Timewaster's Guide Archive

If you haven't got this yet, you should be receiving it shortly.

I didn't have time to polish up chapter four the way it deserves, so you get the prologue, which is kind of a cop-out, but that's ok.

Obviously this is kind of important, since it's the first thing in the book. What do you guys think? (Be harsher than usual, since this is the first thing people will see).

Thanks in advance!

Andrew

I spent the last 5 hours trying to fix a problem with windows 7 - every time I would try to access something from My Computer or use any of the Windows Search Functions, Windows Explorer would stop working. After much googling, several possibilities tried (and failed), I finally got it to work. Still, I'm currently using Ubuntu just because I don't want to deal with windows right now.

Anyway, I was curious to see if anyone else had tried windows 7 or had similar problems with it.

Ok, here's the latest out of my book. This chapter ran really really long. As in, like, way longer than I ever expected it to. So if you see a place I could split it effectively, let me know. I thought about taking the first section and splitting it off, but there really isn't enough material there for it to stand on its own. Would it maybe work to split it off and attach it to chapter one? Although it really isn't the greatest suspense to end with.

Did I mention that it's long this week? As in, 6,700 words long. **Ducks for cover**
**Smiles Sheepishly** Sorry

I'm a little bit worried that this will feel like an infodump. That, and I still don't really have Khyus' character completely pinned, which makes it a little difficult to write him. I find it a little bit ironic that I know exactly why my side characters are doing what they're doing, but not my main character. Anyway....

Sorry again about the excessive length. I was under the impression that this was only 5k words or so, but then I just checked again and its 6700. Anyway.

Comment excessively. Grammar edits are as appreciated as continuity and other issues, since this is all NaNoWriMo stuff now, and it kind of hasn't had much revision.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments.

Andrew

EDIT: Just by way of warning, my next submission is 5400 words. I just checked. Consider yourselves warned.

Oh, and as Chaos would say, Eviscerate with Extreme Prejudice! Not really sure where that came from, but it is pretty dang catchy, I'll admit.

Ok, here we are, the final showdown between our two candidates for Hero of Ages. This is the place to cast your vote. The candidate who receives the most votes will be inaugurated by myself on November 1st. Then they will take over as the Hero of Ages.

The Candidate who receives the second-greatest number of votes will be considered the runner-up Hero of Ages, to do what I am currently doing (filling in as Temporary Hero of Ages) in the event that something should happen to the Hero (Like assassination or impeachment).

If the candidates have anything they would like to say to convince the voters of TWG that they should be the new Hero of Ages, now is the time to do it.

You have 6 days from the time I posted this. Go. (I know, that was a pretty dramatic way to end my awesome speech)

So if you want a punishment that isn't on the list, I'll add it if you tell me.  I wasn't sure how long we wanted a term to be either, so I said November first, because that puts the term at about 1 year, which seems reasonable. If you want to shorten the term to a different date, vote for option 2, then post here what you would like to be the shortened term (Yes, at this point, anything is a shortened term, because we don't actually have a defined term).

All, right, as some of you may know, Chaos has been abusing his privileges as Hero of Ages. He has claimed that he has the Divine Right to do basically anything. He has claimed the title of Lord Ruler as his own, though he was not elected to the position, tyrannical as it is. And he has neglected his responsibilities to the members of the Time Waster's Guide as Hero of Ages. As such, a motion has been made to impeach Chaos. The results of this poll will determine Chaos' fate. Consider the deep responsibility you bear in voting on this issue, and good luck.

The poll will run for 20 days. Consider carefully before voting, but don't miss the deadline.....

EDIT: Anyone know how to change the poll so that it's only visible after the deadline? It won't let me do it, for whatever reason.

Ok, I decided to do a new topic instead of just replying in my questions thread because I heard several things from Brandon that I thought everyone would want to know, and not just the people who posted in that thread. I had an extensive conversation with Brandon, like 45 minutes of just me asking questions and him answering, and then there was an hour before that of other people asking questions and him answering. So, if you asked a question that I didn't answer, I'm terribly sorry. I hope you'll just be satisfied with these answers, plus some fun new (to me at least) information. Plus some that I know is new because he told me so.

MAJOR SPOILERS ARE POSTED BELOW FOR ALL OF BRANDON'S PUBLISHED WORKS AND SEVERAL OF HIS UNPUBLISHED

WoT Questions:

1)Who Killed Asmodean? (The single most repeated question. I heard it like 30 times just while standing in line.)
A: RAFO

2)Will we find out who killed Asmodean in The Gathering Storm?
A:RAFO

3) Will you write any other WoT Books after the series is finished?
A: That depends on a lot of things. First of all, if Harriet wants them written. Second, if Brandon feels that they are being written for the right reasons. He would consider writing the Prequels and outriggers if and only if he felt they were being written to complete and enhance the story. If on the other hand he feels like they are just continuing the WoT Franchise, then no. He also said he wouldn't write anything other than the prequels and outriggers no matter what.

Mistborn Questions:

1) What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was feruchemically charged using allomancy?
A: The metal used in allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of feruchemical power with no allomantic effect. The feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and i'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular allomancy, and the feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.

2) If someone aluminum or duralumin burned the feruchemically charged metals, what would happen?
A: Basically the same thing as above, except with aluminum. Aluminum, they would just go away.

3)Does Lerasium have feruchemical and hemalurgical powers.
A: Yes. Brandon will probably be getting into these, and the other metals hemalurgical and feruchemical powers, in greater detail in the future Mistborn Trilogies. He also will probably release full charts for these as he did with allomancy.

4) What benefit does an aluminum savant get?
A: (After a short period of laughing) Is it even possible to become an aluminum savant? You'd have to be burning aluminum consistently, and aluminum just kind of goes away in a burst.... After that, he discussed how being an aluminum misting will likely be considered a handicap in the Mistborn RPG because you can't pick up other allomantic abilities.

5) What do the burnlands look like?
A: The burnlands are the area surrounding the Final Empire Area. They are liveable on the border, but as you get further and further from the final empire, they get more and more barren until eventually nothing can survive. Basically a really large desert. Brandon also mentioned that some koloss live there, because they can survive, and some humans live on the border. These humans actually have some technology that the final empire did not, because they needed it to survive, and/or because they were far enough from the oppression of the Lord Ruler to develop new things. Because of this, the border of the Burnlands would actually be a good setting for a game.

6) Where do the mists go in the day, why do they just disappear?
A: The mists are kind of like the physical manifestation of Preservation's power. During the day, the power is still there, but the mists that accompany them during the night are burned away by the sun. So really, it's more that they are somehow linked to preservations power, and come out at night with the power, but they can't stay with the power during the day because of the sun.

7) Before the Ascension, why did the mists appear just as the well was gaining power? Did they come out at other times?
A: This one is trickier. From what I got out of it, it's because the mists are a manifestaion of preservation, and physical manifestations of preservation (including allomancers) are intended to do two things - stop Ruin, and Protect the Well of Ascension. Which are kind of the same thing. So, when the Well was dormant, the mists didn't really have much to do. The deepness form of the mists is a result of the concious part of Preservation freaking out and trying to produce a way to protect the well, mostly by producing more allomancers. That's why the mists do all the funky things in the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - they're trying to produce more allomancers to combat Ruin.

Why did the mist sickness only happen after the Lord Ruler's Death?
A: It didn't. It just happened on a much smaller scale. As you remember, the Lord Ruler basically =stagnation. Because it seemed the Lord Ruler would be taking the power again (as was intended, and as apparently had been done many times before), and because of the extreme stability of the Final Empire, Preservation (though it really only had a shadow of it's mind left) wasn't as freaked out. After the LR died, Preservation began to attempt to create more allomancers for the reasons mentioned in question 7. It also left clues, such as the number 16 everywhere, so that people would know it was preservation doing it, and not just random chance, or ruin. Turns out that that didn't work so well.

Warbreaker Questions:

1) If Denth had let Vasher erase part of his memories, would he still retain the skills he had learned during that time?
A: To an extent. He would still have the reflexes and such, but skill isn't entirely reflexes, so he would lose the parts actually associated with memory. It would be easier for him to re-learn, due to his already having the reflexes, but he wouldn't be nearly as good at these skills without the memories or re-learning them. As a side note, Denth almost did it. Like really really close. He decided not to because he felt that he would be losing part of himself. And he would be right.

General Questions:

1) How do you name characters?
A: Based mostly on linguistic patterns and other things like that. When Brandon has a particular group of people, they speak a particular way. He constructs names for them using those speech patterns.

2) Will you be attending DragonCon this year?
A: Yes

Other Happy and Exciting information on various books:

Nightblood: Would mostly be about Vasher and Vivenna hunting down the last of the five scholars. Apparently.

Way of Kings: Is set on a strangely awesome world. Apparently, a super large storm (like hurricane size) passes across the Earth every few days. This happens in a very predictable cycle. Because of this, there is no soil anywhere, everything is stone. The plants and animals have adapted to this environment, so they are also pretty strange. The plants, for instance will be much like a coral reef. They have shells, or can withdraw into the ground, and do so when the storm comes. They also will do the same thing if you try to step on them and such. So like, as you're walking, the grass around you shrinks into the ground, and pokes back out again when you pass.

I also found out that the Way of Kings is largely about the birth of magic, since Brandon was tired of fantasy books talking about the death of it. As such, most of the magic systems are largely unknown, and will be explored. There was at one previous time, several hundred years past, magic on the earth. However, it's been gone for a while, and is being rediscovered. There are a total of 30 planned magic systems, and the books will jump around chronologically between the present and character's pasts. The technology level is a typical fantasy, Renaissance minus gunpowder. At least I think that's what he said.

He also mentioned these awesome suits of armor and like 6 foot long swords that he called "Shard Plate" and "Shard Blades." Apparently, they are the only relics left over from the time when mankind originally did have magic. Also, in the mythology of this world, mankind originally lived in heaven. However, a race of beings called (I think) the Voidbringers conquered heaven and basically cast mankind out to the earth. They made war on them again and tried to cast them out to hell, but mankind devised These Shard Blades and Shard Plate as a method of fighting the Voidbringers and were able to push them back. He also mentioned that the world is currently basically dominated by those who have these magical items, and one person with a suit of shard plate and a shard blade is basically the equivalent of an army. When I asked him if these were related to the Shards of Andonalsium at all, he said, "Maybe." He also confirmed that the Stormlight Chronicle (Way of Kings) takes place in the Shards universe.

The reason Way of Kings is called the Stormlight Chronicle apparently has to do with the massive hurricanes that come through every few days. If you leave a gemstone out during the storm (and affix it to something so it won't blow away), it will gain magical properties. One  of these is that they give off light, called stormlight. The other that he mentioned is that they can be used kind of like a battery, and are used to power the Shard Plate Suits. 

That's all I remember about the Way of Kings right now, maybe I'll remember something later.

Some as of yet unwritten book that I can't remember the title of, but know that it included the word Divine. Maybe Ook can help me out here. Anyway, it has a magic system in which the magic is caused by bacteria. Basically, the bacteria and parasites want their hosts to survive as long as possible, so they give them magic. The example Brandon used was that if someone caught the common cold, they could fly until they got over that cold.

The second mistborn trilogy: Takes place in an urban setting with guns, cars, skyscrapers, etc. Plot will center around a group of allomancers paid by the government to take out allomancer criminals and will involve a mistborn (which is rare at this time) serial killer.

Brandon briefly mentioned Dragonsteel, but didn't say anything substantial about it except that it included dragons and that it was 7 books long. That was just about it.

Over-arching thing with the shards of andonalsium: Brandon told me tonight that he actually has a chart/list thing with all of the books that he's planned in the shards universe. His exact words were something about having an arch over thirty-six books involving the shards of andonalsium. Which makes me wonder if we're going to get some of the story about andonalsium. He also said that there were only a few lines in each book to give us clues. Apparently there's something in the HoA, but I didn't notice anything when I read through it. Of course, I wasn't looking for it. He mentioned that there were 36, or possibly 38 (he couldn't remember which) books that would be in this universe. They included all of the mistborn books (all 3 trilogies), all of the Stormlight Chronicle, all of Dragonsteel, Elantris, Warbreaker, White Sands, the Other book that I mentioned but can't remember the title of, and others. I'm excited.

So that's what I remember for now. If I remember anything else, I'll let you know. If you have questions, feel free to ask them, they may make me remember something more. 

EDIT: I find it funny that I posted this without realizing that 8 + ) = . So that's the reason for the random sunglasses man.

EDIT 2: I forgot Elantris Sequel, if it happens. If Brandon makes one, it will be from the viewpoint of Sarene's uncle's children. Or I guess that makes them her cousins. The one who was like autistic and the other little girl. I don't remember their names.