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In The Hours That Followed, I Learned That Ademic Hand Gestures Did Not Actually Represent Facial Expressions. It Was Nothing So Simple As That. For Example A Smile Can Mean You're Amused, Happy, Grateful, Or Satisfied. You Can Smile To Comfort Someone. You Can Smile Because You're Content Or Because You're In Love. A Grimace Or A Grin Look Similar To A Smile, But They Mean Entirely Different Things. Imagine Trying To Teach Someone How To Smile. Imagine Trying To Describe What Different Smiles Mean And When, Precisely, To Use Them In Conversation. It's Harder Than Learning To Walk.

-Patrick Rothfuss

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In The Hours That

Patrick Rothfuss

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In The Hours That Followed, I Learned That Ademic Hand Gestures Did Not Actually Represent Facial Expressions. It Was Nothing So Simple As That. For Example A Smile Can Mean You're Amused, Happy, Grateful, Or Satisfied. You Can Smile To Comfort Someone. You Can Smile Because You're Content Or Because You're In Love. A Grimace Or A Grin Look Similar To A Smile, But They Mean Entirely Different Things. Imagine Trying To Teach Someone How To Smile. Imagine Trying To Describe What Different Smiles Mean And When, Precisely, To Use Them In Conversation. It's Harder Than Learning To Walk.

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Humor Is Important For Is Pacing. If Your Whole Book Is Just Drama Drama Drama, It's Going To Wear Down The Reader.

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If The Beard Gives A Modifier To Seduction, I'm Guessing It's Not A Positive One.

Abenthy Gave Me An Appraising Look. I'd Been Waiting For It. It Was The Look That Said, "you Don't Sound As Young As You Look." I Hoped He'd Come To Grips With It Fairly Soon. It Gets Tiresome Being Spoken To As If You Are A Child, Even If You Happen To Be One.

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That Is How Heavy A Secret Can Become. It Can Make Blood Flow Easier Than Ink.

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Isn't That The Way Of The World? We Want The Sweet Things, But We Need The Unpleasant Ones.

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Practice Makes The Master.

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Over His Own Dark Cealdish Beard. "nothing Like Your Marvelous Facebear.

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What I'd Love More Than Anything Is For Worldbuilders To Continue To Grow And Become Entangled In All The Different Corners Of The Geek Community.

Good Lord Woman. If I Had Tits Like Yours I'd Own Half The World By Now.

I Want To Learn How To Pick Locks, Swordfight, Throw Pottery - It's All Research. It's Like The Curious Person's Version Of James Bond's License To Kill. I've Got A License To Learn.

Fantasy Is A Genre That Allows Me To Create Anything I Want. That, In Turn, Allows Me To Explore Any Sort Of Idea I'm Curious About. I Love It Because Fantasy Is A Genre That Asks, "what If...?" That's My Favorite Question.

The Chancellor Looked Down At The Empty Table For A Minute. Then He Shrugged, Looked Up, And Gave A Surprisingly Jaunty Smile. "all In Favor Of Admitting First-term Kvothe's Reckless Use Of Sympathy As Proof Of Mastery Of Basic Principles Of Sympathy Vote By Show Of Hands.

I've Read Fantasy My Whole Life. Quite Literally; My Mom Read Me The Hobbit Before I Could Read Stuff To Myself. So I Love Fantasy; That's What I Read For Fun, It's What I Read Professionally To Keep Abreast Of What's In The Genre - It's Where My Heart Is.

Joss [whedon] Is An Excellent Storyteller. It Really Doesn't Matter What Medium He's Working In.

There Is A Difference Between Something Being Essential, And It Being Necessary. If You Take Your Favorite Book And Strip It Down To What Is Merely Essential To Tell The Story, It Would Be Butchery. The End Result Would Horrify You. Essential Is The Bones Of The Story, But The Soul Lives Somewhere Else.

This Is The Nature Of Love." Vashet Said. "to Attempt To Describe It Will Drive A Woman Mad. This Is What Keeps Poets Scribbling Endlessly Away. If One Could Pin It To Paper All Complete, The Others Would Lay Down Their Pens. But It Cannot Be Done.

It Wasn't Even A Good Note. 'if You Are Reading This I Am Probably Dead.' What Sort Of A Note Is That?

Name Of The Wind

If I Seem To Wander, If I Seem To Stray, Remember That True Stories Seldom Take The Straightest Way

You Still Think I've Gone Cracked In The Head," Ben Said, Amused. "listen, If Tomorrow We Pulled Into Biren And Someone Told You There Were Shamble-men In The Woods, Would You Believe Them?" My Father Shook His Head. "what If Two People Told You?" Another Shake. Ben Leaned Forward On His Stump. "what If A Dozen People Told You, With Perfect Earnestness, That Shamble-men Were Out In The Fields, Eating-" "of Course I Wouldn't Believe Them," My Father Said, Irritated. "it's Ridiculous." "of Course It Is," Ben Agreed, Raising A Finger. "but The Real Question Is This: Would You Go Into The Woods?

When We Are Children We Seldom Think Of The Future. This Innocence Leaves Us Free To Enjoy Ourselves As Few Adults Can. The Day We Fret About The Future Is The Day We Leave Our Childhood Behind.

The Thing That Helps Me Do A Good Job Is That I Don't Feel The Need To Explain Everything About The World To My Reader. I'm Not Writing A History Text On The Four Corners. I'm Telling A Story That's Set There. The Setting Belongs In The Background For The Most Part, And It's Easy For Fantasy Authors To Forget That. That's One Of The Unfortunate Parts Of Tolkien's Legacy, In My Opinion. Read The First Hundred Pages Of The Fellowship Of The Ring And You Start To Get Pissed, "shut Up About The Shire's Museums! Isn't The World Supposed To Be In Peril Or Something?"

Half Of Seeming Clever Is Keeping Your Mouth Shut At The Right Times.

Keeping Your Mouth Shut

The Waystone Was His, Just As The Third Silence Was His. This Was Appropriate, As It Was The Greatest Silence Of The Three, Wrapping The Others Inside Itself. It Was Deep And Wide As Autumn’s Ending. It Was Heavy As A Great River-smooth Stone. It Was The Patient, Cut-flower Sound Of A Man Who Is Waiting To Die.

And If Hollywood Has Taught Us Anything, It's That Cool Props And Special Effects Are Not Enough. Story Comes First. Everything Depends On Story.

He Had A Bright, Reckless Tenor That Was Always Wandering Off, Looking For Notes In The Wrong Places.

The Key To Good Worldbuilding Is Leaving Out Most Of What You Create. You, As The Author, Had Damn Well Better Know The Where All That Dragon Food Comes From, But That Doesn't Mean That I, As A Reader, Want To Read A Five Thousand Word Essay About You Explaining It To Me. I Don't Need To See The Math, But I Can Tell By The Details You Provide Whether Or Not You've Thought These Things Through To Their Logical Conclusions.

Soft Fantasy Worlds Have A Much Looser Cause-and-effect Relationship. Alchemists Can Turn Lead Into Gold And Nobody Wonders About How It Will Impact The Currency System. Someone Waves A Wand And Turns An Elephant Into A Mouse And Nobody Worries About Conservation Of Mass.

That Was Another Lesson I Had Learned Perhaps Too Well: People Meant Pain.

Right Now My Favorite Thing Is Working To Recall Our Absolute Shitbag Of A Governor. He's Been Screwing Up My State For More Than A Year. I Want Him Out.

Favorites Things

For Most Practical Purposes Tarbean Had Two Pieces: Waterside And Hillside. Waterside Is Where People Are Poor. That Makes Them Beggars, Thieves, And Whores. Hillside Is Where People Are Rich. That Makes Them Solicitors, Politicians, And Courtesans.

Everyone Knew What He Was Thinking. Certainly There Were Demons In The World. But They Were Like Tehlu’s Angels. They Were Like Heroes And Kings. They Belonged In Stories. They Belonged Out There. Taborlin The Great Called Up Fire And Lightning To Destroy Demons. Tehlu Broke Them In His Hands And Sent Them Howling Into The Nameless Void. Your Childhood Friend Didn’t Stomp One To Death On The Road To Baedn-bryt. It Was Ridiculous.

Hours Later The Blank Sheet Still Stared At Me, And I Beat My Fist Against The Desk In Fury And Fustration, Striking It So Hard My Hand Bled. That Is How Heavy A Secret Can Become. It Can Make Blood Flow Easier Than Ink.

Just Because I Tread Heavily On Propriety's Toes Doesn't Mean I Can't Play The Game When It's Of Use To Me.

I Will Say The Most Raw Joy I've Experienced Reading Has Probably Come From The Times I've Been Reading With My Little Boys.

When The Hearthfire Turns To Blue, What To Do? What To Do? Run Outside, Run And Hide When His Eyes Are Black As Crow? Where To Go? Where To Go? Near And Far. Here They Are. See A Man Without A Face? Move Like Ghosts From Place To Place. Whats Their Plan? Whats Their Plan? Chandrian. Chandrian

I Took A Deep Breath, 'i Took The Nahlrout Because I Didn't Want To Faint. I Needed To Let Them Know They Couldn't Hurt Me. I've Learned That The Best Way To Stay Safe Is To Make Your Enemies Think You Can't Be Hurt.' It Sounded Ugly To Say It So Starkly, But It Was The Truth. I Looked At Him Defiantly.

Anger Can Keep You Warm At Night, And Wounded Pride Can Spur A Man To Wondrous Things.

A Long Stretch Of Road Will Teach You More About Yourself Than A Hundred Years Of Quiet Introspection

The World Is A Mess And I Just Need To Rule It.

Elodin Looked At Me. "what A Remarkably Honest Threat," He Said. "normally They're Much More Growlish And Gristly Than That." "gristly?" I Asked, Emphasizing The 't.' "don't You Mean Grisly?" "both," He Said. "usually There's A Lot Of, 'i'll Break Your Knees. I'll Break Your Neck.'" He Shrugged. "makes Me Think Of Gristle, Like When You're Boning A Chicken.

Each Woman Is Like An Instrument, Waiting To Be Learned, Loved, And Finely Played, To Have At Last Her Own True Music Made.

Whenever You Write A Character, You Want To Make Them Themselves, You Want To Make Them Unique. You Don't Want Fifty Characters In Your Book And They All Pretty Much Act And Think The Same Except They Have Different Colored Hair.

But It Isn’t A Rough Draft Either. The One I Turned In Several Months Ago Was Rough. There Were Some Bad Plot Holes, Some Logical Inconsistencies, Pacing Problems, And Not Nearly Enough Lesbian Unicorns.

I Need You To Breathe For Me.

For People Who Don't Know, The Fundraiser Works Like This: People Donate To Worldbuilders And They're Automatically Entered To Win Geeky Swag In The Lottery. We're Just Starting Week Two And We're Already Giving Away More Than $40,000 Of Books And Games.

The Best Lies About Me Are The Ones I Told.

In My Opinion There Are Two Basic Questions That Any Writer Tries To Answer. "what Is?" Is The Question Non-fiction Asks. "what If?" Is The Question Fiction Asks. That's The Question I'm More Interested In.

My Favourite Member Of The Beatles Is Lennon. He Might Have Been Crazy. But He's My Kind Of Crazy.

Denna Is A Wild Thing," I Explained. "like A Hind Or A Summer Storm. If A Storm Blows Down Your House, Or Breaks A Tree, You Don't Say The Storm Was Mean. It Was Cruel. It Acted According To Its Nature And Something Unfortunately Was Hurt. The Same Is True Of Denna.

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