Brandon Sanderson up to 22% done on Memory of Light.

[Tel Janin Aellinsar]

Just as an FYI, Brandon is done with his first rewrite according to the progress bar.  So maybe we can expect the main progress bar to start moving up again.  I can't wait to see that one at 100% too.

 

I'm very happy that this first rewrite is done so quickly because if you recall he sent the first quarter of his first draft off to Harriet for approval.  Given that the rewrite is done, it would seem to mean that Harriet is pleased with his work.  This bodes well for getting the draft done by the end of the year and the book itself out next fall.  I personally, until now, doubted that the book would be out before 2010.

[Cockta]

i almost wouldnt wanna be in sandersons shoes for this book.  imagine if it is as bad as phantom menace for star wars?

 

Ouch, that would be bad...

[Hybrid]

i almost wouldnt wanna be in sandersons shoes for this book.  imagine if it is as bad as phantom menace for star wars?

 

Ouch, that would be bad...

 

Don't worry.  If that happens, there will be enough Brandon around for all of us to get our chance to do horrible things to him... >:D

[Charlz Guybon]

Looks like it'll end up being about 500,000 words.  ;D

 

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/703/Annotation--Random-Notes

Fifthly, I've finished the revision of AMOL Part One, which tops out at around 250,000 words.  I then sent that chunk off to Harriet for review.  A lot of you have emailed to ask me what she thought of what I'd written so far.  Well, this is the first sizable chunk of writing she's seen on the book, so the honest truth is that I don't know yet!  I'm nervous, as can be expected.  It could be months before she gets back on those pages, though.  250k is a LOT of writing.  In a lot of genres, that alone would be nearly three books worth of material.  Here, it's just one portion of the novel.

 

Sixthly, that means it's time for me to zip on over and finish the two other edits I need to do this year.  I warned you about these back in June.  One is the Warbreaker Copyedit, the other is the Alcatraz Three final draft.  I dove into Alcatraz last night, and the revision is going very quick and easy.  I suspect that I'll be done with it by the end of the week, or early next week at the latest.  The Warbreaker edit will take a tad longer, but I plan to be done with it by the time I leave on tour.  That leaves me with two and a half months to finish the other 150k of AMOL and meet my goal of 400k by December.  It's doable, but will be close, with the book tour distracting me.  Keep an eye on the website to watch and see if I make it!

 

Finally, I haven't posted one of these in a while, so here's an AMOL relative progress list update!  AMOL has passed up Warbreaker, Winter's Heart, and Hero of Ages--and it's within one more percentage point of The Dragon Reborn.  You can rest easy that, no matter what else happens, at least this won't be the shortest WoT book in the main series. :)

[RAND AL THOR]

This series is going to go down in history. I believe that it will be almost 4 million words with AMOL. This just doesn't seem possible. I must have made a calculation error.

 

Was the EOTW RJ's first book? I'm sure it wasn't.

[triadruid]

Was the EOTW RJ's first book? I'm sure it wasn't.

Nope; both the Fallon Blood series and his Conan books came earlier, in the 80's.

[kilika]

I believe that it will be almost 4 million words with AMOL. This just doesn't seem possible. I must have made a calculation error.

 

3,678,682 words so far and thats with AMoL at 62% (240k words)

 

It's a long one  ;D

[Valinthros]

Looks like it'll end up being about 500,000 words.  ;D

 

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/703/Annotation--Random-Notes

Fifthly, I've finished the revision of AMOL Part One, which tops out at around 250,000 words.  I then sent that chunk off to Harriet for review.  A lot of you have emailed to ask me what she thought of what I'd written so far.  Well, this is the first sizable chunk of writing she's seen on the book, so the honest truth is that I don't know yet!  I'm nervous, as can be expected.  It could be months before she gets back on those pages, though.  250k is a LOT of writing.  In a lot of genres, that alone would be nearly three books worth of material.  Here, it's just one portion of the novel.

 

Sixthly, that means it's time for me to zip on over and finish the two other edits I need to do this year.  I warned you about these back in June.  One is the Warbreaker Copyedit, the other is the Alcatraz Three final draft.  I dove into Alcatraz last night, and the revision is going very quick and easy.  I suspect that I'll be done with it by the end of the week, or early next week at the latest.  The Warbreaker edit will take a tad longer, but I plan to be done with it by the time I leave on tour.  That leaves me with two and a half months to finish the other 150k of AMOL and meet my goal of 400k by December.  It's doable, but will be close, with the book tour distracting me.  Keep an eye on the website to watch and see if I make it!

 

Finally, I haven't posted one of these in a while, so here's an AMOL relative progress list update!  AMOL has passed up Warbreaker, Winter's Heart, and Hero of Ages--and it's within one more percentage point of The Dragon Reborn.  You can rest easy that, no matter what else happens, at least this won't be the shortest WoT book in the main series. :)

 

Thanks for posting these little tidbits, where I'm at his site is blocked so I cant see what's going on.  And I dont have much time at home to peruse his site either.  I appreciate it.  ;)

[CatinaSedai]

how long is the prologue?

[Arath Faringal]

how long is the prologue?

 

It's probably the chunk he just sent in :P

[lordofsoup]

if it was then he would be able to write like 10 more normal books

 

i cant wait!

[Luckers]

Other's will have probably come accross this, but in his spoilers thread for the release of a Hero of Ages Brandon cited his upcoming projects including aMoL with an annotation that it may be devided into two books.

 

It makes sense--RJ's promise or not, if the size of the book means that splitting it will increase revinue the publishers will do what will serve their financial interest.

 

Still kinda sucks though--though if they release them at the same time i wont say boo.

[Elgee]

I'd be extremely happy if they released one half asap, and then the other half later. I don't even care if the 1st half doesn't have a "proper" ending.

[Luckers]

No, the same post said that the first we'd see any aMoL was october 2009. That was the original suggestion for the entire book. Hence, if they split they book we'd be experiencing another delay.

[Elgee]

Dang. Still, I don't mind if they split it. It's difficult to hold such a large book, and they might be tempted to edit things out just to make it smaller. DON'T want that  ;D

[Tyrell]

Isn't splitting it rather pertinent anyways? The number 13 does seem to have some significance in the wheel of time.

 

Thirteen women is the most they can have in a circle without men.

Thirteen women (channellers?) and thirteen myrddraal are needed to turn someone to the shadow.

Thirteen Aiel clans.

Thirteen Forsaken.

Thirteen in Lindarin's possy.

 

I'm probably missing some.

[deathgate]

I don't know about the rest of you but all of my wheel of time books are by TOR and they are the worst bound books I've ever owned. Paperbacks and hardbacks. I can imaging AMOL falling apart during the first read if it that big.

[Hybrid]

I don't know about the rest of you but all of my wheel of time books are by TOR and they are the worst bound books I've ever owned. Paperbacks and hardbacks. I can imaging AMOL falling apart during the first read if it that big.

Same here.  I wasn't even through with my TFOH paperback the first time through when the whole cover fell off.

[Darth_Andrea]

Taken from www.brandonsanderson.com

 

 

A Memory of Light:  I've had a couple of inquiries about the percentage bar here.  I think I warned you way back in June that October would be a rough month for progress on the book, since it's hard to write when I'm on the road.  But I'm still trying.  Right now, I feel that I need to refresh my memory a little on the series, since I finished my read-through way back in March.  So I'm re-reading KNIFE OF DREAMS at the moment.  The progress bar doesn't reflect this, but I AM making motion through the book.  I want to be careful to do the novel right.  But I still anticipate being able to finish by the end of December.  You may see the percentage bar tick up a few more points during the next few weeks of tour, but it's not going to go at the speed it did during August when I was pulling twelve and sixteen hour days writing because I knew that October was going to slow me down.

 

 

 

Darth_Andrea   

 

[Werthead]

From one of my colleagues on asoiaf.westeros.org:

 

    Ok, went to a Brandon Sanderson book signing today...I'm not sure what has been written in this thread about his WoT writing, but here's some of what he talked about:

 

    First, he is a really nice guy, and holy **** is he a nerd, haha - though, being a fantasy writer I should have expected it, and I can definitely smell my own kind

 

    Onto WoT

 

    Although he plans on submitting the manuscript as one work, he suspects that due to the size it will be released in two volumes, making the series 13 long...which he said he'd gotten emails from people requesting that he actually do that due to the significance of the number to the series.

 

    He's writing it in chunks, basically picking two characters at a time and one particular scene towards the middle of the book and it writing up to that point, then hes going to continue from there when he has all of the characters. Final word count he's aiming for is around 675,000.

 

    He also talked a bit about how he was approached to do the project...absolutely no warning, Harriet just called him up and asked if he wanted to do the last book. He said he actually e-mailed her the next day to reassure her that he was, in fact, not an idiot and was capable of talking in full sentences despite their previous day conversation.

 

As someone on Wotmania pointed out 675,000 words is almost as big as LoC and ACoS put together, or three times the length of TPoD. There is no binding technology in existence that can hold together a paperback of that size, and a hardcover would be seriously pushing it.

 

Looks like we're going to get 13 books after all.

[Charlz Guybon]

As someone on Wotmania pointed out 675,000 words is almost as big as LoC and ACoS put together, or three times the length of TPoD. There is no binding technology in existence that can hold together a paperback of that size, and a hardcover would be seriously pushing it.

 

Looks like we're going to get 13 books after all.

 

Nice to be noticed  :)

 

Here's another stat, the Old Testament plus the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is 676,000 words. How's that for a book of biblical proportion. Rather appropriate given the Apocalyptic subject matter.

[a pale tanned lover]

Bar is on the move again :)gonna be watching this closely the next 2months, can't flaming bloody wait ;D

[Blightmaster]

ive got a progress bar at 67 percent as of november 1st, that for first draft though and who knows how many drafts hell have to do then theres the publishing the publicity i really hope they move fast for it be released late next year( hoping sooner), though dont rush it to ruins  http://www.brandonsanderson.com/  - website if its not blue and clickable idk how to make it so ( dont be lazy learn to type)

[GoatFace]

I just wanted to throw in a second confirmation regarding the 2 volumes for AMOL.  I was at the signing in Huntington Beach, CA and Sanderson mentioned around a 700k final word count.  AMOL vol. 1 coming in around 400k ~October 2009 and AMOL vol. 2 coming in around 300k ~March 2010.  He said there is a really satisfying climax that he can end AMOL vol. 1 with(I'm guessing Moiraine is freed and everybody meets up) because he mentioned that all of the different character arcs will come together.  He kept saying that it is basically unpublishable as 1 book at 700k.  He also confirmed what he's said elsewhere that RJ finished the writing for the prologue and the ending of the book around 150k word count total I think.  So that progress bar might jump as he finds different chunks of RJ's finished or semi-finished stuff to plug into the overall narrative.

[Blightmaster]

i just hope he doesnt one day find like 30 chapters that got stuck behind the furnace or w/e when hes almost done then have to go back and add them id just go over there and start beating him with my winters heart hard cover, its really thick