Anklecast 66 - Euthanasia

The latest episode of The Anklecast is now up and available for all to hear on the feed. Check it out if you're so inclined. If you hate waiting, you can get it even earlier if you're a Patreon member. You can join for as little as $1. I don't want to be too forward, but it's probably something you should consider.

Trent and Brent were two children with rhyming names but vastly different life paths to travel. Brent was brilliant, a boy genius, destined to do something amazing, Trent was average and prone to mischief that would eventually lead him down a dark path of suffering and regret. Their paths would cross again, however, and when they did, Brent would be the one who didn't get it and Trent would be the one with the plan...

Afterward, Rish and I talk about whether certain things should be allowed in stories for entertainment or not. We also talk about our adventures in publishing, and let you know what's available now. Enjoy this if you can, and mind the trigger warning.

As always, thanks to Kevin McCleod at incompetech.com for the music. And special thanks to Rish Outfield, Jonathan Wilson. Tena Kolokowski, and Wendy Wilson for contributing their voices to the mix!

The episode can be found on The Anklecast feed right now, or to download the episode, right click HERE. Then again, you could just hit the play button on the embedded player below, and get it now with no further effort. It's all up to you.

The Toys Are Back In Town

I haven't done a toy post in a while. Mostly because nothing has been on clearance or at Ross that I wanted. There was a brief golden age where I found something I wanted pretty much every time I went to the store, but those days are gone, and I've grown loathe to even go to the store, because it's just a waste of my time.

The other day, however, I was at Walmart for other things, and I found that they had created a whole new aisle filled with clearance toys. They had several things that I would like on clearance, but mostly, they were barely marked down. A figure that was usually $12 was now selling for the rock bottom price of $9. One figure that I'm pretty sure retailed at $22.95 was now selling for the bargain basement price of $22.00.

They did have one thing I was willing to pay for, however. I did buy this one:

I'm pretty sure they wanted $14.99 for these at regular retail price, so it was half off. It's not bad, but it's not really a legit Star Wars vehicle.

Kenner made these things up back in 1979 or so. 

They had basically used up everything that was actually in the film, but the demand for the toys was so high, that they wanted to keep the money train chugging, so they invented some stuff of their own.

It always sat in that strange realm of Star Wars toys that weren't actually from Star Wars, until recently, the Mandalorian included it in an episode, and canonized it. The Mandalorian had a thing for doing that. They did the same thing for Constable Zuvio earlier in the season. He was a figure from The Force Awakens whose scene was cut from the movie, but he was an early release, so the toy came out before the movie did.

Tons of people bought the figure without even knowing who it was, then later regretted it when it was, in fact, no one. Those figures became massive peg warmers, and inspired my favorite Toy Galaxy video of all time.

I've gotten a little off track here. We're talking the Imperial Troop Transport that I got. It's a tiny scale, the figures are one inch tall, so things can only be so detailed. The figures in particular tend to be low on detail.

They're supposed to look like Stormtroopers, but they look more like klansmen wearing sunglasses or something.

I suspect that they might look better if I got a magnifying glass and painted in some detail, maybe did a black wash on them as well. I'll probably do that someday. They'll look better in pictures if I do that...although they're so small that I can't get a decent focus on any of the pictures I'm taking.

It only comes with two figures, but there are six slotson the sides to fill. I have no idea how you're supposed to deal with that. I guess buy more transports and use the figures from them? One of the figures comes with a gun in his hand and the other doesn't, so I assume he's supposed to be the driver I guess.

The top opens on the front to give you access to the driver's seat, and in the back to give you access to the troop compartment.

And the little side doors open for the troops to run out. 

Seems like the back ought to open as well, but it doesn't want to, so I guess not.

All in all, it's fine. I like having some 1/72 scale stormtroopers, and the ship will look good in the 1/72 Ankletown Station someday. If they stick around and get marked down even further, I may even buy a few more of them, but not unless they're cheaper. They're not worth having multiples if they're not super cheap.

Game Of Thrones, But Real

I've been talking about books that I own a lot on here, but I thought it might be cool to talk about the books that I'm reading as well. And when I say reading, I mean listening to. I almost never actually read a book with my eyes. It's mostly ears these days.

Sometime last year, my friend suggested that I should check out a book series by Bernard Cornwell called the Saxon Stories. He'd been watching the BBC/Netflix show The Last Kingdom, and knew that it was based on these books, and he thought I might like them. Kind of funny, if you ask me, to recommend books to someone based on the TV show they're made from, but there you go.

The first book was called The Last Kingdom, as was the TV show, and I found it on Audible and gave it a shot. My nephew was loaning me the use of his Audible account at the time, and he had a ton of unused credits, so he said to go ahead and get it.

It was an interesting book. It's a historical fiction novel set in 9th century England, but it could just as easily have been a fantasy epic set in Middle Earth or on Pern or Westeros. It feels very much like that kind of a story. There is even enough mysticism involved with the ancient pagan religions and the early Christianity that you could be convinced that there was magic involved too.

It was a brutal and graphic as any Song of Ice and Fire book as well. I listened, and thanked my lucky stars that I was born in the 20th century and not the 9th. People say these books are like Game of Thrones but real...or realish, anyway. There's a great deal of liberties taken to make a story out of the history.

I enjoyed the book, but then my nephew decided he wanted to use his remaining credits to buy the Expanse series, so there were suddenly none left, and I couldn't continue it that way. So, I didn't listen to any more for a while.

However, while I was on my cruise a few months ago, I wanted something to occupy my time as I lounged around on the pol deck, and my wife told me I should get on Libby again. I had done that library app in the past, but I'd stopped using it for some reason, and hadn't gone back. I was already on the ship, and we were about to sail away to where there was no internet, though, so I hurried and downloaded it and looked for a book to listen to. I settled on the next Bernard Cornwell book in what is now known as the Last Kingdom series instead of the Saxon Stories in the same way that The Game of Thrones TV series kind of renamed the Song of Ice and Fire.

This one was very much in the same vein as the last. Brutal and graphic, but interesting and entertaining. I listened my way through half of the book on the cruise, then finished it up a week or so after getting home. I'd recommend this one as well.

From there, I was off an running. I was on Libby, so I could get any audiobook that they had as long as I was willing to wait my turn. I put holds on what felt like dozens of books, but had to wait a long time for almost all of them. Surprisingly, the Saxon Stories were all available without even a wait. I could just grab the third book, because no one was waiting in line for it. So, I did.

The third book was probably my least favorite so far. It was still very good, but felt more fake and contrived than the others did. I think it was based less on historical fact and more on the author's imagination. From what I understand, there was only the loosest mention of the story of this book in historical annals. I still enjoyed it, but the one that I really liked was the fourth book.

Sword Song felt like the pinnacle of the series so far. It kept me interested and turning pages...and by turning pages, I mean continuing to listen in every spare minute I had...until I reached the end. I think I consumed it in about three or four days. I loved everything about the book.

So, that's where I'm at so far. I just checked out the fifth book, and I'm about an hour or so in. I'm listening to these books in between the other holds that I've made on Libby. It's hard to work out the holds. I asked for a bunch of books, and they claimed it would take a long time for each to come in, but instead, they all came in at the same time, and I had to delay my hold on most of them. That's one of the main reasons I love this series, because the later volumes don't require holds right now, so they're always available if I want them. That makes me happy.

I also started listening to Bernard Cornwell's King Arthur series called the Warlord Chronicles (though I suspect it will be renamed the Winter King series, because it was made into a TV show by that name as well). I'm two books into that one, and I guess I'll talk about those on here too when I get the third and final book.

Another Release

My goal last month was to get the audiobook of Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies finished and submitted for publishing on Audible. I managed to get it finished almost a week before the month came to an end. Once you submit it, you just have to wait for it to go through some sort of quality check, which tends to take about two weeks.

Today, I got the email saying that the process is complete and the audiobook is now available. So, if you've been waiting for the audio because that is your preferred format, then the wait is over.

The square version of the cover, because it's audio.

You can find it on Audible or on Amazon (which is actually Audible anyway, so you just wind up in the same place).

Vanity?

That's probably all this is. It's not what I want it to be, but it's probably all it is. There's places out there that will publish books for people that they know won't sell. They do a small print run and charge a large price of the authors for the pleasure, and they're called vanity presses. I suppose print-on-demand and Amazon is putting those folks out of business. Why pay a bunch of money and get a bunch of copies you can't sell, when you could just order one and get it for the price of what a book usually costs?

Speaking of that, I just got my copies of Battalion of Ideas today, one paperback and one hardcover.

They look pretty good, I'd say. I really like how they turned out. The cover looks nice.

They're a good size. They look like legit books and not just something from a vanity press. Of course, what do I know. I'd never be able to afford vanity press books, so maybe this is what they look like.

The one thing I'm not as happy with as I would like to be is the blue text for my author name on the spine. It doesn't stand out on black as well on the book as it did on the computer screen. I thought it would be fine, but you can't even really see it there, right? I don't think I'll change it...but maybe I should...I don't know.

The inside looks nice.

Here's the table of contents, so you can see all seventeen stories that are in it.

And each story starts with a page that looks like this:

It's pretty neat to have, and it makes me happy to see...really tickles my vanity, I guess. I can't help but smile to see them. It's a lot of fun. I guess I should get to work on the next one.

April In The Books

Ooh, is that a clever title for this? "In the books," see what I did there? Because it's a writing update...and I'm writing books...and it's in the...

Well, I don't care if you think it's totally lame. I like it. I think I may call my writing updates "In The Books" from here on out. I like it. Did I mention that I like it?

Anyway, let's talk about April. How did it go? Well, my goal was simply to continue as I was doing. 1,333 words a day. 1,333 words a day times 30 days = 39,990 words. So that was my goal for the month. As you know, Bob, I had a couple of bad days this month. I mentioned it in my last update at the halfway point of the month. One day I spaced it, and didn't finish my words because I thought I already had. Another day, I was traveling and so busy that I straight up forgot to write. So, with those blemishes on my previously pristine record, did I hit my goal?

There you go, I got 41,314 words this month. That's a couple thousand over my limit. Even with two blown days, I managed to get a few thousand over my goal. Not only that but I beat every other month in this whole process except for my record month of last month. I beat February by a few thousand, and I even beat my previous record of January by five words...that's right, five. January was 41,309 and this month was 41,314. Funny, if you ask me, for it to be so close.

Anyway, the best part about the whole month was that I had a few hiccups, but they made no lasting difference. I didn't collapse into a quivering mass of gelatin on the floor like I would have done in times past. Instead, I shook it off and moved on. And because of that, my average, even with two bad days, was higher than it was for any other month so far.

1,377 is a good 55 or so words higher than my third highest average. I'd say that's something special. And, check this out. Here's my total for the whole year up until now:

That's the whole process in one shot...it's been just over six months of this...six months and four days since I count from my birthday at the end of October. It's hard to read anything on a picture that big, though. Let me zoom in on the totals for you.

Check that out. This whole process has netted me 229,888 words. The final goal is 304,475. Or, if we round both of those numbers off, I'm 225,000 into a goal of 300,000 words. That's 75%. Even if I don't round them off, it's 75%, as the percentage box there at the bottom demonstrates.

So, at the 50% mark of the year, I'm 75% of the way to my final goal. I'm not a mathalete, but I think that means that if I keep up my pace, I can hit 150% of my goal by the end of the year. That's approximately 400,000 words. That's a lot. That makes me pretty excited to consider.

So, I guess what I can say is that I'm doing pretty well so far. I said in previous editions of this report, I have written a novelette, a novella, and two novels in that time. Now, we can add a second novella to that list, because, as I said a few days ago, I finished up "Digital Wizards" as well. I haven't just been writing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over, and that's a plus too. You'd think by now that I would have descended into that insanity but no, I continue along as sane as can be.

So, what about the other goals that I set for myself this month. I pledged to get my second audiobook published, the audiobook for Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume One. If you were to look over on Amazon, you'd find that it's still not listed, but it will be any day. Around a week ago, I submitted the files for the finished audiobook, and they are in review. That takes 7-10 days or so, as long as there isn't any issue, so they should go live any second now, maybe even before this post publishes, who knows?

If there's some kind of problem, then my goal to publish that book may get pushed to May. It'll become my goal to fix and redo whatever needs to be done. Otherwise, my goal is to get the audiobook of A Battalion of Ideas: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume Two moving in the right direction. I was going to say that I wanted to be at least 25% done, but then I remembered that I had four or five stories already recorded and edited. I should check what percent I'm already at...okay, after a bit of work on the spreadsheet, it turns out that I am at 28% of the book done already. That leaves 72% to go. I'll do half of that this month, 36%. So, I'm going to make my goal to have 64% of the book done by the end of the month. Then I can do the same amount next month, and have the whole thing done.

The last goal I set was to spend time going through the Tyler Mowery videos on YouTube and use them to plan out my next project, which I was thinking would be "Skeleton Crew." However, I did none of that. I watched like...one of the videos, and did almost no pre-pro work for "Skeleton Crew." Then, when "Digital Wizards" finished up, and I needed something to start on, I had different ideas. I wanted to do a Lazerfist adventure instead. So, I started writing on that. I guess I'll be working on that for a while, so "Skeleton Crew" will have to wait. But hopefully, I can get the preplanning done and be ready to start by the time I finish up the Lazerfist book.

So, I guess that means I'm not Brandon Sanderson after all, because I didn't achieve all my goals. I didn't even come close on that last one...and I think it's one of my biggest failings as a writer. It's something I really need to work on. I need to get a groove for pre-pro like I have for the writing part itself. Not totally sure how to go about it though. I'm thinking that I need to come to terms with zero word days that happen because I'm working on outlining rather than writing. I think that's a goal for a month or even a year to come, however.

For now, we roll on as is. I'm going to keep the 1,333 words per day goal, That's going pretty well, and I don't feel like I'm ready to take it higher. I'll work most heavily on recording and editing audio to get A Battalion of Ideas ready for Audible, and I am going to put some time into publishing the next collection as well. I have enough stories for two more still, so I ought to get going on that, and then get some novels published as well. I'm way behind on the publishing here. I really got to get to work with this stuff. So, publish the eBook, paperback, and hardcover editions of the next collection, which will be called "Two Vampire Weekend" is the last goal.

I should make a list of them all like Rish does in his posts. Here we go:

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Finish 64% of Battalion of Ideas audiobook
3. Publish eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Two Vampire Weekend"
   

May is gonna be awesome.

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | Did I Make It To One-derland Yet? | Week 48 Roundup

I'm only weeks away from the one year mark, it's week 48 already, and I'm only a few pounds away from One-derland. All I have to do is weigh in under 200lb once. Did I manage this week. Did Carnivore and Fasting get me there? Watch and see...