First, the good news: Kylar Stern won Round 1 of the Cage Match! Sorry, Gimli.
Thank you to all you fans who voted.
Now for the even better news: Kylar’s next fight will be against Harry Potter.
That’s right folks: the Boy Who Lived will face off with The Boy Who Kills. And I’m writing up the conflict like never seen before. It goes live this Monday, March 12, HERE. Apparently, Hermione is laying down the ground rules.
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions to Tuesday’s Ask Me Anything on Reddit Fantasy! Lots of great questions, and I appreciated all the people who came on board just to say “hi”! I checked in yesterday morning to answer a bunch more questions, and will be checking in just briefly tomorrow (Friday) to answer a few more.
Moderator “elquesogrande” says that the event was in the top-10 of all their AMA events since they began 4.5 years ago, which is awesome. So a big thank you to everyone who participated! The Brent Weeks AMA came in at #7, just behind…
Wait a second.
Joe Abercrombie?!? Joe Abercrombie came in at #6?!?
Ever wanted to interview me yourself? Tonight, you can. That’s right, I go online at 7pm CST (that’s 1am GMT), to answer your questions at Reddit.com’s Fantasy section. Check it out HERE. EDIT: Oops, that’s just the announcement page. The questions page is HERE. Sorry. You do have to be a member to ask questions (lurking is free!), but the sign-up is relatively painless and doesn’t cost anything (darn, was going to hit them up for royalties, ah well).
You can start posting comments/questions now, and between 7pm and 9pm Central Standard Time, I’ll be responding to them.
To add a reminder to your calendar, click here: 
Look forward to talking with you tonight!
by CAPSLOCK
Round 1 of Suvudu’s Cage Match 2012 is now live, featuring Kylar vs. Gimli.
Go HERE to read about the face-off (fight scene written by Brent) and vote for who you want to win!
Also, check out and vote in Monday’s new poll!
by CAPSLOCK
Brent has a new writing advice post up.
Highlights of the post: working in the shower, the beauty of low word count goals, and hacking your feelings. He also explains why he has a news feed, and not a blog.
(Brent says: if you want a good excuse to avoid meeting your own word count goal, check it out HERE.)
I’ve got a new-and-improved FAQ posted, completed with questions about The Seven Satrapies, Midcyru, and writing. There’s also a new outline with easy jump-down navigation so you don’t have to scroll through the entire post to find the answers you want. (Yay, CAPSLOCK!)
You can take a look HERE.
You’ll also notice there’s a new poll up, so take the chance to vote!
I’ve finally gotten myself an assistant, and she’s going to be helping me out with posting information on the website so that I can spend more time writing, but still let you all know what’s going on from time to time.
Her name is CAPSLOCK.
Well, not really. But she’s afraid of paparazzi so that’s going to be her pseudonym on the website. Actually, she has a habit of capslocking text on accident when she writes up my daily agenda (I have an agenda now?!). As revenge for giving me a daily agenda, I started ruthlessly mocking her every time she makes a typo. Calling her CAPSLOCK seemed to annoy her, so it stuck.
I’ll still be making 95% of the content for my blog here, just sometimes it will be me dictating posts and her typing them up and uploading pictures. Having her services also means that I’ll be able to do MOAR fun stuff, like the poll over there —>
Again, content by me (as if you couldn’t tell), but all the hard work by her. (Hey, you gotta know your weaknesses. Hard work is mine.)
CAPSLOCK will be posting a new poll every Monday. Sometimes they’ll be silly, sometimes they’ll be for me to get a sense of your thoughts on more serious things, but I hope they’ll always be fun.
She’ll also update the website occasionally, help me with business-y things, and try to answer questions in the forum when there’s something she thinks she knows the answer to. She’s already becoming my resident historian, as she’s read the books numerous times. Since she’s started working for me, she’s already made a timeline, family trees, and a rough encyclopedia. So it’s pretty good odds that she’s usually on the right track.
The best news, though, is that every time I make a mistake, I can now blame it on her. (Sometimes, she’ll even deserve it… like that NBA March Madness thing.)
EDIT: I uploaded the most unflattering picture of her I could find, but she took it down. Apparently there are some drawbacks to giving her the website password. 😉
And not just my fans, either! If you love to depict classic and modern fantasy characters in kick-ass ways, the Random House SFF blog, Suvudu, would love to show your work to thousands of people!
Starting two weeks from today, they host a Cage Match, loosely based on the NCAA March madness. They start with 64 fantasy characters (new and old), and at each round an author or fan presents the characters in any way he or she sees fit, either writing up a hypothetical fight or just presenting the strengths and weaknesses of each fighter. Fans vote on who they think wins in the comments, and the winner advances. Pretty simple.
But it would be made far cooler with great art. And that’s where you come in.
If you’re interested, and I know there’s already a lot of great Night Angel fan art out there, please go HERE to find out what they’re looking for, and how to bring your art to their attention. The brackets will be announced February 26th, and you’ll be able to see Kylar Stern in action starting March 5th.
Traditional publishing or self-publishing? What’s a writer to do?
Go HERE to read my thoughts on Michael Sullivan, the Yukon gold rush, and the ebook revolution.
Many thanks to Gail Z. Martin, fellow Orbit author and host of Ghost in the Machine for inviting me on for a brief interview. We talked about editing, turnaround time, and deadlines!
Go HERE to download the 20-minute podcast, or HERE to listen instantly.