2001 book MYTHWALKER up.

The big news, of course, is the release of my new Mistborn book, THE ALLOY OF LAW, tonight at midnight. The BYU Bookstore is already handing out line numbers as of 7:00 this morning; some dedicated fans camped out a week ahead of time to get the lowest numbers. For more details on how the signing tonight will go, please see the events calendar.

I should be sending out a newsletter tomorrow with a reminder of my upcoming tour stops, so if you want to be on the mailing list, be sure to tell me the city where you live.

Some fans put together a trailer for the book, which although not strictly accurate is still pretty awesome. (By the way, only the prologue of the book takes place in an Old West-type setting.)

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Mistborn: THE ALLOY OF LAW comes out in one week

First, on an unrelated topic, the charity auction for getting your name in A MEMORY OF LIGHT is now live. There will be one winner, and the auction ends November 10th. You can also still donate to the drawing through December 1st and have a chance at your name getting used.

Today I have a guest blog piece up over at the Tor/Forge blog entitled "My 14-Year-Old Self Might Take Issue with The Alloy of Law." Here's an excerpt:

As we get ready for the release of The Alloy of Law, I find myself wondering what the teenage me would think of what I’m doing in this book. You see, I became a fantasy addict when I was about fourteen, and one of my mantras quickly became, “If it has guns, it’s not good fantasy.”

Now here I am, adding guns to my most successful fantasy series.

Go read the piece, and then if you haven't yet checked out the sample chapters, read those too. Next Monday evening I'll head down to the BYU Bookstore for the midnight release of the book, and then I'm off on a whirlwind tour of the US, Vancouver, and the UK. Check my events calendar for details and to see if I'm coming near you. If you want an email reminder when I'm going to be near your city, tell me what city you're in (or the nearest large city you'd be willing to drive to).

One of my former students, shrain, has uploaded a video (below) of me talking about the concept behind the book and reading from the prologue and second chapter.