Brandon, while touring in Italy for his European tour last fall, sat down for a few minutes with Isola Illyon –an online publication known in Italy as a central hub for information on fantasy and gaming– to talk about fantasy, and whatever else came to mind.

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Project in Depth, “Risk Assessment,” by Sandra Tayler, Brandon, Mary, Dan, Howard, with Sandra Tayler discuss “Risk Assessment”. This Project in Depth episode contains spoilers for “Risk Assessment,” which is included in Force Multiplication: Schlock Mercenary Book 12. The story was written by Sandra Tayler, and illustrated by Natalie Barahona. Howard handled the writing and illustrating for the framing story, but this episode isn’t about that part.

Risk Assessment is a romance wrapped up in an adventure and is very different from most of the rest of Schlock Mercenary. Have a listen, and Sandra will tell you about it.

If you want to learn more about the application process for 2017 WX Retreat Scholarship, you can read today’s post by Dan Wells. If you don’t know the details regarding the Writing Excuses retreat for 2017, Dan also wrote a post about it last week.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Last week, Lightsong learned the theology of his own religion, and Siri discovered that she’d survived the night after all. This week, in chapter thirteen, Vivenna tries to figure out how to keep her skin and her ideals intact, and Siri is prepared for presentation at the Court of Gods.

You can see the January Twitter post archive here.

In case you missed my tweets about it, Tor.com has put up a few excerpts from Shadows of Self, which will be released in October. You can read the prologue, chapter one, and chapter two here.

At Comic-Con this past weekend, Joel Cunningham of Barnes & Noble interviewed me about this book and its sequel. Watch it here.

The last Writing Excuses episode in June was a Q&A on scenes and description Here are some of the questions:

• How do you “Show, don’t tell” a character’s thoughts?
• How do you describe a character’s appearance when they’re in their own POV?
• What’s the difference between scene and setting?
• How does your writing environment affect the scene you’re writing?
• Can an evocative fantasy setting be described effectively in a short story?

In chapter 44 of Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Words of Radiance, Kaladin and some of his men began Shardblade training. Chapter 45 goes back in time to a festival in Jah Keved, attended by the Davar family.

My assistant Adam has updated the Twitter archive for June.

I have some more exciting news: the students of Kentucky have chosen Steelheart as the 2015 winner of the Kentucky Bluegrass Award in the 6–8 category. It has also been selected as an Evergreen Teen Book Award nominee for 2015–2016.

I was fortunate enough to sit down with Adrià Guxens at Spain’s Celsius 232 Festival a while back. Our discussion ranged from the Cosmere to my three laws of magic. You can read it here.

Writers and Illustrators of the Future volume 31 was released last month (I’ll be one of the contest judges next year, for what goes into volume 32), and you can see the winners here.

In this week’s Writing Excuses episode, Can You Tell Me How to Show?, we continue following the syllabus for the Season 10 Master Class. We have all heard the “show, don’t tell” rule, so in this episode we’re going to discuss showing–how to do it well, how to do it consistently, and how to use it to accomplish things that telling just can’t get across.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Words of Radiance, Shallan found her new home in the warcamps. This week, in Chapter 41, Bridge Seventeen and Kaladin begin in-depth training in the chasm.

My tour for Firefight continues through the rest of this week: Find the full tour schedule and details here.

• Tonight (1/21) at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona at 6:00 p.m.
• Friday, January 23 at Murder by the Book in Houston, Texas at 6:30 p.m. (They also have hardcovers of Mitosis available, and they’ll ship signed copies.)
• Saturday, January 24 at the Barnes & Noble in Newnan, Georgia at 3:00 p.m. (possibly actually more like 3:30)

Writing Excuses put up two new episodes. The first one is on Lovecraftian Horror, where we, with the help of Cherie Priest, discuss what it is, the influence it’s had on genre fiction, and the tools if offers to modern writers. The second is a mini-episode talking about Shadows Beneath‘s 2015 Hugo Award eligibility, which I mentioned on the blog earlier this week when I talked about my eligible works.

Tor.com is continuing their series of re-read posts for Words of Radiance. This week, Carl Engle-Laird discusses Chapter 24, which is mostly talk about cons and curry.

A couple months back I was featured on the school library TV show Bookends. You can watch the video here.

The Mistborn dice Kickstarter from Crafty Games is in its final 3 days. They just added Atium and Gold dice to every set, and if 85 more people back it, everyone who gets a dice set also gets a free digital edition PDF of the Mistborn Adventure Game.

My assistant Adam updated the Twitter posts archive for January.

Sign up to my newsletter here.

I’m behind on mentioning the episodes of the Writing Excuses writing advice show that have aired recently. Many of these episodes were recorded in front of a live audience at Westercon and FantasyCon in Salt Lake City.

• Science Fiction as Science Education (with Brad Voytek)
• What to do when you disagree with your editor (with Peter Orullian)
• Writing Instruction (with David Farland)
• Training a Critique Group (Kathleen Dalton Woodbury)
• Q&A at Westercon (with Peter Orullian)
• Publicity for Books (with Patty Garcia)
• Understanding Royalties (with Paul Stevens)

It was great recording with all of these luminaries, so I hope you find the episodes useful!

My assistant Peter has updated my Twitter posts archive for September. A highlight: Right now I’m at the Writing Excuses retreat, and I signed at a few bookstores on the way. If you’re traveling, check out these stores:

• Signed books in the Salt Lake airport with stickers inside. Simply Books by gate C6. Say hi to Tony for me.
• Minneapolis airport! Stealth signed books at bookstores near F5, C12, and on the main concourse! Goodies inside.
• I was in Minneapolis for an interview, & managed to slip to a Barnes & Noble in Edina (the Galleria) & signed books there. Stickers inside!
• Atlanta airport E gates New York Times Bookstore. Signed books. (Mostly Stormlight/WoT)
• I stopped at the Simply Books in the center of the A Gates and signed there too. (Atlanta airport.) Steelheart/Rithmatist, all with goodies inside.

If you follow me on Twitter/Facebook, you’ll see posts like that as I make them, and you’ll have a better chance of picking up signed books if you’re nearby.

I also just sent out a newsletter, for everyone on my mailing list. It includes a sneak peak of the next Stormlight Archive book. If you want to receive the newsletters, tell me your email and check the mailing list box here.

Buzzy Mag sat me down for a video interview where I talk about a lot of different subjects. They have a transcript on their site.

Voting for the David Gemmell Legend Award ends on Saturday, and anyone can vote for free. If you’ve read the nominated works, I encourage you to vote. The nominees are:

• The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
• Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
• The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett
• War Master’s Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

The Gemmells also host the Morningstar Award for best fantasy debut novel and Ravenheart Award for best fantasy book cover artist, and voting for those awards also ends on Saturday.

Four Writing Excuses episodes have aired that I haven’t yet mentioned on the blog. These are: Showing Emotion, Creator vs. Creation, Sanderson’s 3rd Law, and a microcasting episode that touches on these topics:

• Should you include your prologue as one of the three chapters you send in a submission packet?
• How do you get out of the spot where your protagonist has no motivation?
• What’s the best way to prove to a spouse that your writing is more than a hobby?
• How do you get back into a project after taking a break from it?
• Where do you start research for historical fiction?
• Let’s say you sold your first book. How do you tackle book 2 in a series?
• How do you go about writing an overarching setting, like Brandon’s “Cosmere?”
• What part about being a writer do you most enjoy, besides the actual writing?

Shawn Speakman has put a short interview with me up at Suvudu, mostly about Firefight.

Today’s free episode of StarShipSofa includes a complete audiobook of my novelette “Defending Elysium,” narrated by Nick Camm. You can also read the text version here.

An interpretation of Shallan’s lullaby from Words of Radiance has been recorded by Vi Hart. Give it a listen!

Today I’ll be doing a Google+ video chat hangout with fellow fantasy author Brian McClellan. The event description says: Join these two writers as they talk about their newest books, the epic fantasy genre, and writing as a career in a live, online event on May 1st! We’ll be taking audience questions via Google Hangout and Twitter.

The hangout starts today at 1:00 p.m. Mountain time (19:00 GMT). We’ll send a link out on the social media networks right before it starts, so you can watch it live. There will also be a recorded version later.

Audible has started a “What We’re Listening To” author campaign that I’m participating in. You can go here to see the list of all the participating authors and what audiobook each of us is currently listening to, and what we have to say about that book.

Paste Magazine did an article on me, and it ended up the cover story! Check out the cover illustration too.

My assistant Peter has now uploaded all of my tweets for April.

I appeared on the Authors Think Tank Podcast talking about my laws of magic. Check it out!

Writing Excuses has two new episodes. Both of them are “microcasting” episodes where we briefly touch on several questions submitted by listeners.

The first episode, with guest Eric James Stone, covers:

• Should you submit your prologue along with the first chapters?
• What do you do when you’ve got some professional sales under your belt, but can’t seem to get more?
• How do you manage scene/sequel format in a multi-POV novel?
• Is passive voice really that bad? How do you tell if you’re using it too much?
• What is the threshold for deus ex machina?
• How do you maximize the emotional impact of a character death?
• If you’re a discovery writer, how do you go about becoming an outliner?
• When someone asks what you do for a living, how do you answer them?
• How do you get out of the beat-by-beat, this-then-that blocking of action?

The second episode covers:

• Can I have a rule-based magic system and a mystical system in the same universe?
• What are your pre-writing methods? (Can of worms — it’s going to get its own episode)
• What’s the first thing you do once the first draft is done?
• When approaching real-world issues, how do you avoid being preachy?
• What’s the best advice you can offer to someone who’s just starting to write?
• Does it help you to experiment with weird narrative styles?
• What are your least favorite tropes?
• Should you fully edit your first few “practice” books?
• How do you know if you’re writing too quickly?
• How do you tell the difference between a weakness in your craft, and a story that requires stylistic rule-breaking?

The Salt Lake City Comic Con FanXperience starts on Thursday, and I’ll be there this Saturday only. My schedule is at the bottom of the post, but first some updates!

The Brandon Sanderson Store has some new jewelry. One item is the Bondsmith Glyph and another is the Oathbringer Shardblade Pendant.

The most recent episode of the Writing Excuses writing advice show that I do with Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler is on the self-descriptive topic “Coming up with a New Ending Halfway Through.”

Last week I did a live video chat with BookTalk Nation. The recording is below.

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.

Some quick updates today. But first, if you haven’t seen the STEELHEART teaser trailer, the prologue, or teaser chapters, please go give them a look! The release date is fast approaching, so think about preordering the book from your favorite vendor. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Audible, Apple, Kobo, Google Play.) If you would like a signed and numbered copy, Weller Book Works will begin accepting orders on August 15th for delivery on or very shortly after September 24th. Mysterious Galaxy and Shawn Speakman’s The Signed Page will also have signed books available to preorder, but they won’t be shipped until I sign them in October.

Waygate Foundation has a new charity auction to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. They’re auctioning off a rare production sample of a Ta’veren Tees t-shirt featuring Perrin Aybara, signed by Team Jordan and me. You can’t buy a shirt with this exact design. The auction ends on August 21st.

The Kindle Daily Post has an interview with me about STEELHEART and other topics. Also, Inspiring Insomnia is giving away (US-only) an ARC of STEELHEART. I often mention giveaways like this on Facebook and Twitter when I see them, but sometimes the giveaways are over by the time I compile a blog post. So if you want to keep track of things like that, Facebook and Twitter are the best places to follow me.

The most recent Writing Excuses podcast episode is another microcasting one where we touch on the following topics:

• How do you manage your workload?
• Are writing contests worth it? Which ones are good?
• How do you make it clear that the weird aspects of your world are done on purpose rather than just being bad science?
• How do you know when to take a break from your writing?
• What are your word count suggestions for various markets?

SF Signal asked me to name two or three authors I feel haven’t received the recognition they deserve. So I had to keep the list short, but you should check it out!

Tor.com’s newest THE WAY OF KINGS reread post covers chapters 27 and 28. Chasm duty, Horneater stew, and smashing a lot of rock with a hammer.