This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode is another one that was recorded at the World Science Fiction Convention. It features Lauren Beukes and talks about writing other cultures. Check it out.
There's a new MYTHWALKER chapter up. This one introduces Vvenna, who eventually became Vivenna in WARBREAKER.
There are a few giveaways of advance reading copies of my new Mistborn book, THE ALLOY OF LAW, that are going on right now. First I'll mention one with no regional restrictions: the official
I got an email the other day from Becky Wilson at Dragonsteel Entertainment that put my Mistborn Table on hiatus. I will finish it soon, but there is another project I have to get completely "mapped" out first.
I am working on a woodcut map of Roshar.
I'll pretty up this post with a screenshot.
The plan is to cut and pocket the whole thing to a depth around 1/8" and then cut out the individual regions as inserts and stain those inserts in different shades to set them apart from each other.
At the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno a couple of weeks ago, we recorded a few Writing Excuses podcast episodes. The first one features Patrick Rothfuss, and we discussed suspension of disbelief. Check it out.
I've put up the third chapter of my unfinished novel MYTHWALKER from ten years ago.
The big announcement today is that the first ebooks of ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS are now available, in French. Currently you can buy the first three books, and I assume the fourth one
Here are all the interior illustrations from THE WAY OF KINGS. This should be especially useful if you've been squinting at the illustrations in the ebook. There's also a link to the cover illustration wallpapers, which you can download if you are a Tor.com member.
Source
This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode with Mary, Dan, Howard, and me covers worldbuilding communications technology. The state of communications technology can have a wide-reaching effect on your story, so give it a listen.
My assistant has uploaded another chapter of my unfinished and abandoned novel Mythwalker from 2001. There's also a new collection of Twitter posts up.
THE WAY OF KINGS has now been out in hardcover for a year, so I'm adding signed and personalized copies to my onlin
I decided to start this little bloggy thingy to keep track of what projects I am working on. I recently posted photos of the project I am currently working on, but I will throw them in here as well, for record purposes.
I am working on a Mistborn Allomantic Table.
(There's a bit of a pun there. It's a coffee table.)
I'll just post some progress shots here for now.
First off, I had to design the thing. I'll skip the boring details and just post the design I came up with. This is a top view.
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
