Brandon Sanderson, a best-selling author, also the author of my favorite books such as Elantris, Warbreaker, and the Stormlight Archive, teaches Creative Writing at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I had been considering possibly taking his class, but soon learned how difficult it can be to find an opening as the available spots for students fills up immediately. Fortunately for me, I discovered that the school allowed him to record his classes for two different years.
I am now watching the classes on his website, http://www.writeaboutdragons.com/brandon_w2012/. I am going through the 2013 collection and completing assignments as if I were a student. The class calls for a new story to be written through the duration, with thirty thousand words as the goal, and so I am beginning something new.
I'll post my progress:
Runes again - on the Vice President's face this time. Tom stared at the billboard, then glanced at other people on the streets. Most seemed to be focused on avoiding looking at the spray paint graffiti. That sort of vandalism was becoming more and more prevalent recently. A lot of people were blaming the refugees from Nemund. Tom didn't know what t think of it, but he knew his parents didn't mention it much.
Tom forced himself to pay attention to his current task. He had a letter for the mechanic. Tom studied the envelope while he walked briskly. The paper it was made from was light blue, the color of business correspondence. The address was printed on the top end and he noted the silver ink it was printed in. He grinned. That meant it was important, probably a bill of some sort. The way the sunlight reflected off the words when he turned it about in his hands made it look very official. It made Tom feel official, especially since this was only his twenty second delivery. Not even three days had passed on his new job and he was already delivering vital messages.
He spun the envelope in his fingers. It wasn't much bigger than any of the normal black ink letters he delivered, no wider than his hand, and only twice as long, but that was to be expected. His father had mentioned last month that they should be expecting to see a few changes with imported goods. Many of their allied countries were under siege by the Nemundian armies. Paper was one of those goods. Rotane didn't have much in the way of trees, other than shrubbery. His father had been right. The price of paper had doubled. People quickly adapted by printing on smaller sheets with finer print.
Tom hurried down the sidewalk, staring ahead as far as he could see. Street signs were too small to read from so far away, but he wasn't looking for those. He was searching for uniquely shaped buildings and statues, anything big enough to be recognized from a distance. He'd learned after his first day on the job that the more experienced messengers only talked about towers and distinctive businesses, basing their knowledge of the city's layout on a map of landmarks. Street names weren't very helpful when the city you were traversing was always changing its layout.
That was something Tom had always found fascinating about mod cities. The different districts could be reorganized during the day in order to make public transportation more efficient. Nobody needed a vehicle if you knew the city's shifting schedules. All you had to do was wait at the proper edge of your current district and your destination would eventually come to you. If you were in a hurry, you could simply find one or two more districts to step onto and catch your destination ahead of schedule. It was very convenient for shipments. It wasn't, however, helpful for more urgent concerns, such as emergency medical attention and sending correspondence. The former had been resolved by posting a medical facility in each district. The latter involved hiring young men to run all over the city, switching off between moving districts at perfect timing. The best messengers could travel from the hub to any other district during the busiest of times in under eight minutes. Tom was averaging about forty five minutes.
Tom was lucky today. He'd stepped up to the delivery counter at the hub just as the silver ink letter had dropped through the slot in the back wall. The attendant at the counter passed it over to Tom with a smile and a nod, jotting down his name and marking down the stub code. Each envelope had a small strip that could be torn away. It had a number printed on it, along with space for a signature. That was how the messengers were paid. At the end of the day, they turned in their stubs for payment. A black ink letter was worth one par. According to the chart, some boys were getting thirty stubs a day. That was decent for a day's wage at his age, but Tom wanted to do better. He was at about seven stubs on average. It was pathetic. He wanted to reach fifty.
Today, though, he had a silver ink letter. That stub was worth ten pars. As he walked down the hallway, awestruck, other messengers passing him cast glares. Newcomers never got anything more than black inks unless they were the only one around when a letter came in. It was their own fault for showing up too late.
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