The Scorch Trials ARC Contest

As promised, today begins the official contest to win an advanced copy of the sequel to THE MAZE RUNNER. It's very simple:

I want some good to come out of this, so here's how you enter. Leave a comment telling us about a good deed you plan to do/have done this week. It doesn't have to be big or elaborate. Just something simple. Make another person's day. Make a donation. Save the world. Convince the NFL to move to 18 games. Whatever.

The contest will be open until Thursday (Aug 5) at noon (MST), at which time I'll announce the winner. Good luck!!!

ARCs!!!

Look at this beautiful chunk of paper I got in the mail:

I love it! I can't wait for the hardback now. Just over two months to publication. I'll run a contest to win an ARC beginning Monday, since a lot more people seem to check in on that day. Be sure to come back and enter.

In the meanwhile, it's been a long time since I've mentioned the incredible book trailer that was created for MAZE. Has everyone seen it? Check it out:

Inception by Christopher Nolan

I'd like to share a quote from the acknowledgements of my second 13th Reality book, which was written way before I'd ever heard of a movie called INCEPTION and before THE DARK KNIGHT came out.

"Thanks to the mother of Christopher Nolan for going through the pain of birthing him."

I'm so glad I wrote that. I knew I loved the genius of this man just after three movies: MEMENTO, THE PRESTIGE, and BATMAN BEGINS. (And a lot of credit goes to his brother as well, Jonathon, who has co-written some of the scripts.)

And then came INCEPTION.

I love movies. If anything, I love movies even more than I love books (which is pure blasphemy so pretend you didn't hear me just say that). I see any movie that has even the slightest, remotest chance of being good, including the many great indies. Most of my best writing sessions happen right after I've gone to the theater and been inspired by a brilliant movie. Or sometimes even a dumb one.

Among these countless movies, I have those that I call "Event" movies. These are the ones that go to the top of my list as soon as I hear about them. I'd say there are only four or five of these a year. When I first heard about INCEPTION, I was hit by an instant trifecta of information: Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the words, "Your mind is the scene of the crime." I knew I had an "Event" movie, and started counting down the days.

I saw it the day it came out. And then again the next day. Cuz I'm like that.

And I wasn't in the least bit disappointed, even after all that build up. I absolutely loved every single minute of it, both times. It's firmly entrenched in the James Dashner's Top Five Movies of All Time list. (I actually couldn't name you those top five movies, I just every once in a blue moon give a movie that designation. It just might be more than five by now. Yes, it makes sense. Go with it.)

INCEPTION is utterly brilliant. I feel like I can't do it justice. If you haven't seen it, do so immediately. And then do it again because it's even better the second time around. Every single aspect of this movie is brilliant. And I can't go on because I don't want to spoil it and I don't want to use the word "brilliant" too many times. You don't need to know anything else: just go see it. The less you know, the better the experience you'll have.

Why can't more people make movies like this? Trippy, visually stunning, creative, mind-bending, well cast, well acted, well written, heart-wrenching, the MUSIC (yay Hans Zimmer!), brilliant brilliant brilliant. Oops, sorry. I won't use that word again, I promise. A day hasn't gone by since last weekend where I haven't thought about it. Now that's an Event movie.

I only want to comment on three more things about it.

1. I had a major epiphany about the creation process in this movie. (This isn't really a spoiler, so don't worry.) Leo and Ellen Page have a conversation about how the mind works during the process of creating a dream. Leo draws two curved arrows that point at each other, forming a circle. He says the mind simultaneously CREATES and PERCEIVES, and the two become indistinguishable from each other.

Never in my life have I been able to describe how I write books until that moment. It became even more clear when Ellen responds by saying that when she designs architecture, she feels as if she's DISCOVERING it, not necessarily creating it.

This is how it is for me. I can sit for hours and hours, trying to come up with good ideas, but they usually doesn't flow until I sit at the computer and start typing. Then I feel like it becomes just as Leo described it. I can't tell the difference between my mind creating ideas and perceiving them. I honestly can't. They happen simultaneously, feeding off each other to form the story. It really is like discovery more than creation.

I don't know if that seems as cool and mind-blowing to anyone else, but to me it was a real life changing realization. Food for thought.

2. I won't spoil anything, but I loved the way the movie literally ends, right before the credits. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. It couldn't have ended any other way, and I love the many layers of small questions it brings up. For me, that was the final stamp on how perfect a movie it was. Just how old were his kids, what were they wearing.......

3. I've heard several people rip on the trailer for this movie. Say huh? That, I just don't get. Now, you all know I try to avoid trailers because they spoil movies, but I've watched this one several times since going. I think it's one of the greatest trailers ever. That loud, tonal, booming sound. That's my new favorite sound.

Anyway, there you have it. INCEPTION is a movie that I will own, that I will watch many times. I plan to see it in the theater again. I really, really loved it, and I hope everyone will go see it.

Because it's brilliant. Doh!

The Dude is Back

This is a teaser blog post. I'm officially announcing that I'm going to be back and at it beginning next week here on the Dashner Dude. I'm looking forward to hanging out with you guys more often as we get ready for the release of THE SCORCH TRIALS.

On Monday I'm going to discuss INCEPTION, one of the greatest movie going experiences (twice) I've had in a long time. And it also gave me an epiphany on the creation process, which will be fun to talk about.

See you soon.......

Covers: Spanish and Portuguese Maze Runner

Hi everybody! We're coming up on some exciting things in the world of The Dashner Dude as we inch closer to the paperback release of THE MAZE RUNNER (Aug 24) and the hardback release of THE SCORCH TRIALS (Oct 12). Soon we'll have an advance copy giveaway, as well as a lot more information about the sequel. (By the way, it IS a direct sequel, beginning four hours after Book 1 ends.)

But today I want to show off the INCREDIBLE covers from V&R publishing in Brazil. These books are going to be released this fall and available anywhere in Latin and South America. I absolutely love the artwork and the design. Thanks to Maria Nazareth from V&R for sending these to me. I can't wait to get copies!

Here they are. The artist's name is Marcelo Orsi Blanco (check out his website: CLICK HERE), and he's awesome. What do you guys think?

Indigo Teen Read Awards

I'm happy to announce that THE MAZE RUNNER is a nominee in the first ever Teen Read Awards presented by Indigo, the largest bookstore retail chain in Canada. I'm very honored!

There are several categories, and MAZE is nominated in the category of "Best Hero," along with some pretty good company: Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, and Ally Carter. I'm a long shot against such established talent, but I'm just happy to be included. No, really! (I know, sounds like the pathetic rant of a guy about to lose.)

The hero is, of course, Thomas. Poor guy. Memory wipes, Griever stings, has to run all those miles and miles. I'm glad he gets something in return. Especially right before he has to go through all the crap in THE SCORCH TRIALS.

The part I'm most excited about: I get to go to Toronto for the awards gala in September! I've never been there and I can't wait to visit. See, I KNEW Canada was awesome.

To learn more about the awards, and to, ahem, vote, please CLICK HERE. If I win, I'll give 37 billion dollars to charity. (Like I said, I'm just happy to be nominated!)

The New Yorker and etc.

Happy Tuesday everyone! We are back from our vacation to visit my family in Georgia, and I've settled in for a long summer of hard work. Here's a random list of the latest...

1. The main task at hand is writing THE DEATH CURE, Book 3 of THE MAZE RUNNER. It now stands around 15,000 words and I have a long way to go. But thanks to my editor, who made me outline this one as part of our revisions for Book 2, it should be a smooth and fairly quick experience.

2. I'm really excited to share that my book and I are mentioned in an article in the current issue of THE NEW YORKER. It's a special 2-week issue, so you should be able to buy it on newstands or in bookstores for the next week or so. Or, you can read it online: CLICK HERE.

3. Funny story about this article. When my publicist told me about it, she seemed extra excited. Then my editor did as well. Then Random House sent out a special email about it. Finally, I realized maybe I just wasn't quite getting it when my agent emailed me and asked if I ever thought I'd be in the New Yorker. I told him I didn't know it was such a big deal, and he only responded with, "Oh, James, that's what I love about you."

Anyway, I've repented and I'm thrilled and thank you New Yorker! I'm honored. And I bought 4 hard copies.

4. THE SCORCH TRIALS is just about complete, and I imagine we're only a few weeks away from ARCs. I've gone through the copyedits and I imagine it's already been typeset by now. It'll be out in less than 4 months!!!!

5. I enjoyed everyone's reaction to my thoughts on the LOST finale. I only have one more thing to say about it. Some people were disappointed because not every single little thing was answered. For example, WHY is the island the heart of the world? HOW does it work? WHAT is the smoke monster? Yada yada.

To you I say this: Were you satisfied when George Lucas explained to us how the Force works, mitachloriyabbadabbadoians, and all that? It was much better when we just knew the Force was magic and really cool. LOST was not about nitty gritty explanations. It was about characters and fate and redemption and speculating, all of which would've been ruined by a seven hour finale where all was explained in detail.

6. So I'm kind of keeping up with the World Cup. And I think I'm the only one on the planet that actually likes the sound of those beehive horns. It just creates a cool atmosphere that makes me feel like something really important is going on. I just wish people actually scored in soccer. That'd be nice.

7. I haven't seen a movie in like three weeks. This shames me to no end.

8. We're getting our backyard done and it'll finally be done by tonight. My kids can finally play outside without getting ticks, spider bites, or weed rashes.

9. I'd like someone to please invent a big machine that causes the Earth to have no humidity without causing damage to the environment. My kids couldn't handle it in Georgia. We kept trying to do things outside and they'd beg to go back in. We left Georgia in the 90s with 110 percent humidity and arrived in Utah with no humidity and 60 degrees. I love it here.

10. Dear Bud Sehlig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball: I've analyzed your decision not to award Armando Galarraga a perfect game even though the obvious bad call came on the last out. And my official conclusion is that you are a d bag.

Back to work for me!

My Thoughts on LOST Series Finale

I know I'm officially the last person on Earth to do this, but here's what I think. Don't worry, no serious spoilers until the last section, which will be properly labelled.

I absolutely loved the series finale. I honestly can't think of one thing, not one, that I would change. It was heartbreaking, brilliant, moving, awesome. I just don't understand the haters out there. They baffle me. Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, it's just really annoying when they're wrong.

The whole series was an experience I'll never forget. Easily the best thing I've ever seen on television, by a trillion light years the best, and probably tied with the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and LES MISERABLES in terms of media / entertainment that affected me on a superhuman level. I'll never forget it, especially the finale, which still haunts me as I write this.

Jack!!!!!!!!!!

Oh Jack. Jackity Jack Jack. Your face in the final scene has made me half depressed and half in awe since your eye closed. And the music! And the writing! And the acting! And the directing! Everything about that finale and the series itself can only be summed up by one word in my (sadly) limited vocabulary. (Hey, I'm just an author.) That word is BRILLIANT.

I can't get over it. I didn't think something could be that good. The writers and creators should be given a special award that no one else ever receives. And that award should be called the YOU'RE MORE BRILLIANT THAN ANYBODY ELSE EVER AWARD. I don't say any of this lightly. I see tons of movies, watch lots of shows, read lots of books. And LOST is one of a kind, a true once-in-a-lifetime experience. I'll never never ever ever forget it.

I'm really glad that we watched it, week by agonizing week, year by agonizing year, from the very first airing of the pilot. That waiting and expecting and speculating was half the fun. We plan on waiting about five years and then watching the whole thing over again with our kids. I can't wait!

SPOILER ALERT

There's a lot of debate out there about what happened in the finale. I think it can be summed up pretty easily. Just like Jack's dad said, everything, every single thing that occured on the island really did happen. It is the heart of the world and in the end Jack saved it. He died to save it. His best friends escaped and lived out happy lives back home. Hurley and Ben safeguarded the island for many many years, maybe centuries. All these people died at different times along an extensive timeline.

Once they did, all at their separate times, their souls entered an alternate reality which they collectively created, their very own Heaven, where past, present, and future are the same. Just like Jack's dad said, "there is no now, here." They all discovered each other once again, in several scenes that I can't imagine have ever been topped in the happy tears department. And then they gathered and went to some special place beyond.

Ben wasn't ready, still had things to atone for. That's why he didn't go.

That's about it. And how incredibly BRILLIANT is it that the very first shot of the series was Jack's eye opening, and the very last was that same eye closing. I know it's simple, but it's just really really awesome, too.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

I don't know what else to say. I'd love to hear any thoughts you guys might have. Even from those who for some reason feel like it's their role in life to tell everyone how stupid LOST is, even though the vast majority of them haven't seen even half the episodes because it got too "complicated." Ya know, some things you just shouldn't admit to people.

Sorry if I sound petty or defensive. I just love this show so much that I feel like it's my kid or something, and it hurts to see people rip on it. And usually they have nothing intelligent to say, just, "Man, that show is so lame. I'm gonna go watch CSI: Kentucky."

And lost in all this (ha, sorry for the pun) is the effect the show has had on my own writing. I took something away from every single episode. The writing, the structure, the plotting, the character development. How they end episodes, even commercial breaks. The visuals. All of it helped my writing more than perhaps any other one identifiable thing.

Which leads to my final thought: to the creative talent of LOST, every one of you, both behind and off the screen, I say thank you. I can only hope that somehow you get neurotic in the middle of the night and google your own show and find this blog post. I can only speak for myself, but you gave me something, a six year experience, that changed my life and will remain with me FOREVER. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!

Time to Catch Up

How's everyone doing? I thought it was high time I play catch up and answer some of your questions as well. So here we go, in no particular order...

1. I've never been so excited for and yet dread something so much: the series finale of LOST, coming up this Sunday. I'm going to be so incredibly sad when it's over, and yet I'm dying to see the last episode. But it's the last one EVER. Oh the pain. The horror!

2. Speaking of TV, we've fallen completely in love with the show MODERN FAMILY. It is so so so good!!!! We actually look forward to it more than THE OFFICE, which I can't believe just came out of my mouth, or fingertips, or whatever.

3. I'm finally reading THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. It has me very captivated, although I can't really say why.

4. For those really faithful Duders, I thought I'd give you an update on my ACL surgeryified knee. It's doing really well. I've been jogging a lot and it feels good. Two more months until I can play basketball and ski again!!!! (Although I'm doubting we'll have much snow to ski on in July.)

5. Oh, you want some book related stuff? Okay, I can do that. We went through a lot of revisions and fine tuning for THE SCORCH TRIALS, but I believe we are finally done. And I'm very proud of the final result, and thrilled with what Krista pulled out of me to make it better. I can't believe it comes out in 5 months!

6. We'll only have teaser chapters at BEA, so I'm sorry if that disappoints anyone. Here's my schedule by the way: Signing TST chapters at 9:00 am Wednesday in the Random House booth, then signing THE 13TH REALITY Book 3 at 11:00 am Wednesday in the main autographing area. On Thursday I'll be signing in the ABA Lounge at 10:30. I'll also be doing lots of luncheons, dinners, and other fun stuff. Can't wait!

7. I am now working very very hard on THE DEATH CURE, the third and final book in THE MAZE RUNNER trilogy. It's always so fun to be in first draft writing mode. Story and characters and creativity are all that matters at this point.

8. It's been a lot of fun for me to work with some of the translators doing my foreign versions of MAZE. I had never thought about how hard it can be to translate things like shuck and shank and WICKED and Griever into other languages.

9. I get asked this a lot, so in case you don't know: MAZE comes out in paperback on August 24th (same day as MOCKINGJAY!) and SCORCH comes out on October 12th.

10. My family has become obsessed with fish tacos. We eat them whenever and wherever we can. I'm not sure this is normal.

11. I had a great tour for Book 3 of 13TH REALITY. Thanks to all the students, teachers, bookstore employees, and readers I met in Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Austin, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City. I really had me some good times. No more touring until October!

12. Thanks to Morgan for pointing out that Rick Riordan said on his blog that his son loved MAZE. The fact that this made me giddy is further proof that I'm still a fanboy and will probably never change.

Okay, so here's some Q&A:

First, as always, THANK YOU for all the nice comments about my books. Those never fail to make my day! I really appreciate each and every one.

Sally T, I'm sorry you missed me in Dallas!

Shelli, I AM coming to Atlanta to visit my family soon (counting down the days actually), but alas, no events are scheduled. Maybe next time!

Shaun Barger, thanks for the awesome writeup on apocalypse writing!

#1, Sorry, my schedule is just too crazy right now. :(

Jackson, we'll be catching up on 24 once LOST is over. I can only handle so many shows! And thanks for providing me with so many laughs in the comments.

Several have asked about ARCS for SCORCH. I don't really know much about when they'll be done and how many will be printed. But I'm sure I'll give at least a couple away on this here blog once I have some. And you can always request one through your channels with Random House. If you have said channel.

Someone started a forum for 13TH REALITY. Check it out: http://www.realitants.com/forum. Also, someone started a site for MAZE fans: http://www.thegladers.info. Thanks, guys, I'm honored and I hope people visit you.

Dave, I'm not into FLASHFORWARD or V. I don't commit to anything now until they prove they won't be cancelled!

Anonymous, yes, I used to teach at SLCC. That was fun while it lasted for a very short while.

Julie Belnap, I'm sorry I won't be at the teen writer's conference! I think they like to shake it up on who comes every year.

Traci, I'm sorry I missed a chance to sign your book. Crazy schedule lately!

Matt Hayes, I actually don't know the title for Book 4 of 13TH yet. I'll probably reveal that this fall.

Brin, I thought it was very cute how you asked me to explain quantum physics. Keep reading 13TH and you'll find out a little, but I'm not smart enough to explain it any more than that!

Christie asked about how you get published. Scroll down on the right side of my blog and you'll see links to lots of stuff I've written about that. Best of luck!!!

Michelle, it would really be hard to commit to something next March because I'll probably be on tour. Maybe contact me again as it gets closer?

Anonymous, all of my books are on the Kindle and Nook and other ereaders now.

Cupcake wants to know when I'll come to Canada. No plans as of yet. Maybe push a bookstore there to request it through Random House.

Mary, as we get closer to the UK release, that would be great! Maybe towards the end of July?

Morgan asked how long the Gladers had been around before Thomas showed up. There was an original group of about 25, and Thomas came two years later.

Brian asked about that panel I did in NY with Scott Westerfeld, Michael Grant and Carrie Ryan. Ya know, I never did hear if that got put up on the Internet. Could someone google that and try to find it for us?

June asked about Group B and WICKED's true intentions. I... can't... say... a... word... about... it...

For those of you asking about interviews, appearances, etc., please forgive me for not responding. If you're still interested, try again in late June or July, as that's when my schedule will calm down quite a bit for awhile. Thank you for your interest.

Wow, long post. I love you all!!!!!

Houston and Austin

Guys, I know I've been quiet, but I promise to be more active on the blog soon!

Meanwhile, for those of you in Houston and Austin, this is where I'll be Monday and Tuesday, each time with FABLEHAVEN's Brandon Mull:

Monday
5:00 pm
Blue Willow Bookshop
14532 Memorial Drive
Houston TX 77079

Tuesday
3:30 pm
Book People
603 North Lamar Blvd
Austin TX 78703

Come see us!!!!