We had talked, a little bit, about your schedule and how much time you’ve had to put into the writing, especially the latter part of a cycle of completing a book. Do you have to think very carefully about taking time away from the writing in order to maintain the schedule you keep? I know there has been incredible interest in your book tour, which you are currently on. As a matter of fact, the reason you are here in Washington, D.C. is because the fans of Robert Jordan and The Wheel of Time in this area pitched such a fit…
They burned a couple of embassies, I heard.
…on the Internet, that TOR added this to your already extensive tour schedule. Which allows you to be here, so we appreciate that very much—thank you folks, for doing that. But does it make it difficult for you to do the other things you want to do in your life? Do you find yourself calculating more what it’s costing you away from the book?
Yes. My vacations are almost inevitably now a few DAYS tacked on to the end of a business trip. The fishing trip was an aberration of wild dimensions. I stuck with that despite various people saying, “Can you really do that, can you really take the time out?” I said, “I plan to get my brothers and cousins and nephews together. We’re going to fly fish, we’re going to fly fish, I don’t CARE, we’re going to FLY FISH, and catch some trout.” But generally I have to think about things like that. I don’t go to conventions very much anymore, I used to go to a lot of them, I don’t have the time.
And that’s why, of course, your time is so valuable when you are available to people around here. Well, WE’RE out of time, as a matter of fact. Mr. Jordan, thank you for being here. Tad Williams, when he was on this show, basically called his Dragonbone Chair Trilogy the “story that ate my life”, which it seems like The Wheel of Time, based on our discussion, is at least nibbling on the edges of this portion of your life. Which for our sakes, in terms of finding out what the end of the story will be, we hope won’t be TOO much longer. And for your sake too, so that you can afford to take a couple of months to go fly fishing with your family.
It would be nice, but if a book is worth doing, if it’s worth wrestling down, it’s always going to eat your life.
And on that note we say thank you very much.
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