In the most recent Writing Excuses podcast episode, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, and I talk about breaking the rules. We’ve said that you’ve got to learn the rules before you break them, so now it’s time to talk about why to break them.

Tomorrow I’m starting the second leg of my book tour, and Harriet McDougal will join me for many of the stops. Details on my events page.

Wed Feb 6: San Diego w/Harriet
Thu Feb 7: Los Angeles area w/Harriet
Fri Feb 8: Sacramento area w/Harriet
Sat Feb 9: San Francisco w/Harriet
Mon Feb 11: Portland area w/Harriet
Tue Feb 12: Seattle w/Harriet
Thu Feb 14: Vancouver, BC area
Fri Feb 15: Toronto
Sat Feb 16: Milford, NH
Mon Feb 18: Baltimore area w/Harriet
Tue Feb 19: Philadelphia w/Harriet
Wed Feb 20: Raleigh w/Harriet
Thu Feb 21: Atlanta area w/Harriet
Fri Feb 22: Birmingham, AL w/Harriet

I’ll also go to various conventions this year, and there are two or three book tours later this year that aren’t planned out yet. I’ll try to stop somewhere in Texas for the THE RITHMATIST tour in May, and I’m thinking of going to the UK around November or so. If you want to receive my newsletter, and get email reminders when I’ll be signing near you, tell me your city here.

I’ve uploaded the second video of me writing the Rysn interlude from the sequel to THE WAY OF KINGS. If you missed the first video with the prewriting, it’s here. This week’s video starts the interlude itself.

Words of Radiance has made it past the first round of voting for the 2015 David Gemmell Legend Award and is one of five nominees on the short list. (You may remember that The Way of Kings won this award back in 2011.) The polls are open from now until July 17th, and anyone can vote. The UK cover for Words of Radiance by Sam Green is also nominated for the Ravenheart Award on the same page. Good luck to all of the nominees!

The good news continues as Michael Kramer and Kate Reading were presented an Audie Award this past week for Words of Radiance. It has been a dream come true to work with these two amazing people who bring my characters to life.

My publisher in Israel just informed me that both The Way of Kings and A Memory of Light have been nominated for the Geffen Award for Best Translated Fantasy Novel, given out by the Israeli Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Awesome!

In last week’s Writing Excuses episode, Q & A on Worldbuilding, we went to you for questions about worldbuilding and you had some really good ones:

• Has there ever been a piece of worldbuilding that you didn’t include, and regretted not including?
• How do you remain consistent?
• How do you decide between writing a secondary world fantasy, and creating an historical fantasy?
• Can you avoid cultural appropriation while still using elements inspired by other cultures?
• What’s the minimum amount of worldbuilding required?

In this week’s episode, Project-in-Depth: Of Noble Family, we discuss Mary’s latest novel, so if you haven’t read it yet be warned. This episode contains many, many spoilers. You will get more out of our discussion if you read (or listen to) the book before listening to this episode.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Words of Radiance, we reach back in time to Shallan’s happy childhood home on the Davar estate. This week, in Chapter 40, Alice Arneson is with Shallan as she finds her temporary home in the warcamps. In case you missed it, here are the links for chapters 37 and 38.

My assistant Adam had updated the Twitter post archives for May.

Hello everyone! This is Kara, the manager of Brandon’s online store. With the upcoming release of Words of Radiance, we’ve added some awesome new products, and I’m pretty excited about them.

T-Shirts

You might remember our Bridge Four and Stormlight Archive shirts from the days of InkWing.com. We’ve updated both of those to use the new Bridge Four and Stormlight Archive symbols. Look closely at the words that make up the new Bridge Four glyph—I think it’s pretty cool. We’ve recently switched to a new printing company which has allowed us to increase the quality, design, and packaging of the shirts. The shirts themselves fit better, are softer, and a bit longer. I hope you enjoy them!

Beanies

For a while now, I’ve wanted to release a beanie featuring the brands on Kaladin’s forehead. After the holiday season, we immediately jumped into production, and I think they turned out awesome. We received these at the end of January, and I immediately wanted to put them on the store but had to wait. Then, the image got leaked (yay! but not my fault) and so up went the beanies for sale in the colors of Bridge Four. Kaladin is the bomb. His brands are wicked cool. I love this hat!

Decals

Within an hour of receiving the new decals, I had already decorated Brandon’s vehicle with them, and they look so good! I couldn’t stop there. My laptop, my van, Isaac’s laptop, the cat—wait. Anyway, I love these things. I’ve had to keep from putting them on random cars in the neighborhood. Can’t wait to see some of them in the wild . . .

Patches

I am in love with the cover of Words of Radiance by Michael Whelan. One of my favorite things about it is the Bridge Four patch on Kaladin’s shoulder. Do you want one? We have them! They have iron-on backings, so whether you want to just iron it on or sew it on, we’ve got you covered. Add it to your favorite coat, backpack, suitcase, bag, purse, couch, blanket, stuffed animal, etc. Go Bridge Four!

A Memory of Light Hardcovers

It’s been a year since A Memory of Light came out. Wow. What a year it has been! And now we’ve got signed copies of the hardcover in our store. We’ve also bundled the final three books of The Wheel of Time into a trilogy package. These books are fantastic and make great gifts.

Miscellaneous

I hope to see some of you at the Midnight Release Party for Words of Radiance. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and not just because I’m helping to plan it. We’ve got some fun giveaways planned, some of which will show up in the store, or as freebies I occasionally insert into random orders. If you see me, say hi. It totally makes my day to run into a readers when I’m out and about and be able to give them something fun.

We’ve got a lot more products in the works, and I can’t wait to show them to you. Keep checking out the store, and keep enjoying the books. Sanderson fans are the best! Go us!

As of this writing, Steelheart is still on sale for $4.79 on the US Kindle store, Nook, and Google Play. Additionally, The Way of Kings is on sale for $1.99 on the US Kindle store and the iBookstore. As these are sales that the individual stores are putting on rather than the publisher, they’re not something that we have any idea how long to expect to last.

This week’s Writing Excuses writing advice show was recorded with a live audience at Gen Con and has us answering the following questions with guest Wesley Chu:

• How do you write 1st-person POV from a gender other than your own?
• Do you have a set schedule for writing time?
• How do you boost your word count without padding, AND without adding characters?
• How can prose be used to convey emotion without stating character feelings outright?

Steelheart, The Rithmatist, and A Memory of Light are up for votes in the Goodreads Choice Awards semifinal round. Looks like The Rithmatist got enough write-in votes in the previous round to be added to this round. Since you can only vote for one book in each category, vote splitting is going to be an issue in the YA science fiction/fantasy category. Of course, you should vote for the book you feel is the most deserving, whether it’s one of mine or not!

Tor.com’s reread of The Way of Kings hit a critical flashback chapter: chapter 44, “The Weeping.” They also started a series of articles on magic in The Way of Kings, and the first one talks about stormlight and the Nahel bond.

There’s an interview with me (mostly about Steelheart) over at Read Sleep Repeat. Also, before the Magic draft last week I sat down to chat with Dungeon Crawlers Radio for an hour on a bunch of different topics. I have another Magic draft next week.

And another reminder to check the holiday shipping deadlines in my store, if you want to order signed books (including the convention exclusive), jewelry, shirts, or other items you might want to give as gifts.

Just a reminder, all. Steelheart—my new novel—is out right now! It hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the Young Adult category. If you’re curious, you can read about the book here, and listen to a cool audio sample here. And as a side note, Amazon’s US Kindle store today has The Way of Kings at $1.26 for some reason.

For an explanation of my Wheel of Time retrospective, see the previous posts on the topic. Here’s post number eight. Before we begin, it should be stated that this post will contain spoilers for the entire series, ending included. If you haven’t finished, you will want to do so before reading this post.

Robert Jordan didn’t leave me a ton of direction regarding the Black Tower. There were a few gems that we knew, but in a lot of places I was left to follow my instincts regarding the plotting points he had built across the last few books. He did leave a lot of clear instructions regarding Taim, fortunately, including his backstory and instructions for a scene where Taim was named as one of the Forsaken.

Androl and Pevara

In working on the Black Tower plot, one thing I realized early on was that I wanted a new viewpoint character to be involved. One reason was that we didn’t have anyone to really show the lives of the everyday members of the Black Tower. It felt like a hole in the viewpoint mosaic for the series. In addition, each wheel of time book—almost without exception—has either introduced a new viewpoint character or added a great deal of depth to a character who had only seen minimal use before. As we were drawing near to the end of the series, I didn’t want to expand this very far. However, I did want to add at least one character across the three books I was doing.

I went to Team Jordan with the suggestion that I could fulfill both of these purposes by using one of the rank-and-file members of the Black Tower, preferably someone who wasn’t a full Asha’man and was something of a blank slate. They suggested Androl. The notes were silent regarding him, and while he had been around, he so far hadn’t had the spotlight on him. He seemed the perfect character to dig into.

A few more things got spun into this sequence. One was my desire to expand the usage of gateways in the series. For years, as an aspiring writer, I imagined how I would use gateways if writing a book that included them. I went so far as to include in the Stormlight Archive a magic system built around a similar teleportation mechanic. Being able to work on the Wheel of Time was a thrill for many reasons, but one big one was that it let me play with one of my favorite magic systems and nudge it in a few new directions. I’ve said that I didn’t want to make a large number of new weaves, but instead find ways to use established weaves in new ways. I also liked the idea of expanding on the system for people who have a specific talent in certain areas of the One Power.

Androl became my gateway expert. Another vital key in building him came from Harriet, who mailed me a long article about a leatherworker she found in Mr. Jordan’s notes. She said, “He was planning to use this somewhere, but we don’t know where.”

One final piece for his storyline came during my rereads of the series, where I felt that at times the fandom had been too down on the Red Ajah. True, they had some serious problems with their leadership in the books, but their purpose was noble. I feel that many readers wanted to treat them as the Wheel of Time equivalent of Slytherin—the house of no-goods, with every member a various form of nasty. Robert Jordan himself worked to counteract this, adding a great deal of depth to the ajah by introducing Pevara. She had long been one of my favorite side characters, and I wanted her to have a strong plot in the last books. Building a relationship between her and Androl felt very natural to me, as it not only allowed me to explore the bonding process, but also let me work a small romance into the last three books—another thing that was present in most Wheel of Time books. The ways I pushed the Androl/Pevara bond was also something of an exploration and experiment. Though this was suggested by the things Robert Jordan wrote, I did have some freedom in how to adapt it. I felt that paralleling the wolf bond made sense, with (of course) its own distinctions.

Finding a place to put the Pevara/Androl sequence into the books, however, proved difficult. Towers of Midnight was the book where we suffered the biggest time crunch. That was the novel where I’d plotted to put most of the Black Tower sequence, but in the end it didn’t fit—partially because we just didn’t have time for me to write it. So, while I did finish some chapters to put there, the soul of the sequence got pushed off to A Memory of Light, if I managed to find time for it.

I did find time—in part because of cutting the Perrin sequence. Losing those 17,000 words left an imbalance to the pacing of the final book. It needed a plot sequence with more specific tension to balance out the more sweeping sequences early in the book where characters plan, plot, and argue. I was able to expand Androl/Pevara to fit this hole, and to show a lot of things I really wanted to show in the books.

Rand and Logain

I made a few interesting decisions with the Black Tower sequence. The first was to not involve Rand. Though it would have been a nice narrative balance to have Rand come save the Asha’man in contrast to them saving him in book six, I felt that Rand was riding to the rescue too often. The Black Tower was about to lose him permanently, and if its members could not face their problems on their own, then thematically they’d be left at the end of the series hampered and undermined. Beyond this, I believed that Rand’s personality (as shown in earlier books) would push him to avoid being pulled into a potential trap at the Black Tower. His argument that he couldn’t risk a confrontation is a good one. Androl and company had to face their problems on their own—save for the help of an Aes Sedai, another thing I felt to be thematically important.

Perhaps the most controversial decision (among Team Jordan) that I made with this sequence was to push Logain toward being a darker figure. Following his extended torture, I felt that Logain would emerge as a different person—though he’d always been somewhat dark. Some members of Team Jordan felt he was past that, and I disagreed. Logan was a false Dragon, gentled then healed, head of a group of men going insane who owed loyalty to Rand—but who rarely interacted with him. There is so much going on with this guy that he could have carried an entire series on his own.

I wanted him to wrestle with all of this. Logain’s life ever since his capture way back when seemed to have been one of being shoved this way and then that. He needed to decide for himself what kind of Black Tower he was going to rule, if he was going to earn the honor of men as was promised. (And yes, this had not yet happened at the end of the series.) Logain, so far as I know, never once let go of power in the series—it was always ripped from his fingers. In this case, he was allowed to choose.

Just a reminder, all. Steelheart—my new novel—is out right now! It hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in the Young Adult category. If you’re curious, you can read about the book here, and listen to a cool audio sample here.

For an explanation of my Wheel of Time retrospective, see the previous posts on the topic. Here’s post number seven. Before we begin, it should be stated that this post will contain spoilers for the entire series, ending included. If you haven’t finished, you will want to do so before reading this post.

Now we come to the big one. The Last Battle, the final book of the Wheel of Time.

There was so much to pack into this book that at times I wondered if I’d be able to create a cohesive narrative from it. The danger was that instead, it would feel like a sequence of “Oh, hey, I forgot to tie this up” loose ends being completed one after another. Many of these things did need to be tied up, but it needed to happen in a way that came together into a story.

Perrin

When I launched into this book, I’d just finished Towers of Midnight and was in a very “Perrin is awesome” mood. I wanted to keep writing Perrin, so I did his sequence for the book first. It worked, to an extent. I love the Perrin parts of this book. However, by the end—and after finishing the other viewpoints—we found that the book had way too much Perrin in it. Cutting the sequence where Perrin travels through the Ways to try to close the Caemlyn waygate from behind was one method of balancing this out. The sequence was also cut because Harriet felt I’d gone too far in the direction of returning to previous themes in the series, bringing back something better left alone so we could focus on the Last Battle. (In addition, Maria thought my descriptions of the Ways just didn’t fit the story.)

This was a 17,000-word sequence (and it ended with the Ogier rescuing Perrin and his company from the Black Wind, driving it off with their song). I love the sequence, but unlike the sequence with Bao (the deleted scenes named “River of Souls” and included in the Unfettered anthology) it is not canon. It couldn’t happen for a multitude of reasons, and got trimmed.

Otherwise, Perrin ended up as I wanted him. A lot of people were surprised that I knocked him out of the fighting for a big chunk of the Last Battle, but I felt it appropriate. The fighting armies were Mat’s show, and Perrin’s focus for the fighting was to join Rand and protect him in the Wolf Dream. There was so much else going on, I decided to bench him for a chunk of the warfare—and I’m pleased with the result. It brought real impact to the Slayer fight, where Perrin was left wounded.

Egwene

There were three particular things that were quite a challenge in writing this last book. The first was how to use Rand fighting the Dark One in a way that would be interesting, visual, and powerful. The second was how to do the tactics of a large-scale battle. The final one had to do with Egwene.

In his notes, Robert Jordan was very specific about the fact that Rand and Egwene needed to almost come to blows in the lead-up to the Last Battle. He called it the grand union of the armies against Rand, whose decisions were considered too radical, too dangerous, to be allowed to proceed. Moiraine was to be the force that brought the two of them together, unifying the armies of light, cementing her importance—and showing why she needed to be rescued by Mat before the Last Battle. (There were a lot of instructions about what Moiraine was to say, and some good writing on that meeting at the Field of Merrilor.)

The burden upon me was to realistically bring Rand and Egwene to the point where the reader believed they’d fight one another—or at least go to the Last Battle separately, without cohesion—if Moiraine hadn’t intervened. This was difficult. Having The Gathering Storm end on such a high note for Egwene left me struggling to figure out how, in Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light, to make her go at cross-purposes to Rand without alienating the reader from her viewpoints. I felt what she was doing was very realistic and in character for who she was, but I also knew that making the decisions she would make was going to cause some readers to be very annoyed with her.

In the end, I decided that the proper course was to let them be annoyed. The very same strength that had made Egwene shine in The Gathering Storm was also the strength that let her lead the Aes Sedai—of whom she had truly become one. The will of the Aes Sedai against the rest of the world is a major theme of the Wheel of Time, and say what you will of it, the theme is consistent—as are the characters. Egwene was at their head. Yes, I wanted her to be relatable, but I also wanted it clear that she was Aes Sedai, and she wasn’t about to let someone else dominate the decisions on how to approach the Last Battle.

Steelheart comes out tomorrow!

If you live local to Utah, please consider coming to the launch party at the Barnes & Noble in Orem from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. All copies will be numbered and pre-signed, so you won’t have to wait in line unless you want a personalization. I would really like to see this be a big event, so if you can possibly stop by, I’d appreciate it!

I first had the idea for Steelheart somewhere around five years ago. It was engaging, exciting, and demanding—one of those ideas that wouldn’t let go of me, one of those ideas that I needed to write. However, I had dedicated myself to finishing the Wheel of Time, and in doing so, I had told myself that I would avoid starting any new book series until I had finished A Memory of Light.

I returned from tour that year and wrote the prologue to Steelheart soon after. You can read it here. The prologue turned out better than I could have hoped. In fact, I did a reading of it at two conventions over the years (one in Nebraska, the other being Dragon*Con, I believe) and had such a profoundly strong reaction to it, that I actually stopped reading it to people—it seemed cruel to do such a powerful reading, then admit that the book wouldn’t be out for many years.

During the years working on the Wheel of Time, completing Steelheart someday became my prize. If I did what I was supposed to, and remained focused, I would allow myself to finish this book. Hence, the month that I turned in A Memory of Light, revised and done, I finally turned my attention back to Steelheart. This was my reward to myself.

Epic fantasy will always be my first love. Work progresses well on Words of Radiance, and I think you’ll love it. It’s enormous, involved, epic, and immersive. However, in embracing the magnitude of a book like that, I don’t want to lose the simple excitement that is part of what makes books like Mistborn work. Action/adventure/humor blended together in a style reminiscent of my favorite action movies. Steelheart is a love letter to that genre.

Because we’re finally releasing the book, I wanted to do some things to celebrate. First off, I’ll be doing a series of blog posts this week and next about things I’ve been intending to write for a while. Sanderson’s Third Law of Magic will be one of them, as will a post talking about what the Wheel of Time taught me as a writer. Hopefully, you’ll check back frequently and find something of interest here.

The second thing we’re going to do is another hunt! Working with Random House, who is publishing Steelheart, we have devised an extra-special giveaway. As many of you know, I often search out my books in airport bookstores or other stores I pass, then sign the books and hide little prizes in them. (Some call it Brandalizing the books.) We have a brand-new goodie for me to hide, related to this book.

On the back of this prize is a URL and a code, allowing you to access a special section of my website that includes some exclusive goodies, including a ten-thousand-word chunk of Words of Radiance, book two of the Stormlight Archive. As the first one to find the code, you not only get to keep the prize found above, you’ll be able to leave your name on the list of hunters. The fun thing is that after that, you can share your code with friends so they can visit the special section of the website and read the exclusives there themselves.

The more codes that get entered, the more exclusives will be unlocked. (I think we have nine or ten of them in all. Some will be pieces of art, others will be chunks of writing from other upcoming books.) We will have ways for you to get codes even if you don’t live anywhere near where I’ll be visiting on tour. (More on this in a moment, though if you haven’t looked at the tour list, please check here.)

Now, a few rules for the Steelhunt.

1. If you find a code, as I say above, you can share it with others—but please don’t post it online in an open way. You can direct message it to people, text it to people, or post it on private forums. But if you broadcast it on Twitter/Facebook, etc. we’ll have to disable it.
2. As always, the spirit of the hunt is for you to have the goodie above in your possession before you enter the code. Please don’t bother bookstore employees by calling them and asking them to read a code to you over the phone. I will be warning employees not to do this, if I talk to them. If it becomes a problem, I might have to take further measures, such as disabling codes until we receive a picture of you holding the code. This makes the entire thing less fun, as it adds a step between a code being discovered and one being activated. This is important to me because, in asking bookstores to indulge me as I do this hunt, I don’t want their employees flooded with phone calls interrupting their work and keeping them from the customers.
3. You can, however, send someone you personally know to get the code for you. Don’t call the store next door and beg some random employee to do it, but if you do know someone flying through the airport or visiting the city, feel free to have them grab the code for you.
4. You don’t have to buy the book the goodie is hidden inside of, though I’d really prefer it if you did! However, if you already own the book, feel no guilt in grabbing the code.

I will be giving away a few codes at each signing I’ll be doing. I’ve also been known to give away codes for costumes that impress me, or other cool things that show up at my signings.

Now, if you aren’t going to be anywhere near where I’m touring, we want you to be able to participate too. We will have ways you can win codes on the website, on Twitter, and on Facebook over the next few weeks. In addition, we have a few surprise appearances by codes planned for stores I’ll not be visiting.

If you own or work for a bookstore in a city I will not be visiting and are interested in participating in the Steelhunt, drop me an email through my website. (Note: there is no guarantee we’ll be able to get codes to every store that contacts us.)

The ebook for UNFETTERED, which contains the A MEMORY OF LIGHT deleted sequence “River of Souls,” has now been released. Details below.

Tor.com’s reread of THE WAY OF KINGS reached chapters 16 and 17, the first flashback with Laral and Tien, and Kaladin leading Bridge Four from the front. Also, Writing Excuses’ latest podcast episode features us talking about middle grade fiction with E.J. Patten, author of RETURN TO EXILE and THE LEGEND THIEF.

If you haven’t heard about UNFETTERED before, here’s a bit of an introduction. When I was on tour probably for THE ALLOY OF LAW, Shawn Speakman (webmaster for Terry Brooks and Naomi Novik, and who also runs the booksigning service The Signed Page), approached me about an anthology he was putting together (at the suggestion of Terry Brooks) to help defray Shawn’s medical bills stemming from his 2011 diagnosis with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Shawn has been a friend and supporter to the careers of a lot of writers, so I was interested in helping out. The question was what to contribute to the anthology. The title Shawn gave it was UNFETTERED, because he didn’t want to put any restrictions on whatever the authors wanted to contribute.

When I was writing A MEMORY OF LIGHT, there was a sequence of viewpoints I was working on that were somewhat more daring than some other viewpoints I had done. The character I’m talking about is known as Bao in the book, and if you’ve read it you’ll know who that is. I wanted to try to give some deeper backstory to Bao, but after I showed the scenes to Harriet, though we all liked them, we decided they they didn’t fit in the book. Harriet felt that these scenes were distracting and derailing the narrative too close to what was to be the climax of the entire series, because of the new elements I was adding and fleshing out. So after some discussion, we decided that they should be cut.

Though I saw the need for this, the fact that this was necessary left me feeling kind of sad. I felt the scenes were strong and added a lot to the character, giving a lot of extra motivation and poignancy to some of the things going on in A MEMORY OF LIGHT. So when the opportunity for Shawn’s anthology came along, I began to think this would be the place for them. I approached Harriet, and she said that was a good idea.

The result is “River of Souls,” labeled as a Wheel of Time tale by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Since it’s actually a sequence of deleted scenes, it’s meant to be read as a companion to your read of A MEMORY OF LIGHT. It’s not going to make a whole lot of sense if you haven’t read at least the rest of the Wheel of Time, but it’s a complete arc and I find it very exciting. I think you’ll really like it, and I think this anthology is a good place for these scenes because they won’t be distracting from the rest of the story.

UNFETTERED also has stories from lots of other wonderful writers in it. I’m honored to have a story in there, to be alongside the names that appear in this anthology. It’s great to see so many people pulling together to support someone in the community, and I wish Shawn the best.

The anthology is available now in ebook form, and as a hardcover direct from Shawn’s Grim Oak Press website. He’ll be shipping books out over the next three weeks (he has a very small operation and it will take him time to get through so many orders). Also note that the long-sold-out special edition signed by every single author will take even more time to deliver. The signing pages are currently being shipped around the country from author to author for all of us to sign, and that will take a while. Once all of those are back with Shawn, the pages will be bound into the books, which will then be delivered.

Here is the complete list of stories appearing in UNFETTERED:

• Imaginary Friends by Terry Brooks (a precursor to the Word/Void trilogy)
• How Old Holly Came To Be by Patrick Rothfuss (a Four Corners tale)
• River of Souls by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (a Wheel of Time tale)
• The Old Scale Game by Tad Williams
• Game of Chance by Carrie Vaughn
• Martyr of the Roses by Jacqueline Carey (a precursor to the Kushiel series)
• Dogs by Daniel Abraham
• Mudboy by Peter V. Brett (a Demon Cycle tale)
• The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian (a Vault of Heaven tale)
• The Coach With Big Teeth by R.A. Salvatore
• Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood (a Summer Dragon tale)
• Heaven in a Wild Flower by Blake Charlton
• The Chapel Perilous by Kevin Hearne (an Iron Druid tale)
• Select Mode by Mark Lawrence (a Broken Empire tale)
• All the Girls Love Michael Stein by David Anthony Durham
• Strange Rain by Jennifer Bosworth (a Struck epilogue tale)
• Nocturne by Robert V. S. Redick
• Unbowed by Eldon Thompson (a Legend of Asahiel tale)
• In Favour With Their Stars by Naomi Novik (a Temeraire tale)
• The Jester by Michael J. Sullivan (a Riyria Chronicles tale)
• The Duel by Lev Grossman (a Magicians tale)
• Walker and the Shade of Allanon by Terry Brooks (a Shannara tale)
• The Unfettered Knight by Shawn Speakman (an Annwn Cycle tale)

If you missed it, here’s the video where I explain my part in this anthology.

On Saturday Tor.com posted an essay of mine entitled “Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Might Be The Highest Form of Literature on the Planet.” I’ve mentioned my love of Terry Pratchett a few times on the blog before, but in this essay I lay out my whole case.

Michael Whelan has signed prints of the A MEMORY OF LIGHT cover painting, that Harriet and I also signed at JordanCon. They look great!

This week’s Writing Excuses podcast episode is another microcasting episode where we cover a bunch of questions:

• How do you prepare to write?
• How do you write stories that are important without being heavy-handed?
• Magical realism vs. Fantasy—what’s the difference?
• Do you have recommendations or techniques for serving as a beta reader?
• Is it possible to do a serial with short stories and novellas all in the same setting?
• Why do publishers say they want crossed-genre books, but they’re not publishing crossed-genre books?
• Picture books and books for beginning readers: can you ‘cast on this for us?
• Can you do a ‘cast on reading aloud?
• What is the primary thing you’ve learned from reading Literary Fiction that has informed your Genre Fiction writing?

My YA fantasy THE RITHMATIST is coming out in two weeks (three weeks in the UK). Tor is doing a Goodreads giveaway of 15 copies of the final book. You can sign up here—but only if you’re in the US. For those of you outside the US, I apologize—hopefully there will be something you can participate in soon. And if you missed the announcement of my book tour, you can find the list of tour cities here.

Included on the tour is Phoenix Comicon, and I will bring my convention-exclusive “Firstborn”/”Defending Elysium” hardcover to the con. Also attending will be Shawn Speakman, whose anthology UNFETTERED will include the story “River of Souls,” a deleted sequence from A MEMORY OF LIGHT. UNFETTERED doesn’t come out until June, but there is a four-story preview (including “River of Souls”) that will be available at Phoenix Comicon.

Shawn is also auctioning off several signed books, including a signed limited edition of LEGION, to benefit Duane Wilkins of the University Book Store in Seattle. Duane is a very cool guy who has supported my career from the very beginning.

A few random pieces of catch-up news for today. The ebook for A MEMORY OF LIGHT came out this week, if you didn’t notice. You can find it at the usual vendors.

This week the Writing Excuses podcast has another brainstorming episode, where I come up with a concept for a short story and Mary, Howard, and Dan help me toss ideas around for it.

The annual Locus poll is live. Anyone can vote for what you consider to be 2012’s best SF novel (among many other categories), but Locus subscribers’ votes count double. The deadline is April 15th.

My agent Joshua Bilmes put up a blog post about how THE EMPEROR’S SOUL went from concept to Hugo nomination in 13 months.

Tor.com is continuing its reread of THE WAY OF KINGS. This week’s article covers chapters 1 and 2, which include Kaladin’s introduction.

And here’s the newest video of me writing a chapter from WORDS OF RADIANCE. This is the climax, but there are two short videos after this. I’ll upload the sped-up version of the chapter the same day I upload the final video.