Introduction

Welcome, everyone, to our final State of the Sanderson for the decade! If you’re not familiar with these posts, each December I take a look back at my year and talk about the projects I’ve been working on. Then I turn an eye to the future to see where I’m planning for things to go in the coming years. If you’d like to see last year’s State of the Sanderson, you can find it at this handy link.

This year was dedicated primarily to writing Stormlight Book Four; I’ll have a specific update on that for you in a little bit. I also spent a lot of time traveling, particularly to Europe—to the point that I’ve been feeling the weight of my travel. (Which indicates it’s time to scale back for a while.)

Stormlight years always have a little less variety than “off” years where I work on a more eclectic mix of stories. So while I got a ton done, there won’t be much in the way of updates on other projects. One thing I wanted to add this year, however, is a little survey—mostly about our leatherbound books. So if you’d do me a favor and hop down to answer a couple of questions, that would help us a ton. I’ve put the survey at the bottom of the following section, which will dig into leatherbounds in depth. This section is a tad long, which will come as no surprise since I wrote it. So if you’re not interested, you might want to meet me back at Part Two.

• Part One: Leatherbounds and Survey Time!
• Part Two: My Year
• Part Three: Updates on Major Projects
• Part Four: Updates on Secondary Projects
• Part Five: Updates on Minor Projects
• Part Six: Film/Television Updates
• Part Seven: Other Cool Projects
• Part Eight: Projected Schedule
• Part Nine: Bonus Section, the Future of the Cosmere

Part One: Leatherbounds and Survey Time!

This year, we’re releasing the Warbreaker leatherbound! This book is particularly gorgeous; we’ve added a few features such as illustrated drop caps and interstitial art. We put these volumes together in-house, rather than farming them out to someone else, and we pour a lot of attention into making them great. Next year is a big year for us, as we’ve reached the tenth anniversary of The Way of Kings, and will be releasing a leatherbound of that book.

Now, some of you might be wondering, “Brandon, isn’t The Way of Kings double the size of the previous books you’ve done as leatherbounds?” Yes. Yes, it is. That’s meant a lot of extra work on the part of my team, who have already been working on it for a good eight months. We want this book to be something extra special—and because of that, we’ve wanted to do preorder incentives (like goodies and swag) to go with it.

The logistics of doing this worried us a lot, however, as we’re still a relatively small team. Beyond that, we expect The Way of Kings leatherbound demand to strain our logistics and shipping departments. When talking about this with Howard Tayler, my cartoonist friend, he suggested we use Kickstarter to alleviate these problems. I was hesitant at first, as I know Kickstarter is mostly intended for people who need extra up-front money in order to create a product. We’ve been able to fund the leatherbounds ourselves so far, and we’re certain we can create these without needing extra time.

However, Howard really sold me on Kickstarter by pointing out how great the site’s management tools are for creators. If I want to offer different packages for the book, with a variety of preorder items personalized to customer preferences, the only way I’d be able to manage this is to take advantage of Kickstarter’s infrastructure and tools. As we’ve looked into the process, my team and I have come to agree that this is the only way we’d be able to do what we want to with The Way of Kings leatherbound.

So, while I know some of you might be skeptical about this like I was, I ask you to give us a chance to show why it will be a good thing. Our goal will not be to move to Kickstarter for all leatherbounds, only Stormlight leatherbounds every three years—because the added size, complexity, and logistics of such a large book require us to have some extra help. We plan to launch The Way of Kings as a Kickstarter in the summer of 2020, probably June or July. The book will likely come in two volumes, and will have to be around double the cost of our previous leatherbounds. (So, $200 to $250 instead of $100.) I thought it only fair to warn you all up front. Plus, if we hear concerns from the community that we haven’t considered, announcing it this early will help us deal with those before the actual campaign.

To that end, I have a little mini FAQ dealing with issues I think you might have.

Q: You are doing the Kickstarter in the summer. When will the books be sent out?

The goal will be to start sending these out as soon as possible, hopefully months before the holidays arrive. We are going to put our order in as soon as we can for the books themselves, and get the incentives constructed ASAP. Ideally, we’ll send you a single box with book and rewards all together in one cool bundle.

There will be some digital rewards offered as well. These will be sent out the moment the campaign closes, and will hopefully tide you over until the physical products arrive.

Q: Will this leatherbound be available on your store later, like the others?

Yes, it will. If you miss the campaign, you’ll still be able to buy the book.

Some things might not be available in the later printing, however, depending on what incentives we offer for the Kickstarter. For example, we will possibly offer a slipcase as part of the Kickstarter incentives—but (depending on the size of future print runs) we might not be able to offer that with the later editions we sell in the store. In short, the book will totally be there for you to buy later—but any stretch goal achievements and swag associated with the Kickstarter would have to come from that campaign. (With one exception mentioned below.)

Q: I like supporting my local independent bookseller. Will any stores be getting this book like they have other leatherbounds you’ve done?

I haven’t cleared this with any of the stores yet, so I don’t want to speak for them. However, we love our bookstores, and have tried from the get-go to involve them in our leatherbound distribution. Our goal will be to set aside a certain number of books as requested by the booksellers we work with frequently. (And if you’re a bookseller who has had me in your store for a signing in the past, and you would like to be selling these leatherbounds too, make sure to contact us.)

My goal will be to add all bookseller orders into the final count from the Kickstarter, and order an equivalent number of physical reward objects for them to include with their books. So these bookstore editions should include all unlocked stretch goal rewards in the boxes we send for them to sell. They might not be personalized to your preferences (e.g. you might receive a random order of Knights Radiant, based on the box you get), but we hope this will work so that readers who prefer to buy from the booksellers do not feel left out.

The short version is this: if you miss the Kickstarter, there’s a good chance that a limited number of boxes with full rewards included will be available at retailers, for the same price people paid in the Kickstarter. Those stores should be similar to the ones that have been carrying our leatherbounds so far.

Q: Leatherbounds are expensive. Will I be able to participate if I’m not interested in such a high ticket item?

My plan is to write a Stormlight (or at least Cosmere) novella next spring to offer as part of the Kickstarter campaign. We’re anticipating some lower tiers that involve getting digital-only rewards and a digital copy of the novella—all for a very reasonable price. We will likely also offer just the novella in print form, along with all campaign rewards, as another slightly higher (but still well below $200) tier that you can buy into as well. (And, of course, a tier that has everything—including the leatherbound and a print copy of the novella.)

Q: So…a novella you say. Anything else you can tell us about the rewards?

We haven’t settled on anything yet. I haven’t even written the novella, so it’s possible that won’t even happen. However, it’s likely that we’ll be letting you choose an order of Knights Radiant (and we’ll post full descriptions of all ten orders, including information not yet in the books) and receive rewards based on your preference (i.e. physical rewards with that order’s symbols on them).

There’s also a decent chance I’ll offer an ebook of The Way of Kings Prime (the version I wrote of the book back in 2002 that is way different from the 2010 version) as a stretch goal unlock. This would be sent to everyone who participates in the campaign at any level.

Okay, if you’re still with me after that (we’re over a thousand words into this SotS already, and I haven’t even really started yet), let’s talk about the survey. After The Way of Kings, the next book to hit its ten-year anniversary is The Alloy of Law. Instead of being a lot larger than the average Sanderson book, AoL is half the size. We aren’t allowed by Tor to sell our leatherbounds for less than $100, and the logistics of printing them kind of preclude that anyway.

However, I thought that perhaps you all would like to get The Alloy of Law and Shadows of Self bundled together as a single leatherbound. I figured if we have to charge double for a double-sized stormlight book, shouldn’t we charge half for a half-sized mistborn book? This would require binding the two books together though.

Assistant Adam, who is a leatherbound connoisseur, mentioned that some people might not like this—he thought the leatherbound collectors he knows would just prefer to have the individual books, separate as they’re sold in stores, for their collection. So, we thought we’d ask you. The survey below is getting at this idea. The questions are very simple, so feel free to look them over before taking it.

Finally, a couple of questions for those of you who attend my book signings. I’m having some growing pains in this department. My signings, put flatly, are just getting too long for me to handle. The last Stormlight tour wore me out, with each signing lasting until 1 or 2 a.m., with signs that they were going to grow even larger. I need to do something to either speed up the lines, or make the signings easier.

Fortunately, I have some guides in this department. I’m fortunate enough to be approaching crowds similar to the ones GRRM or Neil Gaiman get, and talking to people like them, I’ve found that there are two approaches authors generally use. Neil, for example, will pre-sign all the books. You don’t get to meet him personally at a signing, but instead you get a signed book—and then he does an extra-long presentation, with much longer readings, Q&As, and speeches than I do. In short, it becomes “an evening with Neil” instead of a book signing. Other authors (I know George has done this) still sign all the books, but don’t do a presentation at all, and don’t allow personalizations or pictures.

I’m curious what all of you think. My own inclination is a hybrid of my current method and Neil’s method—where I do a longer presentation like Neil does, perhaps bringing Isaac to do a presentation on artwork too. Then have a lottery (which is not based on your ability to buy a more expensive ticket, and is instead completely random) for a hundred people to come meet me afterward and get a book personalized.

If you’re interested, I’d enjoy you answering some questions about this too. (Note that none of these apply to release parties, which will continue to be the insane and enormous extravaganzas you’ve come to expect.)

Okay, whew. Thanks for sticking through all of that for me. But we spend a lot of time on the leatherbounds, and want to make sure we’re creating them the way you want. Now, on to the regular State of the Sanderson.

Part Two: My Year

January–March: Starsight Revisions

My goal had been to launch straight into Stormlight Four in January, but I didn’t quite make it. We thought we had the book wrapped up by February, but some of the beta reader comments set me thinking about several problems with Starsight—and I made the tough call to do another round of revisions on the book to make it as good as it could be. This put me about a month behind; I’d built in a buffer, but had really wanted to start on Stormlight Four in February. (I even had a trip to Hawaii planned to kick it off—as nothing is better than writing on the beach. Alas, though I got a tad of Stormlight done on that trip, I spent most of it on Starsight.)

But the revisions worked, and the book finally clicked into place. Judging from the reader responses, it feels like that extra month really paid some dividends, so I’m glad I did it.

April: Stormlight 4

The real work on Stormlight 4 started in April, where I launched into Part One. Writing went pretty good from the get-go, as I’m always kind of working on Stormlight outlines—even when I’m writing other books. So I can often hit the ground running. Stormlight books literally have two decades of planning behind them.

May: Europe Trip One (Germany)

This trip was a lot of fun—and Art Director Isaac went with me, as he speaks German. The fans were enthusiastic, and the tour was a huge success. But it did also slow me down a ton. Not much written this month.

June: Stormlight 4

I got back into it, eventually managing to catch up all the lost time from Germany. (Though I was still about a month behind because of the Starsight revision.) I might have caught all the way up, except…

July: Europe Trip Two (Spain/France/Belgium)

Another big trip through Europe, though about half of this one was vacation rather than work. My father was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France and Belgium when he was in his twenties. Now that he’s retired, we wanted to take him back to show us around. Spain was a work trip for me (one of my favorite SF/F conventions is in Spain, and I love going there).

August–September: Stormlight 4

I jumped back into it, and despite a little detour at Dragon Con in September (the hotel room they gave me was amazing—check out my view above!). I managed to catch all the way back up on lost time, and then on October 9th caught up (finally) from the lost month in March, putting me 100% on track to finish the book by January 1st. But then on October 11th, I flew back out on tour…

October: Israel, Europe Trip Three (France, the Czech Republic)

I’ve always wanted to go to Israel, and locked in about two years ago to be a guest at a convention in Tel Aviv. The trip was great, really special—and was followed by the utterly cool chance to go visit the Wheel of Time television show set in Prague. So while I had a great time, it was a little hard to admit it put me behind again by a month.

Here are some photos from my tours and conventions!

November, December: Stormlight 4

I’ve finally caught up again as of last week, and am making the final push to finish the novel. It’s been touch-and-go all year, but I’m confident now that the book will be finished by January, which is why I let Tor announce a release date. (See below.)

All in all, it was a great year—despite being a bit frantic and putting me on way too many airplanes. (The odd part is that after all of this touring, I have a ton of frequent flyer miles—but I’m often too tired of travel to use them, so my family/assistants end up using them for trips.) At the same time, I really do love working on Stormlight books. One of the reasons I take such a long break between them is to make certain that when I come back to Roshar, I’m refreshed and eager to get back to it. And speaking of that…

Part Three: Updates on Major Projects

The Stormlight Archive

Book Four has a release date next year on November 17th. I allowed Tor to set this because I’m confident that we’ll meet it—so we should be in good shape for that release, barring some catastrophic responses that I haven’t anticipated during alpha/beta reads. The tentative title for the book is still Rhythm of War, but because of the way Stormlight books work (where each book title is an in-world book title as well), I can’t 100% say that will be the title in this case until the book is finished.

When Book Four is done, we’ll have only one more book in the first Stormlight sequence. As I’ve been saying for years, Book Five is one of the major end points of the series. I anticipate writing that in 2022, for a 2023 release. Yes, I know, many of you wish those gaps were shorter. It’s turned out that a three-year gap is best for my writing psychology, so we’re going to stick with that for now. And, since they’re each as long as four regular books, it’s like getting a Stormlight book faster than one per year—except you have to save them up to read in batches.

STATUS: All systems go!

Mistborn

I had hoped to squeeze in Wax and Wayne Four this year, but falling behind a month (plus the aggressive tour schedule) made that impossible. I sometimes forget just how much touring takes out of me—which is partly why there wasn’t a Starsight tour. (And partly why I put that question in the survey about how to make book tours a little less exhausting.)

I consider Wax and Wayne’s final book to be imperative to finish before I start Stormlight Five. Starting in July, once Stormlight Four is fully revised and turned in, I’ll have two main projects demanding my attention. Wax and Wayne four is one of those, Skyward is the other. (I might need to get to Skyward Three before it, FYI, depending on how much Stormlight burns me out on epic fantasy. But both Skyward Three and Wax and Wayne Four should be finished by the end of the year next year.)

After that, it will be time for me to be looking to Era Three of Mistborn—which will be written in the years between Stormlight Five and Stormlight Six.

STATUS: Wayne is threatening to beat me up if I don’t get to this soon. 2021 or maybe 2022 release for the final book.

Skyward

Book Two is out, if you somehow missed that fact. I’d like to say thank you to everyone for indulging me so much on my side projects. Starsight was a huge success, even without me touring for it. These books are really fun to write, and good for my writing as they allow me to relax between big Cosmere projects. The fact that all of you are willing to embrace and read them is quite gratifying. One of my biggest fears becoming an author was that I’d get locked into doing only one thing, then get burned out on it.

As you can see from the last 15 years of my publishing career, I am interested in a lot of different things. The fact that you’ve been willing to read about Spin, Jerkface, and Doomslug as readily as you do about Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan is wonderful to see. Thank you so much for making this new series a success.

STATUS: Should write Book Three sometime late next year. 2021 release is likely.

Part Four: Updates on Secondary Projects

Dark One

We’re moving ahead with the graphic novel on this, and giving you some glimpses of that is one of the big things I’m happy to announce for this State of the Sanderson. We’ve included some gorgeous pages below. The graphic novel is turning out to be something really special. We don’t have an exact release date for this yet, but it shouldn’t be too much longer before we can announce one.

In addition, many of you may have heard the news that J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon Five, among many other cool projects) is attached to this project to make a television show. The same outline I came up with for the graphic novel drew serious Hollywood attention, which is how this happened. That said, JMS has other projects he’s working on as well, and Dark One needs to wait for the right time for him to work on it.

STATUS: Real motion here. Exciting developments in the process!

Songs of the Dead (Was Death by Pizza)

This perpetual entry in the State of the Sanderson is creeping ever closer to being a reality. My co-author, Peter Orullian, has suggested the title Songs of the Dead—which is a really great title, considering it’s about a heavy metal singer necromancer.

We’ve got a second draft done, but it needs a third one. Unfortunately, the hangup is me, as Stormlight has taken basically all my time this year. Peter sent me his latest draft in June or so, and I’m only halfway through my revision of it at this point. So I’m sorry it’s taking so long; I’m excited for you all to read the book, but as it’s my first true book collaboration, there are some growing pains as we figure out how to make the process work right for us.

Hopefully I can finish my next revision early next year, send it back to Peter for one final draft, then begin showing it to editors.

STATUS: Waiting on my next revision.

The Original

This novella that I wrote with the fantastic Mary Robinette Kowal is finished and being recorded as an audio original. It should come out very soon, and I’m quite proud of it.

I’m a little annoyed as the Will Smith movie that came out earlier this year has a similar premise. But that movie bombed and apparently wasn’t very good. So maybe people will appreciate a similar idea done right? We’ll see. I had hoped to get this out before Mr. Smith’s movie came out, but Mary Robinette was busy winning all of the awards for her excellent Lady Astronaut series, and I was busy getting rained on in Roshar.

STATUS: Out soon.

Alcatraz Six

This one is mostly done, just needing a few little tweaks. Again, I haven’t had a ton of time last year, but this one is looking really good. It’s basically all complete, only needing one last pass. We should be doing the interior artwork and editorial work next year.

STATUS: Basically done.

Elantris, Warbreaker, The Rithmatist

No updates from last year, I’m afraid. There was no intention to make progress on these this year. Once Alcatraz is wrapped up, I’ll turn my attention back to The Rithmatist as the last looming series that needs a wrapup that hasn’t gotten one. Elantris and Warbreaker sequels aren’t to be expected until Stormlight Five and Wax and Wayne Four are done.

I know a lot of you keep waiting on Rithmatist news, and I feel bad having to give you the same news every year. (Yes, that paragraph above is the same one I put in the State of the Sanderson last year.) But the truth is, I really can’t work on this until at the very least Alcatraz is finished.

A glimmer of light for you Rithmatist fans is this: my son just read the book, and he’s joined the crowd calling for me to do a sequel. So you have an in-house representative.

STATUS: Keep Waiting. (Sorry again, again.)

White Sand

Graphic novel three is out now! So if you haven’t picked it up, please check it out!

We’ve learned a lot doing our first graphic novel series. Again, there were some growing pains. (We aren’t thrilled, for example, by how often we ended up needing to change artists.) The good news is that we really enjoy doing these, and so we are planning to do another graphic novel series set on Taldain, visiting darkside and dealing with Khriss and her adventures there. So if you are one of those people who read the prose version years ago, and have been waiting for some resolution, Isaac and I are outlining a sequel series right now.

STATUS: Trilogy complete, likely to do a collection of all three in coming years. Sequel series being outlined.

Part Five: Updates on Minor Projects

For many of these little projects, you may want to glance back at previous State of the Sanderson documents to see what they even are, as this is pretty long already and I don’t want to keep making the same pitch every year. So really, take note if a specific idea interested you, but don’t worry if you’re confused and you don’t get many details here on these.

The Reckoners, Legion

Both are completed. Though I’ve had enough people asking after them that we’re toying with doing some audio-original novellas set in these worlds. For example, one of my big goals for Legion was to get it made into a television series. While that could still happen, as it’s under option by a production company, I’ve been thinking that maybe I could do something like that on my own—as an audio series. We could create a sequence of episodes written by a writer’s room with me as the “showrunner.” I could see doing something like this with the Reckoners to continue that story, for those who want to know what happens next.

If we can get these off the ground, I’ll let you know. Also, if you like The Original, please let me know—as that will influence me in doing similar projects with Legion and the Reckoners.

STATUS: Completed, but cool things could still happen.

Adamant

No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.

STATUS: No movement.

Starburner/Soulburner

Something’s happening here, but it’s hush-hush for now.

The Apocalypse Guard

Well, this book got weirder—as expected with Dan and me working together on something. It’s moved to the back burner, as even Dan’s revision wasn’t enough to get it where we want it to be. So this one is entering limbo for now.

STATUS: No motion for months now, might be dead.

Other Projects

Untitled Threnody Novel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, another story with Shai, and The Silence Divine persist as “maybe” stories that someday I might write. They are joined by a Secret Standalone Cosmere Book, that wacky YA Cosmere Book with Magic Kites, Untitled First of the Sun YA novel (not involving Sixth), and a few others as Cosmere novels that might someday make it to the front burner. (Once Skyward is done, I think it would be good to do a YA book in the Cosmere, so I’ve begun working on possible ideas.) Aether of Night also is still hanging around, maybe needing a novel. So we’ll see. I’ll talk a little more about the Cosmere in a future section, after we get to the film stuff.

If I write a novella to go with the Stormlight Kickstarter, it has about an equal chance of being Wandersail (a Rysn novella), Horneater (a Rock novella), or a sequel to Sixth of the Dusk (which is tricky because it reveals maybe a little too much about Space Age Cosmere politics).

Part Six: Film/Television

Note: read last year’s State of the Sanderson for more talk on what it takes to make a film or television show out of a novel. However, the biggest news here is that I’ve decided to try taking a more active role in getting some of these made. To that end, I’ve most specifically been working closer with Dan Mintz, the producer who is trying to get some Cosmere things made. See below.

Snapshot

New screenplay has been written, and is being shopped to directors right now, so far as I know. Still under option by MGM, and looking good—but no real updates.

Stormlight Archive

I’ve offered Dan Mintz to do treatments for this myself, and he’s been very amenable. He and I have been working more closely together lately to see if we can make this happen.

Steelheart

Option lapsed at Fox just last month. This wasn’t surprising, as after the Fox/Disney merger, there wasn’t much of a chance that Disney would greenlight a non-Marvel superhero project. Instead of immediately going out to shop this again though, I’m taking a few months to consider how I want to approach film and television.

Legion

Still under option to Cineflix Media. No updates lately.

Skyward

Deal is in the works, but can’t talk about it yet.

Alcatraz

Likewise, deal is in the works, but can’t talk about it yet.

Dark One

Working on this with JMS, which has been super cool.

Mistborn

Considering maybe writing the screenplay on this myself. After speaking with Dan Mintz, we decided he would focus on spearheading Stormlight, and I would focus on spearheading Mistborn. So we’ll see what I decide to do.

Part Seven: Other Cool Projects

Stormlight Children’s Book

A publisher Isaac has worked with doing picture books asked if maybe we could do an adaptation of “the girl who looked up” story that Shallan and Wit tell in Oathbringer. We thought this was a pretty cool idea, and so Isaac is working on the adaptation. If we do this right, it could come out around the same time as Book Four.

Brotherwise Call to Adventure Board Game

This summer, Brotherwise Games will release Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive. Originally planned as an expansion for the board game Call to Adventure, it has grown into a full standalone game with 120 cards and everything you need to play. Call to Adventure is a hero-crafting game that combines strategy and storytelling. It’s similar to some “tableau-building” games where you’re creating a kingdom or civilization, but in this game you’re building a character. Each player begins with cards that define your hero’s origin, motivation, and destiny. Over the course of the game, you overcome challenges and gain traits. It’s a game with points and a clear winner, but the highlight of every game is telling your hero’s story at the end.

The guys at Brotherwise are huge fans, and they’ve worked closely with us to make sure the Stormlight Archive game is true to the books. It emphasizes cooperative play as players become Radiants and face Odium, but it’s possible to choose a villainous path and work against the team. The cards are all inspired by familiar scenes and themes, and in Call to Adventure you’re piecing together those moments to tell new stories. Here’s a sneak peek at illustrations for some of the cards: Choose A Side (Ganna Pazyniuk), Herald of Justice (Petar Penev), Face the Unmade(Artem Demura), Leader (Ari Ibarra), Elsecaller (Randy Vargas), and One More Try (Artem Demura). Expect more news on the game closer to its release date in summer 2020!

Crafty Games Dice Kickstarter

If you’re reading this when it comes out, know that you’ve only got a few hours left to get in on the Mistborn dice Kickstarter (and help them try to meet their final stretch goal). This should be the last Kickstarter we do for anything until we reach the Stormlight one in the summer.

Crafty has been doing great work on the RPG front, and have been an excellent partner. If you’re at all interested in dice, have a look at their Kickstarter. I’m really looking forward to getting mine!

Part Eight: Projected Schedule of Releases

• The Original audio novella: 2020
• Stormlight Four: Fall 2020
• Skyward Three: Summer(?) 2021
• Wax and Wayne Four: Fall(?) 2021
• Alcatraz 6: 2021–2022
• Dark One Graphic Novel: 2021–2022
• Skyward Four (final book): 2022
• Stormlight Five: Fall 2023

Part Nine: Bonus Section, The Future of the Cosmere

One thing you might have noticed in the secondary projects section is that I have a number of collaborations in the works. This is partially because I wanted the chance to work with some of my friends on books, which is a fun and different way to write. But it’s also because I’ve begun to realize that I need to keep more of my focus on the Cosmere.

That isn’t to say I’m not going to write anything that isn’t Cosmere moving forward. (Skyward proves that.) At the same time, these State of the Sanderson posts come out on my birthday each year—and as I age, I’m growing more aware that I won’t be able to write all the books I want to. I’m still relatively young, and relatively fast as a writer.

Let me explain. Back in my 30s, I generally didn’t worry that I wouldn’t be able to finish things I started—that wasn’t even something that occurred to me. I just wrote whatever I wanted at the time I wanted to write it. Now I’m in my 40s, and I’ve realized that the Cosmere is also a big project. Back in the summer of 2007—before I even had kids and before the Wheel of Time came my way—I first sat down and asked myself, “How big is the Cosmere?” I came up with an outline of between 32 and 36 books. That seemed like an easy task. At two books a year, that would barely be fifteen years out of my (hopefully) very long career.

But I was somewhat naive then about a number of things. I didn’t realize just how much effort Stormlight books would take to write. I didn’t realize how much time touring would eat out of my schedule as I grew more popular. I didn’t realize how many other things might take my attention, like doing films.

A few years after that 2007 outline, I realized that I needed to start writing some of my side projects as novellas, rather than novel series with promised sequels. (Things like The Emperor’s Soul and Sixth of the Dusk grew out of that realization.) Lately, I’ve begun asking myself on some of my ideas, “Could I do this as a collaboration? As an audio original or graphic novel?” These are other ways to tell my stories, but to do so in a manner that takes less of my direct time. You’re all going to have to tell me if you like the products of this effort. I can’t stop doing side projects; as I’ve said many times, this is how I prevent myself from burning out. But maybe I can make the deviations I take to do those side projects a little less time-consuming.

For what it’s worth, here is what I have as the current Cosmere sequence, not counting potential YA books or the occasional novella. Finished books are in bold. This isn’t an exact chronology of when I’ll write them either.

• Elantris 1
• Elantris 2
• Elantris 3
• Mistborn Era 1: Book One
• Mistborn Era 1: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 1: Book Three
• Stormlight One
• Stormlight Two
• Stormlight Three
• Stormlight Four
• Stormlight Five
• Mistborn Era 2: Book One
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Three
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Four
• Warbreaker 1
• Warbreaker 2
• Mistborn Era 3: Book One
• Mistborn Era 3: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 3: Book Three
• Stormlight Six
• Stormlight Seven
• Stormlight Eight
• Stormlight Nine
• Stormlight Ten
• Dragonsteel Book One
• Dragonsteel Book Two
• Dragonsteel Book Three
• Untitled Threnody Novel
• Untitled Aether Book One
• Untitled Aether Book Two
• Untitled Aether Book Three
• Mistborn Era 4: Book One
• Mistborn Era 4: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 4: Book Three

That’s thirty-five novels. The original outline I made in 2007 had a maximum of thirty-six, but was a little different. For example, I had Dragonsteel in my mind as seven books back then—but as I progressed through the Cosmere I quickly realized that I was offloading a lot of that story to Stormlight. (Bridge Four, remember, started on Yolen—the Dragonsteel world. So did Dalinar, actually.)

I’ve shrunk Dragonsteel to a trilogy as I focused on what I wanted it to be: a compelling story about Hoid and his origins. (Along with the shattering of Adonalsium.) That snapped Dragonsteel into place in the Cosmere quite nicely. This is why I’m still at around the same number of mainline novels even after adding the Wax and Wayne books.

The original outline didn’t name the Threnody novel as such; that slot was filled by a standalone where I planned to do some of the things I’ll now accomplish. In the original outline I had White Sand, but that became a graphic novel series. This, plus my uncertainty at the start if there would be other standalone novels, indicates why I had a 32–36-book series in mind at the start, but now have 35 “mainline” Cosmere books. (Another point I’ve wavered on is where Aether fits into this.)

That makes eleven books in the Cosmere finished in the last 15 years, less than a third of the full Cosmere sequence. This means, at this speed, I’ve got at least another thirty years of writing to do—putting me optimistically at age seventy-four when I finish. (Assuming I don’t add anything else, like a Mistborn cyberpunk between eras three and four—or a standalone or two, which I’d really like to be doing more.)

So, perhaps you can see why I feel a need to start focusing a little more attention on the Cosmere. I don’t want the years to slip away from me, and right now seems the time I need to be thinking about this—not when I hit sixty and realize I’ve been ignoring one series or another.

I write this out not to scare you. (Hopefully.) One of the reasons I divided it all up into separate sequences, even within the same series, is so that we’ll have endings and be able to “complete” series, rather than leaving you hanging forever, feeling like these things are going on too long. At the same time, the Cosmere is my life’s work—and from the get-go, I wanted it to be epic in every sense of the word.

I hope you are enjoying the journey, because I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

Thank you all for another fantastic year.

Brandon

Introduction

Another year has passed, and Koloss Head Munching Day is upon us again. It’s been a fun year, full of me working on interesting side projects, so expect quite the list of updates in this (very long) post. But first, let me give a hearty thank you to the community of readers that continues to put up with my sometimes insane writing process. I realize it results in me having a lot of projects, necessitating posts like this one to keep everyone up to date. For many writers, this might be an overwhelming number of irons in the proverbial fire—but it is exactly what I need to keep me excited about the process, and to keep me from burning out.

Know, however, that I realize this can be a little frustrating if you’re waiting for one specific update that keeps not happening. It’s quite the challenge to keep all this straight, but I do my best to keep in mind that by beginning something, I make an implicit promise that I will finish it. I take this promise seriously. I will do my best to balance my artistic needs with the trust you’ve all shown me by continuing to support my work. I consider this post, along with updates on places like my subreddit, to be essential parts of this process. I often cannot rush the artistic process, but I can keep you all informed of what is causing delays, or what projects I find exciting. This is how I make myself accountable to you, as you are the means by which I even get to do this wonderful job in the first place.

So, introduction done, here we go! Let the circus commence.

My Year

January-March: Skyward and Legion Revisions
I kicked off the year quickly doing a second draft of Skyward. Pulling The Apocalypse Guard from the publisher, then promising them Skyward to publish in the fall of 2018, meant that I had to scramble. It wouldn’t do to pull a book I judged to be of inferior quality, only to replace it with a book that I didn’t have time to revise up to my standards. So you’ll see a number of months dedicated to Skyward. (Which, if you somehow missed it, did come out—and is still sitting quite happily on the New York Times bestseller list many weeks later, so thank you all very much!)

Another thing I’d been putting off for months was the necessary revisions of the third Legion story. Tor was quite patient with me on this one, considering the Legion collection was scheduled for publication in the fall as well. But during these three months, I did multiple revisions of both books, eventually getting Legion into a polished state. (There was one more draft of Skyward still to do.) Legion Three, Lies of the Beholder, can be found in the Legion collection that was published earlier this year.

Finally, somewhere in here, I squeezed in an outline and world guide for Death Without Pizza. (Yes, that’s a name change—no it’s not the final name, but just a placeholder.) More on that later.

April: Children of the Nameless
Sometime around March of last year, Wizards of the Coast sent me an exploratory email. It being the 25th anniversary of their card game, they were wondering if I’d be interested in doing a story with them. As most of you know, I’m quite the fan of Magic: The Gathering. It’s my primary hobby, and I have way too many cards. (Which still aren’t enough, of course.) I was enthusiastic, and you can read more about the process I used to approach the story in this blog post.

I knew that by doing so, and by writing the story as long as it ended up, it would make getting to some of my other projects later in the year more difficult. (Namely, the fourth Wax and Wayne book, which I’ll talk about shortly.) But this was kind of something I had to do, so I ask your forgiveness in taking this detour to Innistrad. I’m exceptionally pleased with the story and the response it has gotten, so if you haven’t read it, I present it to you here! Reading it requires no prior knowledge of the card came or the lore surrounding it.

May: Skyward Final Draft
How long it takes to write a story depends on a lot of factors, but in general, three months gets me around 100k words. Shorter stories, with fewer viewpoints, tend to be faster—while longer stories with more intricate plotlines (like Stormlight) tend to take longer. But that’s just for the rough draft. Generally, doing all the other drafts takes an equivalent amount of time to the first draft. (So, if the first draft takes three months, the second through fourth drafts will together take another three months.) You can see this at play in Skyward, which took about three months to write in the end of 2017, then took three additional months of revision to polish up.

I did sneak in a little time to do an outline for a piece called The Original in here as well, which took about a week. I’ll update you on that in the secondary projects section.

June–August: Starsight First Draft
And, speaking of three month first drafts, here we get me buckling down and doing the sequel to Skyward. It’s finished in its first draft form, and dominated my summer. In here, I also did detailed outlines for the third and fourth books of the series. (And this is where I determined for certain that the series would need to be four books instead of three.)

September–October: Odds and Ends
In these months I had some travel to record episodes of Writing Excuses, I did a quick second draft of Starsight to send to my publisher, and I did some revisions to Children of the Nameless. I also did more work on The Original, Death Without Pizza, and Alcatraz Six (AKA Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, or Alcatraz vs. His Own Dumb Self). Finally, I slipped in some brainstorming with Dan Wells on how to fix The Apocalypse Guard.

Basically, I knew that November would be mostly lost to touring, and I was scrambling to get some work done on small projects to clear my plate for 2019, which will be dedicated to working on Stormlight Four.

November: Skyward Tour
I spent most of November on tour for Skyward, and quickly finishing up final revisions on Children of the Nameless. I got to see a lot of you while touring for the book, and had a blast—but these tours get more and more difficult as the lines get longer and longer. The tour for Stormlight Four in 2020 might require me to do some things I’ve been dreading, such as limit the lines to a certain number of tickets. It makes me sad to contemplate, but I’ll keep you all in the loop about what we decide to do.

That said, here are some pictures from my tour! Let the costume parade commence:

Syl – Barnes & Noble, El Cerrito

Mistborn – University Bookstore, Seattle

Shallan and Jasnah – University Bookstore, Seattle

Cobalt Guard – University Bookstore, Seattle

Spensa Nightshade – Anderson’s Bookshop, Chicago

Mistborn – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Wax – Barnes & Noble, Atlanta

Shallan – Murder by the Book, Houston

Australia(?) and Bastille – Murder by the Book, Houston

Mistborn – Murder by the Book, Houston

December: Death Without Pizza
I needed a break from all the other things I’ve been doing, so in classic Brandon style, I worked on something fresh and new to give myself a breather. This was where I was going to do Wax and Wayne Four, but doing Children of the Nameless meant that instead of three months extra space at the end of the year, I only had one month. (As CotN had taken one month to write, and one month to revise.) I had the choice of pushing back the start of Stormlight Four, or doing something else for this month and trying to sneak in W&W 4 sometime next year. I chose the latter. It’s important to me that I let myself do side projects to refresh myself—but I also think it’s important to keep to my Stormlight schedule. It would be too easy to keep putting off the big books until they stretch to years in the making. I told myself I was going to divide my time in half between Stormlight and other projects.

The truth is, I’m getting really anxious about getting back to Stormlight. That’s a very good sign, as once I finish a Stormlight book, I’m usually feeling quite burned out on the setting, and need a number of months to recover.

Anyway, that’s where the year went! Now, on to the exciting part. The big list of projects and updates to them.

Updates on Main Projects

Stormlight
As you just read about above, I am on track for starting this book on January first. I’ll begin with a reread of the first three books, as I find I need a periodic refresher, even on my own novels. This will also be important for helping me really nail down the outlines for books four and five.

As I’ve worked on the Stormlight series, I’ve shifted a lot of things around in the outlines. Famously, I swapped Dalinar’s book and Szeth’s book (making Book Three have Dalinar’s flashbacks instead of Szeth’s). But along the same lines, I moved a chunk of Book Three into Book Two, and then moved around smaller arcs for Three, Four, and Five.

The Stormlight series has a very odd structure. Each novel is outlined as a trilogy plus a short story collection (the interludes) and is the length of four regular books. This lets me play with narrative in some interesting ways—but it also makes each volume a beast to write. The other superstructure to the series is the spotlight on the ten orders of Radiants, with each book highlighting one of them while also having a flashback sequences for a character tied to one of those orders. If that weren’t complicated enough, the series is organized in two major five-book arcs.

What this means is that I need to do some extra work on books four and five, as they together tie off an arc. There are some small plot lines I’ve been pushing back from book to book as I nail down what each volume will include—but I can’t do that with Book Five, as it will be the capstone of this sequence. So I need the outlines to be tight to make certain I get everything into them that needs to be there.

Anyway, that’s a long way to say, essentially, I’ll start posting updates to the Stormlight subreddit in January, and you can follow along there or on the progress bar we’ll post here on my website on January first. I’ve commissioned a special piece of artwork to be used in Stormlight Four blog posts, which we should be able to reveal next year. (I’m pretty excited about it.) So you have that to look forward to as well!

Note that while I’m optimistic about this being my fall 2020 release, delays could happen if the book doesn’t come out smoothly on the first draft. I’ll keep you updated with regular posts. A lot will depend on how long the revisions take.

Status: Book Four is my main project for 2019, for an anticipated 2020/2021 release.

Mistborn
My big failure in 2018 was not getting to Wax and Wayne Four. But all is not lost! I am going to do whatever I can to squeeze this in next year. I’m feeling I might need a break in the middle of Stormlight Four, as I sometimes do. If so, I might squeeze this in there. But it will depend on a many factors. So, we’ll have to take a wait-and-see attitude.

I’m going to try to hold myself back from doing any other side projects, like Children of the Nameless or The Original from this year, until Wax and Wayne is finished. Book Four will be the conclusion of their story, and the wrap-up of era two of Mistborn. (And I have big things planned for Era Three, which I am planning to write between Stormlight Five and Stormlight Six.)

Status: Pushed off for now, but to be written very soon. No release date yet.

Skyward
Book Two, Starsight, is done, and I’ll be noodling on revisions for it in the early part of next year while I write the Stormlight Four and Five outlines. It’s scheduled for October of next year.

Stormlight Four taking all of my 2019 will likely mean that Skyward Three won’t be written until 2020, for a spring 2021 release. (At least, that would be my best guess at this point.) So you’ll have a larger-than-usual wait between Books Two and Three, unless something happens to let me squeeze Book Three in early. As I mentioned above, it’s a four-book series, and when I get back to it, I anticipate doing Book Four soon after Book Three. (Like I did in writing Books One and Two very close to one another.)

Status: Book Two ready to go in 2019. Book Three likely in 2021, Book Four likely in 2022.

Death (Without Pizza)
A major bombshell update here: we have finished a first draft of this book! I’m moving this up to major projects, as I anticipate a release of this novel in the coming two years. It is a Dresden Files-esque urban fantasy series set in London, starring a necromancer. (With a very Sanderson-style take on necromancy.)

Many of you have been following along with this project, which I’ve mentioned for many years in the State of the Sanderson posts. I wrote a rough draft of a big chunk of this book back some years ago now, but didn’t like how it was going, so I shelved it. The idea stuck with me though—and I really wanted to give it another chance. Over the years, one part I didn’t like was actually the pizza aspect. The original pitch was for a pizza delivery man who became a necromancer.

Well, over the years, I found I wanted a stronger character for the protagonist. Starting with the title Death by Pizza had pushed me to make the story more jokey than I wanted, and had led me to cut corners on the worldbuilding in ways I didn’t like. So when I went back to the drawing board, I started going in different directions with the storytelling. A more intricate, interesting magic system. And a character with more heart. Where I eventually ended up going was studying metal music culture.

The subculture of heavy metal music is fascinating to me. I really like how passionate the fans are about it, and how often outsiders are wrong about those inside it. (Do a little reading on the topic, and you might find that a lot of your stereotypes of metal fans are wrong—like mine were. The more I read about and talked to metal fans, the more fascinated I became by the subculture.) It seemed to me that a metalhead who finds out he’s a necromancer could be a cool hook.

Well, around the time I was really getting into this, I was chatting with Peter Orullian, a novelist who is a friend of mine. He’s mostly known for his epic fantasy series The Vault of Heaven, but he also happens to be a metalhead and a musician. (He’s toured internationally fronting metal bands, and recently composed an entire rock opera in the style of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He’s even written a book with the band Dream Theater, in conjunction with one of their concept albums.)

Well, the match seemed perfect. He could bring the expertise on metal music, and I could provide the worldbuilding. So we jumped into a collaboration. I wrote out a lengthy world guide and outline, and Peter did a lot of experimenting to find the right voice for our character. We worked on the first volume all during the summer and fall, and the resulting book is quite promising. It’s the story of an American metal singer living in London whose day goes from bad to worse as he gets kicked out of his band, then makes his way to his favorite pub to lick his wounds—only to end up getting shot in the head during an apparent robbery. And after that, things start to go really badly for him.

Peter finished the first draft in November, and I’ve been spending my December doing a second draft. After that, I’ll kick it back to him for a third draft so that we can make sure our different voices are smoothed out. We’ll see where it goes from there! In any case, though, Death Without Pizza will not be the final title for the story. We’ll pick something a little less silly; I’m a little worried people will expect something over-the-top metal like Brütal Legend—which was great, but not the direction this story ended up going. Anyway, I’ll post updates as we go along!

Status: Being revised. After that, we’ll look for a publisher.

Updates on Secondary Projects

The Original
I’m moving this novella (which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before in a State of the Sanderson) into the Secondary Projects section. A while ago I had an idea for a story about a world where, if you committed a crime and went on the run for it, the government could create a clone of you (with your memories and personality) to hunt you down. After all, who better to hunt a criminal than a copy of that criminal? The copy would have strict controls in place so they could be killed by the government with the press of a button, but would be given the promise that they could take their Original’s place if they succeeded in hunting them down and killing them.

Earlier this year, the idea developed into a full-fledged outline, which I wrote out during time when I needed a break from other things. It worked out well, and so you might see progress on this in future years. Right now, I like the idea of doing it as an audio original, perhaps with a coauthor who is more experienced in audio or voice acting. So watch for updates here.

Status: Outlined.

The Apocalypse Guard
I do someday want to do something with this book. I’ve given it to Dan Wells, my long-time friend and sometimes partner in crime. He’s come back with some suggestions on how I could fix it, along with some brainstorming on where it could go as a series.

I’m going to give you fair warning, though. Every time Dan and I brainstorm together, weird things happen. Legion was the result of one of those sessions, as was Dan’s book I Am Not a Serial Killer. (Which you should all go read, if you haven’t.) The two of us are odd enough on our own, but together we’re downright strange. (You should see the two of us in role-playing sessions, where we constantly try to out-bizarre one another with our character concepts.)

I fully expect something to come out of The Apocalypse Guard sessions I’m doing with Dan, but…well, don’t expect it to be normal by any stretch of the word.

Status: In revisions, getting weirder.

Alcatraz
I’ve been tweaking Alcatraz Six. I did a partial draft a few years ago that went off the rails, and this year, I trimmed that back with some help from a friend into the parts that worked. From there, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get Bastille’s character voice right. It’s moving. Slowly, but it’s moving. Book Six, written from Bastille’s viewpoint, will be the end of the series.

Now that Legion is done, the next series I want to make sure gets tied up is Alcatraz. It shouldn’t be too much longer.

Status: Book Six made some small progress this year.

White Sand
Graphic Novel Two came out this year, and was very well received. (Save for the forced artist change, something I hated to have to do. That said, the new artist is doing a fantastic job.) Graphic Novel Three is the end of this sequence, and is well on its way to being completed.

The prose version is still available if you sign up for my mailing list. Though remember, we’ve made numerous updates to the story during the adaptation process.

I have no immediate plans to do sequels to this in graphic novel form, though you can expect stories set on Taldain to happen in the future.

Status: Final graphic novel is well under way. Release in 2019 or early 2020 likely.

Dark One
My outline for this drew a lot of buzz around both Hollywood and New York. The story, if you aren’t familiar with it, is about a young man in our world who discovers that a fantasy world has declared him to be the Dark One, and starts sending hit squads into our world to assassinate him. Pitched as “Harry Potter from Voldemort’s viewpoint,” the story follows this young man as he is forced to confront the possibility that he might do what the prophecies say.

We have a graphic novel in the works, and I’ve been doing pitches in Hollywood for a potential television show. So movement is certainly happening here.

Status: Going well. Might have art to show soon from the graphic novel.

Elantris, Warbreaker, Rithmatist
No updates from last year, I’m afraid. There was no intention to make progress on these this year. Once Alcatraz is wrapped up, I’ll turn my attention back to The Rithmatist as the last looming series that needs a wrap-up that hasn’t gotten one. Elantris and Warbreaker sequels aren’t to be expected until Stormlight Five and Wax and Wayne Four are done.

Status: Keep waiting. (Sorry again.)

Updates on Minor Projects

The Reckoners, Legion
These are both finished, and I don’t foresee any future updates anytime soon. Do note, however, that the Reckoners board game has been shipping, and it turned out great. You should soon have a chance to buy copies if you missed the Kickstarter, and I suspect there will be expansions in the future.

Status: Completed

Adamant
No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.

Status: No movement.

Soulburner
No motion on this space opera that I might rename Starburner once I get around to doing something with it. I have a cool worldbuilding document, but no novel specifically. I’ve been tempted to see if it would work for a video game setting.

Potential Cosmere Stories
Keep the following on your radar, as they may happen someday. However, as I’ll be knee-deep in Stormlight in 2019, don’t expect anything to happen on any of them until it is done. The list includes: Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel, Sixth of the Dusk sequel, Silverlight novella, Threnody novel, Aether of Night, Silence Divine.

Movie/Television Updates

So, let’s talk about movies.

People tend to get really excited about news of my books being adapted—and rightly so. I’d be very excited to someday see one of my properties turn into a film, and I think it’s inevitable that some day, we’ll see it happen. However, the process of a book becoming a film or television show is a long one, involving the input of a lot of people. And fans tend to get very excited when something is being developed, but often don’t realize that the stages of development can often take a long time.

I thought it might be helpful here to go over what some of those steps are, so you can get a better idea of how far along my various properties are. Understand that this is a rough guide, and individual properties might follow a different route. This is also kind of an outsider’s take on it all, as I don’t consider myself an expert in Hollywood. Those who know more about the ins and outs of the business would probably consider this a gross over-simplification.

Step One: Producers Option a Story
In Hollywood terms an “option” is kind of like a rental agreement. The most common way a story starts on its path to an adaptation is with an option. (Sometimes, there’s even a step before this called a Shopping Agreement.) Basically, someone (usually a producer, but sometimes a studio) comes in and offers to pay an author every year to “option” their work, meaning the producer/studio gets exclusive rights to make a film on that work. They don’t buy the rights completely, however. Usually, they set a buyout price, then pay 5/10% of that price every year or so to keep the option locked up. This gives them time to put all the other pieces together for a film without needing to commit to paying the full buyout price until they’re certain the film is going to happen.

My agent once told me that about 1 out of 30 of the properties he saw get optioned eventually got made into a film or show. An option is absolutely an important step, but a lot of times fans see an option agreement in place and start expecting a film any day—when really, this is just the first exploratory step in the process. Sometimes, producers even option rights they never intend on making into films. (I once had a producer brag to me that he—in order to make sure nobody in town was trying to sell something similar to his property—had bought up all rights to similar books for cheap, with the intention of sitting on them for five years to make sure he didn’t have any competition. I was not impressed, to say the least.)

Step Two: Screenplay
Usually, after the option agreement is signed, a screenplay is commissioned for a film. For a television show, it will either be a screenplay for a pilot, or some kind of series bible or “treatment,” a kind of outline that talks about the process the group would use in adapting the property.

This screenplay, treatment, or bible is what the producers will take around town to try to get studios, directors, and actors interested in a property. A book being successful is interesting to Hollywood, but what they rightly want to see is if that book can be made into a workable screenplay. Often, this process takes years, as a screenplay/teleplay will be commissioned—then go through several rewrites. Sometimes, the producers will decide to hire a second or even third screenwriter to do a pass on the script, if they decide it needs another take or specific revisions.

Step Three: Studio Interest
With screenplay in hand, the producers will approach the studios or larger production companies. (Or sometimes content distributors, like Netflix.) The goal here is to get interest from parties with deep pockets and the power to actually make a film. This step can occasionally be skipped if a studio was involved from the beginning. (This has happened with several of my properties.) Sometimes, the studio might be interested—but send the producers back to step three to do more revisions before offering any kind of official deal or promise of distribution. Sometimes, the producers will need to secure promises from multiple parties—like, for instance, they might get a smaller studio in the US interested, then have to get a foreign partner interested to provide funding for overseas distribution promises.

Step Four: Attaching Talent
With a screenplay in hand and the backing of a studio or similar group, the producers can now try to get a director or actor on board with the film. This crucial step will have a big influence on how/if the film will get made. Obviously, if you get a major director interested, that makes the studios sit up and take notice. Likewise if a major actor attaches to the project. For television, this often involves getting an established show runner attached. (In my experience, with television, sometimes this sort of thing happens in Step Two instead—with the showrunner being involved in the pitch documents. In that case, Step Three is the big one: getting someone big in the business to fund a pilot.)

Step Five: Actual Green Light
Finally, if all the pieces come together, you get what is called a green light. The film is scheduled for shooting, the studio commits a large chunk of money to the project, and people start getting hired. This is when the option actually gets exercised, and the author gets the payment for the contract they likely signed years and years ago. Once in a while, a group of producers will decide that the property they hold is big enough that (once their option period runs out) they decide to pay the buyout price to get more time to try to get the film made. Sometimes, instead, they’ll just agree with the author to extend the option period for another payment.

Step Six: Film Gets Made
I’ve never gotten here, but I hear it’s a lovely experience.

So, with that in mind, I can tell you where each of my properties are. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to name a lot of names. For instance, if a director is interested but hasn’t signed on officially, it’s not my place to announce them as being involved. Likewise, if some producers have offered to option something, but we don’t have signed paperwork, it’s generally best if I stay quiet about the details so that they can do publicity on the deal in the way they would like.

Anyway, here’s where we stand for each of my properties.

Snapshot
It might be odd to see this one at the top of the list, but I think right now the best chance we have at a film would be one based on my story Snapshot. MGM announced their option of the rights almost two years ago, which is great—because it meant that we already had studio backing, cutting out one of the steps in the process. The producers were impressive in their enthusiasm, and they jumped right into commissioning a screenplay with a very talented writer.

I’ve read the screenplay, and consider it the best I’ve ever read based on one of my books. It helps that Snapshot itself is a shorter work, more easily adapted to a film. The Snapshot screenplay is an improvement on my story in virtually every way, something that I discovered with both joy and a little bit of shame. (Really, the screenwriter did some things with the story I probably should have figured out myself.)

With this great screenplay, I hope there will be a lot more good news to share really soon.

The Cosmere
DMG Entertainment optioned the rights to the Cosmere, and they have been wonderful to work with. They commissioned screenplays for The Emperor’s Soul, Mistborn, and The Way of Kings. They’re currently in Step Three above, trying to get studio interest for the properties. Mostly, they’ve been pitching Mistborn as a film series and The Way of Kings as a television series.

Likely, the success of things like the new Lord of the Rings show and the Kingkiller Chronicle will influence how this goes in the future.

Steelheart
The Reckoners series was optioned some years ago now by 21 Laps, Shawn Levy’s company, using backing from Fox. We were happy when they renewed their option this past summer, as we weren’t certain what the status of this would be in light of the Fox–Disney merger. It seems they’re planning to take the Reckoners with them through the process, which is good news.

This was an exciting deal, as Mr. Levy has done some great work—including the film Real Steel, which was an excellent adaptation of the original story. (And, of course, he was heavily involved with Stranger Things on Netflix.) Beyond that, it came with the implicit promise of support from Fox, meaning that we could skip the “finding a studio” step. That said, this is still in the screenplay stage.

Stephen Leeds/Legion
The Stephen Leeds stories have recently been optioned for a television series by a new production company. This is the property’s third time being picked up for an option, so I’m hopeful we’ll make it work this time. I don’t believe the company has been announced officially yet, so we’ll hold off on mentioning them for now. But we’re probably in the middle of Step Two for this one.

Dark One
Dark One, based on an outline and worldbuilding guide from me, is being shopped (in a Step Three kind of way) by FremantleMedia and Random House Studios, with an impressive showrunner attached. There has been movement since that announcement in June, but I can’t say anything publicly yet.

Bonus Mention: The Wheel of Time
As The Wheel of Time does not belong to me, I like to be careful about what I do and say with it. I don’t want to overstep my bounds. But for those who haven’t been paying attention, this series has progressed into a full-blown green light at Amazon Studios—with actual episodes being written and filming soon starting.

I don’t know what role, if any, I’ll have in this. Like I said, I like to be respectful of Team Jordan. It’s not my place to try to muscle in and pretend I’m in charge. At the same time, I do think I could offer something to the production, and the showrunner (who is quite sharp) has reached out to me multiple times for conversations about the adaptation. I’m impressed with everything I see, and hope to at the very least be able to pop over to the set when filming happens and grab some photos for you all.

For most of my own properties, I’d say to not hold your breath. I think they’ll happen eventually, but you shouldn’t start to get hyped up until Step Five happens for something. Well, we’re past Step Five with the Wheel of Time, and you can officially begin to feel hyped. It’s actually happening, and it looks great so far.

Games and Other Licensed Work
I’m interested in doing some more video game work. Ever since I got to be part of the Infinity Blade games, I’ve had the itch to do this again. Right now though, there is nothing in the works that I can announce—I’ve had some short preliminary conversations with game studios, but no contracts. I’ll continue to look at doing this, and will announce what I can, when I think something might actually be happening.

Unfortunately, Mistborn: Birthright never came together. (Though I’m on very good terms with the folks there.) And you can ignore any rumors about CD Projekt Red. Some fans got hyped when I said I liked them as a studio—and some news sites even picked it up as a story, for some reason. But that was just me mentioning in a random post that I think they do good work. I’ve never met with them—or talked to them—and have no reason to believe they even know who I am.

Video games aside, we do have some exciting and fun licensed properties that we’ve been working on, and I figured I should have a section in the State of the Sanderson for updates on these.

Board Games
We’ll keep looking at doing more board games. The Reckoners game, from Nauvoo Games, and Mistborn: House War, from Crafty Games—who also developed the Mistborn Adventure RPG—all of which turned out very well, and (equally important) were shipped in a reasonable timeframe to the backers on Kickstarter. We had a Stormlight game in the works, but have backed up a few steps on that one for various reasons. I hope to have one of those finished at some point. You may have seen my announcement from a few months ago, but we’ve partnered with Brotherwise Games to bring you the Call to Adventure: Stormlight expansion that should be out fall of 2019. I would also be interested in doing a deckbuilding card game based on my works eventually. (After all, you know how addicted I am to Magic: The Gathering.)

Jewelry
Badali Jewelry continues to do an excellent job creating a variety of awesome artwork pieces based on my various books. They approached me to do this way back when I was basically a nobody, and have been with me all this time, creating beautiful and detailed works.

Coins
Shire Post, creator of many fantasy-themed coins for various different properties, did a very successful Kickstarter for Mistborn coinage, and I’m quite pleased with both their professionalism and artistry. We here at Dragonsteel did the designs so that they’d be 100% in continuity with the books. We’re looking at doing more with Shire Post in the future.

Music
Black Piper’s Kaladin album has been shipping its physical rewards for backers, and are finishing up the last steps of their Kickstarter. I’m very pleased with the music, which you can find on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon MP3, and many other digital outlets. I think they did a great job, and suggest that it would make a great accompaniment to your next Stormlight reread. Due to the complexities of fitting in the album around the windows for some of our other licenses, if you’re interested in owning this we’d encourage looking at it before year-end.

Amazon
We’ve recently partnered with Amazon to help bring you more apparel options. As of now, it’s the only place other than my website store to sell officially licensed clothing. And in the not-to-distant future we’re going to expand our selection to include hoodies and other things as time allows.

Projected Schedule of Releases

Starsight (Skyward Two): November 2019
White Sand Three: Sometime 2019–2020
Stormlight Four: Fall 2020
Skyward Three: 2021
Wax and Wayne Four: Sometime 2020 or 2021

Conclusion and TL;DR

Whew. That’s quite the list, eh? This post gets longer and longer each year. The short version is actually very simple. I’m dedicating most of my efforts to Stormlight Four next year, with occasional short deviations to work on Skyward or Mistborn.

Once again, thank you all for joining me on this journey.

Brandon Sanderson
December 2018

Introduction

Welcome and happy Koloss Head Munching Day! It is time for my yearly update on projects! Strap in for a long post. (If you want to compare, here is a link to last year’s post.)

It has been a busy month for us, here at Dragonsteel Headquarters. The leatherbound edition of Mistborn 2, which was supposed to get here in November, was delivered the day I flew home from the UK, ending my tour. (And the Mistborn 1 second printing came the next day.) So I’ve been doing a lot of sitting and listening to podcasts while I sign stacks and stacks of books. (If you’re curious, I’ve been listening to Hardcore History.)

• My Year
• Main Projects Updates
• Secondary Projects Updates
• Minor Projects Updates
• Potential Projects Updates
• Movie/Television Updates
• Updates Conclusion
• Projected Schedule
• Conclusion

My Year

January–June: Oathbringer Revisions
I spent most of this year doing revisions for Oathbringer. I did several exhaustive drafts during the January–June months, and did the final handoff to Peter (for copyediting and proofreading) right at the end of June.

June–Mid September: The Apocalypse Guard
Then, for the first time in what felt like forever (it was really only about sixteen months), I got a chance to work on something that wasn’t Oathbringer or Edgedancer. I launched right into The Apocalypse Guard, the follow-up to The Reckoners…and it didn’t work. I spent July, August, and part of September writing that. (I finished the last chapter sometime in early September, and turned in the second draft a few weeks later.)

September–October: Legion 3
I was already feeling a little discouraged by that book not quite coming together, though at that point I assumed I’d be able to fix it in revisions. (Well, I still think I can do that–I just think it will take more time.) Mid-September, I launched into Legion Three: Lies of the Beholder. That took around a month to finish, bringing us to mid-October. By then, I knew something was seriously wrong with The Apocalypse Guard, as my revision attempts were fruitless. So, I called Random House and pulled the book–then launched into Skyward.

October–November: Skyward
I have been writing on that book ever since, and you can read the blog post yesterday about that.

November–December: Oathbringer Tour
The tour was wonderful–somehow both exhausting and energizing at the same time. Here are some of the fan costumes that showed up this year. Thank you all for coming out to see me!

December so far: Skyward
Unfortunately, and I know you guys know to watch for them, there are no hidden or secret novellas or books for this year. I have been running around feeling behind all year, first on Oathbringer, and then trying to find a replacement for The Apocalypse Guard.

Updates on Main Projects

Stormlight

It’s time to take a little breather. I’ve begun working on the outline for book four, which is kind of a mess right now because of things I’ve been moving around between books as I write. My goal this year for Stormlight will be to have rock-solid outlines for books four and five done by December 2018.

My current projection is that I’ll spend half of my time writing Stormlight, and half of it doing other things. (I spoke last year about just how big an undertaking a Stormlight book is–and why I can’t write them back to back.) I realize that many of you would prefer to have only Stormlight, but that would drive me insane–and drive the series into the ground.

I think this is a realistic schedule. So, I’m giving myself 2018 to work on Skyward (hopefully a trilogy) and other projects. Then on January 1st, 2019, I go back to Stormlight refreshed and excited to be back in Roshar, and I write on book four until it’s done. (With a 2020 or 2021 release, depending on how the writing goes.) I do hope to find time for a novella, like Edgedancer, that we can put out between books. This one is tentatively called Wandersail.

For those who don’t know, the Stormlight Archive is a ten-book series composed of two five-book arcs.

Status: Writing outline for book four.

Mistborn

Wax and Wayne 4 is on the slate next after I finish Skyward. (Though if it’s going well, I may do the entire trilogy for Skyward first.) I need four or five months at least to do Wax and Wayne, so rain or shine, my plan is to get into this on September 1st at the latest. Hopefully a little earlier.

This will wrap up the second era of Mistborn books. (And yes, I’ve settled—at long last—on just calling it that. All the other terms I tried were just too confusing.) Once the Wax and Wayne books are done, I’ll look to do something else for a little while before coming back for Era Three. (1980s spy thriller Mistborn.)

Status: To be written in 2018.

Skyward

Current main project. Yesterday’s blog post talks about it in depth–but so far, so good!

Status: To be written in 2018.

Updates on Secondary Projects

Legion

The third Stephen Leeds/Legion story (which is roughly the same length as the second one) is finished! Titled Lies of the Beholder, this is the story that delves into Stephen’s backstory, his interactions with Sandra, and the nature of his aspects. Good stuff! It’s done, and it’s weird. But good weird.

Right now, the goal is to collect all three Legion stories and release them in hardcover sometime around September 2018. That means there probably won’t be a standalone release of Lies of the Beholder until a year or so later, like we plan with Edgedancer. However, for those who like cohesion on their bookshelves, I’ve mandated that Subterranean Press be allowed to do a leatherbound like they did with the first two. So you can have books that match. This should happen right around the release of the collection.

In the UK, there should be a small-format version of the story on its own rather than a collection. (Again, for matching purposes. In the US, the small-format hardcovers have been published by my own company, Dragonsteel, as we waited for enough stories to do a collection.) We should eventually do a small-format Dragonsteel edition for people who really want one of those to match, but I’d suggest that the best way to support the stories is to buy the collection. And if you haven’t ever tried them out, you’ll be able to get them all at once!

This marks the end of the Stephen Leeds stories, though we’re in talks for another television deal—so maybe that will happen.

Status: Series finished! Publication in late 2018.

Alcatraz

Contrary to last year’s State of the Sanderson (where I didn’t expect movement on this series this year) there have been developments. I have tried working on the sixth and final book (which will be from Bastille’s viewpoint) and have found that I didn’t like the test chapters I did.

The story went the wrong direction, and beyond that, I didn’t feel like I had Bastille’s voice down. In some attempts, the book just sounded too much like the previous ones—but when I exaggerated her voice, she felt a bit Flanderized. I’ve been toying with how to make it work, and I’ve come up with a somewhat outside-the-box solution. My long-standing friend and former student, Janci Patterson, is also a big fan of the series. She’s been offering feedback since I wrote the first book back in…2006, was it? I’ve gone to her and asked if she’d be willing to collaborate on it.

The goal is that by bringing in another author to write it with me, I’ll be able to get the book to work—to have it feel different enough from the others, yet still be in the same theme and spirit. The goal is to do an outline in early February once I have book one of Skyward done, then hand that off to Janci and let her toy with it a while before sending it back to me.

So you can watch for that, and I’ll post updates.

Status: Outline to be written in 2018.

Elantris and Warbreaker

No change on either one from last year. The plan has always been to look back at Sel and Nalthis once the Wax and Wayne books are done. That’s still my intention.

Status: Keep waiting. (Sorry.)

White Sand

Graphic Novel 1 was a huge success, and Graphic Novel 2 is finished and off to the printers. Expected publication date is February 2018. It will be the second of three.

The prose version is still available to be read. If you sign up for my mailing list, we auto-send you a link to it.

Status: Graphic novel 2 coming in early 2018.

The Rithmatist

This continues to be the single most-requested sequel among people who email me or contact me on social media. It is something I want to do, and still intend to, but it has a couple of weird aspects to it—completely unrelated to its popularity—that continue to work as roadblocks.

The first problem is that it’s an odd relic in my writing career. I wrote it as a diversion from a book that wasn’t working (Liar of Partinel, my second attempt at doing a novel on Yolen, after the unpublished novel Dragonsteel). It went really well—but it also was something I had to set aside when the Wheel of Time came along.

I eventually published it years later, but my life and my writing has moved in a very different direction from the point when I wrote this. These days, I try very hard to make stories like this work as novellas or standalone stories, rather than promising sequels. I feel I did promise a sequel for this one, and I have grand plans for it, but the time just never seems to be right.

The other issue is that writing about that era in America—even in an alternate universe—involves touching on some very sensitive topics. Ones that, despite my best efforts, I feel that I didn’t handle as sensitively as I could have. I do want to come back to the world and do a good job of it, but doing an Aztec viewpoint character—as I’d like to do as one of the viewpoints in book two—in an alternate Earth…well, it’s a challenge that takes a lot of investment in research time.

And for one reason or another, I keep ending up in crisis mode—first with Stormlight 3 taking longer than I wanted, and now with The Apocalypse Guard not turning out like I wanted. So someday I will get to this, but it’s going to require some alignment of several factors.

Status: Not yet. We’ll see.

Updates on Minor Projects

The Reckoners

The Apocalypse Guard was in this universe, and we’ll see what happens there, but for now I’m leaving this series alone. There might be a Mizzy book that I end up doing, but no promises.

Status: Trilogy complete. Series done, for now.

Adamant

This space opera novella series is in same place it was last year, I’m afraid. (One novella done, no more written on the rest.) I took a little time to work on the outline, but didn’t find a chance to write the second novella. It will be awesome when I do it, and I got really close to moving this to the front burner several times, but it didn’t end up working.

Status: Still possible in the near future.

Dark One

My eternal “like Harry Potter from Voldemort’s viewpoint” fantasy sequence is still hanging out, buzzing at the sides of my brain. I wrote a really spectacular outline for it this summer, one I love quite a bit, and it got both television graphic novel interest—but these are deals still very much in the works, so I can’t talk about them yet.

I’m pleased with what I have though, and feel this series has moved for the first time in a long while. Note that I did end up pulling it out of the Cosmere, as it ended up working better as a dark secondary world fantasy than it did as a Cosmere YA series. It went both older, and more twisted, in the current outline. Hopefully, by next year’s State of the Sanderson we’ll have something more solid to announce.

Status: Exciting developments in the works!

Death by Pizza

Pizza delivery man becomes a necromancer. On my perpetual list of things to do—but no movement.

Status: No movement.

Soulburner

Random space opera thing I worked on for a while.

Status: No movement.

Potential Cosmere Stories List

Here are things that at one point I’ve had in the works, and probably someday plan to do, in the Cosmere:

• Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel. (Hoid’s origin story, to be written sometime after Stormlight is done.)
• Sixth of the Dusk sequel. (I had a pretty cool idea for this last year. Nothing more than that.)
• Untitled Silverlight novella. (What it says on the tin.)
• Threnody novel. (An expedition back to confront the Evil that destroyed the old world.)
• Aether of Night. (Still in the Cosmere, and you can see the odd remnant of an Aether popping up here and there. Bound to be drastically different from the unpublished novel, which I allow the 17th Shard to give out to people who request it on their forums. Basically, the only thing from it that is canon is the magic system.)
• Silence Divine. (Disease magic novella set on Ashyn.)

Movie/Television Updates

Mistborn and Stormlight Films

These rights are held by DMG Entertainment, and they’ve been very good at working with me and showing me things. They have scripts for both Mistborn and The Way of Kings, which they are actively trying to make happen in Hollywood.

One way they’re approaching this is to do a Stormlight VR experience, which we’ve talked about before. This is less about making a video game, and more about making something to show off to studios to kind of immerse them in the setting of the books. As I determined early on, this is an interesting but weird world, and having visuals (like the art in the books themselves) helps a lot with bringing people around to understanding.

They do plan to release the VR experience to fans on Steam, for those with VR headsets. It’s not intended to be a full game, as I said, more a demo of the Shattered Plains—you’ll get to personally experience the Shattered Plains from the novels and interact with the characters and creatures that inhabit them. We’ll do some posts on it in coming months as it gears up to be released, and I’ve invited the developers to do some guest posts on my blog.

Regardless of what happens on the film and television front here, at the very least you have that to look forward to!

The Reckoners

Still held by Fox, with 21 Laps producing. They renewed their option this summer, so they are still interested in the property, though I haven’t had any specific updates in a while. I have no idea how the Disney acquisition might affect things.

Snapshot

If you missed my weird, cyberpunkish detective story, you can now get a copy of it in our Dragonsteel Edition bundled with another of my stories. The ebook is still around too. MGM snatched this up almost before it was published—it was very hot in Hollywood in the months leading up to publication.

The screenwriter they attached to it had another project delaying him for the bulk of this year, but they’ve said he’ll turn his full attention to it staring sometime just after the holidays.

Other Properties

Legion and Dark One are currently in negotiations. The rest of the Cosmere is covered by the DMG deal, as we want one company working on that at a time. We have a small deal for Defending Elysium that has it under option with a screenwriter, and the first draft screenplay is good. That leaves Alcatraz, The Rithmatist, and a couple of shorts (Dreamer, Perfect State, Firstborn) with no options right now.

Updates Conclusion

There we go—everything I’ve talked about should be on that list. I have a few other little stories bouncing around in my head that I haven’t talked about yet. (Well, probably there are hundreds, but only a few that are relatively close to seeing the light of day.) We’ll see what happens.

Projected Schedule

My projected publication schedule looking forward swaps The Apocalypse Guard out for Skyward and moves the Legion collection into the place of Wax and Wayne 4, reflecting what I actually wrote this year. (Note, these are always very speculative. And Peter is probably already worried about Stormlight 4.)

September 2018: Stephen Leeds/Legion Collection
November 2018: Skyward
Fall 2019: Wax and Wayne 4
Sometime 2019: Skyward 2
Sometime 2020: Stormlight 4
Sometime 2020: Skyward 3

Conclusion: Birthday!

Last year, I tried out something where—in response to people asking me if they could send me birthday gifts—I suggested sending me a magic card from a specific set, with a signature and note on the back.

This was a little experiment that people had a lot of fun with, and this year I want to post the results! That means a lot of photos, as I wanted to show the notes people wrote on the cards. Many of you included touching letters to me as well, which I read and appreciate—though those tended to be a little more personal in nature, so I’m not going to post them.

Some of you will be completely uninterested in this, so we’ve collected the images in a gallery rather than posting them all here. Have fun browsing through them! And thank you so much to everyone. It was a lot of fun to see the little notes that you’d all sent in.

I’m forty-two today, which is an auspicious number in science fiction fandom. It’s going to be tough to top these last few months and the reception to Oathbringer.

The fact that I get to do this crazy thing for a living continues to be the best gift of them all.

Brandon Sanderson
December 2017

Introduction

Hello, and welcome! I hope the holiday season is treating you all very well. Around this time each year, I write a blog post called State of the Sanderson. I usually post it on or around my birthday, which happens to be today. (So, happy Koloss Head-Munching Day to you all.)

These posts run long and are extensive essays that go over what I did during the year, updating you all on the projects I’ve been working on, then doing a rundown of projects that I’m planning. (Find past year’s State of the Sanderson right here.)

I hope you’ll find this helpful and interesting. Storytelling is not an exact science, and things don’t always go as planned. At the same time, I believe it important to be up-front with you all. I know what it’s like to wait for years to read the ending of a favorite series, and I appreciate your longsuffering support when I jump between projects.

In teaching my university lectures and workshop, I interact with many, many hopeful and talented newer writers. Their excitement, and worry about the future, reminds me how fortunate I am to be able to do what I love for a living. In the story of the ants and the grasshopper, I get to spend my life making music—but instead of letting me starve in the winter, you bring me in and give me something warm to eat, then you listen while I tell you a story.

It’s strange to consider what might have been. How many plausible variations of life are there where I’m not a professional novelist? Did I hit on the one perfect sequence of events that brought me here, or would I have muddled my way through even if Moshe hadn’t agreed to look at Elantris back at a party in Montreal in 2001?

Though I deal in the fantastic as my daily labor, the scene where I’m not a writer is one scene I have difficulty conjuring. Would I be a professor perhaps? I do enjoy teaching, though only in moderation. (When I had to teach the same class multiple times in a day, I found the experience monotonous. One course a year is just about right for me—exciting, vibrant, and involving new things to teach and talk about.)

Indeed, early in my graduate studies, I realized I’d never make it as an academic. Ironically, I discovered that doing all the things in my writing program that would prepare me for a good Ph.D. or MFA course (being on the staff of journals, assisting professors, traveling to conferences) would prevent me from actually writing—so I threw all of that up in the air and doubled down on my novels. Some of my colleagues went on to professorships, but I was never really headed that direction.

For me, it was always write or bust. I don’t know what busting would look like—but I do know that, barring something truly insane, it would involve me ending up with a closet full of dozens and dozens of unpublished manuscripts.

As an aside, for those who didn’t hear the story on tour this year, my second son (who is six) has started to figure out what it means that I’m an author. He came up to me a few months ago and said, “Daddy. You write books!”

I said, “Yes!”

“You sell them, so we have money for food and our house!”

“That’s right.”

“And when people visit, you give them books from the garage! That’s how you sell them!”

I often give copies of the books to friends who visit, and in his six-year-old understanding, this was how we made our living. But hey, there are worse things to be than a garage novelist with a trunk full of demo manuscripts.

In any case, you have my sincere thanks for your support! I’m glad we’re not in the alternate, dystopian Sanderson timeline where I have a goatee and have to spend my life selling people insurance.

My Year

This year was almost completely dominated by the writing of Oathbringer, Book Three of the Stormlight Archive. The first files I have for the book were Kaladin scenes, written in June 2014. But the book didn’t really start in earnest until July 2015, when I wrote the Dalinar flashback sequence. (See State of the Sanderson 2015.) I had those done by October, but November was when I really dove into the novel.

I spent most of 2016 working on it, with only a few interruptions. It was an extremely productive year spent writing on something I’m very passionate about—but it was also a monochrome year, as I poured so much into Stormlight. There were far fewer side projects, and far fewer deviations, than the year before.

I’ve come to realize I can’t do a Stormlight book every year, or even every two years. You can see that this one took around 18 months of dedicated writing time (though that does include some interruptions for edits and work on other things.) My process is such that, when I finish something like Stormlight, I need to move on for a while to refresh myself.

That said, Oathbringer is done as of last week! Here’s a quick breakdown of the year.

January: Oathbringer

A lot of this month was revisions. I decided to do something unusual for me, and revise each chunk of the book as I completed it, which let me get my editor working on his notes early in the year—rather than making him wait until this month, when the whole thing finished. That means I’ll soon have a second draft of the book completed, though I only completed the first draft a little bit ago.

Also squeezed into January was a trip to Bad Robot, where I had a cool meeting with J.J. Abrams. (In conjunction with a video game my friends at ChAIR Entertainment are making—the Infinity Blade guys. I just gave a few pointers on the story; I’m not officially involved.)

February: Calamity Tour

I toured for Calamity, the last book of the Reckoners. The whole series is out now, so check it out! There is a nice hardcover boxed set of all three available in most bookstores, and it makes a great gift.

While on tour, I read from Stormlight 3, and some kind person recorded the reading for you all. Also, here’s another version from FanX in SLC.

As to be expected, there were a huge number of awesome costumes shown off during the tour. (More than I can reasonably put in this post.) Here are a few:

Introduction

We are approaching Koloss Head-Munching Day—the day of the year that happens, by utter coincidence, to coincide with my birthday. (December 19th.) I’m turning forty this year, which isn’t as dramatic for me as it might be for some others. From the way I act, people have been joking for the last twenty years that I was “born forty.” I guess I’m finally just catching up.

It’s been almost twenty years since I finished my first book. I can remember joking with my friends in college (whom you might know as Lieutenant Conrad from Mistborn and Drehy from Bridge Four) that by forty, we were all going to be rich and famous.

The thing is, I always intended to make that dream happen. Not necessarily for the “rich” part or the “famous” part, neither of which interested me a great deal. I just knew that without a solid, stable writing career, I’d never be able to make the Cosmere happen.

Perhaps that’s where this whole “born forty” thing came from in the first place. I basically spent my twenties writing, slavishly trying to figure out how to craft stories. Friends would tell me to relax, but I couldn’t, not when these dreams of mine were so big. It should be mentioned that despite what our society would like to believe, hard work doesn’t always equate with success. For me, luck played a huge part in my being able to sit here and type this out for you.

Still, here I am, and I honestly can’t imagine things having gone better. People often seem bemused by my productivity; when I get together with fellow authors, they sometimes jokingly refer to me as “the adult” in our group. I get this—for a lot of them, writing is more of an instinctual process. Sitting and talking about the business side of things, or their goals for writing, flies in the face of the almost accidental way they’ve approached their careers. And it works for them; they create great books I’m always excited to read.

However, sometimes there’s also this sense—from fans, from the community, from us authors in general—that whispers that being productive isn’t a good thing. It’s like society feels artists should naturally try to hide from deadlines, structure, or being aware of what we do and why we do it. As if, because art is supposed to be painful, we shouldn’t enjoy doing our work—and should need to be forced into it.

If there’s one thing that has surprised me over the last ten years, it’s this strangeness that surrounds my enjoyment of my job, and the way my own psychology interfaces with storytelling. People thank me for being productive, when I don’t consider myself particularly fast as a writer—I’m just consistent. Fans worry that I will burn out, or that secretly I’m some kind of cabal of writers working together. I enjoy the jokes, but there’s really no secret. I just get excited by all of this. I have a chance to create something incredible, something that will touch people’s lives. In some cases, that touch is light—I just give a person a few moments to relax amid the tempest of life. In other cases, stories touch people on a deep and meaningful level. I’ll happily take either scenario.

Almost thirty years ago now, I encountered something remarkable in the books I read. Something meaningful that I couldn’t describe, a new perspective, new emotions. I knew then that I had to learn to do what those writers were doing. Now that I have the chance to reach people the same way, I’m not going to squander it.

I guess this is all a prelude to a warning. I’m working on a lot of projects. Many of these tie together in this epic master plan of mine, the thirty-six-(or more)-book cycle that will be the Cosmere. Even those books that aren’t part of the Cosmere are here to challenge me in some way, to push me and my stories, to explore concepts that have fascinated me for years.

These last ten years have been incredible. I thank you, and I thank God, for this crazy opportunity I’ve been given. I don’t intend to slow down.

I’m not embarrassed to be “the adult.” Even if I’ve only just hit the right age for it officially.

My Year

2015 was a bit slower than last year was, as I spent a lot of time editing.

January–May: Calamity

The bulk of my writing time this year was spent on Calamity, which I’d been putting off last year in order to write the two new Mistborn novels. Looking back at my records, I finished the last chapters in early May.

This was interrupted, on occasion, for revisions of various books—and for the Firefight tour, along with a trip to Sharjah in the UAE. Busy times. So busy, in fact, that it’s taken me all the rest of the year to give full feedback to the writers who took my class. I managed to grade their papers in May, somehow, but promised them each a personalized look at their final story submissions, which I’m only now finishing up.

June–August: Stormlight Three

I did squeeze in some writing time for Stormlight in here, though not a whole ton of it got done. I had to stop for revisions, touring, and travel through most of September and October.

September–October: Revisions and a Secret Project

Traveling so much made it difficult to do Stormlight 3 writing, which requires a lot of time investment. So between revisions, I managed to finish a project I’ve been working on for about a decade now. (Yes, a decade.) You’ll see this soon. It’s a novella.

November–December: Stormlight Three Again

I plan to keep on this one until I finish it, as I’ll talk about below. However, if you want to read a little about my writing time in November, you can read this other blog post.

Big List of Things I’m Working On

Now, let’s get to it. Each year around this time, I take stock of my many projects. You can read last year’s post here, to compare and see how things have been progressing. (And to see how well I did in my plans for 2015.)

Thank you in advance for continuing to give me the freedom I feel I need to jump between different worlds. While I know it’s frustrating sometimes that I’m not working on your world, the greater plans I have for all this require me to approach things in a certain way. Both for my health as a writer, and to bring about some large-scale awesomeness.

I’m going to go down the list of projects I’m working on, starting with what I consider my “main” projects. These are getting the focus of my time right now. From there, I’ll move on to things that I’m still toying with doing sometime soon.

Then it gets a little more speculative.

Enjoy!

Main Book Projects

The Stormlight Archive

Stormlight is going very well. I’m working on Book Three, which I’m calling Oathbringer. (That is likely at this point to be the final title.) This is my main project, and I won’t be writing any new prose on other stories until it is done. You can follow the progress bars!

Release dates for this book are still in flux. Even if I finish it early next year, it could be a year or more until you see the book. The amount of editing, continuity, and art that these books require creates a need for a long lead time. I’ve told people that Fall 2016 is the earliest they’d see it, but my team has been warning me that’s not realistic. We’ll see, but for now you should assume on a 2017 release.

What does this mean for my once optimistic “one Stormlight book every eighteen months” goal? The more I work on these books, the more uncertain I am about that. The outline for Oathbringer, for example, took about a year for me to nail down. Considering how many moving pieces there are in these books, it’s tough to judge how long they will take to write. And while there are books I can force through if some things aren’t right, I can’t afford to do that on this series.

I’ll continue to write Stormlight books at as quick a pace as is reasonable. I consider this my main project for the next decade or two, and am dedicated to it. But each book, as I’ve said before, is plotted as four books in one. So even if I release them once every three years, you’re getting four “books” in three years.

We’ll see. I’ll try to pick up the pace. In the meantime, I’ll try to get some short stories in the world out for you. (More on this later.)

Status: Book Three in Progress

The Reckoners

The last book of the trilogy is complete, revised, and turned in. It’s coming out in February, and is—indeed—the ending.

I have not closed the door on doing more in the world, but it will not be for a while. If I do return, it will be like a Mistborn return, where the focus of the books shifts in some way and I create a new series. I like leaving endings as endings, even if the world and some of the characters do progress.

I’m extremely pleased with the last book. I look forward to having you all read it, and I am grateful to you all for supporting this series. There were voices that told me something outside the Cosmere would never sell as well as something inside—but this series is neck-and-neck in popularity with Stormlight and Mistborn. It’s a relief, and very gratifying, to see that people are willing to follow me on different kinds of journeys.

Status: Completed!

Mistborn

And speaking of Mistborn, how is Scadrial doing? My current plan is still to have the Mistborn books stretch throughout my career, establishing stories in different eras of time with different sets of characters.

The original pitch was for three trilogies. The Wax and Wayne books expanded this to four series. (You can imagine Wax and Wayne as series 1.5, if you want.) This means there will still be a contemporary trilogy, and a science fiction trilogy, in the future.

I have one more book to do in the Wax and Wayne series, and I’m planning to write it sometime between Stormlight books three and four. Until then, Wax and Wayne three—The Bands of Mourning—comes out in January!

Status: Era 1.5 book three done; book four coming soonish

Secondary Book Projects

Elantris

I do still intend Elantris sequels. (And the enthusiasm for the leatherbound edition proves that people are still interested in the world.) Right now, I have them scheduled to be slotted in once Wax and Wayne is done. We’ll take a break from Scadrial at that point, go back to Sel and do some Elantris books, then hop back to the 1980s era Mistborn series.

This slots an Elantris sequel into the spot between Stormlight books 4 & 5. It is coming, just more slowly than I’d once hoped.

Status: Delayed, but coming before too long

The Rithmatist

Book two of The Rithmatist (called The Aztlanian) is another thing on my schedule that I need to get to soon. If you didn’t read last year’s update on the book, I tried writing this—and found I didn’t have a strong enough grasp on the historical period and culture to do it justice. So I stopped and did a bunch of research, but by the time I finished, I needed to be back to work on my main projects.

Therefore, I’ve slotted this in after Stormlight 3 as well. Hopefully it won’t get pushed back again. Usually I try to do about equal in pages to a Stormlight book between Stormlight books. That gives me room for three smaller books. Right now plans are for these three books to be The Lost Metal (Wax and Wayne 4), The Atzlanian, and a new project. (See below.)

Status: Delayed, but maybe coming soon

Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians

Here’s another one we’ve been able to clear off my list. With Tor republishing the first four books of this series throughout the spring next year (starting in February), I am at last able to get the fifth book (and the final one Alcatraz will write) out to you fans.

The new art for these editions has me very excited. For once I think we have covers that indicate to readers the tone of the books. Book Five should be out in the summer, though I believe Tor is scheduling it for August instead of June. It is written, and I’m doing final edits on it right now. (In the evenings after I feel I’ve hit my wordcount goal for Stormlight.)

If you haven’t read these books, give them a browse once they come out again in the spring. They’re very fun, but very different from my other books. They’re insane, fourth-wall-breaking comedies, so they’re certainly not for everyone. They have been an excellent way for me to blow off steam and refresh myself between longer, more ponderous books.

Status: Book Five Completed!

White Sand

For those who don’t know, this is a book I wrote around the same time as Elantris—but which I didn’t ever sell. Once I was published, I considered releasing it, but felt it needed a solid revision before I could do so.

Well, that revision was delayed time and time again, until the point where I decided I probably would need to just rewrite the book from scratch if I ever did release it. An interesting opportunity came along a few years later, however, and that changed my perspective. You see, the comic book company Dynamite Entertainment had come asking if I had anything, perhaps an unpublished novel, that would make a good graphic novel.

This seemed the perfect opportunity to make use of White Sand. I didn’t have time to do revisions, but another writer could take my words and adapt them (really, what the book needed was a trim anyway) into a graphic edition. We said yes, and started into the process.

I’ve said before, Dynamite has been excellent to work with. Rik Hoskin, the person hired to do the adaptation, is a fantastic writer—and he really managed to preserve the core of my story, using my own dialogue and descriptions, while cutting out all the chaff. The artist Julius Gopez, the colorist Ross Campbell, the letterer Marshall Dillon, and the editor Rich Young have all done a fabulous great job.

The novel is big (no surprise), so it’s going to be released as three graphic novels. The first of these is almost ready, and we’re expecting a release sometime next year. The fine folks at Dynamite have given me permission to post some teaser pages here, so here you go! The first look at White Sand, the graphic novel:

Tertiary Book Projects

Now we move on to some of the projects that are itching at me, and I do intend to do someday—but which are delayed indefinitely until I figure out the right time to do them.

Warbreaker

While some characters from Nalthis have made appearances in other books, I still don’t have a specific timeframe for when I’ll go back and write the second Warbreaker book. (Titled Nightblood for the time being.)

I know a lot of people really want this book, and I intend to do it, but I have to find time for the Elantris sequels first. So you’re unlikely to see it until Elantris is finished. (Sorry.)

Status: On Hiatus

Legion

I owe people another (and final) Legion novella, and I plan to do this as well. Novellas aren’t as big a commitment as novels, obviously—that’s part of why I do them. But I don’t know when I’ll squeeze this in, with all the things I’m doing right now. It could happen literally at any time—but I don’t expect it in 2017, to be honest.

Status: On Short Hiatus

Cosmere Short Fiction Collection

For a while I’ve been thinking that I need to collect all the various pieces of Cosmere short fiction and put them into a single collection, for those who don’t like hunting around for them.

This might be the year to do that. If Stormlight doesn’t make it into 2016, we might be able to get a collection (with a Stormlight novella) out by the end of the year instead. Something to tide you over, at least, until book three comes out.

If we do this, my goal will be to have it include every piece of short fiction from every source up until now and bind it together in a handsome hardcover that will look nice on the shelf next to your other books.

This will give you multiple options for the short fiction, if you want to collect it. We will continue to do our little two-novella collections (like the Perfect State and Shadows for Silence double that we just released.) So if you’d prefer to collect those in the smaller size, I anticipate everything eventually being released in that format too. However, if you’d like one thick tome, every ten years or so you should see a bigger collection.

More on this as it develops. Right now I’m toying with the title Arcanum Unbound, and would love to include a star chart of all the cosmere worlds in it.

Projects in Development

These are projects you might have heard of, but for which no solid evidence of them ever being released is out there. On occasion I might do readings from them, and I might tinker with them—but I don’t have much specific to tell you about release dates.

New YA Series

I am developing a new YA series to be released after the Reckoners with the same publisher. I can’t say much about it right now, though we will probably do some announcements regarding it during the Calamity tour. If all goes well, the first book of this trilogy will be the third shorter novel I write between Stormlight 3 and 4.

I always need to have something new to be working on, if only in the back of my mind, to help prevent burnout. I’m excited about this series right now, and actively working on the outline. But I won’t be digging into writing it until next summer or fall, depending on when Stormlight Three is done. So I don’t expect a release for a while yet.

Status: Outlining

Adamant

Some of you have heard readings from, or seen excerpts of, this epic science fiction series that I’ve been working on. I finished one novella in the world, and am pleased with it, but I have no immediate plans for writing the rest. Perhaps I’ll feel different once Stormlight is done and I’m satisfied with it. (It’s always possible I’ll need a break between projects where I can do something very different.) We shall see. I have no plans to release this in 2016.

Status: On Hiatus

Dark One

A perennial favorite on the State of the Sanderson is this YA series about a boy who discovers he’s the Dark One, a figure from prophecy fated to destroy the world. My outlines are looking okay for this one, but it doesn’t feel like the right time to do it. I pitched it to my editors at Random House along with the new YA series above, and we all agreed the other project was a better follow-up to the Reckoners.

Dark One is bound to get done someday. That day isn’t now.

Status: No Projected Start Date

Death by Pizza

I had a nice breakthrough on this book recently, making the main character far more interesting. (For those who don’t know, this is about a necromancer who owns a pizza joint.) However, this remains a very out-of-left-field project for me, and something I did mostly for fun. (I have a nearly complete draft of the entire book.)

I don’t anticipate doing this anytime soon, though I did briefly consider it as an alternative to the new YA series listed above. It’s still just too strange for me to want to do right now. Perhaps eventually.

Status: On Hiatus

Dragonsteel/Liar of Partinel

This is Hoid’s origin story, a prequel to the entire Cosmere. The time is not right. It’s going to happen eventually, but I feel that I shouldn’t dig into this until Stormlight is completely done. (All ten books.) So don’t hold your breath on this one.

Status: Loooong way off

Silence Divine

This story (which is the one about a world where catching a disease grants you magical talents) is another perennial State of the Sanderson participant.

I did some work on a short story in this world a while back, and liked it, but didn’t have time to finish. (This is the thing I did readings from during the Words of Radiance tour, I believe.) It’s set in the cosmere, and I have plans to someday write this—but I’m not sure when I’ll do it. Could be a long way off still.

Status: On Hiatus

Soulburner

This is an outline I developed last year during a lull—a kind of space-opera-fantasy-hybrid like Dune or Star Wars. The setting is awesome, one of my favorites. Very distinctive.

I don’t have a story for it yet though. I’m just putting it on here so that you know that wacky things are still bouncing around in my head, looking for a way out. It’s not something I’m going to release anytime soon, but if I ever do, you can point here and say, “Hey, I saw this first!”

Status: No Projected Start Date

Aether of Night

Another of the books I wrote around the time of Elantris, and another one that’s not half bad—but still in need of a solid revision.

I’ll likely do something with it someday. In the meantime, if you want to read it, you can send us an email to ask for a copy. (Consider it a thank you for getting this far in this huge post.) I’d ask that you’d consider signing up for my mailing list when you do email me, as that’s how I get the word out on when I’m doing signings and when I have cool new things to release. But that’s not required in order to get the book.

Projected Novel Release Schedule

There’s a good chance I won’t hold to this, but just so you know, here’s how I view my upcoming novel release schedule (not including any novellas or short stories that may or may not appear during moments when I need to do something new):

January 2016: Wax and Wayne 3
February 2016: Reckoners 3 (final book)
June 2016: Alcatraz 5
Sometime 2017: Stormlight 3
Sometime 2017: Rithmatist 2
Spring 2018: New YA project 1
Fall 2018: Wax and Wayne 4 (final book)
Sometime 2019: Stormlight 4
Sometime 2019: New YA project 2
Sometime 2020: Elantris 2
Sometime 2020 New YA project 3 (final book)
Sometime 2021: Stormlight 5 (ending of first arc)
Sometime 2022: Elantris 3 (final book)

Conclusion

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you that the list was big.

It’s been quite the year. Lots of travel, lots of meeting people and signing books. My tenth year doing this. I’ve spent the last decade kind of looking at myself as one of the new kids in the fantasy market, but I suppose it’s time to admit that I’ve become—albeit not a member of the old guard—one of the genre’s more established names.

As always, you make this possible. Here’s looking to another excellent year. Merry Christmas, and a Happy Koloss Head-Munching Day, to you all.

Brandon Sanderson
December 2015

Introduction

Hello, all! I recently turned in Shadows of Self, the new Wax and Wayne Mistborn novel. (And, well, something else too. More on that below.) In addition, tomorrow is December 19th—known with fondness as “Koloss Head-Munching Day.” Also my birthday. (I’ll be 39.)

This seemed like a good chance to take a step back and give you all a long-form update on what I’ve been doing lately, and where I am looking for the future. I like to be accountable to you, my readers, for what I’m doing. You are the ones supporting me in this, my lifelong dream of being a professional writer.

2014 was an excellent year for me. Words of Radiance has been very well received, and enthusiasm for the Stormlight books is very high. As this series is my baby, it feels awesome to see people getting to know characters like Dalinar and Kaladin, whom I’ve known for decades. At the same time, I’ve been jumping back into teen books again after the Alcatraz books. (Which kind of fizzled back in 2010 or so, though we’re planning a relaunch.)

Having two publishers made for a very challenging tour schedule. I’ve been away from home far more than I want to be, mostly because of the need to add more touring (along with things like school visits and appearances at teacher/librarian conferences) for Steelheart and The Rithmatist.

I’m still struggling to find a balance I like. On one hand, I enjoy visiting you all and going cool places. On the other hand, my real love is writing the books—and I don’t want to get so busy that the stories fall by the wayside. Anyway, the following is an account of my 2014 writing experience for those who are curious.

What I spent 2014 doing

January–March 2014: Firefight

Though I had hoped to have Firefight (The Reckoners 2) done long before January, the touring last year made that impossible. It snuck over into 2014, which is why you’re getting the book in January 2015 instead of the originally scheduled fall of this year. In March, I also did the Words of Radiance tour, which really cut into my writing time.

April 2014: Legion: Skin Deep

In April, once all the chaos was done, I took the time to finish up Legion: Skin Deep (sequel to Legion from a few years back), which I’d been working on during plane flights the year before. If you haven’t checked these two novellas out, you might want to consider it! They’re very fun, though the second book is not yet out in the UK and associated territories such as Australia and New Zealand. (Note that in those territories, Legion 1 and The Emperor’s Soul were released together in a very handsome paperback.)

We will eventually have regular hardcover copies of Legion 2 available. That will probably come sometime in the first half of next year. Our contract with Subterranean Press, who produced the very attractive limited edition hardcovers of Legion 2, says that we’ll wait until their edition sells out before we release a competing one.

May 2014: The Aztlanian (Rithmatist 2)

Next, I dove into research for a sequel to The Rithmatist. This is going to be a tough book to write, as it takes place in a fantastical version of Central and South America, and deals with things from Aztec (Mexica) mythology. (In The Rithmatist, a lot of the geography is shifted around in bizarre ways.)

Dealing with another group’s culture in this way is rife with opportunities for stuffing my foot in my mouth, and so I wanted to be very careful and respectful. This meant spending time devoted exclusively to doing extensive research. I didn’t actually get any writing on the book done, though I read some very excellent history books.

(As an aside, if anyone out there is an expert in the Aztec/Mexica culture—particularly if you yourself are a Native American—I’d love to have your help on this book.)

At the end of the month, I decided I needed to do way more research than a month afforded, so I put the book off for now. I still intend to write it, but I need more time to do it right.

June 2014: Alcatraz

Having spent a month with no writing, I wanted to jump into something fun and quick to refresh me before moving on to my next book. So, I dug out my outline for the Alcatraz series and at long last did a rough draft of the fifth book. These are fast, fast books to write—as I improvise them—but they are very slow to edit.

I finished the book, and am pleased with it, but I have no firm date yet for when I’ll be publishing it. Tor is rereleasing the series starting next year with new covers and extensive interior art. I believe these launch starting about a year from now. (If you want them before then, your best bet for getting them is the UK omnibus of the first four.)

I’ll want to release the fifth one once the series has been rereleased, so maybe summer 2016. If you’ve never read these, they are very different from my other work. They’re bizarre and sarcastic comedies that are self-referential and offer commentary on fantasy as a genre along the way. Those who love them absolutely love them. Those who don’t tend to find them insulting. That dichotomy alone is part of what endears them to me.

July–December 2014: Mistborn

The last half of the year was dedicated to Shadows of Self, the new Mistborn novel. And I have a confession to make.

I also wrote the sequel.

Now, before you start wagging your finger at me for being a robot, there was a really good reason I did what I did. You see, I was having real trouble getting back into Shadows of Self. I had written the first third of it in 2012 between revisions of A Memory of Light. (I was feeling Wheel of Time overload.) However, it can be very hard for me to get back into a book or series after a long time away from it. (This is another issue with the Rithmatist sequel.)

So, jumping into Shadows of Self was slow going, and I found it much easier to go write the sequel to refresh myself on the world and characters. That done, I was able to move back to Shadows of Self and finish it up.

So a week or two back, I turned in two new Wax and Wayne Mistborn novels. They’re titled Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning, and Tor decided to publish them in quick succession: the first in October 2015, the second in January 2016. So, if you have read the original trilogy but haven’t tried The Alloy of Law yet, you might want to give it a look! From the beginning, I’ve planned Mistborn to be a continuum series, showing off Allomancy in different time periods. I think you’ll find the Wax and Wayne books to be fun, quick reads—and they introduce some very, very big things coming in the Mistborn world.

There will be one more Wax and Wayne (early 1900s-era) Mistborn book. Back after I finished The Alloy of Law, I sat down and plotted out a trilogy with the same characters. The Alloy of Law was more of a happy, improvised accident. The follow-up trilogy is meant to be more intentional. So in the end, we’ll have four total. (The final one is tentatively called The Lost Metal.) From there, I might jump to the second “big” trilogy, which is 1980s tech. Or I might dally a little more in something 1940s-era instead. We’ll see.

Amusingly, doing these two Mistborn books together totaled only about half as much writing as a Stormlight book. Perhaps you can see why it takes even me quite a long time to finish Stormlight novels. (And it’s why you might want to lay off Pat Rothfuss a little. I believe The Wise Man’s Fear was even longer than Words of Radiance.)

Tor did their announcement about these books earlier today. You may now commence wisecracks about me secretly writing extra novels when nobody is looking.

Next Projects

I’ve now begun Calamity, last of the Reckoners series. My goal will be to rough-draft it over the next three months. I have a tour between now and then (for Firefight) and a trip to Taiwan as well, so who knows if I’ll make that deadline. We’ll see.

Once that is done, I will dive into Stormlight 3. I’m still waffling on whether this will be Szeth’s book, Eshonai’s book, or Dalinar’s book. The original outline calls for book 3 to have Szeth’s flashbacks, but I am feeling that another character might match the events better.

I did some exploratory scenes for it this summer, though these may or may not end up in the actual book. I have been tweaking the outline, and am starting to feel very good about it. Writing the book should consume the entire rest of 2015, with a 2016 release. I do plan the Stormlight books to be an every-other-year thing.

Follow along starting next spring as I write the book and post updates on my website. I’ll even try to do some screen capturing with Camtasia as I write, for those who are interested in watching for them.

That wraps up current and finished projects. 2014 was partially about me getting my feet underneath me after finishing The Wheel of Time and going right into Stormlight 2. I’ve caught my breath now, and feel good moving forward.

And, speaking of moving forward, it’s time for a State of the Sanderson tradition—we’re going to play “What about the sequel to this book I love, Brandon!”

Here comes the big list.

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The big list of projects I want to do

Elantris sequels

The Emperor’s Soul is now two years old, so it is probably time to get back to Sel and do some more there. We should be releasing a trade paperback of Elantris in the next year or two, with revised (and new) maps and a better Ars Arcanum. (Read: an Ars Arcanum.)

The full sequels will need to be finished before I can do the contemporary (1980s tech) Mistborn novels because of behind-the-scenes Cosmere bits, so I will do my best to find a place to squeeze these in. At the very least, I will write them following the end of Stormlight 5. So, these are distant, but not too distant.

Nightblood (Warbreaker sequel)

This is still on the back burner, but it is coming. Probably after the Elantris sequels. I’ll squeeze it in someplace. I’m very excited about it, but now (while I’m juggling multiple teen series) is not the time.

Dark One

This is a series I’ve talked about for a long, long time about a boy who discovers he’s the “Dark One.” Basically, it’s the classic epic fantasy story told from the eyes of the dude destined to try to destroy the world instead of save it. I’ve made good progress on the setting, which is going to be awesome. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the teen series I do once the Reckoners and the Rithmatist are both done.

As a note for fans, this is a Cosmere story.

Silence Divine (this will be renamed sometime)

I did readings from this on my last tour (you can probably find them on YouTube; it was the Words of Radiance tour). I only have a few pages done, playing with the primary concept. (Diseases grant magical talents for as long as you have the disease—you lose the power when you get over it.) This one has probably been downgraded from full novel to novella, as I feel that something more Emperor’s Soul-esque will do a better job with the themes I want to explore.

Legion 3

Legion 2 is out! Are you tired of me mentioning that yet? I’m sure that someday there will be a third adventure for Stephen and his aspects, but I don’t have an outline or plan yet.

The Lurker (now renamed Adamant)

I’ve finished a novella set in this science fiction world. For those who want more SF from me along the lines of my two novelettes, this should be coming someday. I don’t have time for revisions right now, but I plan to tinker with the story again next year sometime between Stormlight 3 drafts.

White Sand

The graphic novel adaptation of this Cosmere book is coming along very well. The first volume’s script adaptation is finished, and pencils for the first chapter are done. We should have pages to show you before too long. Expect a lot of talk about this on the blog come 2015.

Dragonsteel

Hoid’s backstory series is still going to be one of the last Cosmere sequences I do, so don’t expect this until Stormlight is completely done. (Both sets of five books.)

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That’s the list of things people often ask me about. Unsurprisingly, I have other projects in the back of my mind. For example, I have two more Cosmere series that will need to be written before we can get to the third “big” Mistborn trilogy. (The sf one.) But that’s the long, long-term plan.

For now, my goal is to get Calamity and Stormlight 3 finished. As always, I appreciate all of the enthusiasm you show for this crazy thing that I have somehow managed to do with my life. Thank you for sharing my books with others, and for being willing to try the more unusual projects (like Legion) that I do.

I feel humbled to have a great crowd of fans who are willing to put up with my eccentricities as a writer—particularly my desire to not work on just one project, but to have an entire body of varying stories. You guys are awesome. May you have a happy holiday season, and do go munch some heads tomorrow in my name.

Brandon

p.s. If you aren’t on the newsletter mailing list, please consider signing up! In the summer, the newsletter included exclusive looks at some of the Stormlight 3 scenes I was working on. We plan to do more of this sort of thing in the future. As always, if you include your city, we’ll send you notifications when I’m going to be doing signings in the area.