The Dragon Has Some Advice (plus a sale!)
Greetings lovable readers! Today I have a little feature to share with you called THE DRAGON HAS SOME ADVICE. You wrote in for help with your problems. This three-headed beast is here to help.
As I was finishing up writing this newsletter, the Barnes & Noble pre-order sale went live. So, surprise! The sale lasts from today through Friday. Pre-orders are 25% off using the code PREORDER25, with additional discounts for Premium members. If you’re interested in picking up The Dragon Has Some Complaints, you can get 25% off and have them ship it straight to you.
I have some more things to share, but we’re here today to talk to a dragon. Y’all sent an overwhelming number of emails to Garrodigh for advice on problems both personal and fictional. At this rate, it will take at least three installments to cover them all. You folks really trust the wisdom of dragons!
So let’s treat this as the first installment. If you enjoy it, let me know and I’ll tap his heads for more.
The Dragon Has Some Advice
Hey Garrodigh,
I read this morning that in mere billion years, all of the water will have evaporated from Earth’s surface. I am concerned about what this will mean from all of my Orca friends. Can you suggest a way to keep them moist?
Signed, G.
Centerhead: The oceans have been the bane of dragons’ existences since the dawn of time. Do you know how many dragons have been extinguished in those needless bodies of water? If it’s true that we can finally kill off the oceans, then our time has come. This is vengeance.
Upperhead: He asked about helping orcas, though.
Centerhead: Orcas are the dragons of the sea. Surely they played a part in ridding us of oceans.
Bottomhead: Yeah. And if there’s no more ocean, they can come live in my cave.
Upperhead: That’s not—
Bottomhead: I’ll make room.
Dear Dragon,
I built my house out of sticks, but this big bad wolf keeps coming by and blowing it down. I can’t afford to build my house out of bricks like my brother did. What should I do?
Signed, The Middle Brother
Upperhead: This is not your fight. You should call the police. It’s why you pay taxes.
Centerhead: Dragons do not trust the police. You have to deal with this yourself.
Bottomhead: Uhm? How?
Centerhead: After his next strike, follow this wolf. Find his house. Blow it down. With dynamite, if you have to. Destroy everything he loves about his home until there is no trace left of his life. Make this wolf rue the escalating war he instigated.
Bottomhead: Uhm? Or don’t build your house out of sticks?
Dear Dragon,
My adopted younger brother, first in line to inherit our sect, whose entire identity revolves around his martial skills, has just had his cultivation destroyed by a minion of a rival sect. There’s no known way to recover from this. In the same battle, both our parents were killed, and we don’t know what happened to the rest of the sect.
Now he’s at the bottom of a pit of despair and might be passively trying to kill himself (not eating etc). What can I do?
Signed, Wei Wuxian
Centerhead: I am picking up on a theme today. And that theme is: humans are bad at getting revenge.
Upperhead: No. Please, no. Humans take revenge far too frequently. They do it all the time. I mean, I do, too, because I’m a human.
Centerhead: Your brother’s cultivation was destroyed and now he’s not eating? Because he lacks food! What will taste right are the grains and fairy products of his enemies.
Upperhead: No--
Centerhead: Guide him into a battle and burn the families of those who took your parents. Have your brother break his fast with a breakfast in the smoldering remains of their lives.
Bottomhead: He might also want a hug.
Upperhead: No, you people don’t understand—actually, yes, he might be desperate for a hug.
Dear Dragon,
How do we get reddit fantasy users to stop spamming the forums with recommendations for Wheel of Time? It’s a fine series but enough already.
Signed, Howl at the Sun
Upperhead: Have they heard of Brandon Sanderson?
Bottomhead: Or Adrian Tchaikovsky?
Centerhead: I’m sure they’d like R.F. Kuang.
Dear Aunty Garrodigh, (I’m sorry but for advice columns you need to be an aunty, I feel),
We all know Fitz right? Bastard of the late crown prince? Friends with the Fool? Has a pet wolf he sometimes shares a mind with? Trained as an assassin?
How can we get the dude in therapy? He has the same issues at 60 as at 16, and is way too much in his head. He whines about EVERYTHING. And often the solution is just Talk To Someone About It. And yes, this might be due to all his childhood and young adult trauma (abandonment and basically getting murdered do that to you), but we have EMDR these days, which would most likely do him some good. And make me, as a reader, yell less at the books.
Signed, A disgruntled reader with a psychology degree.
Centerhead: A wild creature bonding with a human? Impossible. It could never happen.
Upperhead: Did I hear that this Fitz fellow is 60 years old? Because it is difficult to get your elders into therapy.
Bottomhead: Uhm? Have you tried putting treats next to the therapy?
Upperhead: What?
Bottomhead: He’ll follow the treats, and then you can trap him in a cage with the therapy.
Upperhead: That’s not what therapy is.
Centerhead: No, Bottomhead has solved it. Trap this Fitz person in a cage filled with therapy until he drowns in it. Either he fixes himself or he dies.
Upperhead: …
Bottomhead: …
Upperhead: Reader, please write in with referrals for good therapists.
Dear Dragon Unit,
Just now I’m infiltrating a tricky corporate location with the help of SecUnit Three (or vice versa, to be honest) in what may very easily turn into a hostage situation. How do I avoid a hostage situation? They talk too much.
Signed, Normal Robot
Centerhead: I have some opinions about this—
Upperhead: No.
Bottomhead: What if you made friends with the hostages?
Centerhead: What if you ate—
Upperhead: Absolutely not. If you are engaged in some nefarious plot that will result either in casualties or hostages, the solution is a career change. I do not know why you have to follow this ‘SecUnit’ into jeopardy. You could visit your local totally normal human employment office. There are many archiving jobs that involve little human interaction and/or combat.
Centerhead: Who in their right mind would avoid hostages on an empty stomach?
Dear Dragon,
I’m a newly-revivified city cleric tasked with investigating the explosion of a neighborhood tea shop. I’ve been saddled with a goblin co-investigator by Lady Sageleaf (the so-called “dragon” of Tolstad, for which I can offer only my deepest apologies.). My stats keep talking to me -- shut it, Dex! -- and I seem to have some crippling uncertainty about whom to support in the upcoming municipal election.
My real problem, though, is that my deadly nap in the river seems to have ruined my spellbook. Any advice on getting waterlogged vellum back into good shape?
Signed, Ragn from Norvik
Bottomhead: Hurk! I can help. If you give me, uhm, half a cow? I will let you leave it on my back. Dragons are warm and we dry things out quickly.
Centerhead: I am not a drying rack.
Upperhead: I am not dragon. Nor am I drying rack.
Bottomhead: Make that a full cow.
dear dragon,
sometimes, people have very bad opinions over a book or a movie or tv show i enjoy. how do i prevent myself from wanting to burn down their thatched roof cottages?
sincerely, a cynocephali
Bottomhead: Enjoy your thing more! Enjoy it louder!
Centerhead: But perform this vehemence in their vicinity. Be boisterous about your enjoyment to the detriment of their ability to function. The more you enjoy it, the more your enemies will suffer.
Upperhead: You could just start a Goodreads.
Centerhead: Send them your Goodreads. Send them a link to each review until they repent.
The Miscellany
So as I finalized this newsletter a second sale went live. Bookshop.org is a network of hundreds of indie bookstores. They’re running their annual free shipping promotion. If you’d like to order my book direct from your local indie and have it sent straight to your door, this is the best time to do it!
It’s also worth mentioning my local indie, Oblong Books. I like to support indies, which is why I’ve agreed to sign every copy of The Dragon Has Some Complaints preordered from them. If you won’t be able to make any of my tour dates, this is a great way to get a signature and a personalization in your copy.
Indie bookstores! I just think they’re neat.
Being in the middle of writing another book, it was fun to take a breather for this exercise in help columns. I’m taking emotional breaks where I can find them these days. We are just three weeks away from the launch of The Dragon Has Some Complaints, and so keeping my wits together is a top priority.
My other priority has been exercising and doing as much PT as possible, so that I can hit the road for the book tour in the best possible shape. I’ve pulled my lungs into much better shape since March! I’m regularly doing a mile a night on the elliptical now.
As a reminder, I’ll be doing my book tour starting July 14th. You can find me at the following locales!
July 14th: New York City, NY, at The Strand
July 15th: Doylestown, PA, at the Doylestown Bookshop
July 16th: Wilmington, DE, at Huxley & Hiro Booksellers
July 17th: Washington, DC at Solid State Books
July 18th: Baltimore, MD at Greedy Reads
I’ve been overjoyed to see early readers enjoying this dragon book, and to see it racking up glowing reviews in Locus, Library Journal, and Booklist. After all the months of my own recovery, seeing people connect with my dragon’s healing journey is a true wonder. I can’t wait to see some of you out there in the world in July!