Path of the Written Blog

12/7/2017

At long last, the world-building answers are finally complete! I've answered all the questions I'm going to, and boy did that take a long time. Man. I should have limited it to the first fifty.

Either way, there were some great questions in there! Honestly, I should write down all the answers so that I'll remember them and can work them into the books someday, but I know I probably won't do that. That's too efficient and organized.

Before we get into today's business, I'd like to give a shout-out to fan "Danksouls" and the webcomic "Kill Six Billion Demons."

In addition to his question in the blog, Danksouls asked me if I'd ever read the comic Kill Six Billion Demons. Before responding to his question, I googled the comic, and was subsequently distracted for days. It's an action-fantasy comic wherein a girl from Earth is drawn into a multidimensional hellscape where seven gods and their armies are battling for control of creation.

The main character is sort of a non-factor, which is fine, because the world is the real star. It's gorgeous, and you should check it out.

A small warning first: the art is somewhat disturbing and can be a little gory, so if that's not your thing, maybe tune out. But it's rich with detail and with martial arts angels punching holes in extradimensional demons. I loved it. If I had read it before writing Cradle, it would likely have inspired some of Cradle's world-building. Alas.

Now, as for the main event...

I've been wondering recently what kind of content you guys would like to see here on the blog. I've been writing this thing for four years now, but when I don't have concrete writing news I basically have no idea what to say.

I'd love to put up some weekly content here on the site, but a lot of weeks my progress report could be summed up in two words: "Still writing."

That's most weeks, in fact.

And I feel like if I don't have substantial news related to the books, then I really don't have much to say. Therefore, I'm turning to you--the audience--to ask what sort of content you'd like to see on the blog.

Here are my thoughts. First, the highest priority will always be given to informative content: i.e. hard news about the books. If I have a release date or something to announce, that's going up.

Second, there's always narrative content: short stories or other written content. I know you guys enjoy that, because I know I would if I were you, but that's harder to write and can take away from novel-writing time. I can only produce narrative content sparingly.

The third category I came up with was personal content. This is stuff about me and my life. I don't know what you guys would want from me in this regard--I don't really read blogs that are heavy on personal content, and most of my life revolves around writing, playing games, or reading anyway. Honestly, personal posts would probably be about movies or games or books or comics or what-have-you. Fantasy media.

But I'm willing to talk about other things, should there be demand.

And finally, I thought you might be interested in instructional content. I almost never share any of this, because it feels unbelievably pretentious, but I could share posts about what I've learned in regards to writing and self-publishing. Believe it or not, I do actually have a Master's degree in Creative Writing. It's at the bottom of my closet somewhere.

Anyway, those were my thoughts on the types of content I could share on this blog. What would you like to see more of? What sort of things would you like to read in those posts? Do you want more instructional posts? Do you want to know what my favorite donut is? Do you want to know what I thought about Justice League, or would you prefer I stick strictly to my own work?

In the comments, let me know what sort of thing you'd like to read more of!

And thanks for sticking around!

-Will

EDIT: Also, I've caught up on emails. I had some email problems through October and into November that may have resulted in your email getting placed into my junk, spam, or promotions folder, and therefore I may have deleted it. If you emailed me during that time and I never responded to you, please stop tormenting that voodoo doll with my face on it and send your message again!

115 Comments

Pickle

12/7/2017 08:15:56 pm

I would dig personal content of "what books/games you've enjoyed lately / some reasons you've enjoyed them."

Knowing that you dig K6BD, for example, makes me happy: I couldn't get into it myself because I have garbage visual memory and so keeping track of what was going on page to page was really hard, but I loved the aesthetic. Theologypunk is my jam.

Will link

12/7/2017 09:21:56 pm

Oh, there's definitely a lot going on in each page, so that it gets confusing sometimes. But sinking into all that rich detail is like submerging myself in a warm bath. Mmmmm, angel-monks.

patrick foster

12/7/2017 08:19:20 pm

I'm always interested in what creators are drawn by (movies/books.tv/whatever.) And I find listening to talented people talk about how they work fascinating. Seriously.

12/7/2017 09:23:28 pm

Sure, but where am I going to find a talented person around here?

Ravi

12/7/2017 08:21:15 pm

I say talk about everything! Make it your own soapbox!

12/7/2017 09:25:25 pm

This is the kind of freedom that paralyzes me. I don't read many blogs at all, and usually I stop because the creator starts going on at length about things I'm not interested in.

I don't want to bore everybody with my thoughts on random subjects. But if there's something people actually want to hear about, I could go there.

Chris

12/7/2017 08:22:51 pm

I'd be interested in reviews of books and movies by you. I'm always looking for new books to read. They don't have to be published one's through Amazon either (like the comic you talk about). I've been trying to look through some of the stuff that people have published for free online recently. I recommend trying Mother of Learning https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning I quickly got into it and a new chapter is put out every three weeks. Author is currently working on the final arc of the story.

12/7/2017 09:30:21 pm

I'm in kind of a crisis of conscience about reviewing books.

First off, I'd love to give other independent authors a platform here and help promote them. However, I don't want to review their work unless I would give it five stars.

And I normally wouldn't.

The stories I would give five stars are usually extremely well-known already (Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer is excellent; no one is surprised).

But I don't want to give them a dishonestly high review, and at the same time, I don't want to put up a negative or critical review for fear of hurting their sales.

I feel like I'm in a pickle. The last indie novel I've read that I would give a full, no-caveats five stars was Alec Hutson's "The Crimson Queen," and that was a year ago.

Make Money Working from Home

12/7/2017 09:39:01 pm

If you do go that route, make sure you register as an amazon affiliate so you can earn 4-5% profits per purchase of a book you review from your link.

12/7/2017 10:11:19 pm

I don't think that you need to give someone five stars in order to review their book and not have it hurt their sales. You don't need to give it a star rating either. Would you read it again if you had a choice or do you think it was worth the price? If yes, then I think you are good. You can say that in your post. The positives should outweigh the negatives if that is the case. I have read series' that aren't 5 stars that I continue to read and pay for because I still enjoy them even if they aren't the best they could be.

If they are an indie author sales are probably not too amazing to start with anyway so I think that as long as your review was generally positive the press would help them since you are somewhat popular.

Galavantes

12/8/2017 06:03:39 am

I read the Crimson Queen based on your recommendation, and loved it. So, definitely continue to do that in the (perhaps rare) occasion that you find something to recommend.

Corey L

12/8/2017 07:51:24 am

Hi Will,

I agree with Chris. I don’t need a star rating but if you read a book you liked a lot I’d love to hear about it so I can read it! I’ve liked your recommendations a lot so far (Crimson Queen, The Land and various Wuxia stories online). Always lookin for new books to read!

If they are Kindle Unlimited that’s just a plus!

Thanks,
Corey

Diego

12/8/2017 09:16:11 am

It's always nice to have a review, if it's absolute garbage I think it's best not to comment, but if there's potential I give a flat 4 and give suggestions on what I felt was off.

stephen

12/8/2017 09:59:56 pm

How about simply recommending what you have come across that you like?

Juan

12/7/2017 08:32:52 pm

I’d like to see artwork of your characters and the worlds you have created.

12/7/2017 09:21:00 pm

Me too, Juan. I'm not big-time enough for fanart yet, though, so I would have to hire an artist.

WanderingArtist

12/7/2017 09:42:17 pm

Here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Iteration110Cradle/comments/6q0wpz/lindon/

and Here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Iteration110Cradle/comments/6q44cb/yerin/

On a more serious note, I'm trying to make some fanart myself (Of a slightly higher quality than I've shown above) but I just can't seem to get Yerin's hair right. I've done like 20 sketches. And for some reason the subreddit is massively obsessed with Yerin's hair.

12/7/2017 09:47:20 pm

Everyone has a strong opinion about it, which baffles me.

Sure, it's my fault that the picture isn't clear enough, but I didn't expect anyone to care so much about her hair specifically.

I'll probably throw in a scene to the next book where she cuts her hair just so we can get this over with.

12/7/2017 09:57:07 pm

Haha, hopefully that will shut them up. Maybe I'll just toss down a bunch of my sketches as they are and see what people like before I do a full picture. I'll just have to redo them on the computer and pretty them up a bit.

12/9/2017 03:46:48 pm

Let's face it, we are lucky if they are obsessed with Yerrin's hair.

James M

12/11/2017 11:21:28 pm

I would love to get a Map of Cradle. I’ve made my own crude map just to keep the locations straight, but I’m no artist.

Cage

12/12/2017 04:36:37 pm

To be honest 90% of the complaints were from that u/morgf guy. He seemed really intent on a bowl cut being right, and wouldn't take no for an answer... (Personally I think a bowl cut looks stupid enough on a 8 year old boy, let alone on an 18 year old swordswoman, so I really hope he's wrong.)

Not to mention that he kept trying to give Will fundamentally bad writing advice. There's too many people on the internet who think they're armchair experts on writing, just because they've heard the expression "show, don't tell."

Ronald

12/7/2017 08:34:04 pm

You should post a twelve hour course on novel writing for fantasy like Brandon Sanderson did.

Also, if you're taking recommendations, I recommend Mother of Learning By Domagoj Kurmaic. It's a free web novel, so you don't need to buy anything, but I'll think you'd really like it.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning

Andrew Rowe, Author of Sufficiently Advanced Magic, who you have mentioned before, said it was one of his favorites.
It's far better than most web novels you'll find on the internet.

Basically, it's Harry Potter meets Groundhog day. The main character is attending a school of magic but finds out the month he's in repeats over and over. More than that, he's lived and died thousands of times, since one of his classmates is the time traveler. He just happens to get included into the loop by mistake after it's been running for decades.

Zack, the original time traveler, is really a brute-force kind of guy. He thinks that if he can defeat an army of cultists, an evil lich, and stop the summoning of a Primordial, the time loop will end. Zorian, when he gets included into the loop is a bit more sneaky/clever. He trains his mind magic, uses the time loop to collect information, and build super cool war golems and the ability to duplicate himself so he can be in multiple places at once.

Andrew

12/7/2017 08:45:06 pm

Love that story. Only downside is the wait time for new chapters, but he's far enough along its not bad if you're starting now. There's a lot of amazing underrated serials coming out right now.

12/7/2017 08:48:45 pm

If I were going to post a full course on writing a novel, I would instead just link to Sanderson's. He does a better job than I could ever hope to. I re-watch lessons from the course every few months.

As for Mother of Learning, Andrew Rowe made me read it last year. I wasn't a huge fan. I didn't even read up to the then-current chapter, but stopped halfway through.

The magic system was cool, but I felt little connection to the characters and thought the stakes felt too low.

That's an extremely subjective opinion, and I'm glad other people enjoyed it. Just wasn't my cup of tea. It's one of those that I'll probably revisit later and see if I think better of it the second time.

TBoy

12/7/2017 09:22:21 pm

It's a slow burner at first, but it gets way better in arc 2. The plot speeds way up. I agree with you that the stakes were low early on but the become much more real during arc 2 and the the time after that.

I definitely recommend revisiting it. Maybe you'll want to skim through the first chapters. That's what I did during my first read through of it until I got to the good parts. That's what I did because I felt the same way during my first read of the story. I thought "Oh, what's the worst that can happen? He dies? He's done that a thousand times already!"

But it turns out that there are things that can permanently hurt him. And that he and Zack aren't the only time travelers.

12/7/2017 09:31:07 pm

That's good to hear, Tboy. MoL is one of those that I really want to like, it just didn't click for me.

Maybe Arc 2 will do it. Roughly where does that begin, do you remember?

12/7/2017 09:32:46 pm

Tboy, the way you type reminds me of a Trump speech, haha.

But I completely agree with you. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it either but chapter chapters 45-ish was when I really started getting involved. We spend a lot of time alone with Zorian and there's much more in the way of characterization moments that let you get to know him and the other important characters. (I tend to think that part of that is because the author has become a significantly better writer in the years since he started the story). But yes, if anybody is thinking about reading it, try and get through most of arc 2 before you put it down.

12/7/2017 09:35:22 pm

Arc 2 starts at chapter 27.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/27/Mother-of-Learning

I don't know if you got that far at first but chapter 26 is when the do-do hits the fan so to speak and bigger problems reveal themselves, so you might want to read that one beforehand.

12/7/2017 09:49:48 pm

I'm not going to skip chapters, I just wanted to know if I'd read past that point. And I'm pretty sure I did, but not 100%, so it looks like I'm going to have to give it another shot.

12/8/2017 06:05:33 am

Based on your recommendation for Mother of Learning, I know precisely which Reddit user you are. Which is weird.

12/7/2017 08:42:07 pm

All of what you mentioned sounded great!

Personal recommendations about anything in fantasy, or really anything you'd recommend checking out would be fun to see. And I know I personally love reading writing tips from some of my favorite authors. Aside from helping my own writing, I feel as though its always helped me to better understand the author's work when I can see some of their thought process behind crafting a story.

Maybe showcasing fan content with the recommendations too? Like if you saw some really cool fanart or someone wrote an interesting fanfiction. I'd definitely check out anything like that, and I think it'd really help to tie the fanbase in together.

12/7/2017 09:00:22 pm

I've only ever seen two pieces of real fan art that I can recall: a set of Territory banners, which were awesome, and one picture of Simon in battle. I showcased them both, and I'd be happy to show off more, if it exists.

I'd never seen any fanfiction either until the last couple of months, where some stories began showing up on the subreddit. Some of them are pretty good, too!

kaden

12/7/2017 09:08:59 pm

I say that we keeps the roots that have been sown so far but expand and bring new ideas like a march madness style third path for Lindon competition, or making a world building novel specific, or third awakened object for shera competition.

If we could get a list of stages from foundation to monarch including branch offs like sage the would be like suriel showing lindon the world

12/7/2017 09:20:07 pm

I would love to do a project with the blog where we built a world together and then wrote stories in it. That's one of my dream projects.

12/7/2017 09:41:09 pm

Hey will idk if you are still here or not but I just want to thank you for the amazing stories you write as they have been there to get me through times good and bad and I can't help but check this blog daily. You have me fully wrapped in the intricate web you weave.

12/7/2017 09:48:48 pm

Thanks for sticking with me, Kaden! It's been quite a ride already, but I'm around for the long haul.

Jayceblk

12/8/2017 07:59:00 am

That would be great and would also serve the purpose of inspiring some of us (myself mainly as I gave up on the idea years ago) to write.

Adarsh

12/7/2017 09:56:03 pm

I want more short stories. Maybe hold a writing contest? Fan-Fic can be submitted and you rate it? Limit it to 3-4 pages?

12/8/2017 01:45:31 pm

A fanfic contest is a good idea, but I'm not the best judge for it. I might get a "My Personal Favorite" category, but I can't represent the average reader well when it's fanfiction of my work.

I'll either end up being way too critical or not critical enough. There's no middle ground.

It might work to set up a panel of judges, or to just have people vote. That's worth considering.

WallABee

12/8/2017 03:37:19 pm

I'd like to do a fanfiction competition. The reward can be some detailed advice and criticism from you. I'd like to try publishing something myself someday, but as of yet it seems like it's going to take a few more years of practice before I'm at that level. Unlike you, I'm only getting a minor in creative writing.

I'd love to get some advice from you, especially writing in one of your own worlds, which you would be very familiar with so the story could shorter and skip the otherwise necessary worldbuilding for anything in fantasy. If you're feeling really generous, you could share a few tips you've picked up about self-publishing with whoever wins.

12/8/2017 07:23:35 pm

Hey, I'll share tips with self-publishing with anybody anytime. We're all in this together.

But yeah, that's not a bad idea for the fanfiction competition. Writing in my world means I can focus my advice on craft and story choices, rather than getting distracted by world-building elements.

Although I give feedback pretty freely. No need to have a formal competition for that.

Eric

12/9/2017 09:45:57 am

Mind if I ask, are your taxes really weird? I feel like your taxes would be really weird, just because sometimes you publish more books in a year and they're really high and other times you might publish less and your income is lower.

Does the IRS break into your house to beat your ass every year during tax season?

12/9/2017 02:09:58 pm

Yeah, my taxes are irritating. For one thing, I'm self-published, and self-employment has its own weird tax rules. For another thing, like you said, my income is way up or way down depending on the year. One year I got like $26k back in taxes because my estimated taxes were so much higher than my actual income.

12/7/2017 10:51:20 pm

*Cough* Now that I've seen you've read Oathbringer, you should just post about certain individuals who are mentioned who are just the greatest people in existence ;).

In seriousness, now that I've had some time to think about it. I think what would be super interesting would be for you to write a periodic expose on your greatest influences (good or bad), be it book, movie, tv show, or person. It would be a wonderful glimpse into your mind and a great way to show how you became the great writer you are today!

Ex. "Harry Potter" - Harry Potter made me want to write a story about a boy... blah blah.

"Twilight" - This created my fear of romance, etc. etc.

kriptical

12/8/2017 01:31:38 pm

Fantastic. This is the kind of stuff I would love to read. The behind the curtain author stuff that made you the writer you are today. Your influences, your aims, your short and long term goals; all that good shit.

12/8/2017 01:53:44 pm

I am glad I didn't have to read Oathbringer before you took Brandon Sanderson's pile of straw and spun it into gold.

I think I could come up with some decent posts about my influences. Like Kriptical mentioned, there are a lot of related topics I could talk about: my goals, aspirations, erotic nightmares, etc.

That's hard for me to sort out, though, because a lot of that stuff is just mundane to me, and I might not think to mention stuff that you guys might really want to hear.

I'll work on it.

Riley

12/8/2017 04:48:17 am

To be honest, I don’t really read other blogs, but yours always has the right mix of material. The posts I enjoy/appreciate most other than books news are world building posts (the way, random world building, etc) and recommendations. I read some of Andrew Rowe’s books after you mentioned him on here as well as The Crimson Queen and I loved all of them, so I’d love to see more reviews. Like someone else said, even if you don’t think it’s worth five stars, as long as you’d overall say it was a good read I’d be down to try!

12/8/2017 01:55:10 pm

Well, in any post I make, I try to stay somewhat on track regarding the books. I know we're all here because of the books, so I don't want to go too far off the rails.

That said, I need to branch out a LITTLE more just to increase the frequency of my posts, because I don't feel like I have enough to say about the books to fill a decent blog post every week.

Garrett

12/8/2017 06:50:12 am

Yes please to instructional content.

Your discussions about how different a 120,000 word story versus a 90,000 word story are we’re very interesting.

I would LOVE to hear about your writing process. What tools you use throughout, how you schedule your time/days/writing sprints.

Do you ever have issues balancing your personal life with your writing schedule? Etc Etc Etc.

12/8/2017 07:28:04 pm

>Do you ever have issues balancing your personal life with your writing schedule?

I'm torn between saying "What personal life?" and "When do I NOT have issues balancing my personal life with my writing schedule?"

There seems to be a lot of interest in instructional material in this thread, so it looks like I'm definitely going this direction. The only reason I don't usually talk about writing advice is because I feel awkward giving it; there's always somebody more qualified out there who has already given the same advice.

That said, I think there are some areas to which I can reasonably contribute. The 90k versus 120k thing is a good example, because that's not a topic people generally cover.

Clint

12/10/2017 08:38:20 pm

About how far back was this post? I haven't been had time to start my read through of the archives here.

Jay

12/13/2017 09:44:59 am

Anybody got a link to this 90K vs 120K discussion? My google-fu is not cooperating.

Timmy

12/13/2017 10:56:14 am

I think it was on the Subreddit, rather than on this blog. Look for the "Skysworn Feedback for Will".

Azqa

12/8/2017 07:34:01 am

I think that the priority order you presented makes complete sense. I'd enjoy hearing about the artists you found recently, or games/books/shows you've enjoyed in the past week. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on writing - I agree completely with Garrett that your discussion about writing a 120k vs 90k book was very interesting.

You've clearly shown that you're driven to write, so there's no fear that your blog would follow in Rothfuss' footsteps. Personal blog posts give the readers a really neat sense of connection to the author. If you're up for it, I think that would be awesome.

Randomly - do you follow Stjepan Sejic's art at all? He's one of the few artists I follow on DeviantArt, he's someone who's gotten me to read some comic book series (e.g. Rat Queens) just because he did the artwork for at least a few issues, and his commentary & humor in general are entertaining to read. His superhero / fantasy stuff is mostly under his Nebezial account with a little under Wanderers-of-Ravine, while his mature content is under Shiniez.

Danksouls

12/8/2017 10:54:20 am

Stjepan Sejic's art is phenomenal in my opinion. Ravine was one of my favorite graphic novels years ago and he wrote/illustrated it. Unfortunately the money just wasn't there for his passion project and he has only produced 2 volumes (to the best of my knowledge)

12/8/2017 02:12:25 pm

Have you read his Death Vigil stuff? Unfortunately again not terribly successful commercially which amazed me, but I think he's going to do a second book of that even so. I'm glad his "mature" stuff (Sunstone, Mercy coming up) is doing well for him, because I like the fact that he can be a complete creator at times and not just an artist for someone else's idea.

12/8/2017 02:17:01 pm

Honestly, a detailed blog post on the difference between a 90k book and a 120k book would be difficult to write. It's hard to explain to readers who haven't tackled a large-scale writing project of some kind.

But it might be worth pinning down. If I can really get into the subject to the degree that I can explain it to strangers, I might get a better grasp on my own process.

I've never heard of Stjepan Sejic before, but after a quick google, I recognize his hilarious comic on impractical female armor. That's pretty much all I know him from.

Sam

12/12/2017 05:09:03 pm

I would be very interested in such a post. My last attempt in writing novel length story ended at 130,000 words. I figured I'd be finished with the story by then but I was only at the 15% mark of book one of six in my outline!

Pacing is a lot harder than people give it credit for.

12/8/2017 08:07:38 am

So for narrative, some more Deathmatches would be good. I would even like to see more along the lines of mismatched or handicapped matches.
Instructive would be nice to have the pitfalls and such to watch out for.
As far as short stories, the only thing that I can think of that I would like to see that may or may not take up tons of time would be either some backstory on characters (just a random specific instance that gives some insight on some of the characters) or to do Simon and co. Doing some of the other Valinhall rooms.

12/8/2017 02:18:05 pm

Today, a friend suggested something like a backstory on how I developed each character. Their core idea, my influences, what their original role was, how my vision for them developed, etc.

I thought that sounded pretty neat.

12/10/2017 08:40:13 pm

That sounds very interesting.

Polycore

12/12/2017 01:06:23 pm

Would love to see that :)

Jacob

12/8/2017 08:28:41 am

I think instructional blogs could be quite interesting. I can't speak you the depth of topics and/or material you have to post those with some regularity, but i would read them
I would love to hear thoughts on movies, games, etc. I love them too! (Btw, if you haven't played Sentinels of the Multiverse, check it out. One of my favorites! And i have a feeling it's right down your alley)
I understand your hesitation to post something that's just "still writing." I think most people expect that's what your doing: chained to your desk, only let out twice a day, that kind of thing. If you go a couple weeks without any new news though, maybe post something about what you've been working on/ struggling to get right; like if you can't figure out how two characters should interact in a particular scene, write that and explain why (without any spoilers obviously). This would let us know that you're "still writing" while letting us feel connected to the process, and it might even help you think about it in a different way

12/8/2017 02:07:39 pm

That is indeed most of my process: I lock myself in a closet or a hotel room and just hammer away, and sometimes I stay isolated for weeks at a time.

I'm always hesitant to post about a book I'm in the middle of writing, because people always read into comments like that and it changes their expectations. When I say I'm struggling with a scene where one character feels inauthentically motivated and the other character feels too detached, people leap to conclusions and assume that the first one is Lindon and the second one is Yerin and they're in conflict because I'm developing a romance in this book.

So then when it turns out there WAS no romantic sub-plot in the book, people are caught off-guard.

It's a weird phenomenon, but it does happen, and I don't want to skew people's perspective of the book before it comes out.

Now, having said all that, I think you're right. I think this is the sort of content I really need to get better at putting up.

12/8/2017 10:59:13 am

I'm glad that you enjoyed KSBD, It's a great feeling to share something with a content creator that I really like. KSBD gives me a similar feeling as reading your books but with a very different storytelling medium so I thought that it would be worthwhile to share. I love reading webcomics but there are few out there that have been as captivating and expansive as KSBD.

12/8/2017 11:05:56 am

I forgot to mention that I really enjoy your book recommendations, worldbuilding and fan interaction on your blog. Basically keep doing what your doing.

Reach heaven by violence.
-Mathangi Ten Meti

12/8/2017 11:11:36 am

you're* (I can't believe I messed that up)

12/8/2017 01:41:03 pm

Nobody's going to fault you for a typo on a site with no Edit Comment button. I'm sure my responses are full of them.

It's hard for me to keep doing what I'm doing, because I know I need to post more frequently, but I feel like half the time I have nothing to say. And I don't want to have one of those blogs where I just say nothing in as many words as possible.

So I'm trying to get a better understanding of what content people actually want from me, so I can up my post rate without A.) taking too much time away from the books, or B.) blathering on about nothing once a week.

12/8/2017 03:20:44 pm

Perhaps, more specifically, you could do posts about books/movies/games that you're enjoying at the time. I also really like the worldbuilding blogs but they seem quite time consuming (maybe limit them to the first 50 questions?)

12/8/2017 07:29:47 pm

Yeah, I'm going to need to limit it next time.

As for the books/whatever I'm reading at the time, I think I can come up with some consistent content for that. If nothing else, it could give you guys an idea of what I look for and enjoy in stories.

Tim

12/8/2017 11:01:18 pm

How about first 300 questions. Or better yet, the first 300 people to ask questions.

Lewis

12/8/2017 11:07:39 am

Please post a blog or series of blogs on your thought processes or a how to on when you’re creating a new world or working on a new idea for a new book.

12/8/2017 01:38:03 pm

This is the sort of thing I'd like to talk about, because it seems to be something of an overlooked area in instructional writing content. There are many resources about how to write on a sentence level from writers far better than I am, but not a lot of people talk about how to come up with names, choose between one series idea and another, figure out how long the story should be, etc.

12/10/2017 08:51:41 pm

I would very much like to know your process for creating your world's. Like starting from a plot point in the story and expanding outwards from there or thinking up region by region. Choosing what to keep and what to cut or move around. What kind of events are happening around the story world to influence the story's progression. The world's geography even.

12/8/2017 01:21:18 pm

I’d like to see some instructional posts, I’m reading a few books on creative writings....

I also think when post like this pop up you have come to a road block in writing, OR the book/ books are in the hands of beta readers :)

Hopefully it’s the latter.

12/8/2017 01:35:57 pm

Usually posts like these pop up because I'm not currently chained up in a basement writing.

Soon, though...soon it's back to the basement.

Jeremiah Halstead

12/8/2017 02:51:39 pm

I'd love to see you pontificate on why you will surpass Sanderson, or at least... ach I was eaten by a strugel!

12/8/2017 07:24:14 pm

MY DRILL IS THE DRILL THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS

James J.

12/11/2017 09:48:40 am

believe in the Kamina that believes in you

SexSells

12/8/2017 05:18:14 pm

Hey Will, would you object to me writing erotic fanfiction with your characters? I heard you mention Lindon is 18, which is what I've been waiting for. Are Mercy and Yerin over 18 as well yet?

12/8/2017 07:11:13 pm

They are over 18, yes.

As for whether I'd object...I mean, I won't officially endorse anything NSFW. Meaning I won't link to it, tell people about it, or put it up on this site.

But whatever you want to write on your own time is up to you. I don't try and restrict people from writing fanfiction regardless of the content.

12/8/2017 07:47:28 pm

...and, of course, there's the normal caveat for any fanfiction: don't pretend you're me, don't pretend you came up with the characters or world yourself, and don't sell it.

12/8/2017 08:15:39 pm

Yup that's fine. I'm not even associating my name with it after all. So project Cradle bdsm orgy is good to go.

Lmao

12/10/2017 09:35:40 pm

The Path of the twin pornstars

Yass!

12/11/2017 07:53:49 pm

Yess!!! Cradle erotica! I knew this was coming! Will has been teasing us so long by denying us any sort of romance whatsoever. Our collective sexual tension needs an outlet. You wouldn't give us romance Will, so we're giving you HARDCORE PORN. I can't wait. I wish I was Yerin, taking seven inches of ROCK HARD LINDON after a long day spent at the blackflame trials.

12/11/2017 07:55:44 pm

Just make sure you do Simon and Leah too. They have some serious chemistry going on and it would be such a waste if Leah didn't take advantage of her new position of power. Her new enforcer even comes with his own set of chains included!

Worldbuilding Fun

12/8/2017 11:29:56 pm

The worldbuilding fourm was pretty fun. Honestly, you should just leave one open permanently so people can just drop by whenever and you have a continuous supply of ever-increasing questions to answer.

anders

12/9/2017 04:01:31 pm

I´d love to see some short "could have been" storys. For example:

-How would Lindon have met jai chen if Suriel hadent changed the future. (True, I got a decent guess I think, but still).

-What if Lindon had taken Eithans offer to return home after hitting gold.(short term, we know what would happend long term;))

-If the sage of the endless sword had survived the poisonong(and whatever else it was that weakened him)

Then there are other ministories that could be neat. Examples

-Did that deepwalker ape escape with Eithans help and is it about making mayhem now, or just trapped elsewhere?(the one Jai Daishou was looking for)

-The fight where Orthos lost himself when defending Aurelius against the a rogue blackflame.

And plenty others..;)

12/10/2017 08:09:49 am

I'm taking up writing as a hobby, I'm of course probably never going to publish something, but I'm posting in a free site and have people help me with criticism. So writing advice on how to make characters not feel flat would be cool.

I'm listening to those Brandon Sanderson video's you mentioned somewhere and many things there have already opened my mind.

*On another note.
If you feel you don't have anything to report, why not just quickly make an open discussion between readers to rain random ideas or theories. Or people can come up with a cool name for an iteration and why the Abidan would call it that. (eg. magic-wise, role-wise or something else)

Walter

12/10/2017 02:51:43 pm

I only want informative posts on how far you’ve gotten on cradle and that I should see the next in the series next week. Every week.

12/10/2017 04:05:30 pm

I don't think he can really do that. The progress probably varies wildly week by week. I think he's saying he wants to do more posts but he's not sure what else we want apart from progress reports. I like world-building, and theorizing how things work.

*On another note.
Will maybe ask us (the readers) questions on how we think some stuff would work. Just to entertain each other, I don't want you to spoil things. Like how I would picture a power from Helgard being adapted to Valinhall (or vice-versa) would work.

12/10/2017 09:30:27 pm

I really just want the next 9 cradle books before Christmas, and news of writing for an HBO or Showtime series pilot. Nothing huge.

12/10/2017 08:00:52 pm

Another random question for you: have you seen the Battle Angel Alita trailer, and if so, what do you think of it? A corollary would be to ask if you've read the manga, of course.

Nick

12/11/2017 04:58:14 pm

Hey Will,

I don't know if I'm to late. I'd love to see you include recommendations for things, or even "This is what I read/watched/played this week, here are my thoughts" That said I'd like to beg you to avoid talking about politics much here. I used to follow a very popular author whose blog just slowly devolved into screaming political rants with occasional writing advice. It soured me so much I don't even read his books. To be clear, it's not even that I disagreed with all of the political opinions, there was just so much vitriol. On a more positive note, I don't know if you ever read Order of the Stick, it's a great web-comic and on the sidebar for the website the author did some very good blog posts on world building specifically with role playing games in mind. Might be worth a read just to see what some other people have done.

Billy

12/11/2017 05:47:07 pm

Read Erfworld. It's a nice fun webnovel. Use it to refresh yourself after reading KSBD.

12/11/2017 05:47:50 pm

*Webcomic I mean. It has lots of pictures and focuses primarily on humor.

12/12/2017 09:59:35 am

I used to read erfworld, up until they reached the weird spot where he was writing out chunks of it, and having someone draw parts. Did they ever get back to a regular artist?

12/12/2017 04:11:31 pm

Yeah it turns into a webnovel for a while for a reason I never fully understood. I think the author wanted to expand the plot and drawing takes forever. Now there's like 10k words of text then it goes back to webcomic every hundred or so pages.

Sumone

12/13/2017 12:26:15 pm

how would we get a picture of will's face?

Olaku

12/13/2017 09:46:23 pm

He has one on his Amazon profile. He's the garden gnome, obviously.

Whodawazit

12/14/2017 09:29:53 am

http://www.willwight.com/a-blog-of-dubious-intent/after-action-report-fantasy-author-dinner

SketchyVooDooSalesman

12/14/2017 01:50:17 pm

Also, if you need to hear Will's voice you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU4SDKulqb8

12/14/2017 02:02:33 pm

Hey I just want to point out that it's kind of weird you guys are collecting pictures of Will and the sound of his voice...

Finn

12/13/2017 05:26:43 pm

I think you’ve had a good mix of personal and story-based content, though instructional would be great.

Andrew luscomb

12/14/2017 02:54:26 pm

I just want to say out my favorite authors the only one with a more consistent publishing sched for books and able to maintain a high level of standards for world building is Sanderson. But I like your mcs better and Sanderson is an AI I swear. I look forward to your next books with the same level of anticipation as his now. Thank you

PoorMe

12/15/2017 09:38:58 am

Ugh. Will Hasn't said anything in a week and my life is now meaningless....

12/16/2017 09:06:32 am

Checking in the next day. Still nothing new from Will :(

12/17/2017 10:33:30 am

Day 3. No more words from Will... sadface sadface..

12/19/2017 10:04:08 am

A blog post every two weeks isn't what I'd like, but it isn't THAT bad.

That's part of what this post is about: I want to have something to say every week. A lot of weeks I don't. I'm just working.

Deadnettle

12/19/2017 11:57:51 am

A week that we don't hear from you is a week that I assume that you are deep in a writing trance atop creativity mountain. In this state you can channel the wisdom of the ancients into wondrous manuscripts full of forbidden, eldritch knowledge.

12/19/2017 05:06:12 pm

Yayz. Will said something!!!

But yes, it's not bad to only post so often. I think you could talk more if you just wrote about whatever was on your mind, though that might cause the blog to go off topic...

Christmas Fanatic

12/18/2017 07:56:20 pm

Hey, do you think you could possibly do a short Christmas story or something like that sometime within the next month or two?

Someone or amother

12/19/2017 05:04:09 am

So I think that when you need a break from writing whichever story it is you should switch to writing a scene/chapter of another series to give your brain a time to rest on the original story. In that way maybe you could do a short story a month. That way we can look forward to the beginning or end of the month and have a short from TG or EE or maybe even I10. I understand that it takes away from writing the actual books but i figure you need some content breaks here and there and I personally love the short stories that i have read and want to hear more.

*insert some kind of pop-culture reference here

12/19/2017 01:55:21 pm

Well, kinda ALL of them.
Of course, we NEED release dates Will.
I've been trying to write a book my self at the moment, its only about ten pages long and it sounds like the author just tried to put as much existential stuff as they could into it, but i'd really like some tips. Short stories are nice but i thought you could kinda kill two birds with one stone by when (or if) you write a story, you could explain your thought process behind it and how you came to the result.
I need book recommendations, i'm always finding people that have read entire series that i haven't even heard of.

In which we ramble on.
And by we, I mean me.