Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: Peter Ahlstrom on May 08, 2005, 05:09:48 PM
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Why am I not surprised?
My vote is that it's NOT the third Mistborn book and NOT an Elantris sequel and NOT a rewrite of something else either, though it may recycle some ideas.
[EDIT: and it's also NOT a novel in the Mystery genre!]
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I think it's a story on having a name starting with B.
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I'm guessing it's a YA, which is something he's been saying he should do. Either that or he's going to get married or something like that.
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He's going to write american batchelors (with) mechas in novel form?
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He's going to write comic books!
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Wait, wait wait...
This looks interesting but seems to have started mid-stream. Where did this thread really start?
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Where it appears to. It refers to the progress progression thingy at the top left of EUOL's site. EUOL has not, to my knowledge, actually posted anything here about it.
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Ah. Thanks, e.
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I know what it is. :)
But since EUOL himself has obviously ommited explaining it, I won't do it for him.
Let's just say that it has to do with sand.
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white sand, possibly?
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He's going to fashion a beach after himself?
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I like White Sand. :)
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If it's White Sand, I lose...
That would be the second complete rewrite on that book!
I do like it, though...was thinking about it the other day, wossname's dead fiance, wondering how that fit into Elantris for half a minute, when I realized it wasn't Elantris at all.
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Sorry to burst all of your bubbles, but the "Mystery Project" isn't actually one of my stories at all. I'm just posting a progress report for a friend of ours, since he doesn't have his own website.
You see, after a long hiatus, Stet has decided to put pen to paper again. He's trying something a little different this time, and I'm sure that he'll reveal it eventually. (Probably not until it's done, though. You all know what a drama queen he is.)
I, of course, don't have time for such tangents, since I have to be a good boy and work on the MISTBORN trilogy for Tor.
By the way--Fell, he was wondering if he could borrow 'Cecil' as a pen name. Are you ever going to use it?
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If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. :)
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Stet needs a nom de plume, does he?
My dad's dad's name was Cecil Fred Ahlstrom.
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I told him about a conversation Fell and I had, where we came up with some stuffy British name. Something like "Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third." Seems like it would be a good, pretentious-sounding pen name.
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You could always look through Mr. Norrell and Jonathon Strange for haughty 19th century English names. Plenty of them in there. And I ain't not nothing but no joking.
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I told him about a conversation Fell and I had, where we came up with some stuffy British name. Something like "Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third." Seems like it would be a good, pretentious-sounding pen name.
Haha... here, it's American's who are known (and mocked for) their tendency to take the same names in a line. Bob, Bob Jr, Bob the third...
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You forgot Billy Bob.
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Haha... here, it's American's who are known (and mocked for) their tendency to take the same names in a line. Bob, Bob Jr, Bob the third...
Y'know, like George. George II, George III, Henry, Henry VIII
Yeah, it's the Americans that do that.
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In high school I came up with a multicultural name...something like Jean-Muhammad Big Horse de von O'McGoldberg-Nguyen.
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Kings are allowed, and expected, to do that. Business men with silly accents are not.
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sounds like random criteria to me. 8 people named "Henry" is pretty goofy. ESPECIALLY for a king.
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Yes, but they were Royalty. Different rules (with bigger price tags) apply!
Plus, who is going to argue with a man whose slippers cost more than the sum of their possessions?
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Most Americans, actually....
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actually, I don't know that I really will argue with that person. Especially if their name is Edward II. I'd be FAR too busy laughing at them.
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Laughing at Edward II is fully encouraged. Laughing at his father was a rather riskier affair...
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No White Sand?
Ah MAN!
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All right.
Well, if I've been slightly incommunicado for a few weeks, it's because I've been rather busy. A still little side project I started working on ended up consuming my soul for sixteen days. (Sorry about the lack of EUOLogies. I'll pop some out next week, then you can ration them for a while.)
So, anyway, the Mystery Project is finished. It is, as Stacer guessed, a YA fantasy. Very light-hearted, kind of in the vein of KNIGHT LIFE, which some of you have read.
The fact of the matter is, I'd just written so many deep, ponderous books lately (THE WAY OF KINGS, MISTBORN, MISTBORN 2) that I needed to write something lighter to kind of 'cleanse the palate' so to speak. I also wanted to hone my comedic skills a little bit, just in case Fell and I do end up doing a novel together.
However, when it comes to writing, I tend to get very single-minded and go overboard. That's why this is my sixteenth novel. It's finished now, clocking in at 53,000 words and about 300 manuscript pages. (Take that, NaNoWriMo!)
I honestly don't know if it's any good or not. I'm getting more well-read in the YA (or, I suppose this is Middle Grade) field, but I don't know enough. I suspect this book is a little derivative, since I don't have a large body of works to draw upon for inspiration.
However, I think it's quite a bit of fun. On Monday, I'll give it a solid rewrite. After that, I'll be looking for readers--especially readers who are familiar with children's lit. I realize this probably isn't a monolithic, amazing work that will change the genre. However, if it turns out that you all think it's publishable, then I'll probably try and sell it.
Thanks!
(By the way--yes, technically Stet wrote this. But, he's too much of an eccentric recluse these days to put out a book, so he's letting me handle all of the publicity and the like.)
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16 days? Ha ha ha... v_v
I would like to give it a read...Karen reads lots of YA so she could likely give some useful opinions as well.
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Yeah I'd also like to read it.
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I'd like to read it at some point.
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I'd be interested as well. I collect a lot of YA books.
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A YA novel, huh? Sure sounds interesting to me. (After all, I owe my obsession w/ spec fic to reading the Narnia and Prydain books, among others).
But I seem to recall some mention that the super-busy EUOL never has time for "mystery projects" and that the progress bar on his home page was for a "friend" of his. Ah, I love the Freudian irony of that.
Of course, I'd like to read it too. I realize EUOL probably wouldn't trust a ms to a newbie like me. Sigh. I'm really curious to hear about the storyline, though. So here's hoping that he'll throw us a little tidbit or two!
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He gave me a couple and i never got around to giving him feedback. Which is kind of embarrassing it must be said.
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As the resident YA/children's editor, EUOL, I hope you were expecting me to read it. I'd like to, at least.
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Hehe, he was talking to his agent and editor today about this and I swear I heard them groaning when he told them that he "accidently" wrote another book instead of editing Misborn 2.
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Moshe too? I would have thought he'd pitch it for a different publisher...though Tor does have that relatively new YA line...
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That's the plan Ookla. He figures he has a better chance at getting this published through Tor's new line.
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They have first refusal on my next book, Ookla. Now, that's supposed to be MISTBORN 2, but I'll probably have this one in shape faster.
I'll be sending e-copies to those regular Brandon alpha-readers who want one. It might even go off tonight.
Right now, I'm planning to send to:
Ookla (and therefore Karen)
Tekiel (It wouldn't be right if an Olsen weren't one of the first to read one of my books.)
Stacer (Of course I want to send it to you. You're the resident expert. I just wasn't certain if you wanted to read something like this, since you now do it for work.)
Brenna and Fuzzy: You guys want e-copies, or do you want to wait for the physical copy?
Entropy: Yeah, one of these days you'll get back to me on a book BEFORE it comes out, right?
Cinder: You're in Utah, right? I'm wary of sending off e-copies of books to people I don't know--since it would take them all of three clicks to stick the entire text on-line. However, I'd be more than happy to get the physical copy to you sometime, so you could do an alpha-read for me.
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Stacer (Of course I want to send it to you. You're the resident expert. I just wasn't certain if you wanted to read something like this, since you now do it for work.)
Sure I want to. I did it for "work" in grad school, too. :) It's not really competing with what I do since 1) Tor has first dibs and 2) we're not doing non-series at this point. So it's a personal project anyway.
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Entropy: Yeah, one of these days you'll get back to me on a book BEFORE it comes out, right?
Hey hey! Lets not be hasty about this. :P I could give you some critique on the ones I read (elantris and way o kings) but it's not like it'd be useful at this point, right? Well, other than that you need to work more on adding depth to your worlds... they don't seem to have existed past the last 50 years or so. It's jarring to a tolkien fan. Plus, less mass genocide at the end of the novels please :P
If the draft of mistborn you gave me back in the day is still the current one I could throw you a few comments I suppose, after reading it..
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What do you feel is lacking in depth? Way of Kings still has plenty of time for comments to be paid attention to, so I imagine specifics would be more useful than "it doesn't seem to have existed" (to me WoK had thousands of years of history...)
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Ya but Elantris dosen't, which is the most recent one Entropy has read.
I haven't read WoK though I have read through most of the world book EUOL created for it, which is very intresting and I'm hopeing he'll get it illastrated and published sometime.
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To me WoK had the present, and the comments of dead dude (the conan wannabe) about the previous age. It seemed like there was this void in, between these two timeperiods. All that was mentioned was the vaguest stuff (lots of kingdoms fell).
To give comparison, Wheel of time has a similar setup in some ways (present with some characters remembering another age), but it almost brought mentions of past events in. How a war back in the day caused a certain nation to form, and restrictions to be placed on the Aes Sedai. That sort of thing, mentioning how the past shaped the present. WoK didn't give me the same feeling. It felt in some ways like everything just sprung up fully formed in it's current configuration.
Of course you've got limited space to do that sort of thing in, but I've seen it done without information dumps.
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What you describe is something good to have, and it's not something I can remember about WoK as it's been so long since I read it. But comments like that should be helpful.
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It's off! I sent it via my Yahoo address because I'm out of town. So, expect a large email from a strange address! Don't reply to that address, though--I don't check it!
Just to confirm email addresses:
Ookla, it went to your ameritech
Stacer, it went to your hotmail
Tekiel, it went to your Yahoo
Chimera, it went to your Yahoo
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Me!
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You never replied to my question, Fuzzy. I asked if you wanted an e-copy, or if you wanted to wait for the physical copy, which is sitting on my mom's table right now. (Same question goes to Brenna.)
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I'd prefer an ecopy because I'm horrible about returning manuscripts.
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Fuzzy,
It's off!
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EUOL, check your PMs. Since I'm fairly certain you'll check this soon.
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I'd like to see the physical copy. I can take it on my forever long commute to give me something to do. :)
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Cinder: You're in Utah, right? I'm wary of sending off e-copies of books to people I don't know--since it would take them all of three clicks to stick the entire text on-line. However, I'd be more than happy to get the physical copy to you sometime, so you could do an alpha-read for me.
Yep, I'm in Utah. I completely understand why you're wary of sending e-copies. Of course, if you did know me, you'd know I have no idea how to do any HTML stuff or make web sites. I know how to send and open attachments and paste stuff in emails, but I'm no webmaster.
But anyway, I would really love to be an alpha-reader. Yet I spoke too soon. As usual with me, I've piled my plate really high with various projects, so I don't have much time to add other stuff. :'(
And, actually, I didn't expect you'd be willing to trust an "unknown" like me with a copy! (Nothwithstanding my musical spoofing talents.) It's cool for you to offer, though! So I'm definitely sorry I can't take you up on doing a read--at least not for a month or two, if then.