Today’s post is subtitled, Or Mike gets some culture, Part 2 of a series.
Welcome regular readers and those being directed here from Dragonmount! In his first public appearance (see notes below) since the announcement of Harriet’s choice, Brandon Sanderson read from his second Mistborn (The Well of Ascension) novel and had a nice question and answer session, as well as some informal discussion while singing books. Read below for my thoughts and observations, all wrapped up in a somewhat typical post (but no links this time) here at my blog. Feel free to leave comments at the bottom, and come back soon, I’ll be posting pictures later this weekend!
Update: Check out the photo gallery here.
Alright, here’s my thoughts and observations from Brandon Sanderson’s reading from tonight, but first a few musings about traffic that I’ve been meaning to discuss (and one new one) and a quick word of caution: I have not read the entire WoT series, I’m in book 6, Lord of Chaos right now. I tried reading it a few times, but always got pulled away by things that had to be read for college. Once I had the chance and I made it through The Eye of the World, I was hooked and I’ve been reading them ever since.
And for those who don’t know, Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time passed away before finishing the twelfth and final book of the main story arc. His wife and editor, Harriet, chose Brandon Sanderson to finish A Memory of Light in her husband’s place. Now, onto the traffic (sorry, no weather together):
The orange lights in the outbound Squirrel Hill tunnel have been out for a few days, and every time I go through, it shocks me a bit, strange. St. Bernadette’s church redid their traffic flow, going back to the old way which has you driving on the left side of the yellow line…archaic and ass-backwards if you ask me, but then again, look at the source. And thirdly, driving today was wonderful! Going from Flag to the South Side only had one minor delay (Bates Street, but I was expecting it), and coming back on the Parkway was wonderful!
Okay, now onto the real part of the post, me getting some culture. If you haven’t noticed, these aren’t going to be in chronological order, but I’m okay with that, and you’re going to be okay with that too, I promise, it will be just fine. I figured I would write about this one while it’s fresh in my mind. Originally I wasn’t going to do an in-depth write-up, but then I realized it was really cool, I got some culture, and if other people could gleam some good stuff from it, all the better. That being said, I did take notes during the reading, but that was mostly for my own benefit: to grab some quotes, and to get some inspiration for NaNoWriMo, and as it turns out, Mr. Sanderson is an excellent resource for the NaNo process (if you ever happen to read this Mr. Sanderson or Chris Baty, you two should get together, maybe do a November pep talk or something).
So anyway, I got to SouthSide Works, parked (I missed the machine to get the ticket at first and had to back up, a bit embarrassing, but not really surprising, hehehe). We ordered chinese today at work, so I ate my sandwich that I brought as my dinner, so I got to walk around SouthSide Works eating a chipped ham sandwich, how appropriate (more food thoughts to come!).
The venue, Joseph-Beth Bookstore, was very nice, and I will definitely go there again when I’m in the area, the staff was very helpful and kind, although it did throw me off a bit that they pride themselves in being "not another chain store" when they are growing healthfully into a chain, but I digress.
I wandered for a bit, and eventually picked up Mr. Sanderson’s books (I had read about them online before and they sound awesome, once I finish one or two of the ones I’m reading, I’ll dive into them) and I took a seat. Sadly, only about five of us were there when he started, and that included his agent, but it was a nice atmosphere (if only the fireplace had been going!).
He answered a few questions and then went into the reading portion. Mr. Sanderson said that he normally likes to read from his unpublished works, but his laptop is in Salt Lake and he was trying to get a new chapter e-mailed to him by his wife, but it just wasn’t working.
Mr. Sanderson commented that he likes when magic feels like science, and that if it were real (what, it’s not?!) he imagines it would be studied like the other sciences. When creating Mistborn, he went from an 1800’s London and a gang of thieves as the heroes, and based the magic and setting around that, keeping the magic connected to the politics and economic systems.
He also explained how he writes: picturing pivotal scenes in his head, almost as if they are movies, and then works to connect those scenes, working from a (non-specific) outline. I think this was how I approached my NaNo book this year, although I did a lot of the ‘important’ scenes, and left out most of the in-between stuff by the time the 30th rolled around, but then again, that’s why he’s the professional author and I’m not…hehehe.
"A good book is always going to focus on characters." This struck a chord, I think also because he was also comparing this to the work of another favorite author of mine, Terry Pratchett. He said (and I agree), Pratchett’s work is so engaging and enjoyable because you’re laughing as the plot, and as the characters are moving forward. Something I’ll work on for next year’s book, I know this year my main character was already in my head and I knew him pretty much inside and out, but every now and then he still surprised me (although last year’s characters threw me for loops a lot), although Mr. Sanderson said that isn’t something that happens for him. If a character surprises him, he takes it as something to be rewritten, his characters are planned and he knows them, but he can’t describe them. I can’t write that way, I let things flow and do what they want, but then again, as I said above, he’s the one getting paid to do this…maybe I should pay attention to this trend…
"It’s fun to watch Star Wars and watch the characters mow down the stormtroopers. But then the characters don’t have to deal with it." I don’t know if that quote is completely word-for-word, but I got the meaning (I believe he said it in a much more concise way). It’s interesting, and something we do take for granted, especially when following the ‘hero.’
Mr. Sanderson is amazingly kind, has a great sense of humor and is really personable. I also felt like he was the right choice (not that I would presume that I could even begin to make that choice in Harriet’s place) because we both have the same favorite character (I think I read this on his website): Perrin, and as he said "I don’t like to glorify violence, but I love big action scenes." Being the pacifist that I am, I love that quote, because it’s true, I love a good bloody movie or violent video game.
Anyway, he read from The Well of Ascension, the title of this post being the lead-in, and even though I was lost and confused, I love the style, and enjoyed what I was hearing, I really am excited to read his books. Afterwards we had more Q and A, and I got to dive into some WoT with him, but after a question about his love of female fantasy protagonists. Mr. Sanderson said his main influences were the authors of Dragon’s Bane, Dragon Flight and Dragon Prince, all writers during the feminist fantasy movement of the seventies. And of course, in my mind, I was seeing Joss Whedon talk about powerful female characters, and it was wonderful to see the connection, I wonder if either Whedon or Sanderson has noticed it themselves.
So then I got to ask my questions, and as strange as they may sound, you have to understand, I haven’t read past 200 pages into book 6, and they are logistical things that fans might have taken for granted. I asked if he had considered the title "A Memory of Light" and if he would keep it. He said he loved it (which I do to, I think it is appropriate, even halfway through the series), and that being the title Jordan gave us, it really wasn’t his to change. He did say though that other WoT books had changed titles during the publishing process, and book 12 might have too, but it wasn’t his place to change it.
My second question was whether or not he would release the prologue before the book was published. Mr. Sanderson has a record of releasing three chapters of his books online, and he has thought about it, and would like to, but that decision is Harriet’s, not his. He would suggest it, and he was confident that Tor would have input as well, but it was Harriet’s decision to make.
Other things of note (of various interest):
- There is a potential movie deal in the works (Mistborn), but he couldn’t say anything about it.
- If he returns to the Mistborn series, it would most likely be in the future, he set out to write a trilogy and that is what he’s writing. Being the author he knows the past and future of the world, so he could go back if he wanted, but it would just be set in that world, not another Mistborn book.
- "I wrote 13 books before publishing my first one. I fear telling people that, they’ll think I’m pretty terrible. And I was pretty terrible."
- "I can write a good sentence, sometimes a good paragraph, maybe even a good page."
- Mr. Sanderson tries to write two books a year, to change things up and keep it fresh in his mind, lest he gets burnt out. Again, I’m seeing NaNoWriMo connections…
Afterwards we went up and got things signed, and we had a good time (the six or so of us) in line, we talked about other authors, role playing groups and of course, books. When it was my turn, I asked if he had been to Pittsburgh before, and he said it was his first time (He was around the city, I guess doing other book signings at a Borders and a Barnes and Noble, his agent lost his phone somewhere along the way…), and I of course, suggested that he get a Primanti Bros. sandwich before he left town, I described it to him, which I’m sure to someone from out of town, it sounds disgusting, but really, it’s great!
He signed the three books that I bought, and then I asked if he would sign a large printing I had of the placeholder image for book 12 (it’s a bit pixelated because Photoshop was not cooperating, but if you hold it at arms length, or aren’t up close to it, it looks fine) and he agreed, afterwards telling me that it is the first thing that he has signed that is associated with the Wheel of Time (whoo hoo, I’m special, and not the short bus special…well, maybe…)!
All in all, a great time. I’m really glad I went, it was my first book reading by an author, and I had a phenomenal time. Mr. Sanderson is kind and funny, a bit scattered (like me), and a great storyteller, and I’m excited that I got the chance to meet him (even though I’m always intimidated by celebrities). Cool fact: he had Robert Jordan’s notes with him. We didn’t get to see them, but they were there (I guess he’s working as he travels and promotes), so that was pretty awesome!
Alright, I’ll end with one more quote from the reading, this one from chapter 43. I really liked it, and of course, it’s out of context, but it made me want to read them even more. I hope you enjoyed this post (it’s a biggie), and like I said, come back later this weekend for photos! Have a great one (good luck TJ, Jeanette, Sarra, and of course, even Central in your state final games tomorrow)!
"You want to protect him, but he won’t let you."
