Hey, I've made a blog, and it has a very specific purpose in mind. I'm been toying around with creating my own Word of Brandon database for about a year to collect cosmere-related tidbits, and I finally got the ball rolling in some key ways and like what's going on with it. I'm gonna try and use this blog to make monthly updates, for two reasons:
Structured updates are a great way to make sure I keep working on a project, and if anyone's interested in following/helping it can give them an
No progress to report, unfortunately. I had said that this would be a very unproductive couple of months for WoB archive stuff. But quite productive in other areas of my life: Sidewalk 2, Pagerunner 3 (OT).
These sorts of "no update" updates are still important, though. This project isn't off my radar, and neither is the new WoB database project. I just don't have any time to devote to them. I did buy some new hardware to make this work go easier, but I haven't found time to use it yet (it'
Here we are: the finish line. I've completed my review of all of Brandon's TWG posts. I decided not to review Peter's at this time; the one thing I knew I wanted to find was the Dragonsteel excerpt that Peter had posted there once, but it was part of the recently released chapters, so I don't feel the need to dig for it anymore. That closes out the last thing I wanted to review of Brandon's social media; I haven't gotten it all into Arcanum yet (the new WoB Archive, in case any of you haven't he
No Backlog Progress
Man, I picked a bad time to start this blog up again. WorldCon was less than a week old at the time of my last blog post. And then in September there was the HUGE FanX (with, like, 20 hours of audio when it was all said and done) and a very dense Legion release party. Add in the Read for Pixels live chat, this surprise Reddit Skyward AMA, and all the Brandon social media since June, I haven't had any time to look at the other backlog items. Those above-mentioned events s
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 99%: Brandon 99% (97/98), Peter 99% (103/104), Isaac 99% (103/104), Ben 99% (92/93) Reddit 75%: Brandon 99% (126/127), Peter 99% (99/100), Isaac 94% (17/18), Ben 0% (0/81), Adam 89% (8/9) Twitter 39%: Brandon 99% (119/120), Peter 12% (14/120), Isaac 11% (14/127), Adam 27% (14/51) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (206/207)
Social Media Total: 80% (1357/1704) Theoryland Review: 10% (121/1183) Events and Si
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (102/102), Peter 100% (108/108), Isaac 100% (108/108), Ben 100% (97/97) Reddit 79%: Brandon 100% (131/131), Peter 100% (104/104), Isaac 100% (22/22), Ben 11% (9/85), Adam 100% (13/13), Store 100% (3/3) Twitter 42%: Brandon 100% (124/124), Peter 15% (19/124), Isaac 15% (19/131), Adam 35% (19/55) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (211/211)
Social Media Total: 81% (1431/1760) Theoryland Re
Social Media Total: 100% (2211/2211)
Theoryland Review: 84% (997/1184)
Events and Signings Review: 0% (0/397)
So, turns out it was not clear by September. And it's not really clear by October, either. Such is life. But do have enough free time to get back on top of WoBs; Arcanum is completely up to date on the latest stuff, Theoryland review is well on its way to being done (I expect it will be completely done by the time Rhythm of War comes out), and I'm planning to use some of my ev
So, let's learn some more details about exactly what I'm gathering and how I'm structuring it. First, we'll start with the actual tables and relationships that I used to construct the database. (A Microsoft Access database is, at its core, a collection of tables. Lines from the different tables can be linked together, to reflect connections among those tables. Microsoft actually provides some pretty good training videos, if you don't know anything about Access. )
So, the centerpiece of the
In my last post, I talked about the kinds of information I'm gathering and how it's structured. But the interface you saw there isn't very conducive to quick browsing – the WoB text field would need to be obscenely wide, there are some fields we don't particularly care about most of the time, and the information was spread across several tabs. Thankfully, there's a better way built into Access to view information in a table: Forms.
In an Access form, you basically view a single row at a t
WoB Count: 405 Reddit: 15% Twitter: 0%, 0/93 months Blog: 22%, 31/144 pages Interviews: 0%, 0/475
Okay, so here's my first structured update. I've made posts pretty frequently this last week and a half, but I'll probably shoot for once a month now that I've gotten things rolling.
Two major differences from what I said I was gonna do. First, I've added Brandon's blog. A lot of them were included in Theoryland's interview database, but I spun them off into their own category. There's no
WoB Count: 699 Reddit: 86% Twitter: 0%, 0/93 months Blog: 29%, 42/144 pages Interviews: 0%, 0/475
April comes after February, right? No update for last month... sorry about that, but I was very busy with important work. Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. I'm pretty much done with that for now, so I can get back to working on the database.
Biggest news, I've worked through the old Reddit backlog. Unfortunately, there was another AMA, so I've got a new Reddit backlog. It won't be as l
WoB Count: 759 Reddit: 100% Twitter: 9%, 9/97 months Blog: 53%, 77/145 pages Interviews: 0%, 0/484
Welcome back, everyone. Things are still moving along - as you can see, I am 100% up to date on Reddit! (Well, as much as I can be. There will probably be some other snippets I'll pull in that are listed on their own in Theoryland or in their own topics on the Shard.) Right now, I'm still working my way through the blog and through Twitter chronologically. I'm actually pretty much at the same
WoB Count: 998 Reddit: 100% Twitter: 29%, 28/97 months Blog: 79%, 114/145 pages Interviews: 2%, 8/485
So, big news this past month for WoBs. The Shard admins finally announced their new database. I posted all my Reddit WoBs, because I got tired of people asking me to find something for them. Good times.
As you might not be surprised to hear, I have been tapped as one of the beta users for the new WoB system. I'll be adding what I have while seeing if I can break the system, and make an
Well, I warned you all. No progress.
But that is all going to change. After a few weeks without internet and really bad cell reception in my new apartment, I finally have everything set up and ready to. I plan on spending a good chunk of time this weekend working on getting my Reddit stuff into the Shard's new database; things should go pretty quick, since I have my new dual-monitor system that will make it a breeze. And I have no friends down here yet to distract me. And there's a hurrican
WoB Count: 4419 Reddit: 100% Twitter: 100% Blog: 79%, 114/145 pages TWG: 0%
Making up for lost time on these updates, since I was able to complete a lot of work in the last week. I had four solid days where I was rained in during Hurricane Harvey, and I was able to import nearly my entire database into the new Shard archive, and finish up my Twitter review while I was at it. (Well, everything in Twitter from 2015 on had already been taken care of, so I didn't have to do as much as I thought
Reddit: 100% Twitter: 100% Blog: 100% TWG: Brandon 20% (49/249 pages), Peter 0% (0/326 pages)
The review of the blog is done. And now I slog through the TWG. It's a little weird, going through Brandon's musings about music and movies and lingerie (really). Most of it isn't relevant in the slightest, but there are some rare gems. I posted the Aether stuff I found a couple months ago; those are the sort of things I'm looking for. Even though it's a couple thousand posts between Brandon and Pe
TWG 33%: Brandon 100% (113/113), Peter 0% (0/113), Isaac 0% (0/75), Ben 0% (0/38) 17s 0%: Brandon 0% (0/91), Peter 0% (0/97), Isaac 0% (0/97), Ben 0% (0/86) Reddit 40%: Brandon 99% (119/120), Peter 0% (0/93), Isaac 0% (0/11), Ben 0% (0/74), Adam 0% (0/2) Twitter 29%: Brandon 99% (112/113), Peter 0% (0/113), Isaac % (0/120), Adam 0%(0/45) Blog 99%: Brandon 99% (170/171) Social Media Total: 33% (514/1572)
Theoryland Total Review: 0% (5/1183) Events and Signings review: TBD
What is this? A p
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38)
17S 51%: Brandon 100% (93/93), Peter 100% (99/99), Isaac 0% (0/99), Ben 0% (0/88)
Reddit 43%: Brandon 100% (122/122), Peter 11% (10/95), Isaac 0% (0/13), Ben 0% (0/76), Adam 0% (0/4)
Twitter 36%: Brandon 100% (115/115), Peter 8% (9/115), Isaac 7% (9/122), Adam 20% (9/46)
Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (202/202)
Social Media Total: 62% (1013/163
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 50%: Brandon 99% (93/94), Peter 99% (99/100), Isaac 0% (0/100), Ben 0% (0/89) Reddit 42%: Brandon 99% (122/123), Peter 10% (10/96), Isaac 0% (0/14), Ben 0% (0/77), Adam 0% (0/5) Twitter 35%: Brandon 99% (115/116), Peter 8% (9/116), Isaac 7% (9/123), Adam 19% (9/47) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (202/203)
Social Media Total: 61% (1013/1648)
Theoryland Review: 3% (35/1183)
Events and Signings R
Sorry, guys. It's been another really busy month for me, and I've been hard-pressed to keep up with this project... SIKE! I have actually been busy, but I did manage make some progress this month.
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (96/96), Peter 100% (102/102), Isaac 100% (102/102), Ben 100% (91/91) Reddit 58%: Brandon 100% (125/125), Peter 63% (62/98), Isaac 0% (0/16), Ben 0% (0/79), Adam 0% (0/7) Twitter 38%
We're about to wrap up the Social Media part of the review. Getting pretty close.
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (97/97), Peter 100% (103/103), Isaac 100% (103/103), Ben 100% (92/92) Reddit 68%: Brandon 100% (126/126), Peter 100% (99/99), Isaac 0% (0/17), Ben 0% (0/80), Adam 0% (0/8) Twitter 39%: Brandon 100% (119/119), Peter 12% (14/119), Isaac 11% (14/126), Adam 28% (14/50) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (206/20
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (102/102), Peter 100% (108/108), Isaac 100% (108/108), Ben 100% (97/97) Reddit 72%: Brandon 100% (131/131), Peter 95% (99/104), Isaac 77% (17/22), Ben 0% (0/85), Adam 62% (8/13) Twitter 37%: Brandon 96% (119/124), Peter 11% (14/124), Isaac 11% (14/131), Adam 25% (14/55) Blog 98%: Brandon 98% (206/211)
Social Media Total: 79% (1382/1760) Theoryland Review: 10% (121/1183) Events
TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 100%: Brandon 100% (103/103), Peter 100% (109/109), Isaac 100% (109/109), Ben 100% (98/98) Reddit 78%: Brandon 99% (131/132), Peter 99% (104/105), Isaac 96% (22/23), Ben 10% (9/86), Adam 93% (13/14), Store 75% (3/4) Twitter 41%: Brandon 99% (124/125), Peter 15% (19/125), Isaac 14% (19/132), Adam 34% (19/56) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (211/212)
Social Media Total: 81% (1435/1774) Theoryland Review: