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Would it be correct to say that the highstorms on Roshar have left the realms closer together than on other worlds?
You could say [that] is true. I'd be comfortable with that idea. Though there are worlds where this goes even further than on Roshar.
Are the Parshendi of Honor?
No.
When is Rithmatist 2 coming out?
Rithmatist 2 is the number one requested book that people ask of me. I know more people are waiting for Stormlight 3, but they can see the progress bars and things like that, so they know it's coming. Rithmatist 2, I might write between Stormlight 3 and 4. I tried to write it, and since they were going to South America, and I had not done my research, I was not able to accurately represent an alternate Earth version of the cultures, like the Nahuatl, the Mexica people, so I stopped to stop and read, like, ten books on that, which prevented me from writing the book at that point. Now that I've done the research, I can, I feel, write the book, and do justice to it, but I have to now find a timeslot in my schedule, because the slot that was in my schedule I spent doing research. You wouldn't have wanted the book that would have come out if I hadn't done that research. You know all this buzz about Harry Potter and Native Americans? Mine would have been ten times worse, just because you write from a position of ignorance, so I was starting, and I was like, "No, I can't do this." So now, I think I can do it, and I think it will be good, but now I have to find the time. I'm sorry.
Is the current year number (1174) just a Vorin convention, or is everyone on Roshar using the same calendar?
It is a Vorin convention, but the Vorin convention has been adopted by a lot of cultures.
Just like our Gregorian?
Yeah. But there are different numbering conventions.
Galladon
I like finally having a chance to characterize Galladon internally. My sense is that you can never really get to know a character until you can see their thoughts. So, I gave a nice little series of viewpoints to Galladon, partially to show what was happening to Raoden's body, partially so that I could have some last-minute introspection and philosophizing regarding what is happening in the chapters.
Galladon's hope monologue in this chapter is probably the most powerful, and most interesting, section he gets in the book. This piece is supposed to mimic what the reader is feeling–things are going terribly, but Raoden has always managed to pull out a miracle. He may look bad now, but he can still save them. Can't he?
I think Galladon is more pessimistic–naturally–than the reader will be. However, he raises good questions, and his talk about hope–how Raoden's gift to him is the inability to give up completely–is one final showing of the power Raoden's personality has in this book. Perhaps the most amazing thing Raoden does in this book–more difficult a task to overcome than the gangs, more rewarding than taking the throne of Arelon–is make a believer out of a man like Galladon. A man who had given up on hope, but who now continues to believe, even though all is lost.
So the scene at the end of Oathbringer, when Odium is confronting Taravangian and he uses futuresight to expand upon the Diagram, we have this blacked out section with Renarin's name linked to it.
Yes.
Is that because Renarin's abilities interfere with Odium's futuresight similar to how electrum interferes with atium?
Any time that someone else is seeing the future in the cosmere, it's going to have ripples against your ability. Like they are-- you can't-- It's the same sort of thing that if-- someone who has access to atium is going to mess up anyone else's futuresight in any way, because once you use that it's going to cause you to act differently, which then-- And remember futuresight is not very good in the cosmere anyway. But yeah, it's just gonna mess things up.
If Lift ate something that had like, gold leaf on it, 'cause some foods like-- She would be turning that gold leaf into Investiture or Stormlight, right?
If it is giving-- So the gold leaf would probably pass through her system.
So she wouldn't be...
Mmhmm, yes, that things that she eats that she can metabolize, she can turn into Stormlight.
Was Lasting Integrity inspired by Escher, or the movie Inception, or something else?
I'm sure that both Escher and Inception had a role in that. Absolutely. Though, curiously, I was writing these weird walk-on-the-walls things long before I saw Inception, so it's probably both kind of reaching toward the same dream-like state. One of my earliest stories involved this surface-specific-gravity stuff, and I read a little bit from a later story that did the same thing. (The story I read at the launch party, The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora.) That dream-like quality. I wanted something about Lasting Integrity that said, when you got to it, "This is just not part of our world. This doesn't feel like it could be in the real world. The laws of physics are different here. And it's inhabited by beings that see the laws of physics in a different way." And that was what I was reaching for in creating that situation. Where my inspirations were? Probably all over the place. But Escher is definitely an inspiration there. And some of those descriptions in the Harry Potter books, of how the stairwells in Hogwarts work, I'm sure, were partially inspirations.
What is the difference between innate investiture and kinetic investiture?
Kinetic investiture is energy/power that is being actively (currently) used. Innate investiture is when a person is a conduit to/from the Spiritual realm.
Again in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, there are characters from different books. Some of these books have sequels, like the people from Elantris. So when are the sequels coming out? Are they going to come out before the big book? Or…
It's going to be a while before we do them. The sequels, I want to do them. Part of the thing that is holding me back with Elantris and Warbreaker is that I like having them as standalones right now, because so much of the rest of my work is so involved, I want to have these introductory books. Eventually I probably will do them, but it is going to take me a little while. I want to number one get further in The Stormlight Archive, I feel that we've had too much delay. Book One and Book Two there was a four year delay. Â Which is-- That's like George R.R. Martin level delay, and granted I did two Wheel of Time books in-between. I should be cut some slack there but that's too long, I want to be consistently doing them every 18 months to two years. Then I can stop and say, "Okay do I have time to write an Elantris sequel or a Warbreaker sequel?"
I love every book of yours I've read. However, I'm a sucker for grim, dark and/or mature fantasy tales (Malazan, Black Company, The First Law, etc). Have you ever considered going right down that route? Have you any stories that you think would fall into more mature/darker territory? Or do you feel that you have no need to go there? (obviously, Stormlight Archive has some quite dark and mature moments but not quite to the level of the aforementioned series)
If you're answer is No, could you explain why?
The Threnody novel, if I find time with it, would probably be the closest you'll see from me. I've read and enjoyed each of the authors you listed above, though my own writing tends to not lean that direction. One reason is that I tried (when trying to break in) to make my style more gritty to see, since GRRM-like was what everyone was searching for. It just didn't feel true to my own voice.
We asked about Bloody Tan. He burned... What is it that he <stole>?
Bandalloy.
Bendalloy.
So... "Does he burn bendalloy?" is your question?
Mhm.
Um... So... Which version of Bloody Tan?
Oh!
The non-Paalm version.
Yeah.
Alloy of Law version.
Okay, so the... Right... Okay, see, I have to kind of ask. He is not burning bendalloy any place you see, I don't believe. Why do you ask if he burns bendalloy?
He mentions that he stole or was involved in steeling a shipment of bendalloy.
Yeah. He steals this because it's worth money. I did-- *interrupted*
Oh, and he's-- wait, which one is-- Is that what makes you fast?
Yes, that's the one that-- *interrupted*
And that he moves Lessie so fast.
Yes, but then a time bubble would have to be used in that, and-- Oh, you mean for... No, yeah, then a time bubble would be involved and the whole bullet thing wouldn't work. He's not using the time bubble there.
Okay, that makes sense.
'Cause if he put up a time bubble he would be moving super fast. But Wax would have known that a time bubble was-- had been thrown up. So good question, but no. I don't believe... Yeah, he wasn't an Allomancer. He stole that because it's money. I can say that with 100% surety. I just have to look through and make sure, "Okay, I'm not-- I didn't do anything in the notes."
Marsh Vs. Sazed
But first we have the Marsh Sazed battle. I really like this scene, since I get to do something very new with it. Do you remember when I promised you that you'd see some cool interactions between Allomancy and Feruchemy?
I realized almost immediately, when designing Feruchemy, that I could do some very fun things with it mixing with Allomancy. With how much that Mistborn depend on their Steelpushes and Ironpulls, a person who can change his weight would have an enormous advantage. Everyone always says that Allomancy is the better combat skill, but that's just because the resource it uses–metal–is far more plentiful than the resource Feruchemy uses. Put the two into a battle together with enough power to spare, and the Feruchemist will almost always win.
At the end of this, Ham gets to do something. Makes me glad that I wrote him back into the story after forgetting about him. . . .
Oh, and that blow to the head was no slight blow–Sazed's actually wrong. That strike will lay Marsh out for some time. Remember what Ham said about two pewter burners canceling each other out? Well, you just had a very strong soldier flaring pewter hit a man who was simply burning it in the back of the head with a stick hard enough to break it. Marsh is out cold.
If there only existed a single atom in the cosmere, would that atom have a Cognitive aspect?
Yes, it probably would.
What is the status of that Arcanum Unbounded Nalthis essay you said you'd like to do one day? Is that still the plan? And, speaking of Nalthis, will we ever see a map of it? I think Warbreaker does a good job of showing the relative locations of places, but us map nerds would really like one, even if just a sketch.
I actually sat down to write it the other day, after someone reminded me on Reddit about it. But I quickly got distracted by something else. Soooo... Yeah, it WILL happen, I just have to squeeze it in.
Could you tell me whose books are the next few Stormlight?
Yes. Eshonai, book four. (Even though, you know...) Szeth is book five. Six is Lift. Seven is Renarin. Eight is Ash. Nine is Taln. Ten is Jasnah.
You've assured readers that Kaladin is a safe name to use for a child or pet. Would you be willing to comment on Adolin in the same way?
I would not.
Here's my thing. This all gives too many spoilers. You're gonna think I'm saying something about that. The reason I would not is not because of anything specific I'm planning about Adolin. Even though you're going to assume that from the way I said this, it is actually not. It is because I realized the danger in confirming that sort of thing and giving away too much of the future.
And so, I would say that most of these names are safe in that, if they turned out to go down a dark route, you could make the argument that you named the character after them when they were on the right path. You can still name a kid Anakin; and Anakin encapsulates the good part of Anakin Skywalker. And I think you can do that and not have it be like, "You are naming your kid after a terrible space tyrant who murders children!" Well, technically, he turned into that, but...
I am not going to tell you other names that are safe. It just potentially gives too much away. What I can promise is that I will try very hard to treat the characters well (as well as they will let me) in the arcs and journeys they decide to go on.
I developed a lexicon of shapes to use in the creation of glyphs.
How do you determine which shapes to use when creating a glyph? Is that phonetic? Are there shapes that only appear in proper nouns, or for abstract concepts?
I don't get to say this very often, but RAFO. :)
I was wondering how you schedule all the books that you write. Do you have adhere to a solid schedule or is it more like you finish a book and go into one you are more excited to write?
Yeah, at this point in my career I have the ability to have a little more influence over that. I do try to keep to kind of a regular schedule. My publishers have learned I'll turn in what I'll turn in, and then they'll publish it. Because I am more productive if I can jump between things.
I almost forgot, now that The Way of Kings first book, first draft is finished, when can we expect that to hit the shelves?
August or September of next year. (Huzzah!)
How long is the lifespan of an Inquisitor?
It depends on the powers they're given. Some burn up quickly, and others are extended. In general though they do tend to have slightly longer lives. Since Marsh has the missing bag of atium he's going to be around for a while.
In Nalthis, when is Breath first bestowed upon a person?
When is Breath first bestowed? Um, so I went-- Oh, so you're getting at this sort of-- I got it. *laughter/pauses* So, are you saying is it at birth or conception?
Pretty much. I'm just wondering *audio obscured by laughter*
…What's that?
I'm wondering if mothers have autonomy over their own bodies when it comes to Breath?
Yes. Uh, I'm going to go ahead and RAFO that one for-- Let's just let it-- Let's let-- Let's let the fanbase discuss that one and come to their own decisions.
Is there an Investiture cycle on Roshar? Cycling through the crem rain and flora and fauna back into the storm, or something like that. Like the water cycle. If Investiture is finite, is it recycled back into the Cosmere when Investiture like Breath or Stormlight is expended? Otherwise, wouldn't Investiture run out?
Yes, there is such a cycle. It is renewed and changed time and time again. It gets in and out of the Spiritual Realm, often with the birth of new individuals.
Does Harmony have Straff Venture's hidden atium?
Harmony has everything he needs, but that doesn't answer your question. No, Harmony does not have Straff's atium.
Also, are koloss just naturally bad-tempered, even without Ruin's influence? Cause the koloss are still taking swipes at Sazed immediately after the merger. (And, does Sazed zap all the koloss? Did they all get toasted by the sun? But what about Human and his friends underground? Are there still koloss around? Just wonderin'.)
Koloss were bad tempered before Ruin's influence, though he certainly made them worse. They were designed by the Lord Ruler to be aggressive, so aggressive that they would destroy themselves if they got loose and away from him. (This was intentional. Note that he didn't give the spark of humanity in them enough credit, and they managed to overcome this and 'evolve' in a way to keep their species going, even after he died.)
There ARE still koloss around, though many of them were vaporized. Human is alive. Sazed took pity on them, however, and they have been transformed. They are now a race that breeds true, like the kandra, and have different thought processes from what they once had. You'll see more of them in the sequel series.
As for non-sequel, original projects, here’s what might be coming in the future, as they stand now.
Does Dalinar bond with the Stormfather differ from any other spren bond?
This bond is a little different.
The silver-nickel alloy that is used in Raboniel's dagger where the... Is that going to do the opposite effect (like a Pushing vs. Pulling) of what silver does to shades on Threnody?
RAFO, good question. Good question!
Investiture in the Cosmere when used goes to the Spiritual Realm, except in one place. What determines which Realm Investiture returns to when it's being used?
Too many factors for me to actually say right here, Evgeni, so I'm gonna RAFO this one. There are lots of reasons that it could go in different ways and different places.
How many of those reasons are rule of cool?
Rule of Cool is definitely a reason. I think he's trying to get at why on Sel things are weird, and I have not explained why things are weird on Sel yet.
Silence Divine (this will be renamed sometime)
I did readings from this on my last tour (you can probably find them on YouTube; it was the Words of Radiance tour). I only have a few pages done, playing with the primary concept. (Diseases grant magical talents for as long as you have the disease—you lose the power when you get over it.) This one has probably been downgraded from full novel to novella, as I feel that something more Emperor's Soul-esque will do a better job with the themes I want to explore.
*reading a personalization request* In the concept of an unreliable narrator, there is a...scope of unreliability. One can be limited by perspective, another can be unreliable with intent. Could you...examine the second type in the Cosmere? Who would be a good example?
Hoid can be very intentionally misleading. The thing is, there aren't many first person viewpoints in the Cosmere stories so if its ever from someone's actual viewpoint-- Like Kelsier is a little unreliable in his viewpoint in that he doesn't go into his plan, which is technically unreliable narrator and it technically is by intent, but it's more like, he's like "I can't think about this" and stuff, but is also him lying to the reader a little bit. Does that make sense? Kelsier is probably the best example of unreliable narrator.
Are you going to be doing another spoilery livestream?
I think that we will be doing another spoilery livestream. When do you want to do another spoilery livestream? We could do one next month, or we could do one the month after. We could say they're an every-six-months thing. So the next one in July. June or July.
Let's start with that. We're gonna do spoilerific livestreams every six months. They are much harder on me, because I have to pay much better attention to what I'm saying. But they are a lot of fun. I could imagine a world where we get to them three times a year, or something like that, but let's just start with that.
The spoiler stream was December 17th. So, June.
June. So it is. That actually works well, because the spoiler streams can be near my birthday every year. Koloss Head Munching Day. Maybe we don't do it on the first Thursday, and we move it back.
Let's just do full spoilers. What do people want? Do you want full Cosmere spoiler, but no spoilers for non-Cosmere? At some point we should do a Cytoverse (as the fans call it), the Skyward spoiler stream. But only after Book Four is out would that make a ton of sense. Maybe we'll just do full Cosmere. Because the only non-Cosmere stuff people would care about spoilers are probably Skyward and Reckoners. Let's do, like, a Skyward and Reckoners one later. Because we do have some things in the Reckoners world coming our way, the novellas that Steven Bohls is writing. And then we have the Skyward stuff. We will do, maybe, a Mistborn exclusive one after Wax and Wayne Four, with only Mistborn.
Personal favorite scene is when Kaladin finally says the words of radiance. I waited a long time to write that scene.
I once--don't do this--I once lit a book on fire. Because I was reading at night, and my mom kept turning my light off so I got out a candle and I was reading by candlelight. And the book started on fire. Yeah, so don't do that.
What's your favorite guild in Ravnica?
Probably Dimir, probably. I mean I'm Esper, but I'm more interested in Dimir than I am in Azorius.
That's exactly where I am, actually. I have an Esper Commander deck, been drafting Dimir heavily. Thank you so much!
I'm glad Dimir's finally good, 'cause in the previous two, Dimir has not been a place you wanted to be, either in original or in returns.
Brandon confirmed that "the element" is the bead of lerasium. Which confirms both this theory, and the theory that Hoid wrote the letter.
When I asked the question, I also thought the element and the lerasium were different. I asked it as a "Hoid clearly has a habit for taking important items. He has the bead of lerasium and the element. What other items does he have that we should know about?"
Brandon's response was that the bead and the element are the same. And that he has many items he should not have.
Soul Forging. Emperor's Soul. If one created the stamp properly, could you, using it, say, Windrunner you stamp, rewrote past to be Lightweaver. Possible?
That is possible and a little easier than a lot of other things. It's gonna run into problems... in that the Oaths are gonna be hard to align.
Probably require some very fine crafting on the stamp.
Very fine crafting on the stamp. And there are certain people that they're just gonna have a hard time fitting into certain Orders. This is a lot easier though than just taking a random person and making them into one, because you're gonna already have Investiture that they've got.
And have the basis of the First Oath.
Yeah. So this is not as hard as it might at first sound. It's the sort of thing that people in the cosmere are looking at. Like, being able to transfer magics between-- and things like that is one of very much interest in the cosmere.
How much more powerful is Nightblood than a regular Shardblade?
I haven't actually quantified that in my own mind so can't give an accurate comparison at this point. I will say that when he is fully consuming Investiture he can do some really freaky things.
I was re-reading the prologues of WoK and WoR... and it seems like there's something wonky going on with the timelines.
Szeth claims Gavilar left the feast hours before he started doing his work.
Jasnah leaves the feast and finds Gavilar and Tearim. Gavilar mentions he's going to head back into the feast. Jasnah then has an adventure. She sees Ivory(?), speaks with Liss and two strange men, and then, what seems like a very short time later in her PoV hears the results of Szeth starting his job.
There's no way it took her hours to walk down two flights of stairs, briefly "drown", and have two short conversations!
Am I completely off base, or is there something going on here with Jasnah's perception of time?
It's less that, and more me (as the author) glossing over time passing with quick phrases like "after walking a short time" and the like.
Is Harmony more powerful than other Shards?
More powerful or more potent?
Um, powerful.
Harmony is two shards in one.
Could he take Odium?
His two shards are at odds with one another.
(This was interesting to me, from his name being Harmony I had assumed Ruin and Preservation merged seamlessly. Brandon seems to be implying that while Sazed can utilize the power of both shards, he can't simply add them together)
So I think you dropped like, so many cosmere bombs in Oathbringer. And I'm just low-key worried that there's not going to be much more to reveal. I hope that that's not the case and I just want a small confirmation.
There is still plenty to reveal. Remember it's two five book arcs.
So we're okay?
Yeah. I've still got a few bombs to drop.
On the Coppermind there is this idea that if a natural Mistborn burned duralumin and then lerasium it would empower them to godly levels. Would this actually happen or would another effect happen.
That actually wouldn't work, but it is a clever idea.
I was wondering, when you started out with book six you didn't really have much of a fan base. How has it been transitioning from lack of a fanbase to this.
This. Um... Wow, yeah. So it's been crazy, definitely been crazy. It's weird because as a writer-- You become a writer to tell your stories, not to become famous, right? But becoming famous-- Nobody becomes famous as a writer, right? That's what you figure and you just want to tell your stories. If you would've gone to me, when, let's say, '99, 2000, when I was in the thick of writing all these books, and come to me and said, "We're gonna give you", um, just pick a normal salary, something like forty grand, "forty grand for the rest of your life and you can write books", I'd have taken that in a heartbeat. That guarantee-- I'm there. I can publish a book a year, I will have readers to make a living on it, that is all I ever wanted. In fact, I'd told people, if I could just get there. Well-- *laughs* Now, with over ten million books out there, it's different. But at the same time, being a writer is awesome in that-- I sat next to somebody on the plane over here and they're like "Oh, what do you do", and I'm like "Well I'm a writer" and like "Oh, should I know who you are?" My response was "No actually, because I'm really, really famous with a really small and weird group of people." *laughter*
And that's probably the best kind of famous. I can-- Like if I go out, right, I'll sign maybe one or two autographs and it feels cool, right? One or two people will recognize me and they'll be like *gasps*, then I'll sign the autograph and it's great, but then I just go on with my life! And it means a ton to the people that it means something to, but to the average people it means Do you want fries with that?" Whatever, who cares. And so I basically live a normal life, right? As normal a life as one can be when, you know, you're traveling to Europe and things like that on tour. But when I'm at home it's very normal, it's just me and my kids and my wife. I write at home. It's a blast, it's a normal life. I play Minecraft with my kids. I hang out and things like that, and then I go on tour and I'm a superstar for a short time with some really cool people, and then I go home and it's just normal again. And so-- Yeah, if you're gonna be famous, be writer-famous. Don't be-- Like even movie stars very few people know, you recognize their face and they can't go anywhere, and I don't think I would want that. So this has been awesome.
And the other thing is, you always want to be able to just write whatever you love, and we talk about that, I mean I, at the end of The Wheel of Time, we paid off my house, we put enough in savings for the kids and for whatever we'd need to pay for for the rest of our lives, and then I retired. I retired like four years ago, retired for me means "I get to write extra books!", so thank you guys for that!
My Year
This year was almost completely dominated by the writing of Oathbringer, Book Three of the Stormlight Archive. The first files I have for the book were Kaladin scenes, written in June 2014. But the book didn't really start in earnest until July 2015, when I wrote the Dalinar flashback sequence. (See State of the Sanderson 2015.) I had those done by October, but November was when I really dove into the novel.
I spent most of 2016 working on it, with only a few interruptions. It was an extremely productive year spent writing on something I'm very passionate about—but it was also a monochrome year, as I poured so much into Stormlight. There were far fewer side projects, and far fewer deviations, than the year before.
I've come to realize I can't do a Stormlight book every year, or even every two years. You can see that this one took around 18 months of dedicated writing time (though that does include some interruptions for edits and work on other things.) My process is such that, when I finish something like Stormlight, I need to move on for a while to refresh myself.
That said, Oathbringer is done as of last week! Here's a quick breakdown of the year.
January: Oathbringer
A lot of this month was revisions. I decided to do something unusual for me, and revise each chunk of the book as I completed it, which let me get my editor working on his notes early in the year—rather than making him wait until this month, when the whole thing finished. That means I'll soon have a second draft of the book completed, though I only completed the first draft a little bit ago.
Also squeezed into January was a trip to Bad Robot, where I had a cool meeting with J.J. Abrams. (In conjunction with a video game my friends at ChAIR Entertainment are making—the Infinity Blade guys. I just gave a few pointers on the story; I'm not officially involved.)
February: Calamity Tour
I toured for Calamity, the last book of the Reckoners. The whole series is out now, so check it out! There is a nice hardcover boxed set of all three available in most bookstores, and it makes a great gift.
While on tour, I read from Stormlight 3, and some kind person recorded the reading for you all. Also, here's another version from FanX in SLC.
March: Trip to Dubai
I was invited to, and attended, the Emirates Festival in Dubai, then traveled south to Abu Dhabi to visit some friends. This was an extended trip, and I often find it difficult to work on a main project (like Stormlight) while traveling. I have too many interruptions. I can write something self-contained, but have more trouble with something very involved.
On this trip, I wrote a novella called Snapshot: a science Fiction detective story where people solve crimes using exact recreations of certain days in the past. It's a little Philip K. Dick, a little Se7en. This one's coming out in February, and will likely be my only release in 2017 other than Oathbringer (which will be in November). More details here.
April: Oathbringer
I got back into the groove of writing, and did a big chunk of Oathbringer Part Two. If you missed the discussions on Reddit, here are my various updates there spanning about a year's time, talking about the book: One, Two, Three, Four, and Five.
May: Edgedancer
I took a short break from Stormlight 3 to write…Stormlight 2.5, an extended story about Lift, with smaller appearances by Szeth and Nale. If you want to get your Stormlight fix before the release in 2017, you can find Edgedancer in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection. (There will eventually be a solo ebook release, but that's a number of years away, as required by my contract with Tor.) I also wrote essays and annotations for each world and/or story in the collection.
When I decided I wasn't going to kill myself (and my team) trying to get Oathbringer out in 2016, I committed to writing this novella to tide people over. I think you'll enjoy this one, unless you're one of the people that Lift drives crazy. In which case you'll probably still enjoy it, but also want to punch her in the face for being too awesome.
June-August: Oathbringer
I finally got a good long chunk of time dedicated to Oathbringer.
I do love traveling, but it takes a big bite out of my writing time. So please don't get offended when I can't make it out to visit your city or country on tour. I try to do as much as I can, but I'm starting to worry that has been too much. Last year, for example, I was on the road 120 days for tours or conventions. This year was a little better, clocking in at about 90 days.
September: Alcatraz Release & Writing Excuses Cruise
Book Five of my middle grade series, Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, came out this month. (A long-awaited book.) You should read it.
The cruise was a fun time, but very unproductive for me. There is too much going on, and too much to organize, for me to get much writing done. I did finish one chapter of a potential novella on the single day of writing time I got. (The story, called "The Eyes," is a space opera inspired by Fermi's Paradox.)
I might do something with the chapter eventually, but for now I'm sending it in to be this month's Random Hat reward for the $10 patrons of Writing Excuses on Patreon.
As a warning to those planning on attending the cruise in 2017: we'll have a ton of awesome guest instructors, and it will be well worth your time and money. I, however, won't be attending. I'll be on the cruise other years in the future, but (like JordanCon, which I love) I can't promise to go every year. Once every two or three years is more likely. It's just a matter of trying to balance touring/teaching with writing.
By the way, JordanCon, FanX, and Dragon Con had some amazing costumes this year—but I'll save those for another post.
October: Europe Tour
Though I had a few good weeks of writing between the end of the cruise and the start of the Europe trip, I quickly lost steam again as I visited France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal on tour. I had an awesome time, signed a ton of books, and met many people in excellent costumes.
November: Arcanum Unbounded Release
Finally, I released Arcanum Unbounded: the Cosmere Collection. The tour for this was short, and I apologize for that, but…well, there's this writing thing I need to do sometimes…
December: Writing Excuses and Oathbringer
I got about half the episodes for next year's writing excuses season recorded at various locations, and then finally managed to type "THE END" for Oathbringer.
There's still a lot of work left on the book, but I'm confident we'll hit our November 2017 release date.
What's the source of rubber on Roshar?
It's not very exciting, it is a tree. It's not an actual rubber tree, it is a Rosharan version of the tree. I actually had to think about this, cause silk doesn't come from the same place that silk comes from. And then, I'm just going too far. Silk I can at least talk about and I can name it seasilk, but for rubber I'm just like, it's a rubber tree. We'll just make it rubber. It's not petroleum based. That's gonna be a hangup on Roshar, that they don't have petroleum reserves in the same way. They are a planet that has only been around for 12,000, 13,000 years. And beyond that, there's the whole crem thing. They do have some sources of petroleum that are biological, or I guess it's all biological, but it's not, yeah. That's gonna be a problem for them, let's just say. Access to large petroleum reserves is not a thing you will find there.
In Dawnshard we learned that Intent and Command are two different things, whereas in Warbreaker Vasher is clearly conflating these two into just saying it's the Command. What's the difference between Intent and Command?
Intent encompasses more understanding. Command is specifically narrow. A lot of times, these things are gonna be conflated, because they basically can be. Like, if Vasher creates an awakened thing and says "go get me those keys." The Intent is: "I need the keys to get outta here. I want to be free." The Command is: "Go fetch keys." Those are two different things, but they are working toward the same goal. It is important in cosmere terms that the Intent is understood, even if sometimes the words that can speak 'em are clunky and smaller in scale by nature than the Intent.
Let's say the Intent of a Shard encompasses more than the word that the Shard is described by. It's a similar thing that the Intent of a Command is often vaster than the actual words spoken. And the magic can grasp the Intent, not just the Command, depending on the magic system and how good you are at it, and things like that. The words are there to focus Intent. How about that?
Bringing the old word "focus" back into it. Let's talk about body focuses; what's going on there? (That's a joke.)
I'll throw you a kernel on that one in the fifth book if you watch for it. That old Rosharan philosophy will actually be relevant for a small thing happening in the fifth book.
Of all your books... who is your favorite audiobook narrator who has narrated your novels?
It is Michael Kramer. And that's a bias of mine because, having listened to a lot of the Wheel of Time books in the early years, I fell in love with Michael and Kate's reading styles, so I've asked for them specifically on several of my projects. I sometimes like to have somebody different for different books just to have some variety in case there are people who don't like that, but they will continue probably to do Mistborn and Stormlight because they're my favorite readers.
There's a WoB on Theoryland that if Hoid was tempted by a Shard it'd be Endowment. Why is that?
There's a word on Theoryland that if he was tempted by a shard it'd be Endowment? Things in his past, that make sense. Will make sense once you know him more.
Hey, thanks for doing this! Are the Ones Above from Sixth of the Dusk the Scadrians at the time of the 3rd trilogy?
I haven't answered this so far, except to say, "They are from a planet you know about." Scadrial is a good guess.
I know that in Dragonsteel there's a lot about Hoid.
Yes.
Do you have any guess when you will revision(?) Dragonsteel?
Yeah... My plan is right now to finish Stormlight, then do Dragonsteel, then do the last Mistborns. So it's kind of far away.
