January 8, 2013. Make note of that date. The final book in the Wheel of Time series will be available!!!!

I guess this means I will not have to locate Brandon Sanderson and let the air out of his tires after all.

Of any series The Wheel of Time is the best example of the inherent misalignment of readers and writers. We can read faster than they can write…and edit… rewrite… edit… publish…distribute and be discovered by us, the reader.

I have waited so long. But not nearly as long as those of you who started reading WoT when The Eye of the World came out in 1990. You know, twenty-three years for fourteen books, really is not so bad. Especially if you consider that the author died before he could complete what he thought would be the twelfth and final book.

It just feels like forever when you’re caught up in the story and want to know what happens next. Will Voldemort get his in the end?

Excuse me—wrong series. You’d think that Harry Potter would have prepared me for Wheel of Time since I didn’t start reading WoT until after the final Harry Potter came out. Was that 2007, only five years ago? 

Yes, I came to the series only after they announced that Brandon Sanderson would be completing it. Forgive me, those of you out there who have been slogging away at this for long enough to become grandparents. Not to mention losing the author before he finished and not knowing that he had left sufficient instructions for someone else to finish it for you. Then not knowing if the relief author would have the stamina and fortitude to finish it right.

That we still don't know, do we? Check back with me the Ides of January.

Tor has kindly made available  some excerpts for those of us who cannot wait another minute. From the first chapter of A Memory of Light  http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/07/read-an-excerpt-from-chapter-one-of-a-memory-of-light and from the eleventh chapter http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-11-excerpt

And the books are all so long, I almost hated to start each one. But then as I neared the end of Robert Jordan's books and the Sanderson ones were not yet available I slowed my reading to draw it out as long as possible. Repeating with each of the first two Sanderson WoT books. Then I would re-read in preparation for the next one.

Hmmm. If I started tonight, perhaps I could finish re-reading by January 8.

Maybe just the most recent four or five books.

I do have a life to live, laundry to do, a book of my own to finish writing.