Annotation + FAQ

 

As promised, here's the next Mistborn Annotation.  Also, I'll be posting a new episode of Amphigory Eleven (My Bad Pun Serial) tomorrow.  It might be later in the day, however.  My agent, Joshua Bilmes, is in town, and I've been driving him about to various locations.  Joshua's kind of amusing.  He likes to see the sights when he is in a city--but for him, "the sights" are all bookstores. 

So, we've been visiting every bookstore we can find in the area.  Quite Amusing. 

Now, onto the next part of the post.  I've had some confusion about the various things I like to post on the bs blog.  So, I've decided to answer that question here, so I at least have a place to refer people when they get confused. 

Yes, the bs blog is rather eclectic.  It has some regular "features" which aren't really that regular, and some other random things that I like to do.  I do some of the normal blogging things--talk about my life, and about the creative process.  But, I also like to mention updates to various projects I'm working on or other bonus material on my website.  With various consistency, you will find the following things on the blog:

Annotations:  These related to specific books I've written.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I am a professional fantasy novelist.  Over the last few years, I've grown very intrigued by the bonus material one can find on DVD releases of movies.  I wanted to do something like that for my books, available on my website.

So, the book annotations are kind of like a director's commentary one might find on a DVD.  You can read a chapter or section of the book, then read my companion discussion of that particular section.  For more information, click here.  Also, note that I'll probably do a few FAQ questions specifically about the Annotations.  (However, just so you know, I will always place a LINK to the annotation on my blog, but never the annotation itself, so you don't have to worry about spoilers.)

Ideas of the Day:  These are story prompts.  Meaning, they're intended for people who are looking for an idea, or a sentence, or something clever to get them writing.  They're not necessarily ideas I'm planning to use, though some of them are.  They're simply things that occurred to me that I thought MIGHT make good stories.

They're not intended to be fully worked out yet--though I do appreciate hearing comments about what you thinks works and doesn't in a particular Idea.  I haven't researched whether or not I've seen the idea done--though I do like to hear from people who have seen similar ideas executed before. 

In short, if you get stuck in your writing and are looking for something to jump-start you, you can come here and look through the Idea of the Day posts and see if anything appeals to you.  They are generally sf/f themed, and I usually post about one a week. 

Bad Puns:  Probably self explanatory.  I like bad puns.  They amuse me.  I'm sorry.  (See Amphigory Eleven below.)

Warbreaker:  My next fantasy novel, after the Mistborn series.  I'm posting chapters of it on-line in their rough-draft form.  If I post one of these, and you haven't read them all before, you can find previous chapters collected in this thread.

They aren't polished yet, I know.  I do appreciate comments about them on my forum or on my Livejournal account.  Enjoy!  I'll do a separate Warbreaker section in the FAQ.

Amphigory Eleven:  Every Tuesday, I post a pun designed in a visual format.  Usually, the picture is such that you have to think about it a little bit to figure out what the pun really is.  Once you make the connection, I hope that you want to throw something at me.  This feature is probably going to be cross-posted eventually into a webcomic format, with Tuesday's comic being posted always at the top, and other blog posts being included as news posts at the bottom. 

Faq:  Occasionally, as they occur to me, I will answer Frequently Asked Questions on my blog. Those posts, then, will be collected into a Larger FAQ on this page of my website.