Vancouver Memory Keeper Report

[Guest Kazmero]

Hello Fellow Wheel of Time Fans,
 
Sorry for the delay
 
Our team of Memory Keepers for the Vancouver book signing with Brandon Sanderson were excited for our opportunity to meet him in person and to share our love of the series with fellow fans. (Plus the swag wasn’t too bad either.)
 
First off, I'd like to say that Brandon was a class act individual. He was humble, appreciative and gracious in meeting with us and the other fans. I was particularly impressed by his ability to answer potentially spoiling questions without making them spoilers for others.
 
His thoughtfulness towards those that had difficulty standing or those with young children (3 or younger) was very considerate. He made it known from the start of the signing portion that they could come right to the front of the line to get their books signed. He also committed to being at the store till a certain time to let people know they could go away, have some dinner and come back later.
 
One of the benefits I received from the experience was to learn more about Brandon's own books and, while I’ve already read Elantris, I’m excited to read more of his own works.
 
I finished AMOL a few days before so was still feeling so much love and appreciation to Harriet, TOR, Team Jordan and Brandon for not just doing it right but for doing it so very very well. Yes, I LOVED IT!
 
One of our team, Alex, was also very gracious. He had only read up to the Crown of Swords and offered to leave the room while the rest of us briefly met with Brandon so we could ask some spoiler questions. Brandon provided answers in a way that I found very intriguing and thoughtful from his and RJ’s notes.
 
Alex must have brought about 13 books with him and Brandon showed no hesitation at all in signing each and every one of them. Once again he was very personable with us being a good sport about the pictures and signing of our t-shirts at the end.
 
For the Q&A he went closer to an hour than the scheduled half an hour, which was greatly appreciated. He answered questions regarding his writing practice (at least 2000 words per day), the editing process of WOT, and strategies for working with the more than one editor at a publishing house to get your own book published.
 
I also know that he asked each person that brought a book to get signed if they had any questions for him. It was fun for each of us to take a few minutes here and there to listen to the variety of questions and answers.
 
One of my favourite portions of the evening occurred when I was walking near the end of the line and saw someone just reading the last few pages of AMOL. I stopped and asked her if she was just about done. She responded that she had finished it and was just re-reading the ending. Knowing that she'd read the whole thing I struck up a conversation with her and another person in line, sharing all the things we loved about the whole story. After about 10 minutes another guy stepped into the conversation and we must have spent about half an hour talking about the things we loved. I especially enjoyed this because she really liked parts of it that I and other friends of mine found slow. This really opened my eyes up to all the different perspectives that were out there about this book and series.
 
Overall the time flew by so quickly and it seemed like it was over almost before it got started.
 
A huge THANK YOU TO THE CHAPTERS Metrotown team (Mary Lynn, Jimmy, Ching and all the rest of the staff) for treating us so well, especially with the Thank You and gift cards.

I didn't want to put out any spoilers so have kept parts of this a little vaguer than I might have done otherwise.

My team, Stefan, Alex, Dawn, Alex. It was wonderful to meet you and to share in this grand adventure together. May the light be with you.

When asked how often he plays Magic: the Gathering, Brandon says about once a month and that he doesn't play online because Magic is a reason for him to get out of the house. He was also pretty excited that he'd gotten a tour of Wizards of the West Coast while in Seattle, where they gave him some special cards, etc. I wish I had more time to ask him more about Magic and how it's affected his writing and what he likes about it, etc.

One of the other comments that stuck out for me was his awareness of how tours could be difficult for rock stars, resulting in some of them drinking excessively, etc. He talked about the drop in energy that happens from when you're in front of several hundred appreciative, adoring fans (tens of thousands for rock stars) then going back to your hotel room and being by yourself. What a roller coaster ride.
 
One final Thanks to Dragonmount and all my fellow fans for making this a truly memorable experience.
 
Michael
Vancouver Feb 14, 2013

Here's one of the photos of us with Brandon - still waiting for some of the better ones from my team.