Hello there everyone. I've retreated to my man cave for a while to work on book two. To entertain you in the meantime, here's one of the College Survival Guide columns I used to write for the local paper.

Dear Pat,

I recently had a rough relationship with a friend.

Actually, I was punch-drunk in love with the guy. We were on the verge of
dating and did typical things like talking for hours on the phone, hanging
out together, flirting, and beyond.

Everything was going great, but no one was making the first move even
though we had talked about dating. When he finally asked me out, I later found
out that he already had a girlfriend and was playing me the whole time. As you
can imagine, I was angry with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.

Anyway, the next time we hung out I desperately wanted to ask if the
rumors were true, but I never did. As the day went on, I kept thinking about all
the lies this guy had told me and couldn't imagine how anyone could be so
heartless. Well, he kept making fun of me about one thing or another and I
finally snapped. At the time, I was holding a one pound block of Colby cheese
and this guy wasn't quick enough to take cover. I had no intention of severely
hurting him, but I've never seen someone go down that hard! I nailed him right
in the kidney so it took him a few minutes to recover. I felt pretty bad
afterwards, but he was feeling better the next day.

So now that the story is out of the way, I can ask you my question.
Should I feel bad now that this guy has a giant bruise and will probably be
peeing blood for the next month?

Sincerely,
Kristin

Only in Wisconsin could we have a problem like this: cheese-related domestic
abuse.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Wisconsin laws on the books relating to cheese-specific crime. Wouldn't that make a great CSI spin-off? "This week on CSI - Dairyland: our heroes struggle to unravel a baffling second-degree lacticide...."

First, I have to say that this letter cracked me up, Kristin. The funniest one I've gotten in a long while. This is because it contains the two fundamental elements necessary for comedy:

1) Something horrible happening to someone else.

Mel Brooks said it best, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." There's something buried deep in our brains that makes us enjoy the traumatic suffering of strangers.

It's not a pleasant thing to think about, but it's true. Think of every joke you've ever laughed at. 99% of the time what makes you laugh is something horrible. If a joke begins "An American, a German, and a Norwegian go fishing…." You already know the end. We end up laughing at the Norwegian because of his stupidity, or because something horrible happens to him. Or both.
Don't believe me? Think about every Loony Tunes cartoon you've ever watched, or any episode of America's Funniest Home Videos.


Still, don't believe me? Check this out.


Case closed.

2) An element of the ridiculous.

Ridiculous things are funny. Like a monkey wearing a dress, or a clown having sex, or an English major with a job. In this letter, the ridiculous element is a girl is kicking a guy's ass with a chunk of cheese: pure comedy gold.

I mention all of this because the humor of this letter really obscures the issue. So let me present a different, humor-free scenario:

There's a guy and a girl. They hang out, flirt, "and beyond" doing the relationship dance. Later, the guy finds out that the girl already has a boyfriend. She's been lying to him and leading him on, and generally taking advantage of his trusting nature.

So the next time they're together, the guy is seething mad. He keeps it under control for a while, but eventually a comment makes him lose his cool. So he takes whatever is in his hand: a coffee mug, a wrench… whatever. Then he hits her with it. Hits her so hard that she falls down and can't get up for several minutes.


Now the question: should the guy feel bad? Seems pretty straightforward to me.


So yeah, Kristin, you should feel bad. Because, when all's said and done, you took something non-violent and made it violent. Someone hurt your feelings and you hurt their body. And ultimately, it doesn't matter that he's a guy and you're a girl. It doesn't matter if you use a wedge of gouda or a baseball bat. It doesn't matter that he seems to be, on all accounts, a total prick. That's just not a good thing. Feel bad. Apologize.

Now I'm not saying that what he did was any better. He abused your trust, and, in my opinion, that warrants him a severe, figurative, ass-kicking of some sort.

Unfortunately, you've forfeited your right to creative revenge by opening up the can of whoop-ass on him. Too bad, I could have written a great how-to get revenge column for all the jaded lovers out there. Oh well.

Oh Survival Guide, how I miss you....

What do you think, folks. If I offered to write new advice columns here on the blog, would anyone be interested? Let me know in the comments below.

Be good,

pat

Labels: College Survival Guide

For anyone who is interested, here's the details for the book signing I'll be doing in Pasadena in a couple of weeks.

Saturday, January 17th. 3:00

Borders
475 S. Lake Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91101

As usual, I'll be doing a reading/Q&A followed by a signing.

I should have posted up this information weeks ago, but the fundraiser and the holiday slowed me down. If you know anyone in the area who you think would be interested, could you do me a favor and let them know? I hate it when I get back from one of these signings, post a blog about it, and then five people make comments like, "I didn't know you're were going to be in my hometown!!!1!"

Back to work on book two for me,

pat

Labels: appearances

While I live in the cozy little town of Stevens Point, I grew up near Madison. That's where my family is. It's home, in the biggest sense of the word. That's where I go when the family-type holidays roll around, and that's where I went this Christmas.

A couple months ago, I went down to Madison to attend Wiscon. It's nice to go to a convention that doesn't involve spending all day on a plane, and this one is practically in my backyard.

While I was there, I ended up hooking up with Tobias Buckell and David Anthony Durham. And by "hooking up" I mean that we were going to hang out at the coffee shop and chat. Not that they aren't attractive men and all... But... well. Yeah.

Anyway, before I go into the coffee shop, I hit the Jamba Juice next door. Because I love Jamba Juice. Specifically, I love the Orange Dream Machine smoothie. If there was a Jamba Juice here in Stevens Point, that is all I would eat. Ever.

So I get a smoothie and head across the street to the coffee shop. There, I order a mocha and politely ask if it's okay for me to bring in my smoothie. The hipster behind the counter is cool about it, and I tip him generously.

So Toby, David, and I are waiting for our drinks when a policeman shows up. Not mall security. This is a real cop, blue suit, badge, gun and everything.

This makes me edgy. Back in high-school my friends and I used to be hooligans. Our main hobby was toilet-papering houses. In a small town like Deforest (which is where I went to school) that means that you have to get pretty good at dodging the cops, because most of their job was keeping us from doing stuff like that. It was like an elaborate game of tag.

My friends and I were pretty good at it, and we were never caught. We developed highly sensitive cop radar that let us know when to run or hide.

The unfortunate result is that these days, whenever I see a cop, I feel like I've done something wrong. This isn't helped by the fact that at any given moment that I might be returning from, going to, carrying around, or at least thinking about something illegal.

So when I see the cop, I immediately feel shifty. I do a mental inventory of my pockets and backpack, wondering what I have on me that might get me in trouble. This is also a holdover from highschool. Back then, innocent things riding around in your car with you can get you in trouble. Things like fireworks, silly string, shaving cream, and, of course, the case of toilet paper in the trunk.

But I don't have anything on me. Lockpicks might raise an eyebrow, but they're legal to carry here in Wisconsin. I have a bottle of caffeine in my backpack. And while it looks suspicious, it's not illegal either. I'm clean.

Still, I can't help but feel like this cop is giving me the eye. I get my mocha and wander over to the condiment stand to add my requisite four or five sugars. I'm sure of it: he's looking me over. Is it because I have terrorist beard? That might single me out in line at the airport, but in a coffeeshop in downtown Madison? Not likely. There are hippies here aplenty.

I head over to the table Toby and David have picked out, and he's still watching me. What is it? Am I wearing my t-shirt that says, "You say tomato, I say fuck you." No. Is it my black leather trench coat? Am I just radiating latent guilt? What? What?

He comes over to the table where I've just taken off my coat. His expression is serious, he's frowning a little. Then it occurs to me - the Jamba Juice. He knows that I shouldn't have it here in the coffee shop. Is it illegal to have a carry-in?

He then he says. "Did you write The Name of the Wind?"

And I'm floored. He's read my book. We chatted for a bit, and I got to look popular in front of my fellow writers.

However, I knew that for what it was, a fluke. There had been a story about me in the paper a couple days before. A "Local Boy Does Good" sort of thing. They used a picture of me, and I have to admit I do have a bit of a distinctive look.

Jump forward to last week. Sarah and I are walking out to my car in the Borders parking lot. Heading toward the bookstore is a stranger, making more than the usual amount of eye-contact. As he had some respectable chin growth, I figured he was just expressing beard solidarity.

But then, as he comes closer he nods and says, "I like your work."

I say, "You're kidding me. You know who I am?"

He does, apparently. Still, I can pass this off as a fluke too. It did happen in the parking lot of a bookstore, after all.

But then, two days later, I'm at the post office mailing the check out to Heifer. When I hand the guy the envelope, he looks down at it, then says, "Are you the writer Pat Rothfuss?"

So... yeah. It was weird. Cool, but weird. It's nice that these last two things happened when Sarah was around, so she thinks I'm cooler than I really am. This is important because she's much prettier and nicer than me. I need to have something to balance the scales out.


In unrelated news, I'm going to be making an appearance at a bookstore in Pasadena on January 17th. I can't lay my hands on the details right now, but I'll post them up as soon as I can find the appropriate piece of paper.


Hope everyone is having a good time,

pat

Labels: appearances, fan coolness, my rockstar life

First, I'd like everyone to take a moment and appreciate the clever title of this post. I'm unreasonably proud of it.

We good? Okay.

After a long week, Sarah and I have finally managed to tie up about 99% of the loose ends on the fundraiser. We've drawn numbers, sorted prizes, sent e-mails, and packaged nearly everything up.

And when I saw "we," I mean "Sarah." I did a lot of the sifting, number juggling, and e-mailing, but Sarah was the package queen.




Awww.... She loves those packages. Those hundreds and hundreds of packages.

Also, as you can see in the lower lefthand corner, the holy light these prizes exude can shine through cardboard, tape, and two layers of bubble wrap. It's powerful stuff.

I'd also like to note that these packages do not include the Subterranean Press books. Because not only was Subterranean Press cool enough to donate a great pile of stuff, they were nice enough to handle all the shipping for those books too. Which is why I am filled with love for them.

And speaking of love....




Here Sarah is modeling the catgirl hat many of you have seen before. I wanted to prove that I actually did buy it for her, and wasn't secretly keeping it for myself.

Simply said, the fundraiser would have been impossible without Sarah. She spent dozens of hours bundling up books, running errands, and generally getting everything done. Hell, the trip to the post office alone took two full hours, and that was with a friend with a van helping.

Everyone say, "Thank you Sarah."

And now, answers to some final questions.

• Things went really crazy right at the end of the fundraiser. What happened?
  

Things did go a little crazy. On December 9th, I mentioned on the blog that I thought we had a decent chance of breaking $40,000. Then, we raised over $16,000 in the next two days, tearing past $50,000 and leaving me worried that I was going to have to take out a loan so I could cover my half.

A big piece of this was brought about by folks spreading the word on their blogs. Most notably, Neil Gaiman.

I'd heard through the grapevine that Gaiman was a bit of a Heifer supporter, so I sent him a little e-mail, asking if he'd be interested in mentioning it on his blog.

I should have realized that asking for something like this would be like sticking my tongue into.... well... into anything, really. In my experience, whenever you stick your tongue into something, the outcome is going to be either very exciting, very dangerous, or both.

This was one of those "both" situations. After his blog, Gaiman's readers flooded over to participate in the festivities. Felicia Day mentioned it on her blog too. Plus, I know a lot of folks were finishing their own personal fundraisers and/or waiting until the very end to make their donations. Hence the crazy.

Rest assured, everyone who got their donations in by the 11th was entered into the lottery.

And yes, I'm all twitterpated that Gaiman referred to me as a "good author." Though I hope at least some of that was referring to my storytelling as opposed to my ethics.

• The donations hit nearly $55,000. How much are you matching?

The other day I asked Sarah, "What do you want for Christmas?"

"Nothing you can afford to get me," she said huffily.

And we laugh. This has become the running joke in our house.

I've decided to match all the donations. I could have stopped at forty thousand, but I said I'd keep matching until the 11th, and I like to keep my promises.


If you've read the blog that started it all, you know I offered two options to people who wanted to donate. There was the Sure Thing option, and the Lottery option.

A surprising number of people chose the Sure Thing, which meant they mailed me a check and I mailed them something back, usually a book or a map signed however they wanted it.




A *lot* of people chose this option. So many that I ran out of first edition books. The total amount raised from the Sure Thing option was over six thousand dollars.

That, plus my matching donation from the lottery, minus the cost of postage and packaging materials, brings us to $58,493.14




I'm showing you the check not as proof that I'm mailing it, but because it took me ten friggin minutes to write this thing out. I screwed up five checks before I managed to get it right. I misspelled "ninty," wrote the wrong amount, wrote the wrong year, and failed more than once to get the total to fit on the line.

I keep pretending that I'm a grown-up, but I'm not.

Anyway, this money, plus the donations that were made directly to the Heifer page, makes a grand total of $113,466.28.

I don't have words enough to express how happy this makes me. I firmly believe that deep down, people are fundamentally good. But it's nice to have some data that backs that sentiment up every once in a while.

I'd like to thank all the authors who donated books, all the people who mentioned the fundraiser on their blogs, and all the people who donated money to the cause. Yay us.

• Are you planning on doing this again next year?

Yes. But I'm planning on doing some things differently.

More stuff. A lot of people wanted to contribute books or other goodies to this year's auction, but they didn't hear about the fundraiser until it was nearly finished. I've already got stuff piling up for next year's fundraiser.

Streamlined lottery. Next year, when you make your donation you'll be able to mark what prizes you're interested in. That way if you win something, it will be something you're sure to like.

Auctions. Some prizes are really cool, but only to a very select group of people. So next year we're going to auction those items off separately. These might be things like manuscripts. Or they might be services, like an author agreeing to insert your name into an upcoming book, a lawyer offering legal consultation, or feedback on a manuscript from a literary agent.

• I want to be a part of next year's fundraiser. How can I help?

Donate. Want to chip in a signed book or two? Lovely. Have a cool collectible or unique skill you think would be a worthwhile addition? Wonderful. I'm already collecting prizes for next year. Send them along.

Or maybe you'd like to be an even bigger part of the fundraiser? I'm going to be looking for official sponsors to help me match donations for next year. I'd like to be able to do all of it on my own again, but I just can't afford it.

If you'd like to help out, drop me a line on my contact form or send an e-mail to Paperback.contest (squiggly at thinger) gmail.com.

Spread the word. Not everyone has signed books to donate or money to throw around. But you can help a lot by letting people know about the fundraiser. A lot of the prizes I received came from authors who contacted me, saying, "A fan sent me an e-mail about your fundraiser and I'd love to be a part of it." So if you know someone that might be interested in helping, donating a prize, or potentially being a sponsor, talk to them about it. It's a big help.

Help me come up with a name. We *really* need a name, folks. We can't keep calling it "The Heifer Fundraiser." It lacks panache. Names are important things, you know. And they can tell you a lot about a fundraiser.

Right now, the best I've been able to come up with is "Worldbuilders." But we need something catchier than that. I know that a lot of you are word-clever, as shown by your constant, witty definitions of the word verification giberish. Funnel the churning magma of your creativity toward this problem and I'm sure we can come up with something good.

In fact, let's try to get the ball rolling in the comments below. Serious suggestions only please. Believe me, I've come up with enough sarcastic-sounding ones on my own.... (Geeks for Goats being the least lame of these.)


Thanks again everyone,

pat

Labels: baby ducks, Catgirl, cool things, Heifer International, Neil Gaiman, Sarah

A couple days after watching Prince Caspian and going all frothy about it, I watched Wall-E.

Pixar never fails to amaze me. I can't help but wonder how, as a team, they manage continuous brilliance. Well... to be fair, Cars was merely great. But other than that, everything they do is just a different flavor of incredible. Constantly manufacturing a good creative product is hard enough. But constant excellence produced by a changing team. That's nigh-impossible.

Frankly, I expect some manner of pact with dark powers.

Or, more likely, Pixar has something like cull-the-heard Wednesdays. Where once a week someone quietly wanders through the office and has a close look at everyone. Susan is doodling a palindromic sestina on her napkin at lunch - Check. Terry is spontaneously reciting pi to a song of her own creation while using the Xerox machine - Check. Dave is humming the theme song from "Land of the Lost" while sending out zombie invitations on Facebook....

On Thursday, when the other workers ask why Dave's desk is empty, management explains that they transferred him to a nice animation studio out in the country where he'll have plenty of room to run and play.

So... yeah. Suffice to say that if Pixar wanted the rights to make a movie of the book, they wouldn't have to fight very hard.

Sarah and I have almost managed to put the fundraiser to bed. Tomorrow should be our last busy day. After it's all done, I'll post up some pictures, give the final donations totals, and talk about our plans for the future.

I won't be posting up a list of winners and their prizes because that would involve me putting folks' personal information up on the web without their permission, and that isn't cool.

Also, I didn't e-mail everyone who won, because it would have taken WAY too long. So you might have won something even if you haven't heard from me. But don't e-mail me and ask about it. Seriously.

In other news, I'm on Goodreads now. I'm not planning on spending a huge amount of time there, but you can add me as a friend if you're into that sort of thing.

And lastly, could some tech-savvy person out there do me a bit of a favor? Namely, could you change my Wikipedia picture, preferably to one that makes me look slightly less like a serial killer?

I appreciate that someone went through the trouble of uploading a photo. And I don't deny that it's a fairly accurate depiction of how I look most of the time. But still, if there is going to be a picture of me, I'd rather it not look like something that was pulled from a pamphlet titled "How to Spot a Sociopath."


Later all,

pat

Labels: Goodreads, hodgelany, reccomendations, social networking

Well, the fundraiser is over, and most of my weekend has been spent dealing with the fallout.

I'll post up a more detailed blog about the aftermath in a couple of days. I'll talk details, show some pictures, give the final totals, and discuss the plans for the future.

But for now, my priority is sending out the books to everyone who won prizes. That means I'm too busy packaging things up with Sarah to write up a new blog right now. And no, that's not a euphemism.



Check out all the swag, and this isn't even including Subterranean Press's books.

The more observant of you might note that my book is glowing with some sort of holy light. That's right folks, not only is it a cracking good read, but The Name of the Wind will actually help you cut energy costs by illuminating your house. Plus, basking naked in its warm glow will help your body generate much-needed vitamin D.

This is why they don't let me write ad copy.

In other news, if you're looking for a way to pass the time, I did an online author panel thinger with a few other folks over at bookgeeks, talking about the classic science/magic issue.

So if you're interested in what we had to say, or if you're just looking to kill time at work, feel free to wander over there and check it out.

Later all,

pat

Labels: Interview

Alright folks, while I'm dealing with the aftermath of the fundraiser, here's a question from the mailbag.

Pat,

You've mentioned your translators on your blog before, generally in glowing terms. I don't really see what the big deal is. You wrote something great. You made something out of nothing. But they're not doing that. They're not really making anything, they're just.... copying it.

Plus, don't you think that what they do is rapidly becoming obsolete? They already have programs that can translate languages. One wonders why they bother having people translators at all.

Your fan,

Steve

At first, Steve, I thought you might be pulling my leg with this e-mail. "Nobody could really think translation was easy," I thought to myself. "He has to be putting me on."

Then I realized that I've been having a crash course in the perils of translation over the last year and a half. And I remembered that most Americans are pointedly, painfully monolingual. And I remembered one of my friends saying as a joke, "How hard can it be to learn French? French babies do it all the time...."

So I'm going to take this question at face value, Steve. The truth is, translation has got to be one of the hardest jobs there is. Period.

First off, you have to be fluent in two languages. Not just kind of fluent, but *really* fluent. You need to understand the culture of the language you're translating from, and the idiomatic speech.

Like what I said up there in my first paragraph. "Pulling my leg" is an idiom. It doesn't mean what it actually says. If you're pulling my leg, it mean you're playing a joke on me, teasing me.

There are a thousand little things like that stand in the way of true fluency, and you can't just copy them over into the new language and have them make any sense. For example, if I said, "You have a bird," in Germany, I'm not actually saying anything about a bird. What I'm actually saying is that you're crazy.

Secondly, you have to decide if a translation is going to be true to the letter of the work, or true to the spirit of the work.

What do I mean by this? Well... I'm reminded of what one of my favorite professors said when I asked him which version of the Odyssey I should read. I was looking for the best translation, and I trusted him, because he had a good old-fashioned classical education and could actually read Latin and Greek.

"It's not really an issue of the best translation," he said. "My old classics professor used to say, 'a translation is like a woman. It can be beautiful, or it can be faithful, but it can't be both....'"

Sexism aside, I think this strikes to the heart of the issue. A word-by-word translation is going to be clunky and awkward. But a beautiful one isn't going to actually say the exact same thing as the original. A translator needs to walk that fine line between. Or rather, they have to dance madly back and forth over that line.

And as for translators being replaced by computer programs? I give a hearty laugh. Translation is not a science, it is an art. And as such, it belongs solely in the realm of humans.

Most everyone knows about Babelfish. Let me show you what something looks like when I use that program to translate something from English to German and back again. If this were as simple as plugging numbers into an equation, we should end up with the same thing we started with, right?

Here's a paragraph most of you probably recognise:

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

After Babelfish.

I stole princesses back of sleeping truck kings. I burned down the city of Trebon. I spent and with my reason and my life left the night with Felurian. I was away-driven of the university at a recent age, than most people are inside permitted. I step ways by moonlight, which others are afraid, in order to speak during from the day to. I spoke loved women and written Lieden, who let the Minnesänger cry with Gods.

They can have heard of me.

And that's using German, a language so closely related to English that if they were people, it would be illegal for them to get married.

Look what happens when you do the same think with a language that's *really* different, like Japanese:

I stole the king woman from wheelbarrow king of sleep. I burnt under the town of Trebon. I passed the night of Felurian, my sanity and went away with my life both. I was discharged rather than being able to allot most people from the university of a younger age. I the other people between day step on the road with the moonlight which is feared in order to speak concerning. I God, to the song by the document which makes the woman and the wandering minstrel cry who are loved spoke.

It can inquire about me.

Yeah. I think the translators' jobs are safe for another year or two.

pat

Labels: Ask the Author, my oracular impulse, translation