Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

This is a transcript of an interview by Literate Liquors with Brandon at LibertyCon in July 2012.

Oh by the way, there are also no edits.

Oh, good. Okay.

John Hartness

Hey y'all. Welcome back to Literate Liquors. I'm John Hartness. I'm your host, and I am still here at LibertyCon. I would say, thus the same t-shirt. But since I had t-shirts printed for the show, I'm probably always going to be wearing a "Read Recklessly" t-shirt from here on out. So get used to it. I do have two and I wash them a lot.

Brandon Sanderson

(laughs)

John Hartness

I also have more than one pair of black jeans. Just sayin'. I know I go to cons, but I'm not one of those scary gamer guys. Anyway, here with me . . .

Brandon Sanderson

You're actually pretty scary. I don't know . . .

John Hartness

But I'm not much of a gamer guy . . .

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah . . . There you go. I guess that was a truthful statement.

John Hartness

Yeah. So, here with me this evening is New York Times best-selling author, Parsec award winning Podcaster, all-around cool dude, writing instructor to the masses, Wheel of Time finisher-upper, Mistborn creator . . .

Brandon Sanderson

Secret assassin of JFK. Oh wait, we aren't supposed to say that. Nevermind.

John Hartness

Shit. I told you no edits. Brandon Sanderson, folks.

Brandon Sanderson

Hi.

John Hartness

Out there somewhere there are people applauding.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, good. Okay. Hi. Yes, I'm Brandon. I write books and stuff.

And I basically accosted Brandon in the hallway as we were leaving the JordanCon party and said, "Do you have ten minutes?" I've used four of them already.

You know, I've accosted my share of people for the podcast idea. So I'm used to this. We sometimes tie people up and tow them over.

John Hartness

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

"You podcast with us, or we won't let you go."

John Hartness

And I do have Scott W. Baker from episode two times ago in the room. And Scott's another big dude, so between us we could probably have manhandled him. It's not like a James Tuck, or anything, but . . . Anyway, so Brandon what project am I currently keeping you from?

Brandon Sanderson

The Wheel of Time–the last book of The Wheel of Time. A Memory of Light comes out January 8. I am going to go to my hotel room and work on it some more because the deadlines are pretty crazy.

John Hartness

How well I know, 'cause my deadlines are two weeks ago for revisions on book two of my series.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah. And here we are sitting and chatting instead.

brandon on writing wot

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writing excuses

Yes. So this is book twenty-seven?

Yeah, four hundred and thirty. No, it's book fourteen.

John Hartness

Book fourteen.

Brandon Sanderson

It is the last one, though. For those who were skeptical, it really, really is. This is the end.

John Hartness

You know, J. K. Rowling said that once.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah? But then . . . she's not writing more Harry Potter is she? She's doing, like, some other thing.

John Hartness

There's this nasty rumor that there's another Potter book coming.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh really?

John Hartness

But, I have not heard it confirmed.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, you know, when they make four hundred gazillion dollars, maybe she needs to go buy another continent.

John Hartness

Right, like Australia's not enough.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah. You need a couple more continents, what are you going to do? You gotta write another book, right?

John Hartness

Absolutely.

Brandon Sanderson

You only own one private fleet. I mean, the Queen has three. How can she show her face at parties?

John Hartness

Seriously. By the way, if any of Ms. Rowling's people are out there, we would love to have her on Writing Excuses and Literate Liquors . . .

Brandon Sanderson

At the same time.

John Hartness

At the same time, because I'm pretty sure that she'd have to get liquored up to hang out with us.

Brandon Sanderson

We could do it on your private fleet. It would be great . . . we could sail to your continent.

brandon on writing wot

So you're working on the last Wheel of Time?

I am.

John Hartness

How does that feel?

Brandon Sanderson

It feels really scary.

John Hartness

Yeah?

Brandon Sanderson

And well, really awesome. It's the whole thing: scary, awesome, and daunting. I don't know what to say other than that. I mean, it's the last book. I’ve been following this thing since I was fourteen or fifteen . . . whatever, 1990.

John Hartness

Wow . . .

Brandon Sanderson

I've been reading them ever since then, reading them since they came out. It's like the Wheel of Time has been the one constant throughout my entire life.

John Hartness

You weren't able to drive . . .

Brandon Sanderson

Right, I wasn't able to drive when I started reading the Wheel of Time, and now I'm almost 40, and so . . . yeah.

John Hartness

So am I, and I look a good ten years older than him. This is why I have much more encyclopedic knowledge of alcohol. Clean living (points to Brandon). Literate Liquors (points to self). So, that's awesome, and we did just come from the JordanCon party. So this thing . . . it's not even just a series of books.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

John Hartness

It's a whole culture. It's a con, it's . . .

Brandon Sanderson

People are into Wheel of Time in the same way that people get into Star Wars. It's not just a book series. There are huge communities of people. There are people that their entire friend circle is built around Wheel of Time fandom because this thing has been going for so long. It's awesome, and it's incredible.

brandon on writing wot

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fandom

That's awesome. I'm not going to keep you too much longer. And since you're not a drinker . . .

I'm not a drinker. That's a . . . yeah.

John Hartness

But you did tell me you had an alcohol-related story . . .

Brandon Sanderson

I kind of have one, and it's not about me.

John Hartness

We are still writers.

Brandon Sanderson

It's actually about . . . so this is your piece of trivia. I am Mormon, and I was roommates in college with another famous Mormon—Ken Jennings, who won all the Jeopardy! money.

John Hartness

Okay, all right.

Brandon Sanderson

This is my roommate from college. And so the only liquor story, you like . . . hey, liquor stuff. He, on Jeopardy!, kept flubbing all the liquor questions. 'Cause he's Mormon!

John Hartness

Right.

Brandon Sanderson

And so my friend Ken had to go memorize big lists of mixed drinks. So he's the most literate person in all sorts of alcohol that I know that's Mormon because he had to have all these questions for Jeopardy! And so he keeps buzzing in and winning these things. It's pretty amusing.

John Hartness

Were there Elders calling him with questions, "So Ken . . . is there something you need to be telling us?"

Brandon Sanderson

(laughs) Yeah, I don't know.

John Hartness

Or is it more like, "Ken, you tithe appropriately and we'll just never mention this again."

Brandon Sanderson

(laughs) Yeah, I don't know. You should have him on some time. He's an author, too. But, there's your piece of trivia: Brandon Sanderson, Ken Jennings—roommates.

John Hartness

There we go. That's as close as I can get for a liquor commentary out of a guy who said, "What flavor of water shall I discuss on your podcast?"

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's right. That's right.

John Hartness

As I'm sitting here drinking a Dasani because still I drank one of those jalapeno things, and it made my teeth sweat.

Brandon Sanderson

Those things look kind of cool.

John Hartness

They're very pretty.

Brandon Sanderson

I envy you guys—the drinkers—because your drinks look so awesome. It's like they look like the coolest Kool-Aid that's ever been made. I bet they don't taste like Kool-Aid.

John Hartness

Actually, I had some punch last night that tasted like Kool-Aid, except it was 85 degree Kool-Aid, and it was disgusting.

Brandon Sanderson

Right, okay.

John Hartness

So no, you're really not missing that much, except for . . .

Brandon Sanderson

The booze.

John Hartness

Yeah, except for the booze. Brandon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Brandon Sanderson

My pleasure.

brandon on life

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byu

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lds

I really appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your revisions for us. We'll look forward to book fourteen—The Memory . . .

A Memory of Light.

John Hartness

A Memory of Light, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

John Hartness

And is there maybe another Mistborn book coming soon?

Brandon Sanderson

I will be doing some of my own stuff. The second Stormlight book is what I'll be doing next, which is the sequel to Way of Kings.

John Hartness

Cool. Sequel to Way of Kings—don't drop it on your chihuahua.

Brandon Sanderson

That's right. It will kill him.

stormlight archive

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words of radiance

All right, thank you all very much. As always, please remember: drink responsibly, read recklessly. Good night.