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 six. 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.

Towers of Midnight: What did I learn?

Set Your Sights High

I’ve never been one to dodge a challenge. However, after failing to do The Way of Kings right in 2002, I was timid about tackling complex narratives across many, many viewpoints. Towers of Midnight marked the largest-scale book I’d ever attempted, with the most complexity of viewpoints, the greatest number of distinct and different scenes to balance, and the most ambitious forms of storytelling. Aviendha’s trip through the glass pillars was the most audacious thing I believe I pitched at Team Jordan, and was one of the things about which they were the most skeptical. Perrin’s balance between action and inaction risked having him descend into passiveness.

I worked on the new version of The Way of Kings during this time, in 2009–10, when I was also working on Towers of Midnight. I doubt I will ever be more busy than I was in those two years, tackling two of the biggest books of my career at the same time. However, during this time I entered a place in my writing where something clicked, dealing with the next stage of my writing career. I’d always wanted to master the complex epic—my favorite stories of all time fit this mold. Before this, however, I’d done very few sequels—and Towers of Midnight was the most complicated sequel I’m ever likely to do.

I learned a great deal about myself during this period, and the results are on the pages of these two books, Towers of Midnight and The Way of Kings.

Depth of Viewpoint

Working on Mat sent me down a proverbial rabbit hole, as I studied—really studied—how a master approached the use of the third-person limited viewpoint. I have always respected Robert Jordan’s ability to characterize through viewpoint. (By this, I mean his ability to show how a person thinks and feels by the way they describe the world while you’re seeing through their eyes.) Mat changed my perspective on how to write narrative, and how to make characters live beyond the words stated about them.

When asked what I think Robert Jordan’s greatest skill was, I don’t say worldbuilding or juggling a complex narrative, though these are certainly two areas in which he excelled. No, I talk about his viewpoints. If there’s one thing I wish to learn from Robert Jordan, it’s how to accomplish this—how to make you feel a character’s culture, history, temperament, and current emotional state by the way they describe the simple things in the world around them.

I think I have improved at this. But it’s one of the things I believe I’ll be working on for my entire career.

Increased Subtlety

I like novels where a multitude of different threads, some hidden, twist together to a surprising conclusion. This is one area where I think I’ve, for the most part, done a good job in the past. Working on The Wheel of Time, however, I was able to see Robert Jordan’s hand in new ways—and see how delicate he could be with some of his plotting and characterization. I worry that sometimes, I beat people over the head with a character’s goals, theme, and motivations. It’s because I feel a character with well-defined motivations is one of the hallmarks of a strongly written story.

However, I do think I need to learn to be more subtle—and The Wheel of Time taught me a great deal about this. Robert Jordan’s light hand in dealing with the Thom/Moiraine relationship is a good example. Other characters, however, stand out as well—Pevara is an example. The subtle clues about how some of the Sitters who had been chosen were too young is another example of his very delicate hand. It’s not an important thread, in the grand scheme of things. Little touches like this, however, are what makes a world live beyond the page. It is something I think I learned from this project—not necessarily how to accomplish this (we’ll see if I can), but how to recognize and appreciate it.

Towers of Midnight: What did I do wrong?

I’m the culprit of numerous small mistakes, most of which there is no time to point out. The biggest flaw in my writing of Towers of Midnight, however, has to be the chronology.

All of my solo books have been basically chronological. Elantris had some funky storytelling where each group of three chapters happened concurrently, but most of my other books had a forward progression without much jumping back and forth in timeline for different characters.

The Wheel of Time, however, does jump around a lot—you just don’t notice it, as Robert Jordan juggled the timelines quite well. Mat could be progressing at one rate, and when you jumped to Perrin, you’d jump forward or back in time. Those who wanted to look for the clues could find out and build a timeline using the phases of the moon or other hints. Those who didn’t want to notice, however, were never thrown out by perceived incongruities.

When we split the books, some of the timeline things I’d done got too far out of sync. At the end of Knife of Dreams, the character viewpoints were somewhat out of sync, as Robert Jordan often wrote them. I didn’t have any experience juggling something like this, and in Towers of Midnight I flubbed it. Not that the timeline is messed up—it’s actually pretty good, all things considered. However, the perception of it brought us troubles. Because characters interacted across timelines, it felt like they were in two places at once (Tam is an example) even though it all worked narratively.

This made for some confusing moments for readers. Mr. Jordan did things like this without distracting; I didn’t juggle this as well, and because of it, I think the book suffered. I hope I’ve grown better, but it was eye-opening for me when Towers of Midnight came out and people mentioned being confused. I hadn’t even noticed the potential problem until the book was out.

To be continued.

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 five. 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.

Towers of Midnight: Writing Process

Part of the reason I’d decided upon doing Rand/Egwene first was because I knew that this book—Perrin’s sequence in particular—was going to be the trickiest of the four major viewpoint sequences. Of the four leads, I felt Perrin was one of those who needed the most growth. In fact, he had as much to grow as Rand did—but in more subtle ways. Rand’s descent was a result of the multitude of forces pushing against him, bearing him down, threating to crush him. He was brought to the point where he was because his personality issues were magnified a hundred times over by the extreme circumstances of his life. He cracked while trying desperately to find the right thing to do.

Perrin was different. He had major hangups that he consistently refused to confront, and in many ways was the farthest of the main characters from where he needed to be. Rand’s transformation was more dramatic, but Perrin’s was just as necessary.

It should be noted that I felt, both from the notes and my own readings of the series, that Mat was basically where Robert Jordan wanted him to be. This remains true even after I re-looked at Mat and tried to fix my interpretation of him. That doesn’t mean that Mat is finished as a character, just that he was where Mr. Jordan wanted him for the Last Battle. Mat was going to have another series all his own after the main group of books, and some of his character progress was saved for those. (Note that those books are not going to be written.)

Egwene had a small amount of development left to do, but was mostly there. In The Gathering Storm, she faced the most critical challenges of her career, but Robert Jordan had brought her to the point where she needed to be in Knife of Dreams, and in the notes for A Memory of Light he had indicated specifically how she was to progress. It was mostly a matter of using the confrontations in the White Tower to manifest things she had already learned, and to show once and for all the person she had become.

As for the other characters, Elayne was where she needed to be, but Avi was not. (She had a great deal of growth left to her.) Nynaeve had reached the peak of her development, in my opinion, as had Min. At least this is my read on it, which is reflected in my interpretations of the various arcs of the characters.

Perrin

Perrin is my favorite character in the series, and has been since I was a youth. Like many readers, I was frustrated by his choices through the later books, though the writer in me really appreciated Robert Jordan’s skillful guidance of the character. The problems Perrin confronted (sometimes poorly) highlighted his uncomfortable relationship with the wolves, his unwillingness to cut himself a break, and his ability to devote himself so utterly to one task that everything else vanished. (As a note, I feel this is one of the major things that made me empathize with Perrin for all those years. Of the main characters, he is the only artist. However, he’s an artist like me—a focused project builder. A craftsman.)

Though I wanted to be careful not to overdo the concept, one of my goals in these last few books was to bring back ideas and conflicts from the first books—creating parallels and emphasizing the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time. Again, this was dangerous. I didn’t want these books to become a series of in-jokes, homages, and repetitions.

However, there are places where it was not only appropriate, but vital that we return to these themes. I felt one of those involved the Whitecloaks and Perrin, specifically the two Children of the Light he had killed during his clash with them in the very first book. This was a tricky sequence to plot. I wanted Perrin to manifest leadership in a way different from Rand or Egwene. Robert Jordan instructed that Perrin become a king, and I loved this plot arc for him—but in beginning it with the Whitecloaks, I threatened to leave Perrin weak and passive as a character. Of all the sequences in the books, I struggled with this one the most—mostly because of my own aspirations, goals, and dreams for what Perrin could become.

His plot is my favorite of the four for those reasons.

I had other goals for Perrin in this book. His experiences in the Wolf Dream needed to return, I felt, and push toward a final climax in the Last Hunt. This meant returning to a confrontation with Slayer, a mirrored character to Perrin with a dual nature. I wanted to highlight Perrin’s instinctive use of his powers, as a contrast to the thoughtful, learned use of power represented by Egwene. People have asked if I think Perrin is better at Tel’aran’rhiod than Egwene. I don’t think he is, the balefire-bending scene notwithstanding. They represent two sides of a coin, instinct and learning. In some cases Perrin will be more capable, and in others Egwene will shine.

The forging of Perrin’s hammer, the death of Hopper, and the wounding of Perrin in the leg (which is mythologically significant) were in my narrative plan for him from the get-go. However, weaving them all together involved a lot of head/wall-bashing. I wanted a significance to Perrin’s interactions with the Way of the Leaf as well, and to build a rapport between him and Galad—in my reads of the characters, I felt they would make for unlikely friends.

Of all the major plot sequences in the books, Perrin’s was the one where I had the most freedom—but also the most danger of straying too far from Robert Jordan’s vision for who the character should be. His instructions for Perrin focused almost entirely on the person Perrin would be after the Last Battle, with little or no direction on how to bring him there. Perrin was fully in my hands, and I wanted to take extra care to guide my favorite character toward the ending.

I will note, by the way, that Verin’s interaction with Egwene in The Gathering Storm was my biggest surprise from the notes. My second biggest was the Thom/Moiraine engagement. Robert Jordan wrote that scene, and I was surprised to read it. (As I said, though I loved and had read the books, there are plenty of fans who were bigger fans than myself—and to them, this was no surprise.) I didn’t pick up the subtle hints of a relationship between the two of them until my reread following my getting the notes.

Mat

Robert Jordan had written much of Mat’s plot, and left instructions on much of the rest. My challenge with Mat in this book, then, wasn’t to complete his arc—which was quite good. It was to do a better job with Mat than I had in the previous book.

In order to do Mat right, I went back to Robert Jordan’s writing. This time, I dissected Mat, looking at him as a craftsman. I saw a depth of internal narrative that was unlike anything I’d analyzed before. Of all the Wheel of Time characters, Mat is the least trustworthy narrator. What he thinks, feels, and does are sometimes three very different things. His narrative itself is filled with snark and beautifully clever lines, but a relative few of those actually leave his lips. The harder he tries to do something, often the worse it turns out for him. Mat’s at his best when he lets instinct lead, regardless of what his internal monologue says.

This makes him very tricky to write, and is why my initial gut instinct on how to do him was wrong. I think for a lot of Wheel of Time readers, Mat is the big surprise in the series. The sometimes snarky, but often grumpy sidekick from the first two books transforms into a unique blend of awesomeness I haven’t found in any other story.

I feel that my stab at writing Mat in Towers of Midnight is far better than it was in The Gathering Storm, though I’m not sure I got him right until A Memory of Light. I know some fans will disagree that I ever did get him right, but I am pleased with—and comfortable with—the Mat of these latter two books. Though, of course, having Robert Jordan’s more detailed instructions for Mat in these books does help.

To be continued.

Michael Whelan has put up an awesome post on his process for painting the cover of A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Very, very cool. If you’re at all interested in art or illustration you should check it out. You can also buy signed prints in his store.

If you want to be able to nominate works for the Hugo Awards this year (I talked about this a couple of weeks ago) you need to be a supporting or attending member of this year’s Worldcon (or last year’s or next year’s Worldcons) by Thursday, January 31st. The actual nomination deadline is in March, but if you aren’t a member and want to nominate, now’s your last chance to become eligible.

Here’s something cool: a fantasy calendar featuring fantasy writers. Lauren Zurchin of Lytherus is putting together this calendar featuring authors Holly Black, Gail Carriger, Cassandra Clare, Lauren Kate, Gregory Maguire, Tessa Gratton, Maggie Stiefvater, Brenna Yovanoff, Brandon Mull, Lauren Oliver, Chrisopher Paolini, Patrick Rothfuss, Tad Williams, and me. We will all be dressed in fantasy costumes of Lauren’s design. Once the calendar is for sale, the proceeds from the calendar will go to the First Book and Worldbuilders charities. To fund the creation of the calendar, the costumes, and traveling to the authors to dress us up and take our pictures, Lauren is running a Kickstarter campaign. Just to be clear: Kickstarter doesn’t allow charity campaigns, so the Kickstarter campaign itself is not a charitable endeavor, but it will go to fund creation of a calendar that when sold WILL have its proceeds donated to two charities. There are various things you can get for pledging various amounts, including a photo of me in my costume, signed by me, or a similar photo for each of the other authors. I think this is a cool idea, and I’m wondering what sort of costume Lauren will dress me up in. We’ll never find out unless the Kickstarter campaign reaches its goal.

As many of you know, I adapted a large number of readers’ names for use in TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT and A MEMORY OF LIGHT. Linda over at the 13th Depository has an article that lists all of the names that were chosen for characters and how they were adapted into the books, including some character names adapted by Robert Jordan in previous books. Note that I also adapted some people’s names as place names and other non-character names, and the list doesn’t include those. There will probably be another list later.

Last Wednesday I did a Tor chat on Twitter. All of the questions I answered (the questions and my answers include a lot of spoilers, especially for A MEMORY OF LIGHT, so be warned!) are now up in these two Twitter post archives: one, two.

This week’s Writing Excuses podcast episode discusses side-character arcs. Mary, Howard, Dan, and I talk about which side characters might need an arc, which might not, and what you might take into consideration when writing these characters.

George R. R. Martin has announced the authors & stories for the DANGEROUS WOMEN anthology, including a novella from me. It’s a spectacular group that I’m very honored to be included in. The table of contents will look like this:

INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
SOME DESPERADO, by Joe Abercrombie
MY HEART IS EITHER BROKEN, by Megan Abbott
NORA’S SONG, by Cecelia Holland
THE HANDS THAT ARE NOT THERE, by Melinda Snodgrass
BOMBSHELLS, by Jim Butcher
RAISA STEPANOVA, by Carrie Vaughn
WRESTLING JESUS, by Joe R. Lansdale
NEIGHBORS, by Megan Lindholm
I KNOW HOW TO PICK ‘EM, by Lawrence Block
SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF HELL, by Brandon Sanderson
A QUEEN IN EXILE, by Sharon Kay Penman
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR, by Lev Grossman
SECOND ARABESQUE, VERY SLOWLY, by Nancy Kress
CITY LAZARUS, by Diana Rowland
VIRGINS, by Diana Gabaldon
HELL HATH NO FURY, by Sherilynn Kenyon
PRONOUNCING DOOM, by S.M. Stirling
NAME THE BEAST, by Sam Sykes
CARETAKERS, by Pat Cadigan
LIES MY MOTHER TOLD ME, by Caroline Spector
THE PRINCESS AND THE QUEEN, by George R.R. Martin

The book has been turned in to Tor as of last week, so Tor will now pick a more firm publication date. When I hear more I’ll let you know. There are a few more details at the link.

I’m starting a new weekly bonus content feature for the next few months as a bit of an experiment. Right now I’m writing the sequel to THE WAY OF KINGS, and I’ve recorded my writing process for one chapter using Camtasia (which was provided to me by the folks at TechSmith). The chapter I’ve recorded is the new interlude featuring Rysn (who was in one of the interludes in the first book). I’ve split the recording up into multiple videos that I’m uploading to YouTube. The first one is up now, and it covers the prewriting/outlining for the chapter. For now, the videos are in real time, but once they’re all uploaded I’ll make a high-speed version of the whole chapter for those of you who don’t want to sit and watch my normal typing speed.

Some of you are wondering if this video will have spoilers for STORMLIGHT 2. As an interlude, it takes place away from most of the action of the rest of the book, so you shouldn’t see more than hints. This first video has the interlude’s outline in it, so it will partially spoil the rest of the videos, but you’ll find that the outline is very sparse. It’s probably more likely to make you more interested to read more than to spoil you for the rest.

The main point of these videos is to show you my writing process, which is something I get a lot of questions about. Enjoy. STORMLIGHT 2 should come out before Christmas if I can get the first draft finished in April. I’m working hard on it right now, so we’ll see if that happens.

Readers have been asking if my forthcoming novellas LEGION and THE EMPEROR’S SOUL will be released in audio versions. The answer is that they will be—we have deals made for these, but I’m not sure how quickly the audiobooks will be released compared to the book versions. I’ll let you know when I have more details.

Another question commonly asked is whether Michael Kramer and Kate Reading will return to voice the audiobook for A MEMORY OF LIGHT. The answer is yes, and the audiobook will definitely be released the same day as the hardcover.

All of my books are now out in audio editions, including the last three Alcatraz books that were missing audiobooks for a few years. There are two different kinds of audiobooks of mine that have come out: standard unabridged readings (from Macmillan Audio and Recorded Books) and full-cast dramatizations (from GraphicAudio). Which type each book has depends on how contracts were negotiated.

Recorded Books has unabridged readings of Elantris, Warbreaker, and all four Alcatraz books.

GraphicAudio has full-cast dramatizations of Elantris and Warbreaker.

Macmillan Audio has unabridged readings of Mistborn 1, 2, 3 and The Alloy of Law; The Way of Kings; and The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight.

Amazon has most of the above for sale. Audible has everything except for the GraphicAudio editions. iTunes also has many of the books.

Tor.com has a free unabridged reading of the novelette “Firstborn.”

Every year for the past several years, NAME OF THE WIND and THE WISE MAN’S FEAR author (and good buddy of mine) Patrick Rothfuss has run a charity drive where he matches at 50% donations to Heifer International through his Worldbuilders team page. Everyone who enters the general drawing gets a chance at a huge number of prizes. There are also individual auctions on several of the most desirable items. Pat explains it best.

I’ve donated various books to the prize pool before, and this year I and Badali Jewelry have teamed up to donate a special Wheel of Time package to the auctions. My contribution is from among my personal leatherbound copies of THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT. With each Wheel of Time book that is released, Tor puts out a limited edition of 126 signed copies, 100 of them numbered for commercial release, and 26 of them lettered for publisher and author use. I received copies B and S of both books, and I’m donating the matched set of S copies.

Please see Pat’s description below. The auction itself is here, and you can see the other auction items here. And remember, for every 10 dollars you donate on the Worldbuilders Team Page, you get a chance to win a book from the general prize pool.

• AUCTION: signed, leather-bound copies of The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson with Wheel of Time jewelry.
  

These gorgeous gold-lettered books are leather-bound and designated “S” out of 26 lettered copies. The books come in their own matching leather slipcase, feature a facsimile of Robert Jordan’s signature, and are signed by Brandon Sanderson.

In addition to these stunning best-selling books, this auction includes three lovely pieces of jewelry inspired by Jordan’s series: an Asha’man Dragon Pin, a Dedicated Sword Pin, and a Great Serpent Ring.

We are very grateful to Brandon Sanderson for his donation of these rare books, and to the folks at Badali for making things even sweeter with the addition of the jewelry.

To see more pictures of these gorgeous books, or to place a bid on the auction, click here.

Now that the mass market paperback of TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT has been released, I’ve added signed hardcover copies of the book to my online store. I will personalize each copy to your request—you can have me write something like “Music to dazzle” or “Iron to bind” if you like. And of course all of my other books are available as well.

Because I’m going on tour in North America and the UK all November long, the sooner you can get your order in, the better. (If getting a book by December 24th is important to you.) In fact, for international orders, we’re setting a deadline of November 1st so I can sign everything before I leave. The U.S. deadline is December 5th. Jewelry orders have different deadlines; see below. Now, if your order comes in too late we will still do what we can, but the likelihood your order will arrive before December 24th goes way down.

Posters & signed books ordering deadline

• To US addresses: December 5th by 5:00 p.m. Mountain time
• To international addresses: November 1st by 5:00 p.m. Mountain time

 

 

 

Jewelry ordering deadline

• To US addresses: December 6th
• To international addresses: December 4th

The short list of six nominees for the David Gemmell Legend Award is out, and for the second year in a row I have two books on the list. Towers of Midnight and The Way of Kings join Brent Weeks’s The Black Prism, Pierre Pevel’s The Alchemist in the Shadows, Peter V. Brett’s The Desert Spear, and Markus Heitz’s The War of the Dwarves.

Once again I’m honored to have two books nominated for the award named for David Gemmell, as he was such a fantastic author. (My favorite of Mr. Gemmell’s titles is Knights of Dark Renown.) Because this is a reader-voted award, that means you all took the time to stop by and give my books a nominating vote. That means a lot to me. Thank you so much!

I do find it amusing that I’ve now managed to lose the award more times than it’s been offered. But did you know that the winner gets a battleaxe?

I definitely want to hang that battleaxe on my wall one of these days, but as always there’s stiff competition from a set of very worthy nominees. All of these books deserve a read.

You can vote for the 2011 David Gemmell Legend Award here. If you already voted earlier in the year and are wondering what happened to your vote then, that’s how the field was narrowed down to these six finalists. All vote totals were reset when the short list was announced, so you should vote again if you have a preference on what book wins. (Voting for the 2011 David Gemmell Morningstar Award and Ravenheart Award for best fantasy debut and best fantasy book jacket is also now open.)

In other award news, this past weekend I went to the Whitney Awards ceremony at the LDStorymakers conference. The Way of Kings won the Best Speculative Fiction award, and it also tied with Dan Wells’s Mr. Monster for Novel of the Year. I’m happy the book has been so well received, and sharing an award with Dan is awesome. (See the following links for a complete listing of the nominees and winners.)

There are a couple episodes of Writing Excuses up that I have not yet mentioned. First Dan, Howard, and I did another braingstorming episode covering urban fantasy. Then at Penguicon, Howard and I sat down to record an episode with Nebula and Campbell nominee Saladin Ahmed to talk about non-traditional settings. Check them out.

Things are mostly working on my website after its recent server move–the library, annotation, and store pages are all accessible and functioning–but there’s still some work to be done in the site’s backend. The upshot is that I can’t yet add new annotations or library items. So the WARBREAKER annotations are on hiatus until that gets fixed, as are the WARBRAKER html chapters, and the expanded “I Hate Dragons” short will also have a delayed posting in the library.

Tomorrow my assistant Peter and I are off to JordanCon in Atlanta. Their full schedule is listed here. My panels are below. Please pay special attention to the details of the Magic draft on Friday night, if you want to participate.

There are also a couple of other updates. TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT has made it to the semifinals of Audible’s Tournament of Audiobooks, but it is currently behind in votes to MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes. If you liked the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT audiobook, consider giving it your vote. (Of course you can vote for MATTERHORN instead, if you think that was a better audiobook.)

The Stormlight Archive character name auction is still going on. The local newspaper did an article on it.

I haven’t linked this week’s Writing Excuses podcast episode yet. Recent episodes were recorded at LTUE when I was at ConDFW, so I haven’t been appearing, but this episode marks my return. Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and I talk about urban fantasy.

JordanCon III, Atlanta

Date: 04.15.11–04.17.11
Place: JordanCon III: Consaken
Address: Crowne Plaza Hotel Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia
4355 Ashford Dunwoody
Atlanta, GA 30346

FRIDAY

1:00 p.m., Oakwood AB
Opening Ceremonies

4:00 p.m., Camellia
Signing, Brandon Sanderson & Harriet McDougal

9:00 p.m., Azalea
Magic the Gathering Draft with Brandon Sanderson
Preregistration is required. Email Brandon if you want to get on the list. There will be a small buy-in of around $10 or $15. Also, if someone wants to come judge the match, you would be welcome.

SATURDAY

12:00 noon, Azalea
Fantasy Writing (Brandon Sanderson)
A 90-minute crash course in writing fantasy novels.

2:30 p.m., Dogwood
Kaffeeklatsch: An hour with Team Jordan (Brandon Sanderson, Alan Romanczuk, Maria Simons)
Limited to 10 pre-selected participants. Slots are already full; sorry about that.

4:00 p.m., Oakwood AB
A Memory of Light: Status Report (Harriet McDougal, Brandon Sanderson, Maria Simons, Alan Romanczuk, Richard Fife)

5:30 p.m., Oakwood AB
Costume Contest (Brandon Sanderson, Harriet McDougal, Linda Taglieri, Richard Fife)
Show off your tailoring skills or just come to watch the parade of Seanchan, Aes Sedai, Asha’man, and more!

10:00 p.m., Azalea
Magic with Brandon
Can you muster a successful Magic the Gathering deck and defeat the Brandon Sanderson? Bring your deck and find out.

SUNDAY

11:30 a.m., Camellia
Signing, Brandon Sanderson

1:00 p.m., Azalea
JordanCon’s Got Talent (Brandon Sanderson)
Come give your 30-second book pitch to our experts!

Tor has donated a few of my books for auction at Genre for Japan, a charity drive to support the British Red Cross’s Japan Tsunami Appeal. The auctions include a THE WAY OF KINGS audiobook, hardcovers of THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, and a Mistborn boxset. You can go to those links to bid (in UK pounds); bidding and auction rules are here. There are over 130 other items up for auction as well, so check it out.

A couple of years ago, I was an instructor at the Writing & Illustrating for Young Readers conference in Utah. I’m unable to do it again this year in June due to my Europe tour (more on that later as details are finalized), but it’s a valuable experience if you want to break in to creating books for children. Instructors this year include Louise Plummer and Holly Black, among others. The workshops are filling up fast, so it’s a good idea to register quickly.

Audible.com is once again putting on its Tournament of Audiobooks, and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT is one of the competitors. The first round is underway, and so far TOWERS is narrowly beating out AMERICAN ASSASSIN. If you want to vote, click on the Best Sellers tab. (THE GATHERING STORM won last year’s tournament.)

Suvudu has Vin up against Jon Snow in the semifinals of this year’s cage match. Since Jon Snow hails from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, he’s probably going to win. Which I’m perfectly fine with, as George is a true master of a writer. Besides, I really have no interest in seeing both Vin and Perrin winning their semifinal matches (Perrin will be pitted against Quick Ben from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen, who is no pushover) and facing each other in the final.

Ta’veren Tees is having a contest where customers can win free Wheel of Time shirts. See their contest rules here.

This week’s Writing Excuses podcast episode features Larry Correia and Robison Wells joining Dan and Howard to talk about writing action scenes. The most recent WARBREAKER annotation covers more on Siri and Susebron’s relationship. And I have a new batch of Twitter posts up.

Back in January I posted about nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards. Well, if you’re eligible to nominate (you needed to be a registered Worldcon member by the end of January, or have been a member of last year’s Worldcon), the nomination deadline is tomorrow night. If you didn’t register quickly enough to nominate, now is a good time to register so that you’ll be eligible to vote on the final ballot, which should open fairly soon. The convention itself will be in Reno, Nevada from August 17th through 21st.

If you want more details, read my earlier post. For now, here’s a reminder of what I’ve been involved in that’s eligible for a nomination.

ELIGIBLE IN CATEGORY: BEST RELATED WORK

• Writing Excuses Season Four

ELIGIBLE IN CATEGORY: BEST NOVEL

• Towers of Midnight
• The Way of Kings
• Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

OTHER CATEGORIES
I have a vested interest in a few other possible nominations. My editors Moshe Feder and Harriet McDougal are both eligible in the Best Editor (Long Form) category. Cover artists Michael Whelan, Darrell K. Sweet, and Todd Lockwood are eligible in the Best Professional Artist category. Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary book Massively Parallel is eligible in the Best Graphic Story category. Dan Wells’s books I Am Not a Serial Killer and Mr. Monster are eligible in the Best Novel category, and Dan himself is eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo, but nominated on the same ballot).

If you’re eligible to nominate and haven’t done it yet, consider doing it now. And if you’ve already nominated and happen to want to revise your nominations, you can submit a new ballot that will cancel out the old one, which is rather convenient.