NOTE: You can download this song for free. Click the link below the preview!

In the beginning of writing The Farfield Curse, I had a particularly hard time connecting with Bran. This, obviously, was not a good predicament, as the main character should usually be the one the author connects with the most.

I later realized that the reason for this was because I was suppressing who he really was, in favor of who I wanted him to be. When I came to this conclusion, all of a sudden Bran seemed to explode off the page in front of me with all these new facets to his character: one of these, which followed automatically, was his penchant for drawing. I discovered that Bran was actually more like me than any other character in the book – just as I connected with my writing, so also did Bran connect with his drawing. This small piece of Bran’s life, that has nothing to do with magic, is an enormous part of who he is.

In a way, this song seems to represent for me the wall in Bran’s room that is covered with drawings, and all the stories that are connected to each piece of paper.

TITLE:	The Wall of Drawings	December 2008
ALBUM:	Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse [Official Soundtrack]
ARTIST:	Kaleb Nation
STYLE:	Classical/Soundtrack
LENGTH:	2:39
	CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

As always, there are plenty more on my music page. Also, I have another song almost ready (the one I played a preview clip of in BlogTV last week) that might be in another video I’m working on. As usual, if you want preview chapters of the book, email me or check out BranHambric.com for more info.

Opinions in the comments are welcome!

Posted in Bran Hambric, My Music having 7 comments »

As usual, I severely underestimated Twilight fans.

On my Youtube channel, I started a contest to win some of the Twilight movie cast autographs I got at the premiere, and teamed up with Twicon’s people to give away a signed book. I expected about… 150 entries?

At this moment, it’s the #3 most discussed video on Youtube, for the second day in a row, with 16 other honors. It’s been viewed 20,000 times and commented 3,800+ times in just 24 hours.

Lesson learned: never underestimate Twilighters.

Other lesson learned: get more sleep, in case 18,000 people randomly decide to watch you.

Third lesson learned: only Hank Green can talk as fast as Hank Green without becoming partially unintelligible.

Posted in Stephenie Meyer, TwilightGuy, Videos having 14 comments »

Due to my sites recently passing 2 million hits (thanks everyone!) and the resulting ad revenue, I have finally saved up enough to justify buying a PO Box. The address can be found here.

There are a few things to note about this new box. It is for mail from my readers only, and any business correspondence from professionals regarding my books should be sent to my agent. Also, since this box resides outside my immediate homeland, it takes me a bit of time to get over there. I got the small size as opposed to the jumbo-maximus drawer size (keeping it realistic here) but if it happens to get stuffed, they will hold it in the back, so no worries if you want to send a pet boulder-in-a-box.

My PO Box Is Not Quite This Size

Hopefully this will be able to survive long enough until my publishers set up the customary address in their offices for mail (assuming they do). I know that some people have been waiting on this since day one, but I’ve always been hesitant on it, due to stories of other writers receiving hatemail/bat wings/unwanted relatives to their boxes.

I Do Not Want To Find This Gathered Outside My PO Box

But mainly, now that I have a box, I can actually ship things out from here without being stalked (the box is actually far enough away from Dallas and has so many numbers you would have to sit in the post office for weeks to catch a glimpse of my figure sweeping through the halls, and those are only on the days I forget my invisibility cloak). So, expect some cool contests coming up here and on my BlogTV (I used to be in radio, and have about 150 CD’s I must give away some time or another, besides all the Twilight stuff). Have fun with it!

Posted in About Me having 6 comments »

NOTE: For two weeks, you can download this song for free. Click the link below the preview!

I always liked making songs that sounded somewhat mysterious, but as it happened most of music I’ve made so far has been slow and happy (besides the Prologue song on all the websites). On Saturday I had some free time, so I sat down with a specific part of The Farfield Curse in mind, and tried to set that part of the book to music — and surprisingly enough, the song came out all in a few hours.

In the beginning of The Farfield Curse, Bran is found locked in a vault with no memory of who he is. Years later, when he is 14, he is nearly kidnapped by someone who knows far too much about him, and he realizes there is something dark in his past he hasn’t yet discovered. Searching for the truth leads him to a bookstore, where he discovers something hidden amongst the very townspeople who try so hard to outlaw magic. This song represents the part in the book where Bran first begins to realize how big of a thing he is getting himself into: and how dark and sinister his past could be.

TITLE:	The Box In The Bookstore	December 2008
ALBUM:	Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse [Official Soundtrack]
ARTIST:	Kaleb Nation
STYLE:	Classical/Soundtrack
LENGTH:	2:33
	CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FOR FREE (Until Dec. 14)

If you like it there are plenty more on my music page (also, I have another one coming soon, so maybe subscribe in the sidebar or check back for that one). Also, check out the Bran Hambric music Myspace and as usual, if you want preview chapters, email me or check out BranHambric.com for more info on the book.

For the comments: What do you think of this song? Does it seem to portray what I was trying to show?

Posted in Bran Hambric, My Music having 17 comments »

I realize it’s been quite a while since I’ve given a real update on my writing side of things, and people are probably wondering if

A) The book is still coming out and,

B) It’s still set for Fall 2009

(answers: A. Yes B. Yes).

There is this interesting thing in publishing where everything appears to the untrained eye to be going painstakingly slow, and yet in reality there are a couple hundred tiny gears turning in the Great Book Machine, each one pivotal in producing a book consisting of the most epic win possible. At the moment, there are few surviving photographs of this machine, though I suspect it looks similar to this:

The Great Book Machine

To my knowledge, this machine has gone through many versions and been remodeled multiple times over the past few decades, in keeping up with the latest trends (like those cool choppy-edged pages that became suddenly popular with Lemony Snicket books, or the single-photograph-over-black-background covers that are wild now thanks to Twilight). Just because I am under contract does not mean I know everything about this business. THE MACHINE IS NEWS TO ME. In fact, with further research, I discovered what I believe to be more photographs of early designs of the Great Book Machine, dating back as early as 1918:

The Great Book Machine - 1918 Version

Many people believe that the publishing business is made up entirely of editors who edit, designers who design and artists who art. NOW I AM NOT SO SURE. As I am in the midst of scheduling a trip to see my publishers and their epic offices sometime in the beginning of next year, I will report back on the current state of events regarding the machine AKA whether it exists and is hiding in some back office or this is just another salty lie making rounds in the writer circles.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing on the sequel to The Farfield Curse, a.k.a. BOOK TWO: code named BRAN HAMBRIC: THREE SHINY KIWIS (go ahead and try to guess what title TSK is for, which is a hard acronym to guess, especially with me who likes MADE UP WORDS, and especially since your efforts will be in vain if I change it, which I doubt). There are a great number of advantages to writing book two before book one is out: namely, since I will be done in a good amount of time, the Great Book Machine can begin churning its process whilst people are still picking up the first book. Also, and maybe the best part of it, is I’m still a fresh and pure writer whose soul hasn’t yet been tarnished by bad reviews and hatemail that insist Bran be a headless horseman and Astara be renamed to Lamey Pinehouse. So, I’ll at least get some good footing before I start to doubt the worth of my very existence.

Cool stuffs going on though: I’m still working things out with the book soundtrack. I have two more songs that I’ve laid out the concepts for, though they need some work before I finish them up. Also, certain overly perceptive persons might have said things to me along the lines of,

Picture this in Elmer Fudd's voice and receive epic lulz

No, I actually changed the title to one of my songs. I won’t say which one it was, since part of the point is not to call attention to it in the hopes nobody notices (they will anyway). But as I was going down the songs and listening to the soundtrack as a whole (the songs I have now, and the ones I’m still working on) I realized that one of the songs really had been titled wrong. As I thought about it more, it seemed to fit with a different, yet similar, part of the story (this will probably happen again as I get closer to finishing all the songs). I’ll leave it up to you to find which one.

I should probably mention also that my blog TwilightGuy.com just passed over 2 million hits, and they’ve almost doubled the daily numbers since the movie premiere. If you’re a Twilight fan, keep an eye on my Youtube since I have some cool stuff I want to give away (real celebrity autographed things, nothing cheap or tawdry). Speaking of Youtube, I just passed 4,000 subscribers this week, which means I got my latest 1,000 in less than a month. And this week some cool person set up a fan page for me on Facebook, and some other cool person is already getting set with the Bran Hambric Lexicon. Fansites getting ready this far before the book is even out = good times.

So in essence, I’m still writing lots and things are moving right along. Also, I’m making a point to post here a bit more often now that the Twilight premiere has passed, especially since there’s only about 10 months until the book comes out, which means about 7 months until you can pre-order, and about 4 months until we have a cover (oh my).

Posted in Bran Hambric, Writing having 17 comments »

I just got back from the Twilight movie premiere a few days ago, and it was honestly a blast. For the trip, I had to be up around 2 AM in order to catch a flight and arrive on time. I was coming a day early so that I could be a panelist at Twilight Live, which was a podcast they were doing before the premiere. People had been lined up around the block for the event since the night before. Lucky for me, I had badges.

There were a lot of firsts on that trip. It was my first movie premiere, my first time to California, and my first time to stand on a red carpet. It was my first time to meet any fans, first time to be recognized in public, first time to be asked for an autograph, and first time to meet actual celebrities. It was also my first time to have passes to a green room, where the stars hang out while waiting for the event to start. I will allow everyone to imagine that it looked like this:

Our Green Room (note the green, hence the name)

During the premiere, I got photos with nearly everyone involved, including the main woman herself, Stephenie Meyer (who I wanted to see more than any of the other stars). I’ve been wanting to meet her in person for a while, after I missed her in an epic fail by not going to her Dallas, TX, book signing (the subsequent emails from people chiding me for not coming when my name was called over the intercom were punishment enough to make me set on being in LA). We even got video and photos together:

Me and Stephenie Meyer

I have loads of photos with people there, which you can see here.

There was so much that happened there, it is impossible to sum it up into words. After the premiere, I was taken to the Twicon afterparty, where I got to hang out with lots more awesome people at the top of the Hotel Angeleno, where a jazz band was playing live music. I got to meet some fans who won a contest for entry and talk to Michael Welch’s made-of-awesome mom, as well as a bunch of people involved in the Twicon planning (at which I will be a special guest next year).

One of the best parts was finally meeting all these people I know online and from Youtube in the Twilight community — of which I have only been a part for 7 months, and yet have been welcomed into so warmly. I was also shocked to find how genuinely nice the movie people and their agents were (I don’t know why I expected everyone in the movie business to be beastly trolls):

Beastly Troll

When we got back to our hotel, we realized there was a desperate demand for videos, so I immediately uploaded my Rob and Stephenie clips (this is only possible through the use of a Flip camera, which is one of the most awesome devices on the face of the earth). The Robert Pattinson interview got about 33,000 views in 1 day, and the Stephenie Meyer one isn’t far behind.

My video blog about the event is here if anyone wants to see footage of the event and exactly how much screaming was going on:

So it was honestly one of the greatest days of my life, and later on I saw the movie, which was hilarious and far better than I was even expecting (see my review here).

Someone on my other website pointed out to me how strange it was: how I’ve come from writing about how Bella should drive a fire truck, to being on the red carpet for the movie. What would have happened if I had decided to take my blog down months ago, as I had planned? How would things be different for me? It is strange how things happen the way they do.

Just in today: they announced there will be a New Moon movie. I guess that means I have another premiere to look forward to

Posted in Appearances, Stephenie Meyer, TwilightGuy, Videos having 14 comments »