Occasionally I receive some very cool, and creative, emails from my readers from around the world. Recently I received a survey from a few of my (self-described) weirdest, nerdiest, and most number one fans: Jessica, Matthew, and Jared Ashcraft. I thought it would be fun to share it with all of you. I have italicized my answers for your convenience.

You are a…

• Fish
• Stick
• Potted Plant
• Fish Stick on top of a potted plant
• Other:

Would you rather…

• Become an evil High Epic and destroy everything and everyone in your city?
• Watch all your friends and family be eaten slowly by wild chalklings?

Who would win in a fight between Vin and Kaladin and why?

• Vin. Kaladin isn’t good at hurting people who aren’t hurting people he cares about.

Are you more like…

• Wax?
• Wayne?

Which of your characters is your favorite?

• None. They’re all like my children.

Which of the following has a larger obsession over guns?

• Waxillium
• David

Who would it make you more sad to turn evil?

• Wayne
• Kaladin

Which would you choose?

• Twinborn
• Mistborn
• Full Feruchemist
• Elantrian (not the undead kind)
• Epic (nice)
• Rithmatist
• Knight Radiant
• Awakener
• Smedry Talent
• Other :

Explain previous answer including form of power if necessary

• Lots of metal in my current life. Not much Stormlight. So Mistborn wins.

If you didn’t choose Twinborn previously but you were Twinborn anyway, which two metals would you choose?

• Same as Wax.

If all your books were burning in a fire, and you could only save one, which book would you save?

• Way of Kings.

Is Zahel really Vasher?

• Yes
• No

Is there significance in the fact that the world of Silence Montane uses silver for protection? (Even though there is no known allomantic use for silver)

• Yes.

Are you fluent in High Imperial? If so, do you teach lessons?

• No and no.

Have you really had your library card revoked 17 times?

• Alcatraz made that up. He does things like that.

Why are you doing this survey instead of writing Stormlight 3?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

• Because the writers of this survey are so awesome

All, I’ve been wanting to post reader mail responses more often, but it keeps falling through the cracks. Hopefully I’ll be able to make this more frequent in the future.

My assistant Peter received the following message and passed it on to me. The sender gave me permission to post the exchange here, but she and her friend asked for names not to be included.

I have a huge favor to ask of you. I just want to tell you a little bit about my best friend. [Name] is Brandon’s biggest fan. He raves about Sanderson’s work and got me into the Mistborn series.. Which was nothing short of extraordinary. [Name] is also a fantastic author—he emulates Brandon with his own voice and it’s truly astounding. Recently, he’s completely stopped writing because he’s afraid of what other people are going to think of his work. I don’t know if there’s any way to do this, but if Brandon could send me a little message that I could pass on to him—I think that would probably do the trick. [Name] is the best person I know and he has an incredibly story just waiting to be told. I’m willing to try whatever it takes to get that story out into the world.

Here is the message I wrote in response—and the same goes for anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation, when you’re so anxious about what other people will think of your writing that it’s keeping you from continuing.

[Name],

I hear that you’re having some rough time in your writing, mainly related to worries over what people might say about it.

Dealing with insecurities like this is a very individual process, and so I don’t want to be presumptive and act like I have the answers. But if it helps, every author I’ve ever known has had these same feelings. I was so worried about it at first that I didn’t even tell my roommates—my very best friends—that I was writing books until I’d already finished three.

For me, the transformation happened slowly. But the more I wrote, the more confident I became—not in the writing itself, but in my enjoyment of it. In those early years, it mattered less and less what others thought, as I wasn’t writing the stories for them. I was writing because of the pure enjoyment I got from creation.

Putting this first made me much more able to accept the idea that people would be critical of my work—because that was secondary, like someone looking over my shoulder and commenting on my choice of dinners. If I’m enjoying the feast, what does it matter what someone else thinks of how I’m cutting the food?

As I said, this is individual. But my advice: Don’t treat the book or story you’re working on as the main product of your time writing. Instead, look at your enjoyment, fulfillment, and progress as a writer as the primary reasons you write.

Best of luck to you!

Brandon

Two weeks ago I talked about a bet I have with James Dashner that hinges on how many copies Steelheart and The Eye of Minds sell in their first week of release. Well, The Eye of Minds came out yesterday. You should totally check it out, especially if you want to see me forced to become Justin Bieber. We’ll know the result of the bet in a week or so!

My Steelheart tour continues (today I’m in Los Angeles and this weekend I’m in the Bay Area), and the Steelhunt continues as well. If you’re in the Salem, Oregon area, there is one code at the Reader’s Guide bookstore. Their sf/fantasy guru Kim Mainord will be happy to give it out.

For those in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, you might find some other codes at the Red Balloon Bookshop. I got this email from Joan Trygg:

Hi Brandon,

The postcards and bookplates are tucked inside your books. I also wanted to let you know I handsold one yesterday. A young woman who had just finished Ender’s Game was looking for something “science fiction, but not all this,” by which I guessed she meant the general dystopian/supernatural/romance thing. So I handed her a few books, then I gave her Steelheart, and told her to sit down and read the first few pages. It wasn’t long before she came up to the counter to buy it. I told a co-worker the same thing, and now she can’t wait to read it either.

I was very glad to meet you. I do hope you will make Red Balloon a stop on your next visit to the Twin Cities!

Doing my best to help you not be Justin Bieber,

Joan Trygg
Red Balloon Bookshop

Thanks, Joan! I haven’t been to the Red Balloon but will have to check it out next time I’m in town!

Brandon

The most recent Writing Excuses podcast episode starts a new “Project in Depth” series where Mary, Howard, Dan, and I take a project that one of us has completed and grill the creator about it. These episodes necessarily contain spoilers. The first one covers Howard’s Hugo-nominated Schlock Mercenary volume Force Multiplication. In future episodes (not all in a row) we’ll do THE WAY OF KINGS, GLAMOUR IN GLASS, and THE HOLLOW CITY. Check the first one out here.

This week’s ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS annotation covers the Alivened attack. Those are the big monsters made from bad romance novels.

Today I’m highlighting two pieces of fan mail I received recently, the first related to ALCATRAZ and second to ELANTRIS.

Here’s the first one, from the dinosaurs.

Declaration of the library

We the people of the Hushlands worldwide have grown to see the evil the library imposes on kids. The taxation, limitation, and selectiveness coupled with such high requirements to check out books is outrageous.

First there is taxation, where if the book is one day late it costs a whole 25¢ which is a lot for kids. I mean that’s like 10 hours of work and then it adds an extra 25¢ per day which can add up until buying the book would be cheaper. This was made to keep kids working forever to pay off their fines. And then we only are allowed to choose some books and can be turned down for books at your whim.

We have tried to turn them in on time but sometimes there’s no way to get there in time, because of natural disasters or if we’re delayed by parents whom we are scheming against. We have tried to explain this but you don’t understand it’s not always possible.

To protect our freedom and avoid taxation we must find a way out of this through talk. If not, more drastic moves may be needed, such as boycotting or abandoning the library altogether. Then your plot to take over the Free Kingdoms would be over. The Smedrys would win, and you would be shown that knowledge wins only when it is free.

Before we are forced to leave due to lack of freedom I would like to explain that knowledge should be free no matter how stoopid you are, with no limitations, and nothing that needs to be kept or taxed.

Sincerely,

The dinosaurs

Here’s the second one, from a teacher. (Last names have been removed for privacy.)

My ninth grade English students read Elantris this year. I only had four major questions for them that spanned the length of the text, but we did do some other activities. One of them was called Found Poetry. We used lines from Elantris to make poems. Some of them are quite good. Here is a sampling. I thought you might be interested.

Relief

by Sarah

My rage was like a river
The pain swelling with each passing day
I stared absently with morose eyes
At the trees that sparkled like jewels
In the winter daylight.

My forlorn voice rose and fell
Like a well written symphony
As leaves floated slowly
Spinning in a hazy circle
Around a column of narrow-dust filled light.

Something within my heart healed
As I remembered to be my own master,
Finally discovering the simple explanations
For what I had sought for so long.

Dilaf’s Rant

by Emma

I hate them
Beasts made of Gods
Foul, loathsome creatures
Thinking of them makes my heart sick
My mind feels tainted
Chaos, killing, riots, and panic
They used people as slaves
They lied to us
They are unholy
We listened to them for centuries
But we were rewarded with impotence
Vile cripples
I hate them

Awe

by Stacy

They gasped in wonder at its beauty
The creature growled at it
It was lined with delicate spiraled arches
And crafted of pale, white marble
It was something large
Something impossibly immense
The air bled at its light
Dissolving into pure whiteness
It brought bumps to her arms;
And a sent a shiver through her body.
It’s a chapel.

City (A Haiku)

by Alexander

The city of the Gods;
Elantris was beautiful.
Then the earth shattered.

Hey, all! I had a wonderful time in Taiwan, and I thought I’d post some of the things I came home with. I always mean to do this following a tour, and hopefully I’ll make a habit of it from here out.

First up, I wanted to show a few of the letters I got. We got a lot of these, and I can’t show them all, but the thing I loved was how many of them were illustrated in some way. (Note, that’s Kaladin and Wit in the first one.) Some of the letters are blurred, since I can’t verify they don’t say anything personal.

This was, I believe, a New Years blessing I’m supposed to hang by my door.

This note, etched into metal, was particularly awesome.

The reverse side (above) includes a shot of some of the book covers in Taiwan. We’ve got some more of them below, specifically THE WAY OF KINGS (which launched last week.) With THE ALLOY OF LAW, the publisher gave out little certificates anticipating my visit, each with a signature line. The large numbers of people in each crowd, mixed with the time of interpretation between languages, meant that each person could only get one thing signed.

The publisher gave out the cards, if people wanted to get those signed as a keepsake instead of choosing one of the books. These certificates dubbed one a “Knight” of Brandon Sanderson. (And the publisher actually chose me five people to knight, with a sword and everything.) I’m not sure what it all means, or if I should really be going about knighting people, but the whole experience was very cool.

Emily was sent some chocolate also. These are only two of the treats people sent her. (She ate some of it before we could get a picture.)

My parents and sisters love jewelery, so we stopped by the local jade market. (Which happens under a bridge, and is filled with hundreds of little tables full of people selling various pieces of jade.) Picked up a few nice ones as gifts, though the pictures don’t really do them justice.

One of the knights gave me several awesome gifts, including a (signed!) CD by her favorite musicians and a stamp book full of stamps from Taiwan.

A fantasy novel written by a local author who stopped by one of my signings. I don’t know how soon I’ll be reading it (as it’s in Chinese) but maybe someday…

THE WAY OF KINGS was published in two parts, but packaged together in these gift bags. Included was a little notebook thing which was just plain awesome—so awesome, in fact, that I talked the publisher into giving me a box of them to bring home with me. I’m going to give them away on the website and at cons this year, so stay tuned to find how you can win one.

THE ALLOY OF LAW came with a pin for the 10th anniversary of the publisher, Fantasy Foundation. The certificate of knighthood was packaged with this, in the back.

And one last bit of chocolate.

There’s more, but I’ll post those in another post. We’ll also try to get up some pictures of me doing odd things while in the country, like eating an egg that my publisher claimed was 1000 years old.

Until then, thanks for reading and happy Chinese New Year!

Brandon

Want your name to appear as a character in the Stormlight Archive? There’s going to be an auction for just that starting on Wednesday to benefit the Life, the Universe, & Everything (LTUE) symposium. I’ll post more details when the auction begins.

This year’s LTUE hosted the recording of a number of episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast, one of which aired this week. In it, Dan and Howard are joined by Robison Wells and Sarah Eden to talk about writing romance.

The most recent WARBREAKER annotation is a long one covering chapter forty-nine. It talks about Vasher’s temper and using the priests as scapegoats, among other things.

In Suvudu’s cage matches, Vin managed to hold off Jon Snow and Perrin was defeated by Quick Ben. Which sets up two matches, as Suvudu announced here. Starting on Wednesday, Vin will face Quick Ben and Perrin will have a consolation match against Jon Snow. Suvudu is accepting writeups for consolation match; see the announcement for details. They also have a forum where you can make suggestions about future cage matches. And superfan Terez is holding her own contest for best Vin vs. Quick Ben writeup.

Some people have sent me links to their music recently. Joey Maker has a passing reference to Rand Al’Thor in a rap song of his here. And Darin Porter wrote a whole song about Kaladin called “You Can’t Go Back.”

Alcatraz let me know about the following library infiltration report.

We led a successful infiltration of our local library on Saturday, March 6, 2010 and wanted to share this good news with you. Our team consists of seven fifth-grade students, one seventh-grade assistant coach and two grownups—NO, strike that, two parent coaches. (You may call us parents but NEVER call us grownups.)

Our library must have suffered a severe electrical surge of some sort to their ordering system because they now own 43 copies of Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. These along with 19 other works of “fiction” are currently being used for their 31st annual Battle of the Books competition. The librarians somehow even let our team name slip through their registration system as we are the “Chipmunks versus the Evil Librarians.”

We fought among 64 other teams of fourth- and fifth-grade Hushlanders all vying to be recognized for their love of reading and attention to detail. Our team was successful in preliminary rounds at local schools and finally along with 17 other teams were “invited” to participate in an Oral Battle round at the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library. (Like naming the library after a beautiful woman named Grace could hide who they really are. . . .) (And you’d think an Oral Battle would consist of those little wind-up teeth in a miniature boxing ring, but nope, that’s not it at all.)

So, we had a way in but we needed a plan. We planned and planned and planned all day. Okay, we planned for about 15 minutes during a lunch meeting. As coaches we even created our own version of an Alivened and trained the kids how to fight it. Lenses were collected, dinosaurs were purchased we were ready. Next we made a HUGE blundering, bungling, blathering, idiotic mistake. We sent an email to the librarians to let them know we were coming.

We thanked them for their invitation and said we would see them on Infiltration Day. Did I mention that we were idiots? We went on to say that we appreciated the fact that there would be no man-eating sharks that day and they had chosen excellent books for the competition this year. (Okay, we may not have been complete idiots since your book was one of those chosen.)

Infiltration day came. The kids did great and are one of the final two teams moving on to the championship round of the competition! Most wore warrior lenses (imagine 4 Bastilles!) and we were sure to include tracker, oculator, and a pair of torturer lenses too. (We forbade the use of Firebringer Lenses since again there were 43 copies of your book on site. . . .)

The only casualties suffered were some dinosaurs that were left behind near the C section of the science fiction area and were most likely captured after they successfully created a ‘disturbance’ and ate a few of the books.

Hopefully, you’re still reading this letter since this is where the time sensitive part from the subject line comes into play. We were wondering if you would be willing or able to send a note of encouragement to the kids as they again will infiltrate the library on Thursday, March 11 at 4:30 p.m. for the Championship Battle.

Thanks for you time,
Coaches of the Chipmunks versus the Evil Librarians

Good work, Chipmunks, and may you be victorious in your upcoming battle.

Due to the woeful lack of frozen burritos in the Free Kingdoms, I’ve been forced to keep hanging out here in the Hushlands, which has made me painfully aware of the Hushlanders’ need for as much access as possible to information about truths such as those involving talking dinosaurs. You must continue to do what you can not to allow the Librarian Conspiracy to control the facts available. Remembering what you read in the books that Free Kingdomers have managed to sneak onto Librarian shelves is an important step toward throwing off the yoke of ignorance.

And one final word of encouragement: Rutabaga.

Brandon Sanderson
March 9, 2010