0:00

Dan, shameless self-promotion time.

0:06

Shameless self-promotion time. But it's

0:08

the same thing. I'm shamelessly

0:10

self-promoting again. I

0:12

do gaming retreats and

0:14

I want you to come to a gaming

0:17

retreat with me in July of this year.

0:20

So you've got a few months. Yeah.

0:22

Don't play games with Dan. Don't play games with

0:24

Dan. I have rented a vacation home. I hired

0:27

a caterer and it's just five

0:29

days in a house full of gamers and food. And

0:33

so go to my website,

0:35

thedanwells.com and sign up for it.

0:38

I still think gamer is, we

0:40

need to diversify that term because gamer can

0:42

be a gambler. I know. It

0:44

can mean video gamer. It can mean board gamer. Well

0:47

and anytime you're like filling out an online

0:49

form, it's like what industry do you work

0:51

in? Put gaming, they think

0:53

that you mean gambling. They do. Which

0:55

is not the case. I rarely ever gamble

0:58

on D&D. The other

1:00

thing is, speaking along those same terms,

1:02

the entertainment industry doesn't include us. Yeah.

1:05

The entertainment industry is the film industry. That's just

1:07

what they call the film industry on all of

1:09

those forms. And it was really interesting

1:12

when I was jumping through various hoops to be able

1:14

to get first run movies at my theater because I

1:16

have the right kind of thing. It's a screening room.

1:18

I want to be able to, eventually if my own

1:20

films get made, be able to show them there and

1:22

stuff. So there's some hoops to jump

1:24

through. And so they'll send you this form and be like,

1:26

in what part of the entertainment industry do you work? They

1:29

don't mean novelist in that. Yeah.

1:33

What do you pick? Because there's never a

1:35

good one. Sometimes I'll just click entertainment anyway.

1:38

Sometimes I'll go media. Media is probably

1:40

what they usually mean, journalist. They do.

1:43

But I think we're in the media industry. And

1:45

that's the worldwide, that's the separation between film

1:48

and stuff. It's media, even though films

1:50

are media, aren't part of the media

1:53

industry. Yeah. They're the entertainment industry. They're

1:55

the entertainment industry. If it's vague enough that they just have

1:57

a category for arts and entertainment, that's what I click. Anyway,

2:01

they rarely have a

2:03

space wizard category, which is what they really

2:05

need. Space wizard category. Food

2:09

heist specialist. Scholar.

2:13

Speaking of, do you want to hear one? I

2:15

do. So this happened

2:17

very recently. This actually just

2:19

happened this week at

2:21

time of filming. A

2:23

brewery in Aurora, Colorado. So first

2:25

of all, they probably had it

2:28

coming because they live in Denver. Someone

2:31

broke into the smoker at 4am

2:33

and stole $5,000 worth of brisket and pork.

2:40

Okay, only $5,000, huh? Well,

2:44

that seems low to me because

2:47

when they get down here, it was 160 pounds of brisket and

2:51

120 pounds of pork on the smoker. They

2:54

came in with bolt cutters and they opened the

2:56

smoker and they took it all and

2:58

then it was gone. Now, remind me,

3:00

I could be wrong on this. Listeners, I'm sorry

3:02

if I'm wrong, but often

3:04

isn't the amount stolen a determination

3:08

in which category of crime it is?

3:11

Yes. Right? And so my

3:13

question to you, let's pause at a hypothetical.

3:15

Okay. That $5,000 is

3:17

that dividing line between like misdemeanor

3:19

and larceny or whatever. Okay. So

3:22

you're going to pay it and then put back

3:24

like one piece of brisket so that

3:26

you're at $4,999 stolen. You

3:32

accidentally steal too much and you get

3:35

back to the warehouse and

3:37

some evil food heist mastermind

3:39

is like, you stole the extra

3:42

pound? This was

3:44

supposed to be a food heist misdemeanor. Not

3:46

a felony. Well and

3:49

given those 160 pounds of brisket

3:51

by itself, they're going to

3:53

sell that for more than $5,000 total. You

3:56

think feel like. Okay. I wonder if

3:58

that's the cost of them. The

4:00

meat it's got to be you're right. That's a

4:02

lot because a pound of brisket when

4:04

we order it do some math

4:07

here Donald like it's like 30

4:10

bucks For a pound of

4:12

brisket from a good place. I'm a good

4:14

place, right? So a hundred and sixty pounds

4:17

What is that though? That might you know, maybe

4:19

that works out that might just work out. We're

4:21

not math people 160 pounds brisket 120 pounds of

4:23

pork. I feel

4:26

like Cost like what

4:28

they'll eventually make from it

4:36

See I don't think Adam up 280 pounds Divided

4:40

into five thousand dollars. How much are they

4:42

charging per pound for their meat? Okay

4:46

280 pounds five thousand dollars. I'm curious to

4:48

know Everyone should go

4:50

to this place 20 bucks a pound about

4:53

yeah, because that's a pretty good deal I

4:55

mean it is in Aurora. So

4:57

you don't want to go to it. What

5:00

do you have against Denver Denver? The worst

5:02

place I like Denver Denver's terrible. What is

5:04

wrong with Denver? Have you been to Miami?

5:06

I Have

5:09

been to Miami a couple of times Sorry,

5:12

Miami. I just had to like

5:14

what's wrong with Denver Denver is

5:17

endless rolling hills of subdivisions Okay,

5:19

Denver is always Utah all the

5:22

self-importance of Los Angeles with all

5:24

the scenery of Kansas There are

5:26

mountains. They're gorgeous. There are mountains

5:28

near Denver. Yes, it bothers me

5:30

that they claim to be a

5:32

mountain city when the mountains are

5:36

Over there you can see them from Denver.

5:38

Okay. Have you been to Nebraska? I

5:41

have okay But yeah, those are

5:43

mountains you Nebraska isn't like we're the

5:45

mile high city And

5:47

you know plenty of places are a mile high Get

5:50

over yourselves. Denver is great.

5:52

I recognize That

5:55

my hatred of Denver is irrational you

5:57

hate Denver because they steal all our water, huh? The

6:00

rain comes through and dumps on that side of the

6:02

mountains. And, you know. I

6:06

have gotten to completely destroy Denver in

6:08

two of my book series. Although,

6:11

I did find a really good

6:13

Mexican place downtown near the convention center, and

6:15

I have canonically declared that

6:17

that place survived the apocalypse.

6:21

I like Denver. It's got good bookstores. Denver

6:24

has very good bookstores. Yeah. It has nice

6:26

people. It has nice scenery. Denver's

6:28

tattered cover, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great bookstore.

6:30

It's gorgeous, too. It's in an old theater. Easy

6:33

to drive around in. No, it's

6:35

not. Nobody in Denver knows how to drive. You're driven

6:37

in LA? Yeah. If

6:40

I have to go on tour and

6:42

drive myself, I will pick Denver

6:44

every time. See, every time I say something bad

6:46

about Denver, you're like, what about this other city?

6:50

The problem is, yes, you're going to

6:52

find worse drivers, and you're going to

6:54

find worse this and worse that. But

6:56

Denver has the second worst of everything,

6:58

all in the same city. Denver is one of the

7:00

easiest cities to drive in when I had to go

7:02

on tour and drive myself. It

7:05

was Denver and Portland that I could

7:07

get around in really easily. I like

7:09

Portland. Seattle, LA, San

7:11

Diego, really

7:13

hard to drive in. And when

7:15

I was driving to Denver, I'm like, ah, it's

7:18

so pretty driving here. Oh,

7:20

first of all, it's not pretty. Denver

7:22

is the biggest city in the world.

7:24

To Denver. It's really

7:26

pretty. Okay, but that's not Denver's doing.

7:29

Denver took me through those beautiful mountains,

7:32

and then easy to drive

7:34

around in, easy to get to the bookstores. I

7:38

like Denver. Meh. You

7:40

are welcome to like Denver. Denver

7:43

can suck it. Okay,

7:45

well, there you go. I'm

7:48

sure this will be entirely

7:50

uncontroversial. Completely uncontroversial. Absolutely. It

7:53

is high time that Denver got

7:56

what's coming to it. Let's talk about something

7:58

that actually relates to... know something

8:00

relevant. Oh you don't think irrational

8:03

Denver hatred is relevant? Yeah. We

8:05

were gonna talk about trunk novels and like books.

8:08

Yes. Trunk novels. I

8:10

first heard this term from my agent. Way

8:13

back in the day. Way back in the day

8:15

trunk novels and novel you wrote before you got

8:17

published that you threw in the trunk and

8:20

he specifically said to me like be

8:22

very careful publishing your trunk novels because those

8:25

are the novels you wrote before you were

8:27

good enough. And he

8:29

had the experience where some of his

8:31

authors would get popular they'd break in

8:33

and they'd be like wow now I can

8:35

solve these old novels and what happens is

8:38

you get really good reviews for your first

8:40

few books and then your next one comes

8:42

out that was a trunk novel no one

8:44

knows it and they're like wow this author's

8:46

gone down in quality so much. Yeah. He

8:48

always warned about that. So in my trunk

8:50

novels we have like the special collection special

8:52

collection we give him out the ebooks for

8:54

free and you can get them so way

8:56

of Kings Prime and Dragonsteel Prime so you

8:58

can read them if you're curious but we're

9:00

not holding up to my current writing caliber.

9:02

And we're very overt that we release these

9:04

unedited. Yes. Right. Although

9:07

I do know that on one of

9:09

them Peter fixed the spelling of some

9:12

dude's name. Yeah he can't help himself. Yeah

9:17

so trunk novels we should talk about our

9:19

trunk novels. Mm-hmm. You have some really fun

9:22

ones. I

9:24

do. I have published one trunk novel. Yes

9:26

you have. Which is Night of Black or

9:28

Darkness which is my kind

9:30

of historical horror comedy vampire book. Mm-hmm.

9:32

That is not out in print but

9:35

there are ebooks there are audiobooks. That's

9:37

the only time that I've gone back

9:39

and done one and I revised it

9:41

like ten times before

9:43

I felt like it was good enough. And

9:47

I don't think

9:49

I've actually without the prime thing done

9:51

any but we've gotten close with White Sand.

9:54

Yeah. Right. White Sand has the graphic novel

9:56

and I keep thinking like I've been telling

9:58

people I think I'm gonna go back and

10:00

do like an actual canonical version for the

10:02

Cosmere. So that would be my

10:05

first like actual published trunk novel. Actual

10:07

trunk novel pulled out and cleaned up.

10:09

So my first novel, White Sand, so

10:11

I wrote it in Korea.

10:13

I started writing. I didn't have a lot

10:15

of time. But the very first thing

10:18

that I wrote, not counting like my high school stuff that

10:20

I never finished. So the first novel I finished,

10:22

I remember we had a long bus ride.

10:25

We were going to some conference or something,

10:27

you know, for missionaries. And so got on

10:30

the bus next to my companion and I

10:32

had a notebook. I'm like, this is

10:34

like three hours. What am I going to do? I'm like,

10:36

well, I'll just start noodling on some world building because

10:39

I had been doing some writing before and

10:41

I noodled on that world building. I really

10:43

excited about this world. And eventually just on,

10:45

you know, the day off, I would start

10:47

working on the story. I hand wrote it

10:49

on these large, not legal pad sketch pads

10:51

because they were easy to find and get

10:54

ahold of. And I liked the large format

10:56

of them. And it was White

10:58

Sands that I wrote. And

11:01

I have not read the graphic novel. So

11:03

I have to ask, did the little kind of pneumatic

11:06

wrist guns survive

11:08

into that version? So one of

11:10

the issues, Isaac's done a ton of work

11:13

making the graphic novel work and things.

11:16

So a lot of these things are

11:18

there. But what we

11:20

discovered, why we haven't done as much

11:22

work with graphic novels going forward is

11:25

my world building given

11:27

to somebody else to try to draw and make

11:29

without my direct oversight because White Sands, I had

11:31

to hand it off. I'm like, you know, yeah,

11:33

we kind of thought, hey, you'll read the book

11:35

and you'll be able a

11:38

lot of that just didn't translate. It didn't work.

11:40

So a lot of these things are there, but

11:43

aren't as relevant or as interesting as

11:45

I want them to be. And

11:48

some you'd be like, that's in the book.

11:50

Yes, it's technically there. So yeah. Okay,

11:52

that's interesting. The thing about it is,

11:54

is like it went through

11:57

various incarnations and that part got the

12:00

emphasized even before it went to

12:02

the graphic novels, but they are there. They are

12:04

still there. Yeah, White Sand is one

12:06

of if not the very first books

12:08

of yours that I read way back in College

12:10

Writing Group. I think it was number two. I

12:13

think I submitted Elantris first, but as a full

12:15

novel and we're like this is too much to

12:17

do and then I started into White Sand. It's

12:19

the first one that we like. Yeah,

12:21

really workshopped. And you were submitting

12:23

in that one deeper into chaos.

12:26

Was that your first? Yeah, that was the

12:28

first one and again first one that I

12:31

finished. Mm-hmm, which is trunk

12:33

novel in that the only place it

12:36

has ever been published is part of

12:38

BYU's honors thesis. Yeah publication

12:40

series. Mm-hmm. And every now and then

12:42

someone will go and find it in

12:44

the BYU library and read it and

12:46

then email me and say hey, this

12:49

is weird and I'm like,

12:51

yes it is. That

12:54

was essentially Warhammer fantasy fan

12:56

fiction. Very thinly veiled. Yep,

12:59

which I had no experience with. I think I've told this

13:01

story before on the podcast. So we'll probably move off of

13:03

these two books soon because we haven't talked about our other

13:05

books as nearly as much. But I

13:07

love the story of I'm like wow the

13:09

world building the magic is so fascinating. You're

13:12

like, thank you. And then later

13:14

on I find out it's just

13:16

somebody else's feeling a thing. There were

13:19

things that I did to

13:21

the chaos magic that I feel

13:23

like are innovations, but they're not enough.

13:25

Yeah, right. It was about the book melting

13:27

into the table. That's my

13:29

favorite image from that. That's all me.

13:31

Okay. Well, you did a good job

13:33

with that description. Thank you. I remember

13:35

25 years later. Mm-hmm that Tivnari has

13:38

this book and it's like a chaos

13:40

book. It's like a Necronomicon sort of

13:42

thing. Yeah, and the table just kind

13:44

of warps around it and starts sinking

13:46

into the table. It's a great image.

13:49

Yeah, a kind of magic that basically

13:51

just increases entropy around it. Mm-hmm. Yeah,

13:53

so Tivnari. He was fun. What's your

13:55

second book? So after I finished that

13:57

one, that's when I wrote Black or

13:59

Dark. darkness. Okay. And then the next

14:02

one after that was The

14:04

Legend of Krag. Do you remember

14:06

that one? This isn't Barry. This

14:08

is Barry. This is Barry, okay. Yeah.

14:11

I remember Barry. So

14:13

this is a trunk novel that will never

14:15

see the light of day. Yep. But

14:17

it was me trying to be fantasy, but also

14:19

me trying to be very dark

14:21

humor and weird at the time.

14:23

Basically, the premise of it is

14:26

like in Greek and Roman

14:28

mythology, there's the idea that, you know, the

14:31

Titans used to be in charge, but then

14:33

their children, the gods overthrew them, locked them

14:35

in jail, and then they took over and

14:37

they got to be the gods. And

14:40

so I took that to

14:43

its ridiculous extreme. And

14:45

like, 20 generations later,

14:48

as each kind of god,

14:50

they overthrew their parents and locked them up

14:52

and they're like, now we're in charge. And so

14:55

by the time you get down to

14:57

the weakest, most pathetic,

15:00

pointless divine beings. Right. Because you lock away the

15:02

god of the sky. You can't be the god

15:05

of the sky. There's already a god of the

15:07

sky just locked away. You got to then be

15:09

the god of thunder. Yeah. So, and then the

15:11

god of thunder gets locked up by the god

15:13

of loud noises and the god of loud noises

15:15

gets locked up by the god of quiet noises.

15:18

And so in the end, the

15:20

all father kind of figure who was in charge

15:22

of everyone was the god of berries. There

15:24

was the god of chopped lettuce, the

15:26

god of unpronounceable words, all

15:29

of these different things. And the

15:31

main driving plot

15:34

of it was that at

15:37

this point, there was nobody left who knew

15:39

how to manage the underworld. And

15:41

so people who died did

15:44

not go anywhere. They just hung around

15:46

and were still alive, or

15:48

still, you know, talking and moving around despite

15:50

being dead, because hell was full because there

15:52

was nobody in charge of it. And

15:54

it was a completely ridiculous novel

15:56

that I felt had a cup

16:00

of good ideas in it. But for

16:02

the most part, it was just a disaster. Yeah,

16:04

I remember that time and I feel like I

16:06

could be wrong. Tell me if this is what

16:09

happened. You were doing that at Black or

16:11

Darkness and we were all laughing a lot.

16:13

We were all really enjoying it. And

16:15

when you did Barry, I thought, maybe

16:18

you're like, wow, I found something

16:20

that the writing group likes. I'm going to

16:22

continue on with that. But deep down inside,

16:25

you are a twisted person

16:27

who wants to break things and

16:30

break people. And so you're

16:32

like, but I can't just make it funny. It's

16:34

got to be funny and twisted.

16:37

And those two

16:39

sides didn't work together as well

16:42

as it did in Night of Black or

16:44

Darkness. Yeah, after Black or Darkness, which is

16:46

very specifically a comedy book, this is my

16:48

most overtly, I am writing a humorous

16:51

fantasy kind of novel. It was me

16:53

trying to be Pratchett or Adams or

16:56

somebody like that and

16:58

failing just horrifically. I

17:01

remember the book fondly, but then I

17:03

remember laughing, which I'm

17:05

sure that we did because you're a funny guy.

17:08

But that was your number

17:10

three. My number two was

17:12

a book I don't think you ever read because I wasn't

17:15

submitting to the writing group. It was called Stars End. I

17:18

have heard of Stars End and I have read some

17:20

of Stars End. Have you? But you didn't submit it

17:22

to the writing group. I think that was just leading

17:24

edge, read that. Yeah, because my early

17:26

books, I wanted to try a bunch of different genres.

17:28

So this is not really a space

17:30

opera. It's I don't know what to call it.

17:32

It's like it's like a Star Trek episode. That's

17:35

what it's like. It is

17:37

a guy who gets assigned to a

17:40

station that's job is to try to

17:42

harness all the energy of an upcoming

17:44

supernova. And they're trying to

17:46

figure out how to make kind of like

17:48

an expandable Dyson sphere of energy

17:51

receptors that will with the Nova go

17:53

bigger and bigger and be trapping

17:55

a lot of this released energy. I don't know.

17:57

I didn't just go with the Dyson sphere, but

17:59

yeah. I was new I hadn't read

18:02

all that much science fiction, but it plays out

18:04

much more like a Star Trek

18:06

episode with kind of techno babble rather than science,

18:08

so it's not a hard science Yeah, and

18:11

he shows up and it turns out

18:13

this space station has become a confluence

18:16

He's in charge of it But a

18:18

bunch of alien species are very interested

18:20

in what's happening here and they start

18:22

showing up and jockeying for political position

18:25

With what the energy that's gonna come

18:27

from this station, and you know there's

18:29

a mystery There's a murder and all

18:31

sorts of things ensue. It's just basically

18:33

murder mystery slash interaction with weird aliens

18:36

Yeah, so like I

18:38

said very Star Trek II not very good

18:41

Yeah, but it is the first one That's

18:43

like a real novel because white sand didn't end

18:45

as an ending it just ended because

18:47

I got to a page count Yeah,

18:50

he didn't conclude it just stopped

18:53

the funny thing is though you mentioned Barry

18:55

my attempt at a Pratchett ask Story was

18:58

my fourth book nightlife with

19:00

a K. Oh, yeah And it

19:02

was did read most of I think

19:05

it wasn't a Pratchett s thing cuz

19:07

I didn't know Pratchett back then it

19:09

was a Douglas Adams not Douglas Adams.

19:11

What's his name Bob aspirin? It was

19:13

very Bob aspirin inspired Mm-hmm very pun

19:16

very pun and very light comedy not

19:18

real social commentary not that kind of

19:20

extra layer that Pratchett or Adams

19:23

could layer on and just kind of

19:25

silly fantasy and About

19:27

the last barbarian or whoever lived

19:30

and his sidekick so

19:32

mm-hmm which book was it? that

19:35

finally Codified the rule that

19:37

when you wrote a book you had to

19:39

put the fabric of the universe at peril

19:42

I don't know I remember us having that conversation.

19:44

Yeah, where you're like This

19:47

is too it was probably one of the later

19:49

ones where I was trying to be grimdark might

19:51

have been aether of night Yeah,

19:54

and fabric the universe was at stake in

19:56

aether of night. Yeah, it wasn't in Mistborn

19:59

prime mmm. Maybe That's the one that

20:01

probably missed born prime. Yeah, so this

20:03

is book number 10

20:06

of mine I think is missed born prime and

20:08

that one was where you know We

20:11

kept going to these conventions at that time.

20:13

I remember talking to an editor I think

20:15

it was Steve Saffle was an editor at

20:17

Delray remember We had a long conversation with

20:19

him and he was very helpful and he

20:21

basically said right now what everyone's looking for

20:23

is George Martin Can you be George Martin?

20:25

Give me an opening like George Martin like well

20:27

I've got to try to write grimdark and

20:30

that's where I tried to like write a Joe

20:33

Abercrombie asked even though I didn't know Joe

20:35

Abercrombie at the time Yeah smaller stakes story

20:37

about this one guy. It just didn't work

20:40

for multiple reasons One of them was you're

20:42

like nothing seems to be

20:44

happening Brandon your books are better

20:46

when the fabric of the universe is at stake. I've

20:48

since learned how to You

20:50

know how to do smaller things smaller

20:53

stakes But back then you'd read several

20:55

giant epic fantasies and I hadn't figured

20:57

out how to write a smaller scale

21:00

fantasy. Yeah Mm-hmm. Yeah,

21:02

I Find that the

21:04

more media I consume. Mm-hmm the

21:06

more I am interested

21:09

in smaller stakes and weird

21:11

characters You know like

21:14

I for over a decade have been

21:16

the story structure guy Yeah, because

21:19

plot is very

21:21

interesting to me very something

21:23

I teach a lot about Yeah But really

21:25

the stuff that I like to read

21:28

and the stuff I like to watch it

21:30

can just be interesting characters spinning

21:32

their wheels over nothing is So

21:36

much more compelling and I

21:38

don't know if that's overall or just right now But

21:42

yeah Anyway, what was

21:44

your fourth? fourth Cuz

21:47

you wrote six. I wrote here. You killer was

21:49

your killer was six five was

21:52

Victorian Batgirl. Oh Right. So

21:55

what was girl or four

21:57

was something weird? Victorian

21:59

Batgirl Girl. Should we talk

22:01

about Victorian Batgirl? Victorian Batgirl

22:03

was prior

22:06

to Serial Killer, it was my best

22:08

book. Yeah. And going back and reading

22:10

it, I'm like, okay, yes. Clearly, I

22:12

was a good storyteller at this point.

22:16

But the premise of

22:18

the book was so flawed

22:20

that it was unsalvageable, which

22:23

was basically me trying to write historical

22:26

fiction without really

22:28

knowing the historical

22:30

period. The historical period. I got a

22:33

least... Yeah. You say Batgirl, not actual

22:35

Batgirl. No, not actual Batgirl. It was

22:37

basically kind of an urban horror fantasy

22:40

in Victorian London. A girl

22:42

who was raised by Roma people

22:45

ends up in a finishing school and

22:48

is surrounded by all of these rich, highfalutin

22:50

people. And during the day, she has to

22:52

go to school and learn how to be

22:54

a proper lady. And then at night, she

22:56

sneaks out and fights monsters.

22:58

I think that would honestly sell really

23:00

well right now. It would. It would

23:02

be great. It'd have to be a

23:05

secondary world fantasy. But

23:07

I mean, that's the sort of thing that's

23:09

doing really well. It is. Right now, the

23:12

person who did what I was trying to do a million

23:15

times better is Leigh Bardugo. Oh, yeah.

23:17

It's so six of crows. It's so

23:20

shadow and bone. Yeah. She was able

23:22

to pull off what I failed at.

23:25

And so, yeah, the core premise, the

23:27

history of it, the background and all

23:29

of these things didn't work. But

23:32

the idea, I think, yeah,

23:35

that there's something there. The tone of it

23:37

worked. That was the book that convinced me

23:39

I could write horror because

23:41

it was very dark and

23:43

the monsters were really nasty. And

23:46

so, yeah, it makes sense that the next

23:48

thing I wrote was Serial Killer. But

23:51

yeah, actually, for a long time, I

23:53

was posting chunks

23:56

of that book through my Patreon. So a

23:58

lot of people have. I've read it and

24:01

I would like comment and say, okay, this

24:03

chapter was good because of

24:05

this and also because of this. I don't know if

24:07

those are still up or not. So

24:09

I divide my trunk novels into two sets very

24:12

naturally. I wrote this before Elantris

24:15

and I wrote this after Elantris

24:17

but before Mistborn, right? And

24:20

so everything that we've released so far have

24:22

been in that second category because it's the same sort of

24:25

thing with you. The books are

24:27

starting to get good. I just haven't

24:29

completely found my voice or style yet

24:32

and haven't completely put them together

24:34

because book six was Elantris. Book

24:36

seven was White Sand I think

24:39

or Dragonsteel and then eight

24:41

was either the other White Sand. You

24:43

know, and White Sand and Dragonsteel are both pretty

24:45

readable and you'll be able

24:47

to get Dragonsteel Prime is what we

24:49

call it now pretty soon with the

24:51

crowdfunding we have coming up in March.

24:54

That's the one you can check out from the

24:56

library at BYU because it's like, you know, that

24:58

was your thesis. My thesis, my honors thesis. Then

25:01

there's White Sand which we've done in the

25:04

graphic novel which is canon in the Cosmere

25:06

because a lot of the characters are showing

25:08

up all over the place whereas Dragonsteel isn't

25:10

quite. It's not canonical. It's not in line

25:13

with what's going on. And then

25:15

there's Aether of Night which is, you know, I did

25:17

these three in a row and that one I've given

25:19

out before you can find copies of that floating around.

25:22

We will eventually release like a Prime

25:24

version of that. Now

25:26

you're talking about possibly and I don't

25:28

want to lock you or me into

25:30

anything. There's no promises being made. Possibly

25:34

a revision and an actual release of

25:36

White Sand. Yes. Is that

25:39

something you would ever consider doing with Dragonsteel Prime

25:41

or Aether of Night? No. Main

25:43

reasons being that they're too far

25:45

out of continuity. I haven't been

25:47

considering them in continuity. Like

25:49

Aether of Night they fight Midnight Essence. Shows

25:52

up in Stormlight. Shows up in Trash of the

25:54

Emerald Sea. And we delve into the

25:57

first appearances of like a Shard of Adonalcium. But that

25:59

Shard's no longer there. longer canon, right?

26:01

And the world building of

26:04

Aether of Night is totally canon. Aethers

26:06

have been showing up since late 2000s

26:08

in my books. Yeah. But Aether of

26:10

Night, there's nothing about that book of

26:14

the actual plot and that's the problem.

26:16

Yeah. The actual plot and characters, there's

26:18

nothing about that that is appealing to

26:20

me or interesting to me. Well, and

26:23

that's the big thing about trunk novels

26:25

is once you break in,

26:27

you start selling, you get more established and you

26:29

look back at your trunk novels and you're like,

26:32

yeah, that was fun and vital to

26:34

my career and progress at the time.

26:37

But I could come up with a better story

26:39

and better characters and a better book right

26:42

now. There's no need to go back and

26:44

re-release that stuff. Yeah. Hopefully, I

26:46

will eventually write a book set on

26:49

the Aether planet where the aethers come

26:51

from, which is where Aether of Night

26:53

was. But that planet is completely different.

26:55

Yeah. And the story will be completely

26:58

different. Those characters aren't relevant to me.

27:00

Dragonsteel, I consider lightly canon to the

27:02

Cosmere in that I think

27:05

the events of Dragonsteel happen mostly,

27:07

but the world building's been refined so much

27:09

that eventually I will write the book that

27:12

will be called Dragonsteel or maybe the series,

27:14

but it'll now be Hoyt's story rather than

27:16

Jarek's story. And it'll be...

27:18

And the story will be completely different.

27:20

...be a completely different type of story.

27:22

Though, you know, little bits of it

27:24

will be recognizable. And

27:26

so, no. Like, White Sand's the one

27:29

that is still canon. I've been considering

27:31

it canon all along. There's no events

27:33

in White Sand that disrupt that. The

27:36

characters are still really interesting to me.

27:38

Chris has shown up all over the

27:40

Cosmere and she's a main character in

27:42

it. Bayon's shown up in Stormlight twice

27:44

now as of the little reading I

27:47

did recently. So I want

27:49

to get a real good canon prose version of White

27:51

Sand out there for those who don't want the graphic

27:53

novel so that it can be in the line. The

27:55

big question I have though is, will I sit down

27:57

to write it and be like, I

27:59

need to see it? start on page one and just do

28:01

this over or will I be able to revise it

28:03

and release

28:06

it yeah that is

28:08

the question uh-huh well

28:10

as your manager yeah I

28:12

will tell you don't do it unless you

28:14

really love it yeah I

28:17

wish I could remember what the fourth book

28:19

my fourth book is Dan oh yeah yeah

28:21

fourth book you've forgotten a novel gotten an

28:24

entire novel how can you forget it wasn't

28:26

very good what

28:28

was it I'm sure I read it cuz

28:31

I read a very and I read there's

28:33

Victorian background chaos then black or

28:35

darkness and then legend of crag which

28:37

is the Barry book some unknown

28:40

fourth book Victorian Batgirl were

28:42

you still trying to write comedy was it

28:44

some comedic thing I

28:46

don't know I know that they got increasingly

28:48

dark over time okay you know starting it

28:51

deeper into chaos and then ending on Victorian

28:53

Batgirl that was the one where I'm like

28:55

stop flirting with horror and just make out

28:57

with it but I cannot

28:59

remember what that fourth I'm gonna have to

29:01

go look through my old folders okay of

29:03

see mine are the wrong values are in

29:05

my Dropbox my folders are numbered by book

29:07

yeah and so all 50 whatever

29:10

novels are just there numbered you can go

29:12

into that folder and be like oh yeah

29:14

my Dropbox right here should I look through

29:16

it right now you should look live on

29:18

camera and I'll go through what

29:20

my other books are okay keep you okay

29:22

because I had nightlife and then there was

29:25

sixth incarnation of Pandora which is

29:27

a really weird kind of bad title

29:29

that was my cyberpunk ish starring

29:32

a guy named Zellian who was an immortal

29:35

who had lived so long it was

29:37

hard for him to kind of function

29:40

anymore he was kept alive by nanites

29:42

and things like that and

29:45

then there was oh

29:47

what was the name of that book

29:49

my ninth novel after

29:51

aether of night or right before aether

29:54

of night I can't remember what that one is I always

29:56

call it nine I found

29:58

it okay it was my steampunk book.

30:00

I don't know if you ever read this one. I

30:03

wrote like a steampunk horror

30:06

version of Oliver Twist basically. It

30:09

was street urchins that get embroiled

30:11

in this big thing. It's called

30:13

Nightbringer. It's an idea that

30:16

I have tried three different times to

30:18

write. There's something not right

30:20

yet about the story that

30:23

I'd like to come back to it at some point. Mythwalker.

30:26

That's the one I couldn't remember. Mythwalker.

30:28

I remember Mythwalker. And then there was

30:30

like, oh, it's one of those compound

30:32

words. Yeah. So, okay.

30:34

I never read that one. Yeah, it

30:36

will. It sounds interesting. Sounds good.

30:39

Yep. And then for me, it ended

30:42

with Mistborn Prime, Final Empire Prime, which

30:44

are two separate books back then, and

30:46

Aether of Night. I think that rounds me out till

30:48

I get to Way of Kings Prime. Yeah.

30:51

And in both of our cases, it

30:54

was our sixth book that finally sold.

30:56

Yep. Though at the point when your sixth

30:58

book sold, I think you had written 13. I

31:01

was working on my 13th, which was

31:03

Way of Kings Prime. And

31:06

got to walk in, I think I've told this

31:08

story before, to my theory class.

31:11

Wasn't it BYU? My master's degree where

31:13

we had a theory class, like all

31:16

the highfalutin literary theory. And I walked

31:18

in and Professor Jorgensen said, so anything

31:20

happen in review this week? Interesting. I

31:22

said, I got a book deal. How

31:24

about that? It was

31:26

very, very satisfying. Yeah.

31:28

So I introduced

31:30

you to Moshe. You did. At

31:33

that party in Montreal. Yep. And

31:36

then years later, after I had

31:38

finished Serial Killer, you

31:41

sent that to Moshe without

31:43

telling me. I said, you need to read this book

31:45

of Dan's. Yeah. He's written the best

31:48

book of his life. And then the next day after

31:50

he told you that he liked it and he

31:53

was going to contact me. But before he had

31:55

contacted me, this was back in the days of

31:57

AOL instant messenger. I was sitting at work. writing

32:00

about vitamins or whatever dumb

32:02

thing. And then I got

32:04

this all caps message from Brandon that

32:06

said, my debt to you is paid

32:08

Mr. Wells. Somewhere

32:11

in this Dropbox, I still have that conversation.

32:13

Do you? I should pull that

32:15

out. That would be a fun little Easter

32:17

egg to put up. Yeah, and he liked it

32:19

and then we ended up selling it. So, huzzah!