For the last few months, I have been completely disengaged from my job, instead spending most of my time meditating under waterfalls and exploring the deepest reaches of outer space. When I came back on Monday, as you might imagine, I had a lot to catch up on.
The Knight releases next Tuesday, June 11th. Just a week after I got back! It feels like I wrote it forever ago, even though it's only been a few months. Now I'm back to being nervous about people's responses to the book, as is tradition. I've also spent a lot of the last few days working on the script for the upcoming Cradle animatic, which has been extremely cool and encouraging (especially working with Travis as he recorded lines). As Travis read, I got to tweak and change my own lines. Now I get to reconnect with you online! That was one of the things I missed the most while I was gone; I kept wanting to make a comment, or post a thought, or check fan comments. A couple of times Sam had to slap the phone out of my hand. Now that I'm back, I can engage with you all again, especially around the new book release! But what did I do while I was off, you ask? Well, off the top of my head, here are some highlights: Final Fantasy VII Remake I know I'm years behind on this, because Remake came out in 2020, but the sequel (Rebirth) came out this year and I wanted to play that, so I had to start with the first one. I've been procrastinating on Remake because I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the original FF7, and also because I thought Tetsuya Nomura was going to make it way too much like Kingdom Hearts for my taste. When I heard it involved time-traveling ghosts, I was sure my assumptions were right. But now I've played it, and I thought it was great. They really hit that delicate balance between making a story that would accurately represent FF7 to new players and would have something new for veteran players, and (at least for me) they hit it dead-on. Shout out to Andrew Rowe, who told me four years ago that I should play it. Andrew, I should have listened to you, as usual. I'm only a few hours into Rebirth, and so far I like it even more. Also I hear Vincent is in this one and he was my favorite character when I was a kid, so I have high hopes for Vampire Bro. Gyoza Ranking As Sam already spoiled for you, I ordered all the gyoza within ordering distance of my house and ranked them in a text file. I tend to do this every once in a while--I did the same thing with Oreos a few years ago--because ordering fun snack food is serious business and should be taken very seriously. The winner was Mayaki Sushi & Izakaya, though I also ended up with a recipe that I liked for making at home. At this rate, I'll soon be able to master Gyoza Magic and become the Pork Dumpling Elementalist I've always dreamed of being. A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation Some of you, like me, are extremely familiar with both Korean regressor novels and Chinese cultivation novels. Others of you have probably never heard the term "regressor" before in your life. For the uninitiated, a regressor is someone who (essentially) dies and wakes up earlier in their own life, with a chance to do things differently. Like if you got hit by a truck today and woke up a year ago, memories of the future intact. Of all the series I read on my sabbatical, A Regressor's Tale of Cultivation was my favorite. It's translated from Korean, and follows a character who is transported from modern-day Korea to a Chinese-style fantasy world filled with dangerous magic. All of his companions have extraordinary talents except for him, so he lives out his life as a normal peasant...until he dies of old age and wakes up back in the first day he arrived in this world. I love this one for a few reasons, one of which is that it isn't afraid to cover LARGE amounts of time quickly. Like entire lifetimes. He really does learn, struggle, adapt, grow, and then take those lessons and try again in another life. Which leads into my other favorite thing: the author uses the main character's ability to come back to life to RAISE the stakes rather than lower them. It's a fascinating take on two genres I love, so if you're at all interested, you should check it out. The Treasure of Nan-Guluhr Probably the most time-consuming of my sabbatical activities. You probably already heard about this on the news, but yes I did lead a team of miners to a forgotten cave network in eastern Spain, no I didn't know that my excavation efforts would unearth primordial spiders from the bowels of the earth, and yes, the queen of those spiders did offer me wealth beyond imagining in exchange for her freedom. That has nothing to do with my decision to support her for President of Earth, I just think her ages of wisdom and ability to see into the spectrum of thoughts will help her govern us more effectively. I don't like talking politics, but I'm not going to hide the fact that I think Spider Queen Nan-Guluhr is the best candidate for a unified Earth government. Just because I now live in a spider-shaped temple made of solid gold doesn't mean my judgment is compromised. And that's all I'll say on the matter. So now to boring things I have been ordered to include in this post! We are having a pre-release YouTube livestream for The Knight this coming Sunday, June 9th, at 6 PM Eastern! Come ask me questions about gyoza. And books. If I feel like it's getting too boring, I'll make Sam dance for your entertainment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzIZnjYpFQo Please preorder The Knight or I will fire one family member a day until our nonexistent quota is met. Starting with Rebecca. https://tinyurl.com/Ebook-and-Paperback https://tinyurl.com/Audiobook-Version That's the end of the links! Now I must return to my golden temple before the spiders grow angry. -Will
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The Knight preorder is now live! Releasing in all formats on Tuesday, June 11th!
Hello my dear, embattled readers. It’s been far too long since I, Will Wight, have blogged about the newest book I, Will Wight, have written. This certainly isn’t his ham sandwich of a younger brother, Sam. You know it’s me, the professional author, because of how haphazardly I use commas. The Knight, book 3 of The Last Horizon, is now live for preorder in ebook and paperback (US only for the PB preorder) and audiobook formats! Full release coming Tuesday, June 11th! Prepare to be friendshipped all over the place! Despite this announcement, Will is still on break. He was polishing up the final draft of The Knight, as well as the script for our Cradle Animatic, up until his sabbatical began in March. Since we planned his break so far ahead of schedule, we were able to coordinate the completion of the book with his time off. We did this once before (looking at you, Bloodline) but I feel like we accomplished it even better with the experience of the last go-round. Typically, it takes us 2-3 months to get a finalized draft ready for release whether Will is involved or not. Finishing up the cover, getting the audiobook recorded and ironed out, coordinating with Amazon and Audible…that all takes time and quite a bit of effort. Except with anything audiobook related because Travis Baldree is constantly 18 steps ahead of us. He watches diligently from the darkness. With a knife. Will is coming back very soon though! Rested and ready to put those scrawny little fingers back to typing. We will do our normal release shenanigans, like a teaser and a livestream or two, and will get those dates to you ASAP once we figure out which days specifically are better for Rebecca and her fear of staying up later than 7:45 PM. She turns into a weregibbon at 8. It is quite nice to see how refreshed Will has become over the last two months. He’s like a totally different person, no joke. As I said in my *previous blog post,* we are incredibly lucky to be in a position to be able to give him an ample amount of time away from work. We have no one to thank but you and this fantastic fandom you’ve all helped create. He’s said several times since his break began, “I didn’t realize how burnt out I was.” WE certainly did and it’s been amazing to see him come out of his cocoon and spread his butterfly-like appendages. Once again, thank you for allowing us to focus so much on the health of my older brother. Appreciate you all and what you’ve done for our lives. SO IS THE KNIGHT GOOD SAM? DOES RAION DO FRIENDSHIP STUFF!? Funny you should ask because yes, there is quite a bit of friendship involved. I haven’t been shy about how much I’ve loved Raion since his introductory scene in The Captain, but I enjoyed The Knight even more than the last two Horizon books. It has plenty of the Red Range…I mean Raion and even plentyer of Varic being THAT DUDE. Like, I certainly knew Varic was a boss in the last two books, but this installment makes him FEEL like a magic astrological terror the likes of which the universe has never seen. This book good. Good book. Much enjoy. Since we’ve been relatively radio silent the last several weeks, here are some rapid-fire Hidden Gnome updates you may or may not know:
And that’s all I got for today folks! Go preorder your version of The Knight for full friendship points! They’re Lindon approved. P.S. to fully maximize Will’s time off, he started a document ranking the gyoza available around our house. Seriously, the man made a list PURELY for ranking gyoza so he doesn’t accidently order inferior pot stickers. Been living his best life over here. P.S.P.S. shout out to Collin Blumenthal for commenting the title of this blog on Instagram. It made me chuckle. P.S.S.P.S.S now I'm surrounded by cats. I don’t know how this imposter made the last post, but this is the first I’ve heard of a break. This is also the first I’ve heard of a brother.
Reading through the comments, I see that a lot of you have been deceived by the talk of this “Sam” and his transparent lies. All I can tell you is that I’ve been working every day, trying as always to be the best cartographer I can be. A good rule of thumb is to remain skeptical on the Internet. You can usually see through the lies of people like Sam by remaining alert and looking for tiny, subtle details that a careful eye might catch. Stay vigilant! -Bill Hello Cradle fans, local neighborhood Seven-Fold Archmages, and blog post enthusiasts! My name is Sam, I’m Will’s less talented but slightly taller brother, and I’m here hijacking his blog to give you some news: Will is taking a break until the beginning of June.
Normally it would be the man himself writing this post like he did last time, but he was working on more important things, like getting you another novel ASAP, literally up until the minute his break started. We had to physically pull him away from his laptop. A pack of trained gibbons was heavily involved. We are in a very fortunate position to be able to give him an extended break like this every once in a while and for that, we have no one to thank but the fans. You have continued to bless my brother for a decade straight and as someone who cares deeply about his mental health and well-being, I am truly grateful. The last time Will took significant time off (see embedded link above) was because he was already past the point of being burnt out. He was hurting, both physically and emotionally, and it took a real toll on him. We learned our lesson that in order for him to keep pumping out two books a year while also taking on other projects, we needed to bake in a long break every couple of years to keep his creative juices flowing at a healthy level. I genuinely have no idea how Brandon Sanderson keeps going at the pace he does. Maybe his house is a Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Will published House of Blades, his first novel, almost eleven years ago. In the grand scheme of things, he’s relatively early in his writing career. We’re playing the long game here by trying to focus on how best to keep him at the top of his game for the next eleven years, then another eleven years after that, and so on and so forth until his cryogenically frozen head thaws out with an idea for a sequel to Traveler’s Gate. We truly believe that Will taking time off is best not only for him and our team, but for people who just want more books to read. A mentally healthy author is a good author, as the classic Shakespearean saying goes. Does this mean that his writing schedule is delayed? No! One of the fantastic things about planning his schedule several years in advance is that it allows us the opportunity to get ahead of the proverbial eight ball. We plan on having two book releases this year while moving our Cradle animation project forward, and still attending scheduled events like DragonCon in August. More Last Horizon is coming, and I’m happy to report that the most recent version of The Knight is very far along in the writing process. It also features a cameo of a certain fruit-related side character. Rejoice as loud as you comfortably can without bothering people. Will absolutely loves writing and creating stories for you, the best fan base on the planet. They say that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. That is objectively false. I wish there was some way for all of us, regardless of job/circumstance, to take extended breaks away from our work routines. I wholeheartedly believe everyone would be healthier for it. But most of us are not in the position to be able to do that and keep a roof over our heads. We are very, very fortunate and not a day goes by where we don’t realize it and thank the Aether for readers like you giving us this opportunity. We are dedicated to continuing to pump out quality content on a regular basis and giving back in what ways we can. “Gratitude” simply doesn’t say enough. SO ON THAT NOTE, I’d like to take advantage of the opportunity to post whatever I want without Will’s input and share a little known fact about his childhood. And by “childhood,” I mean the day of his birth. Will’s heart stopped for about a minute the day he was born. Technically speaking, he died for a little bit and came back to life. Mom says it was a very stressful minute. Is this where his inspiration for the beginning of Lindon’s story came from? Who knows!? Maybe! Possibly! Definitely not. But it’s a fun thought! Now back to working behind-the-scenes to tarnish Will’s reputation while keeping up his streak of at least one blog post a month for the last ten years. Who knows what’ll happen next month? Maybe I’ll post a log of how many times he makes ramen every day. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. -Sam It feels like this month was about a year long.
We've had some other great Kickstarters in the past, but they didn't involve me that much. Except for signing pages, which definitely involved me quite a lot. This time, we were getting reports back from the animation, talking to Lex+Otis, developing new pledges, scheming, strategizing, and sacrificing flamingoes for The Ritual. Busy campaign! Busy and very cool! One of the things that it's hard to communicate is how much growth and development has happened over here at Hidden Gnome during this Kickstarter campaign. We've learned a lot and developed assets and relationships that will help us in the future, and if we hadn't run a Kickstarter, we wouldn't have done those things. We'd be lost and alone, weeping in the dark like usual. And now, as this Kickstarter campaign comes to a close at 5 PM Eastern tonight, it's time for THE FINAL LINKS! First, the Kickstarter is still up! Check it out here! Second, I'm streaming tonight at about 4:30 so we can watch the Kickstarter close together! That will be here. And finally, the ebook collection of Cradle: Foundation (the first three Cradle books) is still free until midnight Pacific tonight! Pick that up right here. Once again, thank you all for reading and thanks for sticking with me for so long! -Will |
The Knight Progress:
Third Life Last Written: "I couldn't leave it all to the power of friendship." Amount Complete: Friendship% Archives
June 2024
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