I did Mistborn instead, I knew what I was doing with that, and it turned out very well. I knew I didn’t want that book to be my second released book. And putting it aside was not a difficult decision at that point. The book just was not hitting the vision I wanted for it. And the reads came back, my editor was one of these, saying, Wow, this is big. And when that happens, usually I get a few reads from people I trust. I had some instincts that something was off, something was wrong. By then, I had developed instincts for when a book was turning out like I envisioned it, and when a book wasn’t. And that’s right around the time that I got a book deal, it was my 13th novel. I finished Way of Kings Prime in 2002, 2003. I’m sure that’s very common in the writing community. Yeah, I have learned to follow my instincts as a writer. How did you decide to scrap that version and start over? Did you feel like you had done the right thing? You’ve just released The Way of Kings Prime, the original draft of the story that became The Way of Kings. Those two ideas grew separately from one another for a while, until I started to incorporate them together and say these two stories belong together. The Way of Kings began as two separate ideas, one for a character named Dalinar, and one for the idea of a storm, a magically powerful hurricane that hit this world every couple of days. Sometimes I just need to build one from scratch to match the story. Is there a setting that I’ve been developing that also enhances this? Here’s this character who belongs in this plot. I’ll start to say, all right, these two ideas belong together. I know I have a book when these different elements start to meld together in my brain, and change each other in interesting ways. Those will be growing independently in my notes file. An idea for a magic system or a governmental structure. Usually they’re growing separately, a couple ideas for the plot, a couple seeds for characters. And every book I write, I could point out and say, oh, there was the first idea. Books are a combination of character, plot, and setting. And then about ten o’clock, I go back to work and I work from 10 until that day’s work is done.

I’ll write usually from around one until five, and then five until ten is family time.

These days, I usually go to bed at four o’clock or five AM and get up at noon or one, depending on the day. I’ve always been a bit of an insomniac, and I built my pre-publication career off the back of working a graveyard shift at the hotel, during which I would write books at the front desk. Can you tell me a bit about your process? Do you have a favorite time to write?

All brandon sanderson books in order