A Meeting with Brandon Sanderson

I got to meet Brandon Sanderson! Almost. Here's the story:

William got a flyer for the Education Empowerment or some title like that for boys his age at the university. I gave it a casual glance and then saw that Brandon Sanderson was the keynote speaker.

Who is this Sanderson guy? I would love to tell you. He is an author of some of my new favorite books, Elantris, cleverly pictured on the left here for you to enjoy, and the Mistborn series. Right now I only own Mistborn, but the series includes Well of Ascension, and Hero of the Ages, just released. He has also written a series for kids starting with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. I am not making that title up.

Anyway, when I saw that, I immediately felt a burning desire for Will to be empowered by education. Or was it educated about empowerment? Either way, I signed him up for the conference, and because I believe in hands-on parenting, I signed up as well.

Who am I kidding? I just wanted to go! Plus they offered classes for parents on financial aid for college and becoming more organized. Yep, that's what I really needed, but sadly, the class was too full for me. So if I remain unorganized, that's why.

First things first: Will had a great time. He didn't get into all the classes he wanted, but he got his number one class - aircraft pilot. He loved it. And they got to watch footage of the Hudson river landing which made it really topical for the boys. Will said every class has a genius, and in that class, he was it. He also took classes on geology and environmental science. He's already told me one thing I should do to save the earth, and I foresee more coming.

OK, now that you all know about my brilliant son, let me tell you about Brandon Sanderson. We got there late (sorry, but the thing officially started at 7 am. On a Saturday. Um, right.) and he had just started. He talked to the boys about finding the own Dream Job. He gave them these tips:

1 - Try many things.
2 - Work is work, even if it is mostly fun. It's still work.
3 - You can do it.
4 - Not everyone becomes a rock star.
5 - You need both talent and dedication.
6 - Luck happens.

He told lots of fun stories to help make his point. He said that his mom gave him some advice when he told her he wanted to be a writer. She said, "Writers don't make any money. Be a doctor." But as he got into college, he realized that he really wanted to be a writer. So he got a night job where he could write at work, working as a hotel desk clerk, and he went to school during the day. He wrote 13 novels before any of them were accepted for publication. He says that tends to discourage people who just think how cool it would be to be a writer, but don't want to put in the work.

Then for the 'luck happens' part, he told this story. Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, died before finishing his last and final book in the series. His widow wanted to find someone to finish the book. So she asked Jordan's editor who he recommended. He said, "Well, I like Brandon Sanderson. He always gets his books in on time. And I know on his web page he mentioned that he likes Robert Jordan." So she got in touch with him and the rest is history.

After his presentation, he did a brief Q&A with the boys. Here are some of the answers, as best I can remember.

The next Robert Jordan book will probably be out on shelves this November, but because it is going to be very long to wrap up the series, it will probably be broken into two books, with the next book coming out next year.

Dreamworks and Pixar, the ones who did Kung Fu Panda and Shrek, bought the rights to Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Provided they do make a movie (not always a given!) it will be out in 2010 or 2011.

The next Alcatraz book will be out this fall.

His favorite authors are whoever he's reading at the time, but tend to be Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan.

His first book published was Elantris, which was actually the 6th book he wrote. He had sent it out to an agent, and by 18 months later, he had moved, gotten a new email, and changed his phone number. But he still had a webpage, and that's how the agent tracked him down.

The first book he wrote was a bad derivative of Dune by Frank Herbert. It had a desert.

Anyway, for fans of the author, I thought I would post this. It's not exact, just according to my notes. I was hoping to speak to him afterwards, but he had to go, so maybe another time. It was still really cool!

If you want to read my review of Elantris, use this link. I'm afraid you'll have to sort through for it. I'm listed there as Cindy B and I gave it 5 stars.