Gustopher

I've watched all the videos up so far. These are really awesome because he is able to spend a lot more time explaining than on Writing Excuses.

I would love to win any of these shiny prizes!

I loved all the references to the characters of the original trilogy. "High Imperial" about made me shoot milk out of my nose. The theories above about the Kandra replacing Brettin make a lot of sense to me. I think Wax made the right decision in going with Steris, but I was a little dissatisfied because it felt really unfair to Marasi not to even have any threads of possibility other than "she might meet someone else in the future." I loved Wayne as a character. "Trading" was awesome and memorable, as was his obsession over his lucky hat (does he ever get it back?). I don't think the women are being taken for a breeding program. We basically already saw that with Lord Venture back in Well of Ascension when it explained how Zane was born. If the set people are aware of Hemalurgy, it wouldn't surprise me to find out they are trying to create a Mistborn that they can control. I am interested in knowing what all Sazed is capable of doing as Harmony. Do we have any sort of precise knowledge of his abilities?

I'm up to 19k so far. Its going really well.

That is awesome!

We all love Writing Excuses for the knowledge it gives us, but sometimes I feel that half the reason I come back is to listen and laugh with our hosts. What are some your favorite laugh out loud moments from Writing Excuses?

Do we know specifically when Hollow City will be out Or is it still in the "sometime in 2012" phase?

I do this too! I've been working on character and plot development lately so I review a couple of the podcasts every day as I start to work and it helps immensely. I'm in a Creative Writing class right now and when we are workshopping pieces sometimes I just want to beg people to go listen to Writing Excuses so I can stop repeating everything the same advice over and over and over...

That's really sad to hear. BYU is one of the two schools I am considered transferring to and at least 30% of the reason I would go would be to get into Brandon's class...

I first heard of Brandon Sanderson when my sister read Mistborn the Final Empire. I put it on a long list of books to get around to and pretty much forgot about it. Then in October 2010 Brandon Sanderson came to my school and did a presentation and signing for Convocations. I was impressed by what he had to say so I read the Mistborn trilogy and then Elantris. The pot of gold for me was when I was browsing his website and found a link to Writing Excuses. I love his books, but Writing Excuses is the reason that I decided to really take my writing seriously and I can't thank him enough for that (along with Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler). My first time actually meeting Brandon was a couple of weeks ago at the Innistrad Prerelease. That was awesome too

I enjoyed Firstborn. I found it interesting how he approached the almost chess-mentality to the space combat. It was cool.

I am interested in obtaining these wonderful prizes.

I agree with this completely. I listen to every episode with a notebook and so far I've filled about 70 pages. I am taking a Creative Writing class in college and sometimes when we are work shopping I just want to scream at them to go listen the podcast so we can stop being so repetitive. Some of my favorite episodes include the first episode where Mary was a guest (the Puppetry one), the living with the artist podcast, and everything where they meet with editors and agents. I find that the ones where they try to apply what they talked about to their old work just don't work very well. The fifteen minute podcast format just isn't the best way to teach about line editing and such imo.

I read and enjoyed Shades of Milk and Honey and I enjoyed it. I think Mary offers a great perspective in the podcast. However, I have also noticed a distinct lack of Dan lately, and all the new podcasts feel like they go very quickly with everyone trying to get in their opinions (and wisecracks) in the limited amount of time. Not sure if a time increase would help, but there is certainly less time for tangents and stories.