Worldbuilders – Making the World a Better Place

December 09, 2011 By: Christopher D. Eldridge Category: Uncategorized

Updated 2/7/12 – Thanks to everyone who participated this year to make Worldbuilders such a success.

As a worldbuilder, a lover of books, and a person who believes in helping others, I wanted to share a fabulous charity that one of my favorite authors, Patrick Rothfuss, runs every December. Pat is an awesome fantasy writer, and he also happens to be a wonderful and giving person. Every year, since becoming a published author, he runs a charity called Worldbuilders.

Worldbuilders is connected to Heifer International, a charity that helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. They also promote education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry. By doing so, they don’t just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat. It’s no surprise that this is Patrick’s favorite charity.

YOU CAN HELP! By following the above Worldbuilders link, you can donate money and get your name entered into a drawing to win any number of cool stuff, like rare and signed books. Every ten dollars gets your name put into this lottery. If risk isn’t your game, you can also hop over to Pat’s gift shop, The Tinker’s Pack and purchase any number of the cool merchandise available. All of the proceeds go to Worldbuilders. There will also be auctions, where you can bid on ultra-rare and super cool stuff, such as an entire manuscript review/critique by Patrick Rothfuss himself, or one from several professional agents in the industry (something I hope to bid on next year…if I can come up with the money).

Note that Patrick matches every dollar you donate and Heifer matches 50%. That’s pretty awesome. In fact, the first year Pat started up Worldbuilders, it did so well that it left him broke. But he said the entire process helped him get his emotional feet back under him after dealing with all the stress of becoming a published author, as well as getting him out of a dip of a depression.

Worldbuilders is something I partake in every year, and if you like the cause, I urge you to do the same. Helping people and winning cool stuff is a win-win for everyone. So just click this WORLDBUILDERS link and get all the info from Pat himself OR go directly to the Worldbuilders Donation Page.

A Writer’s Journey – Part 2: My First Book

July 25, 2011 By: Christopher D. Eldridge Category: Plot & Stucture, Writing Craft

I don’t know just how many stories I had written by sixth grade, but I know for certain that this is when I created my first book, bound and with my own color illustrations. It was our major assignment for the semester in English. I’m sure I was thrilled about making my own book, though I can’t say for certain. I do remember it being a labor of love, something I was truly proud of after finishing. Unfortunately, I can’t remember who my teacher was.
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The Revision Process – Part 1

March 14, 2011 By: Christopher D. Eldridge Category: Writing Craft

If you’ve never written a novel before, you may not grasp what it means to revise a manuscript, especially one over a thousand pages long. Some people think revision is going back through, checking typos and fixing misplaced punctuation. That’s proofreading or copy editing. A more appropriate term for revision might be rewriting. You see, writing the first draft of a novel is relatively easy. Once that first draft is finished the work has really just begun. Now I can’t speak for authors whose craft has been shaped and polished over a career of writing and publishing several books or more as their revision process might be quite different.

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