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Posted by Meg

I know, I know. It’s been more than a month since Halloween. But a few people celebrated Halloween this year with some pretty impressive costumes. So of course, we had to share. Even if it is a little late.

Halloween is a great time to show just how dedicated a fan you are. I was totally inspired by these pictures from this year’s Halloween. Becky posted pictures of herself as Renna Tanner, wards and all.

Don’t forget to check out her goodreads profile.

Meanwhile, Michael and Heather decided to go all out and have a warded party. This is a fantastic idea, and I love the wards decorating the walls along with the paper jack-o-lanterns.

They donned on wards themselves, dressing up as Arlen and Renna.

Some real dedicated warding went on to make these costumes come to life.

Don’t forget to submit your own fan art to our latest contest by 11:59pm on December 31, 2011. For more details, check out the rules here.

Posted on December 9, 2011 at 8:00 am by megelizabeth
Filed under Fan Art, Fans, Meg, Warded Art
2 Comments »

Posted by Meg

Fan art is a creative and engaging way to interact with a loved story when you (for the time being a least) don’t have any new material to read. What I love the most about fan art is that fans are inspired by the original work to create their own work and expand and experiment in different mediums. Well super-fan Kym, also known as spookysculpter on Deviant Art, has gone above and beyond with her most recent projects. From sewing to painting to warding, Kym has put together an impressive collection of items, costumes and photos proving that her level of awesomeness as fan and as an artist is something to be taken seriously.

Renna in an action pose

Here’s what she had to say about her process and her return to fantasy:

My sister recommended his books to me and I was not sure at first because I had not read fantasy for years and didn’t know if I would still like the genre. I was blown away by how awesome The Painted Man was and quickly got hold of The Desert Spear, Brayan’s Gold and even The Great Bazaar.

While reading all these I wanted to make some of my own Alagai Hora so I bought some wood and a wood-burning tool, had not used one before, and got to work. I liked the results and made some warded boxes as well.

With my mind on Halloween, which was coming up at the time, I made a warded necklace, a knife (made from balsa wood and a couple of rulers, and I sewed and distressed a Renna Tanner costume. It was the first costume that I have sewn, I usually make dolls and smaller things, so I tried a couple of new creative techniques as well as rediscovered my love for fantasy books.

So here’s her collection. Let’s start with her incredible Renna Tanner costume. I especially like the new breed of coreling she’s discovered!

Renna Tanner with a Coreling Cat

Renna with knife

Warded Legs

Warded Palm

Warded Necklace

Warded Knife

Warded Hand Box

Alagai Hora Painted Box

Alagai Hora

Warded Box

You can view more of Kym’s artwork on her deviant page.

Don’t forget to submit your own fan art to our latest contest by 11:59pm on December 31, 2011. For more details, check out the rules here.

Posted on December 7, 2011 at 8:00 am by megelizabeth
Filed under Fan Art, Fans, Meg, Warded Art
3 Comments »

Posted by Meg

I said it was coming, and here it is! The Fan Art Contest is officially open.

And by open, I mean open. Chose any medium to work with: watercolor, pen and ink, sculpture, collage, printing, crayon, digital manipulation, photography, whittling, feathers, finger paint or anything else that excites you.

We get fan art all the time, contest or no. To get your creative juices flowing, check out the fan art gallery on Deviant Art or the fan art section of the forum.

I will be posting the entries on the blog as they come in.

The best thing about this contest: there are no rules.

Okay, well, we have some rules, but for the most part, the sky is the limit.

Here are the very broad, very imagination-enabling rules:

1. Create a piece of fan art in any medium
2. Attach art in a digital file
3. Enter as many times as you want
4. Contest ends when the ball drops on December 31^st 2011 at 11:59pm
5. Please send all entries to contest@www.petervbrett.com

The Grand Prize winner will receive their very own limited edition Stephen King Library Desk Calendar 2012 just in time for the New Year. This Science Fiction Book Club exclusive is a really special prize for a number of reasons. The theme for the calendar is The Dark Tower with a 3D hologram for the cover. Pretty nifty, right? But that’s not all. Inside, along with the beautifully designed calendar, you will find a number of essays written by notable writers such as Jay Franco, Myke Cole and our very own Peter V. Brett. Additionally, you will find excerpts from The Dark Tower books and factoids, trivia and quizzes all drawn from the Stephen King universe. The calendar will be signed by Peat and several of the other authors.

But wait! There’s more! Other lucky winners will win a copies of the Graphic Audio recording of The Warded Man Parts 1 & 2 (part 2 not yet released!). Check out the blog post on the first installment of the recording if you haven’t already. These recordings are amazing, done in the style of an old school radio show complete with different character voices, sound effects and music. It really adds another dimension to the book we already love.

Depending on the number of entries, other prizes may include the United Kingdom paperback edition of The Desert Spear with the sneak peak for The Daylight War in the back, Red Sonja comics, sets of warded dice and other goodies.

Peat and I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Happy creating!

Posted on December 5, 2011 at 1:11 pm by megelizabeth
Filed under Contests, Fan Art, Fans, Meg, Warded Art
10 Comments »

A reader on my forum posted an interesting question the other day. I don’t spend as much time on the forum as I’d like, but Meg is on watch now and quickly alerted me to it. I wrote a long answer on the forum, but thought it was worth posting on the Peephole as well. It’s regarding my experience with rejection in publishing:

I have a question I would love to ask Pete!

I have a best friend who is sending letters to agents to try and help him publish his first book.

We would LOVE to know how many rejections Pete got BEFORE he got accepted by an agent?

Thank you so much!

Nazgul!

Hey Nazgul,

I would like to preface my answer by saying that the number of rejections one receives is in some ways irrelevant. The experience is different for everyone. I know of (rare) great books rejected by most everyone under the sun that went on to be bestsellers, and (common) awful books that stubborn authors continued to try and sell even when it should have become apparent they were sullying their good name.

Sometimes you have to give a ship up as lost, go back to the shipyard and build a better one. It’s important for a writer to be self-aware enough to take criticism constructively, use it to  improve one’s craft, but also to know which elements are subjective opinions of agents/editors and which are real flaws they need to work on.

I did most of my rejecting all by myself. I started writing novels at 17, and between then and the time I was 32 I wrote 4.5 novels, all of which I showed my friends but never submitted to publishers or agents. Why? Because I felt my writing wasn’t good enough to even show anyone. It wasn’t until I met Joshua Bilmes (my now-agent) at a SFWA party and he lectured me on the perils of self-rejection that I sent in my first manuscript to him.

He promptly rejected it.

In retrospect, he was right to do so. The book was not at a pro level. I sent in two other books after that, both of which were rejected as well (as they should have been). At that point, a rare and wonderful thing happened. Joshua took me out for coffee, and went through one of the manuscripts in detail with me, telling me where it was strong and where it was weak. He said I had a lot of promise, and gave me a book called Writing to Sell by Scott Meredith and told me to read it, then go back and fix the first book I sent him. I did, throwing out 60% of that book and spending a year rewriting it before resubmission.

That book was The Painted Man, and he agreed to represent it immediately. It was rejected by three major publishers before the others started bidding on it.

So that’s my story. Others will vary.

Good luck to your friend! Writing is a long road, and lonely at times, but it can be rewarding as hell.

Posted on December 4, 2011 at 10:12 am by PeatB
Filed under Craft, Interviews, Warded Man, Writing
4 Comments »

I should have posted this a couple of weeks ago to follow up on my twitterface+ announcements, but as with everything these days, progress on The Daylight War has taken precedence. The book is rolling along pretty quickly these days, as I have (mostly) recovered from my shoulder surgery and found a workable schedule and fresh inspiration. November 2011 has been my best writing month this year, and I hope to continue the trend until I turn the book in early next year. I will do a more detailed post about my progress and the expected pub date soon.

In the meantime, I want to tell you about the AMAZING job Graphic Audio has done in bringing The Warded Man to life as an audio dramatization.

I’ve spoken before about my audiobooks, particularly the fantastic work done by Pete Bradbury in his unabridged readings of The Warded Man and The Desert Spear. I love those books and listen to them all the time when I want to refresh myself on story details before writing new sections.

But Graphic Audio has done something completely different, and unlike most anything on the market today. They have produced The Warded Man like an old school radio play, with a narrator, voice actors, sound effects, and music. The result is really amazing. The cast is fantastic, producing some really stellar performances with fabulous accents. Some of the scenes, like those where Leesha and Bruna verbally fence with each other, make me cackle with glee, and Arlen’s performance just soars.

Also wonderful are the sound effects, particularly the individually crafted sounds for each breed of demon, and the way the song lyrics in the book were set to music. You get to actually hear Keerin sing!

You can check out part 1 (0f 2) here:

The Warded Man, Pt. 1 (of 2)

I just received the MP3’s of part 2 for review today, so it should be available shortly! Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on this project!

Production credits:

Directed by: Johann Dettweiler

Starring: Richard Rohan, Terence Aselford, Colleen Delany, Delores King Williams, Elizabeth Jernigan, James Lewis, Christopher Graybill, Nick De Pinto, Thomas Penny, Steven Carpenter, Michael Glenn, Eric Messner, Joe Brack, Mort Shelby, Ken Jackson, Michael John Casey and Joseph Thornhill

Book Adapted for GraphicAudio by: Johann Dettweiler

Dialogue Editor: Johann Dettweiler

Sound Designers: Johann Dettweiler

Additional Redshirts by: The Dead Giveaways

Original Artwork by: Lauren Cannon

Producers: Richard Rohan and Duane Beeman

Executive Producer: Anji Cornette

Posted on November 29, 2011 at 8:00 am by PeatB
Filed under Craft, Daylight War, Desert Spear, Sales, Tech, Warded Man
7 Comments »