General question, all of you can chime in on, but it’s probably most impactful to Brandon here. To harp on my own themes—the Wheel changes lives. I think a lot of us have had our lives changed. How has writing it changed yours?
Well, I can give you a show versus a tell. If you read Warbreaker and then Way of Kings , you can see directly the impact it’s had on me as a writer, and that’s more something that you as reader response and critics can pick out probably better than I can. That’s one way to say it. I mean, it’s also had a lot of philosophical effects on me. What I just talked about, I’ve had to grow as a writer. I’ve talked about this. I had to grow a whole lot in that time I was working on Gathering Storm , and it was a very difficult process. But like lifting weights, a difficult process, hopefully, you either break beneath it or you grow. I think that it has forced me to grow a lot. But then there’s the philosophical sorts of things. I picked up the first book when I was fourteen. And now working on it, I learned to write by reading the Wheel of Time books, and I’ve talked about that before. And, you know, there is something deeply humbling about being able to give something back to Robert Jordan, that I get to do that no one else does. Does that make sense? I get to return something. These books are me saying, wow, the wise master has grown a little frail, and I get to help him across the road. Or that sort of thing, listening to the master’s wisdom as he leans on my shoulder a little bit in the last years. And there’s no greater honor that someone can have than that honor right there. It’s changed my life like it will probably never change anyone else’s life. But everyone’s individual, everyone’s had their lives changed in a different way, but I’ve got something very special and I’m very very grateful for that, and it’s been a humbling experience.
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