Date: 2012-07-01
Type: Verbatim
Location: Chattanooga, TN
This is a transcript of an interview by Literate Liquors with Brandon at LibertyCon in July 2012.
Oh by the way, there are also no edits.
Oh, good. Okay.
Hey y’all. Welcome back to Literate Liquors. I’m John Hartness. I’m your host, and I am still here at LibertyCon. I would say, thus the same t-shirt. But since I had t-shirts printed for the show, I’m probably always going to be wearing a “Read Recklessly” t-shirt from here on out. So get used to it. I do have two and I wash them a lot.
(laughs)
I also have more than one pair of black jeans. Just sayin’. I know I go to cons, but I’m not one of those scary gamer guys. Anyway, here with me . . .
You’re actually pretty scary. I don’t know . . .
But I’m not much of a gamer guy . . .
Yeah . . . There you go. I guess that was a truthful statement.
Yeah. So, here with me this evening is New York Times best-selling author, Parsec award winning Podcaster, all-around cool dude, writing instructor to the masses, Wheel of Time finisher-upper, Mistborn creator . . .
Secret assassin of JFK. Oh wait, we aren’t supposed to say that. Nevermind.
Shit. I told you no edits. Brandon Sanderson, folks.
Hi.
Out there somewhere there are people applauding.
Oh, good. Okay. Hi. Yes, I’m Brandon. I write books and stuff.
And I basically accosted Brandon in the hallway as we were leaving the JordanCon party and said, “Do you have ten minutes?” I’ve used four of them already.
You know, I’ve accosted my share of people for the podcast idea. So I’m used to this. We sometimes tie people up and tow them over.
Yes.
“You podcast with us, or we won’t let you go.”
And I do have Scott W. Baker from episode two times ago in the room. And Scott’s another big dude, so between us we could probably have manhandled him. It’s not like a James Tuck, or anything, but . . . Anyway, so Brandon what project am I currently keeping you from?
The Wheel of Time–the last book of The Wheel of Time. A Memory of Light comes out January 8. I am going to go to my hotel room and work on it some more because the deadlines are pretty crazy.
How well I know, ‘cause my deadlines are two weeks ago for revisions on book two of my series.
Yeah, yeah. And here we are sitting and chatting instead.
Yes. So this is book twenty-seven?
Yeah, four hundred and thirty. No, it’s book fourteen.
Book fourteen.
It is the last one, though. For those who were skeptical, it really, really is. This is the end.
You know, J. K. Rowling said that once.
Oh yeah? But then . . . she’s not writing more Harry Potter is she? She’s doing, like, some other thing.
There’s this nasty rumor that there’s another Potter book coming.
Oh really?
But, I have not heard it confirmed.
Well, you know, when they make four hundred gazillion dollars, maybe she needs to go buy another continent.
Right, like Australia’s not enough.
Yeah, yeah. You need a couple more continents, what are you going to do? You gotta write another book, right?
Absolutely.
You only own one private fleet. I mean, the Queen has three. How can she show her face at parties?
Seriously. By the way, if any of Ms. Rowling’s people are out there, we would love to have her on Writing Excuses and Literate Liquors . . .
At the same time.
At the same time, because I’m pretty sure that she’d have to get liquored up to hang out with us.
We could do it on your private fleet. It would be great . . . we could sail to your continent.
So you’re working on the last Wheel of Time?
I am.
How does that feel?
It feels really scary.
Yeah?
And well, really awesome. It’s the whole thing: scary, awesome, and daunting. I don’t know what to say other than that. I mean, it’s the last book. I’ve been following this thing since I was fourteen or fifteen . . . whatever, 1990.
Wow . . .
I’ve been reading them ever since then, reading them since they came out. It’s like the Wheel of Time has been the one constant throughout my entire life.
You weren’t able to drive . . .
Right, I wasn’t able to drive when I started reading the Wheel of Time, and now I’m almost 40, and so . . . yeah.
So am I, and I look a good ten years older than him. This is why I have much more encyclopedic knowledge of alcohol. Clean living (points to Brandon). Literate Liquors (points to self). So, that’s awesome, and we did just come from the JordanCon party. So this thing . . . it’s not even just a series of books.
No.
It’s a whole culture. It’s a con, it’s . . .
People are into Wheel of Time in the same way that people get into Star Wars. It’s not just a book series. There are huge communities of people. There are people that their entire friend circle is built around Wheel of Time fandom because this thing has been going for so long. It’s awesome, and it’s incredible.
That’s awesome. I’m not going to keep you too much longer. And since you’re not a drinker . . .
I’m not a drinker. That’s a . . . yeah.
But you did tell me you had an alcohol-related story . . .
I kind of have one, and it’s not about me.
We are still writers.
It’s actually about . . . so this is your piece of trivia. I am Mormon, and I was roommates in college with another famous Mormon— Ken Jennings , who won all the Jeopardy! money.
Okay, all right.
This is my roommate from college. And so the only liquor story, you like . . . hey, liquor stuff. He, on Jeopardy! , kept flubbing all the liquor questions. ‘Cause he’s Mormon!
Right.
And so my friend Ken had to go memorize big lists of mixed drinks. So he’s the most literate person in all sorts of alcohol that I know that’s Mormon because he had to have all these questions for Jeopardy! And so he keeps buzzing in and winning these things. It’s pretty amusing.
Were there Elders calling him with questions, “So Ken . . . is there something you need to be telling us?”
(laughs) Yeah, I don’t know.
Or is it more like, “Ken, you tithe appropriately and we’ll just never mention this again.”
(laughs) Yeah, I don’t know. You should have him on some time. He’s an author, too. But, there’s your piece of trivia: Brandon Sanderson, Ken Jennings—roommates.
There we go. That’s as close as I can get for a liquor commentary out of a guy who said, “What flavor of water shall I discuss on your podcast?”
Yes, that’s right. That’s right.
As I’m sitting here drinking a Dasani because still I drank one of those jalapeno things, and it made my teeth sweat.
Those things look kind of cool.
They’re very pretty.
I envy you guys—the drinkers—because your drinks look so awesome. It’s like they look like the coolest Kool-Aid that’s ever been made. I bet they don’t taste like Kool-Aid.
Actually, I had some punch last night that tasted like Kool-Aid, except it was 85 degree Kool-Aid, and it was disgusting.
Right, okay.
So no, you’re really not missing that much, except for . . .
The booze.
Yeah, except for the booze. Brandon, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
My pleasure.
I really appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your revisions for us. We’ll look forward to book fourteen— The Memory . . .
A Memory of Light.
A Memory of Light , by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.
Yep.
And is there maybe another Mistborn book coming soon?
I will be doing some of my own stuff. The second Stormlight book is what I’ll be doing next, which is the sequel to Way of Kings .
Cool. Sequel to Way of Kings —don’t drop it on your chihuahua.
That’s right. It will kill him.
All right, thank you all very much. As always, please remember: drink responsibly, read recklessly. Good night.
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