My buddy and Writing Excuses cohost Dan Wells recently released his hilarious gothic vampire novel A NIGHT OF BLACKER DARKNESS as an ebook. I'm embedding a preview of it below, and you can get it on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords.
This is still one of my personal favorite novels—quirky and strange, but very amusing and borderline genius. It's the story of a man in the 19th century who fakes his own death, and when he rises from his coffin that makes a bunch of vampires think he's one of t
Hello to all who happen to read this, and welcome to my blog. Who am I, what is this blog about, and why should you care? Well, I am Matthew Hollingsworth, known as Mad_Scientist on this site. This blog is about storytelling, both my own attempts at creative writing, and my thoughts on the various storytelling mediums that exist. And you should care because I think some of you might find my thoughts interesting, and those of you who are also aspiring writers might find it encouraging to read abo
The site that has hosted my forums for years, the Official Time-Waster's Guide, has now officially gone offline. The front page hadn't really been updated in years as staff members moved on to other projects, and few areas of the forum were still active, so it's not a big loss. My official forums will now be hosted by the official Brandon Sanderson fansite, 17th Shard. (They also just posted a writeup of the Q&A from my recent West Jordan signing, covering both my books and the Wheel of Time
This is going to be a long post. If you want to know how to get numbered copies of MISTBORN: THE ALLOY OF LAW, scroll down.
ITEM #1: THE TOUR
This year's tour will have two legs: A North American tour (for the first time it's not just a U.S. tour—there's a stop in Vancouver BC) and a UK tour. My North American signings are listed on my events page, so check out that page to see if I'm signing near you. I don't have locations and times for my UK tour yet (those will come in September), but I'll
This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode covers making descriptions serve multiple purposes. This helps keep your descriptive passages from being dry, among other things. Give it a listen.
I haven't mentioned it here yet, but Tor.com put up chapter five of my new Mistborn book, THE ALLOY OF LAW. There will be one more preview chapter after this; I think it will go up before the end of the month. Then there's a bit of a gap before the book comes out in November, but Tor.com has other surprise
Next week I'll be at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, in Reno. My schedule is below, with a few comments from me interspersed. Worldcon is a great place to meet industry pros, so I'm looking forward to seeing many of you there. Highlights for me this year include the live Writing Excuses recording and the Girl Genius Ball on Thursday and the Hugo Awards ceremony on Saturday.
WEDNESDAY
Wed 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m., A01+6 (RSCC)Panel: Tourists: Creating Characters and Stories in
On this week's Writing Excuses podcast episode, Mary, Dan, Howard, and I talk about Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. Quotient. That stands for Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event, and it is a valuable tool for improving your writing.
The final WARBREAKER annotation is up. Next week my assistant Peter will start putting up draft chapters of MYTHWALKER, the unfinished book that I lifted Siri and Vivenna from, among other things. These will go in the deleted scenes section of the library filed under War
Wow, hello there to anyone who might be reading this. So, I stopped the reread a few months ago, due to classes deciding that I actually needed to be doing hard work in order to keep up, and I wanted to stay ahead, so I pretty much stopped everything that wasn't school related. Then, after finals were over, I totally forgot about this in my attempt to get a job (which was successful, by the way, I now am a driver for Pizza Hut). But last night I remembered! So yeah, if anyone is still interested
Just a quick reminder that I'll be signing in West Jordan tonight. I'm going to be driving back from Idaho, so if I end up a tiny bit late that will be why. But I shouldn't be late. I'll try to bring some of the Elendel Daily broadsheets to give out, and maybe two or three THE ALLOY OF LAW advance reading copies. (Whether this happens depends on logistical concerns, since I don't have them with me here in Idaho.)
Peter Orullian, author of The Unremembered, will also be signing at the same time.
Today's WARBREAKER annotation covers the epilogue. There's just one annotation left, folks. The WARBREAKER html version is also now completely uploaded.
This week's Writing Excuses podcast has another of our microcasting episodes. Mary, Howard, Dan, and I fielded questions from people on Twitter and answered them briefly. We discussed the following topics:
How do you hold the whole story in your head when it's a thousand pages long?
What steps do you use when creating a character?
As an outl
The deadline to turn in your filled-out ballots for the Hugo Awards is this Sunday night, July 31st, at midnight Pacific time. I've talked about this before, but if you weren't aware and would like to vote for the Hugos, you can still become a registered member of Worldcon in order to vote.
Writing Excuses made the final ballot in the Best Related Work category, and Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, Mary Robinette Kowal, and my editor Moshe Feder are also independently nominated for awards. See my earl
THE ALLOY OF LAW, my new Mistborn novel set 341 years after the events of THE HERO OF AGES, is coming out on November 8th. If you haven't been aware, there are preview chapters up at Tor.com; chapter four just went up today.
Below is my U.S. and Canada tour schedule. I'm going to Vancouver BC for the first time, though the details aren't quite worked out on that stop yet. I'll also be heading somewhere else immediately following the Brooklyn date; keep your eyes on my events calendar. It's a go
I've added some events to my events calendar. First up is a joint signing with Peter Orullian (The Unremembered) in West Jordan on August 4th. I also added three conventions I'll be going to in Australia in April 2012; there will probably be bookstore signings between these events, but that hasn't been worked out yet. The Superstars Writing Seminar I'll be teaching at in Las Vegas after I return from Australia is also there. These items join my Worldcon trip to Reno, which is coming up in just t
I had a great time at Polaris in Toronto this past weekend. If you couldn't be there, you can check out an mp3 of the Q&A session that I did, which @Thesleepingwolf has posted online here. (If you want to download it and can't figure out which link to use, it's the one that says "Download File 9.43 MB." Or you can just listen to it on that page.) If you haven't heard me tell the story of how Harriet first got in touch with me, this is a good medium. It also covers several other topics includ
I'm on my way to the Polaris convention in Toronto right now (the schedule for that is here, with one correction: the Details, Filler, and Plot panel is now Saturday at 11 and the Ethics and the Wheel of Time panel is Sunday at noon). But since Comic-Con starts earlier next week, I think it's a good idea to post my Comic-Con schedule now.
WEDNESDAY, July 20th, Preview Night:
I may stop by the Tor booth, #2707, sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. This is nothing formal, though.
THURSDAY,
It's been listed on my events calendar for months, but in case you live near Toronto and weren't aware, I will be there this weekend as a Guest of Honor at Polaris 25. My schedule is below.
Address: Sheraton Parkway Toronto North600 Highway 7 EastRichmond Hill, Ontario, CanadaL4B 1B2
FRIDAY
06:00 p.m., YorkOpening Ceremonies
07:00 p.m., Room 1080Meet The Pros
08:30 p.m., Markham-ABlastoff Party
SATURDAY
11:00 a.m., NewmarketEthics and the Wheel of TimeBrandon Sanderson (M), Rebecca Lovatt
Fantasy Faction did a video interview of me while I was in Europe. The result is over 30 minutes long, and covers topics such as the Way of the Kings, the Alloy of Law, Mistborn as a series, my writing process, The Wheel of Time, and the fantasy genre. Check it out.
There have been a few recent Writing Excuses podcast episodes that I haven't linked yet. First Dan, Howard, Mary, and I did a microcast covering seven different writing questions from listeners. Then we talked about query letters. A
So. I was reading the Way of Kings, and I realized- we really have very little information on any of the characters. So, I decided that I am going to do something about it. I'm going to read the WoK 100 pages at a time, and as I read, I'm going to write Wiki pages for them. I'll plan on doing them as fast as I can, so that I can do other things before school starts.
FYI- There's a good chance that it isn't going to happen. But it is worth a shot. And if I only get 10 pages in, that's still the
I've put up a new WARBREAKER annotation about chapter 55. Plus there's also a new Writing Excuses episode up on professional organizations. As our cohost Mary Robinette Kowal is also the vice president of SFWA, she has many useful things to say on the topic.
About a week ago, I finally got back from my extended stay in Europe. I have to say, you guys treated me very well over there. I hope to be back soon.
One of the highlights was my impromptu event in Amsterdam. If you didn’t follow that lit
Everything I need to know I learned from Mistborn. Maybe this is because I’m just nerd, but when I come across some kind of problem, I find myself turning to books and movies and video games for solutions to my problems.
As Kelsier once said, “Every action we take has consequences…both in Allomancy and in life.” I’m the kind of person that weighs the costs of my actions before I do much of anything. I know some people who do not, and they seem to be perpetually angry, depressed, stressed, or
First a couple of updates. There's a new Warbreaker annotation up covering chapter 54 (with more about Old Chaps's background, aside from the usual discussion about the climax), and there's a new collection of Twitter posts. And the second Writing Excuses podcast episode with Mary Robinette Kowal as an official member covers internal character motivations.
The new Mistborn book, THE ALLOY OF LAW, comes out on November 8th. Today, Tor.com released the first batch of sample chapters, with the pro
The rest of my France schedule is below. But first a couple of updates.
Writing Excuses enters its sixth season with an exciting announcement: Mary Robinette Kowal joins Howard Tayler, Dan Wells, and me as our fourth full-time cast member. For the first episode of the sixth season we revisit our very first (unreleased) episode, Can Creativity Be Taught?.
The most recent WARBREAKER annotation is another one on the avalanche that is the climax. It covers chapter 53. Dance, dance, dance.
Fantasy
This week, I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to take a bit of a break from my usual fare to talk about something other than Brandon or the Cosmere.
This week, it's all about Harvey, my boxer puppy, and he is coming home with me today. This is really exciting for me for a few different reasons. As of now, I live alone. I don’t really feel lonely, but there are times where I feel like something is missing. Harvey is also my first dog that’s mine, not the family’s dog. It
