Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

As you might have noticed, things have been a tad dead here this week. That's because I've been out here in Charleston visiting Robert Jordan's house. Harriet, Alan, Maria, and I have been working on things for Book Twelve, and there was also a panel at The Citadel (where Mr. Jordan went to college) about Mr. Jordan and his effect on the fantasy genre. Harriet wanted me to be part of it, and I was very happy to do so. (David Drake also flew in to sit on the panel. I know it was video taped; I don't know if it will get posted anywhere. If it does, I'll try to get a link up here for you all.)

Regardless, it's been a busy few days. I flew out on Monday and have to be back on Thursday to teach my class. However, we've put our time to very good use, working out the outline for Book Twelve. (There were some holes in the plot and questions about characters we needed to work through.) Maria put it best with some of these holes: It's like we're putting together a jigsaw. We need to sift through Mr. Jordan's notes and figure out what he wanted to have happen, then figure out the best way to make it happen.

This, of course, is only for the sections that are more ambiguous. We're doing our best to make certain this book has as much of Mr. Jordan in it as possible.

Just a few notes on the way out the door here. 1) I blogged about The Name of the Wind last week, thinking I'd be able to get a copy of book two this week. Looks like my information was out-dated! I was going off of the DAW catalogue I picked up at a trade show last year, and that information was reinforced by the release date of Book Two as presented by the Amazon data aggregating website I use. (Titlez.) Both said book two was out this week. Only, I forgot to watch Pat's own blog, because he admitted a few months back that the book had to be pushed back because of family issues. It's a bummer, but it looks like Pat has been through the wringer lately, and my heart certainly goes out to him. Looks like Book Two will be out next April, but that's no reason not to go grab the brand spanking new paperback of book one.

2) There's a new Writing Excuses podcast this week. It was posted on Monday, and we're continuing to do this every Monday. Just a little reminder!

3) Those of you from forums where I am occasionally known to haunt may have noticed a lack of posts from me recently. I haven't simply turned to my lurking ways, unfortunately. I'm swamped with A Memory of Light, and have had to scale back on my forum visitations. I think this is going to be a busy year, and I need every spare moment I can to work on this book and to try (ha ha) to keep up on my email. So, I'm sorry to all you wonderful folks—no offense or anything like that. Just too busy to visit. I'll try to still make appearances on my own forums, though. (Note if you haven't seen the Allomancy conversations going on there, you're missing out. Also, you guys in those discussions are crazy. Fun, but crazy.)

4) There is no number four.

I think that's everything for now. Annotations and Warbreaker should get posted on Friday after I get back and recover from Thursday. (Six hours of travel followed by a three hour class. What fun . . . )