Episode 180 features Anthony Rapino who’s back for the third time to talk about what he’s been up.
This includes but is not limited to always writing, being the laziest youtuber, getting more social, and almost burning out.
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Tony Rapino II: The Wrath of Friendship
Tony and the Order of Cosmic Creatives
Other Links
Do not look ‘Elsewhere’ for a thrilling read by… Keanu Reeves?
Picture This: A playlist of ‘Photograph’ songs
An Avid Reader’s Guide to a Methodical Book Purge
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:04 – 00:00:26:41
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer. Do not look elsewhere for a thrilling read by Keanu Reeves. Yes. That one. Picture this a playlist of photograph songs. And since last episode, I’ve been shopping for an acoustic bass thanks to His Majesty, the reigning lunatic. This is The Palmer Files episode 180 featuring Anthony Rapino, who’s back for the third time to talk about what he’s been up to, including always writing, being the laziest YouTuber, getting more social and almost burning out.
00:00:26:43 – 00:00:30:19
Agent Palmer
Are you ready? Let’s do the show!
00:00:30:24 – 00:00:35:29
Tony Rapino
I almost burnt out. I did almost burn out.
00:00:35:33 – 00:00:47:01
Tony Rapino
I crave a bit of discussion about stuff. It doesn’t have to be my work even. I mean, that’s why I like to teach too. It’s like I just like talking about this stuff.
00:00:47:06 – 00:00:58:06
Tony Rapino
In general. I’ve been getting out more than than I ever did before, which isn’t saying much because I didn’t do it at all.
00:00:58:10 – 00:01:00:51
Tony Rapino
I’m a little bit out to sea when it comes to that stuff.
00:01:00:51 – 00:01:05:58
Tony Rapino
But it is something I want to do.
00:01:06:03 – 00:01:09:17
Tony Rapino
Life gets in the way sometimes.
00:01:09:22 – 00:01:34:18
Agent Palmer
Hello and welcome to The Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 180th episode is my friend and friend of the show, Anthony Rapino, who is back for the third time. It’s been a couple of years since Tony’s been on the show, so we discussed what he’s been up to, his writing as well as his other creative endeavors, and how he almost burned out, plus being more social, making videos as the laziest YouTuber and what’s coming up for him.
00:01:34:18 – 00:01:53:05
Agent Palmer
We still haven’t met in person and we talk about that too. All of that and much, much more is coming your way shortly. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterward, you can find all related ways to contact Tony and myself in the show notes. Tony’s next published work, Precipice of Nowhere, will be released at the end of October.
00:01:53:07 – 00:02:21:41
Agent Palmer
Be sure to preorder wherever you get your books. Be on the lookout for what else Tony has coming up, either with published works or events, by getting information and social links from Tony’s website Anthony J. Rapino. That’s Anthony rapping. Plus, you can watch Tony’s Retro Day scripts come to life on youtube.com. That’s retro. Don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent Palmer.
00:02:21:44 – 00:02:33:38
Agent Palmer
Com and of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
00:02:33:43 – 00:02:35:41
Agent Palmer
Tony. Welcome back. I believe the.
00:02:35:41 – 00:02:43:23
Agent Palmer
Last time you were on, you were in the process of writing.
00:02:43:28 – 00:02:49:47
Agent Palmer
Is. And that’s done now at least or completed or the drafting I guess the.
00:02:49:49 – 00:02:52:25
Tony Rapino
Okay. So I mean, I’m always writing something.
00:02:52:28 – 00:02:53:11
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:02:53:23 – 00:02:58:27
Tony Rapino
Well, what I was writing the last time we spoke might actually be something that I’m still working on, believe it or not.
00:02:58:30 – 00:02:59:27
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:02:59:32 – 00:03:20:40
Tony Rapino
That one is very close to being done at this point. It’s like 90,000 words in and I literally need to like, just put a cap on this thing, get it to maybe 100, 105,000 words and then it’ll, then it’ll that’ll enter. Yeah. All of the fun. You know, editing and rereading and beta reads and all that kind of stuff.
00:03:20:43 – 00:03:27:23
Tony Rapino
Yeah. The other one is maybe the one you’re thinking of. I don’t know.
00:03:27:28 – 00:03:46:39
Agent Palmer
I don’t remember because I never put you on the spot for like, specifics, because you were in the process of writing it. And I didn’t want to do that because I know that describing things that aren’t finished yet might be the worst thing to attempt to do.
00:03:46:43 – 00:04:13:35
Tony Rapino
Yeah, I still I still go by that. I think it was in Stephen King’s On Writing. It might have been another writer writing book where they were like, one of the worst things you could do is and I’m very much paraphrasing here, but one of the worst things you could do is try to explain to someone what you’re working on, because they won’t get what you’re trying to say, and they won’t act the way you expect them to act, which will sap away all the enthusiasm you have for the thing that you’re just about to work on.
00:04:13:37 – 00:04:19:06
Tony Rapino
Yep. So I generally I tend not to talk about like, anything that’s unfinished.
00:04:19:08 – 00:04:42:07
Agent Palmer
So let me, let me I we’ve established in the previous two episodes that you are not only a teacher and you have whatever work comes. Class work comes from that which you also are a writer. And then you also write scripts for retro days.
00:04:42:11 – 00:04:43:24
Tony Rapino
Yes. Yeah.
00:04:43:26 – 00:05:01:46
Agent Palmer
If we ignore the teaching in retro days. Because when I asked you that question, you answered that there were two. Like, how many of your own, like, things do you have? How many of those? Like, how many balls are you juggling as far as, like, original creations that you’re working on at once?
00:05:01:56 – 00:05:06:24
Tony Rapino
If you’re if I am counting, like the novels and retro days and.
00:05:06:27 – 00:05:11:24
Agent Palmer
No, no, ignore retro days and ignore classwork. Just the novels and short stories.
00:05:11:26 – 00:05:32:23
Tony Rapino
Oh, okay. So, I mean, recently it would have been so the the upcoming novel, the one that’s coming out this year, The Precipice of Nowhere. That one I was over the course of really, it was only a couple of weeks because I had to it was a very fast turnaround, but I was working on that, the editing, the for the publisher.
00:05:32:23 – 00:05:56:31
Tony Rapino
So I was working on that while outlining a new idea that I had that is like in its infancy, even though I haven’t finished the other thing. And I think it was around the same time that I was also. So this isn’t writing specifically, but I was also working on a new sculpture when I was getting ready for author column this year, which I count as creative output, but clearly not writing.
00:05:56:36 – 00:06:08:57
Agent Palmer
It’s still the same. It’s not the same muscle necessarily, but it’s the same brainpower. If you’re not inspired, you won’t be doing any of those things. Sure. Yeah. So that’s that’s three.
00:06:09:01 – 00:06:09:23
Tony Rapino
Four.
00:06:09:25 – 00:06:10:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:10:20 – 00:06:32:02
Tony Rapino
Yeah, that sounds about right. Right. Now, to be fair, right now, I’m not working on any of my personal stuff because there’s a slowdown as the editors over at the publisher are doing the proofreader for the novel. So that’s out of my hands at the moment. I am not actively working on my the novel that’s at like 90,000.
00:06:32:05 – 00:06:44:47
Agent Palmer
Are you trying to take a break? Like, is that like, are you trying to rest like the, the, the the wordy, wordy part of your brain? Or is that just happenstance that just works out that you’re not doing anything right now?
00:06:44:47 – 00:07:09:15
Tony Rapino
I just got off of a sort of a high intensity a couple of months coming out of winter. Well, coming out of any way, winter break. When going back to classes, I was dealing with a lot of work stuff at the school while simultaneously doing the editing and the sculpture and prepping for Author Con, which is that big convention I do.
00:07:09:22 – 00:07:28:49
Tony Rapino
It was a little earlier this year, so that was like the end of February that I was prepping for, and then it went into early March. There was just so much going on in at that point that once that was all done, I definitely did one of those, like, I need to take a breath. I’m going to focus on like just a couple things now.
00:07:28:52 – 00:07:39:54
Tony Rapino
Okay? I think there was at that point, I was also trying to build up the backlog of retro day scripts as well. So I was doing more than one a week of those just to get them. Like we like to have a buffer.
00:07:39:56 – 00:08:04:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So I mean, it’s the safest way to go if you’re going to do regular content, you need a buffer almost because you I’m not saying you’re going to burn yourself out, but like you can do a lot more cool stuff or take a break if you have a buffer. Things that would take more research are hard to do when it’s you’ve got five days, you know, it’s like, all right.
00:08:04:38 – 00:08:23:32
Tony Rapino
Yeah, I will cop to like when I get in that. Like I almost burnt out. I did almost burn out during those couple of months there. And I was doing I have a little trick for the retro day scripts, if that sort of thing is happening is I do low intensity research scripts, ones that I’m a bit more familiar, like topics I’m more familiar with.
00:08:23:34 – 00:08:28:27
Tony Rapino
I could kind of riff on that. I could be just more creative. It’s less research because there is definitely.
00:08:28:29 – 00:09:03:01
Agent Palmer
I mean, I got to say, I, I these have to be fairly low intensity for a kind of. I asked her is that. But like I have really enjoyed the like user generated episodes of like you told us your favorite X or Y and and that’s just been because and I, I you know the peek behind the curtain having like knowing you is that I know you write the scripts, but like I know you write the script, but you’re getting this stuff.
00:09:03:15 – 00:09:20:00
Agent Palmer
It’s not coming from you. It’s coming from like everyone else. And so like occasionally, and I’ve done this to you, like I’ve texted you like, hey, here’s a thing. Like when you did the US thing, I still have my Ninja Turtle. Who’s that I sent you a picture of, but like, yes, when you do the user generated once, I’m always like, all right.
00:09:20:00 – 00:09:39:54
Agent Palmer
So like, this isn’t me knowing Tony. This isn’t me knowing the Retro Days crew. This is. How well do I mesh with your audience? Like, what am I not like? What’s coming from? Because you and I both know that if we sat down for five hours and just talked about things we are aware of, there would be an overlap.
00:09:39:54 – 00:09:52:00
Agent Palmer
But I think we’d be very surprised by the things that didn’t. And that’s why I love those user generated ones, because I’m like, where did that come from? I’ve never heard of that before.
00:09:52:02 – 00:10:23:44
Tony Rapino
And that’s why we that’s partly why I do it. Part of it is fan service. I mean, you know, I like to for the people who watch all the time, I like to I like them to know that, like, at any point we could pull one of their comments out of there and read it on, on the air and have them a part of, you know, I think that’s an important aspect of the interconnectivity of something like this, where we’re all part of this little community of people who all kind of like the same sort of stuff.
00:10:23:44 – 00:10:45:21
Tony Rapino
And then there is that element of like, one of the reasons we do it is they will legitimately come up with comments for things that I’ve never heard of, didn’t come up in my research. And then if there’s enough of it, I’m like, there’s another episode right there. We can grab all those comments, do another one of like the Forgotten Toys or whatever it is and just use those comments.
00:10:45:28 – 00:11:02:29
Tony Rapino
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun and it makes me really happy to when it’s like like, you never know, it could be a comment from someone who that was like a one off. They’re never coming back, but it always makes me super happy when like you go to the comments of that video to see them, like, oh, you used my my comment for the last one.
00:11:02:29 – 00:11:04:36
Tony Rapino
Thank you so much. So that’s cool.
00:11:04:39 – 00:11:27:06
Agent Palmer
Let me go back. You’re in this kind of break now or slowing down. We’ll call this slowing down. How how good are you at slowing down like I mean, you’ve you made a decision like you’re going to you’re going to cool it for a little bit, but like, you know, how many days in was it before you went, oh, I have this idea for this other thing.
00:11:27:09 – 00:11:34:08
Agent Palmer
Like, how long did it take? And have you resisted the urge or have you just bought in like, I’m going to write this other thing.
00:11:34:13 – 00:12:04:30
Tony Rapino
Weirdly, I’m pretty good at like completely ignoring my fiction writing. It’s not happy about it. Leave me. But is this one of those things, like when I have enough other stuff to focus on? And so like when when we say that I’m slowing down, what that looks like is I’m prepping my summer classes, grading all of the final essays that are coming in over the next couple of weeks, working on meetings for for school, doing the backup videos for Retro Days, you know what I mean?
00:12:04:33 – 00:12:14:15
Agent Palmer
It’s like, yeah, you’re not doing nothing. It’s not a vacation, but you are. It is still a few things less in your in your brain.
00:12:14:18 – 00:12:21:01
Tony Rapino
Yeah. And all that stuff does have. It’s a way of.
00:12:21:05 – 00:12:57:34
Tony Rapino
Dampening my enthusiasm, or maybe even blocking some of the creative juices that maybe want to come to the surface I like, I get bogged down with this other stuff, and it can be a little stressful and I get tired, like not physically, but just the mental exhaustion that will permeate. And you know, I’m looking forward to, like during the summer, I usually is when I get a lot of that’s when I really like, buckle down and like, I’m going to work on this novel now during the semesters, I can get that kind of work done, and I often do, but it’s not.
00:12:57:42 – 00:13:16:57
Tony Rapino
It’s not consecutive. I tend to, you know, if I if I miss a few days, it may fall off completely. Okay. So this summer I have a lot it’s a lot easier for me to stay on task and do what I got to do. So I’ve been saying, yeah, for basically the past few months. When summer comes, I’m going to finish this next novel.
00:13:16:57 – 00:13:49:31
Tony Rapino
I like that something new is coming out this year, because at least there’s that. Like, it feels like there’s momentum because of that. So I’m trying to use the momentum of the one that is coming out to push me to finish this next one, so I could get that into like the agent pool and start talking about querying and looking where that’s going to be so that hopefully I can get a bit more momentum in that part of my career because I the last thing that came out was Tommy and or the Cosmic Champions, which now has been at least a few years.
00:13:49:34 – 00:13:51:41
Tony Rapino
I don’t remember exactly what year came out.
00:13:51:46 – 00:14:17:08
Agent Palmer
So I guess because I, I’m not an author and as a blogger, you know, and you’ve heard me say this, I get to celebrate a publish every week. And with the podcast, I get to do it every two weeks, you know? And so I don’t wait five years for a project to finish, is it? I mean, you’re in this, what I would call dry spell.
00:14:17:10 – 00:14:38:16
Agent Palmer
You’ve done a lot of work, but you don’t you haven’t seen the results of it yet when you’re in it. Like, is it just. All right. This is just par for the course. This is just how it works. Are you, you know, do you want to rush to get to the, the next thing to come out? Like, I know you want to use the momentum of that, but like that’s not happened yet.
00:14:38:16 – 00:14:58:30
Agent Palmer
So and it hasn’t happened for years. And you’ve been working on stuff I know Retro Days publishes and you get that little hit. But like for the big stuff like are you is it like, oh come on, like like, you know, like are you, are you, are you like truly ready? Or is it like, no, I understand the process.
00:14:58:32 – 00:15:00:39
Agent Palmer
It that’s just how it works.
00:15:00:46 – 00:15:29:37
Tony Rapino
I mean, it’s a little bit of both, I guess. Like I do understand the process. I do realize that this happens sometimes, but then there’s always going to be that part of this industry and just being a new right. Like, not that I’m a new writer, but a young writer career wise, where you see people publishing and it’s you get a little worried sometimes it’s like people are coming out with a lot of stuff and you want to get your stuff out, too.
00:15:29:37 – 00:15:36:20
Tony Rapino
And there’s that sense of, what’s the word I’m looking for?
00:15:36:25 – 00:15:40:29
Agent Palmer
I mean, do you feel like you’re on the outside looking in.
00:15:40:34 – 00:15:41:17
Tony Rapino
World that maybe.
00:15:41:17 – 00:15:46:00
Agent Palmer
Sometimes it’s just like, all right there in ahead of me in line, and when’s my turn?
00:15:46:08 – 00:16:05:26
Tony Rapino
Not so much that like, oh, when’s my turn necessarily. I mean, I, you know, to be fair, I’ve published a number of things, so I don’t, I don’t necessarily feel that way, but I do feel sometimes like like I just can’t wait. I guess it’s like, okay, it’s like waiting for Christmas morning, but like they decided to push it back because they.
00:16:05:28 – 00:16:11:28
Agent Palmer
Yeah, they can I mean, they can, they can be like, well, we’re not going to release you until next month. And you’re like, oh.
00:16:11:32 – 00:16:33:26
Tony Rapino
Yeah, it’s just it is. I think that’s why I like sculpting so much or why I started doing that more at one point is because there is a more immediate hit, like you got what you were talking about with like retro days where, you know, you sculpt something maybe that only takes a couple of weeks instead of a couple months or a year or a couple of years, and you get an immediate, like, people can just look at it and react.
00:16:33:29 – 00:16:51:01
Tony Rapino
They don’t have to read, you know, 100,000 words. Yeah. And, you know, there is that part of that that I like the interaction. I crave a bit of discussion about stuff. It doesn’t have to be my work even. I mean, that’s why I like to teach, too. It’s like I just like talking about this stuff.
00:16:51:04 – 00:16:52:32
Tony Rapino
So yeah, there is.
00:16:52:37 – 00:17:16:17
Tony Rapino
A little bit of that. Like I’m impatient, I guess, an impatience where I just can’t wait for that next thing to happen. And I think I’m at a point where I don’t really worry about like that. It’s not going to happen at this point. I’m pretty confident in, like my ability to write something that will eventually make its way to the public eye.
00:17:16:24 – 00:17:36:42
Tony Rapino
But yeah, just sometimes it takes a long, you know, between how long it might take me to create it versus how long you have to be in querying and submitting and then how long it’ll be with the publisher. One thing. So the new one that’s coming out is coming out with Crystal Lake Publisher, and their imprint is called Toward Waters.
00:17:36:42 – 00:18:00:02
Tony Rapino
That’s where I was accepted. And to be fair, they are working very fast, like in terms of they they accepted me. I think it was around I announced it on on Halloween. Okay. Which made me so happy. Yeah. I was like, oh God, are you? I get to tell people that new books come in on Halloween. Nice. So that was cool.
00:18:00:02 – 00:18:13:51
Tony Rapino
But I mean, since then we’ve already edited. It’s already in the proofreading. It’s coming out this year. It’s like there it’s very likely to get accepted at a publishing house and not see it come out for 2 or 3 years.
00:18:13:54 – 00:18:35:38
Agent Palmer
So let’s let’s talk about the other thing I know for or I loosely remember from our last conversation, which is that you wanted to speak more in some capacity specifically, maybe, I think, if I remember correctly, at like author cons. Oh, or do more readings and stuff. Have you, I guess is the question.
00:18:35:38 – 00:18:46:18
Tony Rapino
I have. Yeah, yeah, I in general, I’ve been getting out more than than I ever did before, which isn’t saying much because I didn’t do it at all. Well.
00:18:46:21 – 00:19:02:53
Agent Palmer
But but getting out at all is is it much a step, step in the right direction? I know, and I know at the time I brought up like you’re teaching, but obviously it’s not exactly the same. So having gotten out more, is it is it more comfortable? Are you enjoying it more?
00:19:02:58 – 00:19:19:24
Tony Rapino
Is it. Yeah. There’s a bit of that like immersion therapy aspect to like just the more you do something, the more comfortable you get with it. And I kind of knew that would be the case, because that’s exactly what happened with teaching, where I started out a little nervous and then like within the first day of doing it.
00:19:19:26 – 00:19:41:08
Tony Rapino
I just it melted away and I was like, yeah, this is I’m supposed to do this. So yeah, I’ve done a I mean, I don’t remember how many readings I did when I spoke to you, but I’ve done a few since this year at Author Con, I did a reading. It was the Prolog, actually, of the novel that’s coming out because I was trying to promote it a little bit, and I was on a panel this year there too, which was fun.
00:19:41:08 – 00:19:45:36
Tony Rapino
It was a panel about teaching writing. So I was like, right in my wheelhouse.
00:19:45:36 – 00:19:46:24
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:19:46:29 – 00:20:04:35
Tony Rapino
And then I did like last year, I didn’t do anything because that was before I was accepted for the new novel, and I had nothing coming. And that was one of those years where I was like, I’m, I’ve been to author. Com with the same books twice now. I don’t want to keep doing this with the same books.
00:20:04:35 – 00:20:28:15
Tony Rapino
I felt like a little bit, you know, like I needed I want to take the break and work on stuff, which is what I did. Instead of going to conventions, I just buckle down and worked on some of my own writing. And then this year, knowing that something was coming out again, I was like, yeah, let’s get back to it and hopefully I’ll be able to do a couple more this year.
00:20:28:19 – 00:20:44:47
Tony Rapino
The ones that I applied for, unfortunately, were very highly, they were, I think 150 applicants to the one. Okay. And it was kind of a bummer because it’s literally down the road for me. It would have been like a ten minute drive for that one. Nice. And I was like.
00:20:44:50 – 00:21:02:46
Agent Palmer
Are you still going to go? Are you still going to like be in a ten? I mean, do you get a chance? I mean, we talk about you going to conventions to speak and to have a booth and to, you know, show your where, sell your wares. Do you get a chance to go just be an attendee.
00:21:02:51 – 00:21:05:34
Tony Rapino
While do you mean like, while you’re working it or.
00:21:05:34 – 00:21:15:17
Agent Palmer
Just in general just, you know, you know, hey, I’m going to this particular convention to be an attendee only or do you get those opportunities?
00:21:15:21 – 00:21:33:35
Tony Rapino
Yeah, you could make that a you know, that’s just that’s really just up to you. Like if you want to go, I do. But the ones I go to tend not to be specifically like book conventions. Right. So I go to horror conventions on occasion. Chiller theater in Jersey is the one that I’ve been to the most, probably.
00:21:33:35 – 00:21:50:02
Tony Rapino
And then I went a couple of years ago, and I am going again this year over to Retro Con in Oakes, Pennsylvania. Okay. I’m not, you know, not to work that one, but it is kind of like part of the Retro Days thing so that we go check out, maybe get some ideas for some scripts and whatnot. Yeah.
00:21:50:02 – 00:22:10:06
Tony Rapino
So those I go to just for the fun of it. But yeah, I haven’t this one that’s like right near here. I probably will just go check it out. See how it is, because it’s like I said, it’s like ten minutes away. Certainly worth the the minute drive to go check out. There was another one I did called Horror on Main that that was a couple years ago.
00:22:10:06 – 00:22:21:03
Tony Rapino
I did that one too, but I did a reading there. It was a bit more low key as compared to other author cons, like the big like overwhelming one. And then the others I’ve been to.
00:22:21:05 – 00:22:21:32
Tony Rapino
I mean.
00:22:21:34 – 00:22:31:26
Tony Rapino
Horror on main was pretty big. It was also more a little bit more equally focused on not just writers, but there were horror icons there, like horror actors.
00:22:31:29 – 00:22:38:48
Agent Palmer
And okay, so horror as a medium, not necessarily just the written word or. Yeah, okay.
00:22:38:50 – 00:22:40:26
Tony Rapino
And so.
00:22:40:31 – 00:23:13:10
Agent Palmer
And amid all of this, the one thing we haven’t talked about is that you, especially during the summer when you have more time, not only do you hit up yard sales and flea markets, but you make videos about it, which, you know, I mean, that you didn’t add that that was not part of the list of what we talked about a while ago of things you do, but you do very much on the summer, I think, on the in this and I give you a pass because of the school year.
00:23:13:10 – 00:23:35:47
Agent Palmer
And when things happen in the seasonality of everything, but like you hit up the flea market and I think it was, you know, almost at least every other week for a while in the last few summers where you’ve sat down and talked about on, on YouTube what you’ve done and, you know, not for nothing, that’s another thing you do like.
00:23:35:49 – 00:24:17:22
Tony Rapino
It is. But it’s also at least now when I do do that, and it really is not as frequently as I used to. And like you said, like during the summer when I’m doing the flea market and yard sale, it’ll be more often likely. But I got a I have to admit that I am the laziest YouTuber that has ever existed at this point, I there was a point years ago when I would like edit the videos and add graphics and do like have an introduction part to the video, like a bumper or whatever, and sometimes even like right, little scripts for them and stuff and do like I was trying to make the channel
00:24:17:27 – 00:24:39:45
Tony Rapino
good. When I do it now, it’s really it’s almost just for me. It’s like I had fun at the at the flea market. I’m going to show off what I, what I found. There’s a handful of people that will watch and it’s not monetized or anything. And I put no real like I mean, whatever the effort is and like hitting a record and talking for ten minutes.
00:24:39:50 – 00:25:02:08
Agent Palmer
Look, I’ll be honest. There’s that’s there’s a lot that’s 90% of the effort. Like, let’s be honest. That’s nice because it’s so much easier to not record, you know, I mean, it’s just and that’s from somebody who, like, I have a podcast and I feel like there are conversations I have where I could be like, hold on, let’s, let’s, let’s turn the mix on.
00:25:02:08 – 00:25:25:04
Agent Palmer
But it’s very easy to just be like, nah, let’s just, let’s just keep like, let’s just not. Yeah. The the the record. It’s the same as thinking about an idea though. Like, it’s the same as your books. Like you have an idea and that’s that’s not always a given. But once you have the idea, like starting it, you don’t have to finish.
00:25:25:04 – 00:25:36:13
Agent Palmer
I’m not going to say you have to finish, but starting it. Oh my God, that’s that’s everything. Just like getting record. That’s not you know that’s not nothing is all I’m saying.
00:25:36:13 – 00:25:55:21
Tony Rapino
When you put it that way there, I mean there are certainly the that’s actually one thing I need to get better at is I used to be I used to be great at the is one of my first writing teachers in college, like it was my last year of college. And they’re very the, the first thing they told us, well, no, I’m lying.
00:25:55:24 – 00:26:14:59
Tony Rapino
The first thing they told us is not to be a writer like you don’t want to do this. Don’t be writers. But the second thing that he told us was to always carry around a small notebook with you and write down everything, anything that you think is important, anything that you think is not important, just jot stuff down.
00:26:15:01 – 00:26:32:07
Tony Rapino
Have have a little book with you. And I took that advice to heart for a long time, but it’s fallen off a little bit. That’s something that I like. Again, it’s like coming up with the idea, but then taking the initiative to to actually write it down somewhere so you remember it for later so you could use it.
00:26:32:10 – 00:26:40:23
Tony Rapino
Otherwise it’s gone. It’s, you know, in the ether at that point. Yeah. And yeah, I’ve definitely gotten bad at that. The past I don’t know.
00:26:40:28 – 00:27:28:25
Agent Palmer
Years but but yeah okay. But you’ve gotten bad at that. At the same time that you’ve been finishing other major works like I like, I can understand that if I was and I’m guilty of this, there are plenty of ideas I don’t write down. And then, you know, six hours later, I’m like, what was that idea? But I’m also, you know, as we’re recording last night, last night, two nights within the last 72 hours, I went through and found all not not even all, but a lot of unfinished blog posts and, you know, half half cocked ideas for posts.
00:27:28:30 – 00:27:49:27
Agent Palmer
And I compiled the list because, you know, even some of it’s written down, some of it’s in a a Google doc, some of it’s in a to do list, some of it’s in a, an email to myself. And they get lost. You just you just lose track of it. Like it. You have it great. But you lose track of it.
00:27:49:31 – 00:28:10:08
Agent Palmer
And then you put it all together and you go, oh, like I’m not at a loss for what’s next, but I, I haven’t done any of these things. And so it’s just now I have this new to do list which hopefully I won’t lose, or at least I’ll do a few of them before I lose it again. And it’s.
00:28:10:13 – 00:28:14:06
Tony Rapino
You were compiling them to to actually finish though, you’re saying.
00:28:14:11 – 00:28:33:31
Agent Palmer
Well, at least see what I’ve got. I mean, it’s much easier to go through the old documents of half finished ideas and go like, is there anything here? And maybe finish 1 or 2 than it is to sit down at a blank screen and go, all right, what are my next posts?
00:28:33:36 – 00:28:34:48
Tony Rapino
Yeah.
00:28:34:53 – 00:29:02:13
Agent Palmer
And so it’s, it’s in those, I mean, I found so the one I’ll give you, maybe it’ll be out before before this releases. Maybe it won’t be out. Maybe I’ll forget about it again. But I had a title titled 74 minutes. Okay. Yeah. And I went, what is that mean? Like, I don’t know what that. So I googled it because I was like, is it a movie?
00:29:02:15 – 00:29:25:04
Agent Palmer
Like, what is this? No, apparently the head of Sony wanted, CDs to be 74 minutes long so they could include Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony uninterrupted on one disc while they were developing the technology. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that yet, but clearly I thought I could write about it beyond just that little factoid.
00:29:25:06 – 00:29:33:01
Tony Rapino
Yeah. It is. It’s like it’s an interesting little fact that probably could dig into in some respect. Did it or.
00:29:33:04 – 00:29:34:59
Tony Rapino
They 74 minutes long at.
00:29:34:59 – 00:29:56:29
Agent Palmer
No. They’re longer now. But I think this was when they were being developed in the 70s. I think that was the minimum length he wanted. All right. And so all right, big, big fan of the Ninth Symphony, apparently. And that was I think it’s ninth. I could be a, you know, one of one of the symphonies Symphony.
00:29:56:31 – 00:30:17:25
Agent Palmer
And it took a while. I don’t again, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I don’t know when I wrote it down either. Like it’s just that’s what it was. And I remembered that. That’s why I wrote it down at least. But again, that saved somewhere, and I, I rediscovered this along with a bunch of other things I’ve not written yet.
00:30:17:25 – 00:30:45:04
Agent Palmer
So it is good, but it’s also like I’m also not a I’m also not I’m, I’m, I’m finally at a point where I’m not afraid to say this. If I never get to it. That’s okay. Like, I don’t feel like every idea I have is worth pursuing. But I also know that, man, if I only wrote down 74 minutes, I probably had a longer post in mind.
00:30:45:06 – 00:31:02:56
Agent Palmer
Back whenever I wrote down 74 minutes, I can’t go back in time. I can’t get in my brain. In fact, I had to. I bring it up because I had to Google what it meant. Yeah. You know, like so if there was a whole post associated with it that’s also gone.
00:31:02:58 – 00:31:03:29
Tony Rapino
Yeah.
00:31:03:34 – 00:31:04:10
Tony Rapino
I mean, at.
00:31:04:12 – 00:31:24:11
Tony Rapino
Least you were able to figure it out though, like there are. So that had a connection to something that in the real world that you were able to track down. When this happens to me, it’s usually more often scribbled in a notebook, one of my many notes, because I do like I know I said I don’t really do it enough anymore, but I still do it.
00:31:24:11 – 00:31:37:10
Tony Rapino
And I have notebooks everywhere, and I will scribble down these half formed ideas that I’ll rediscover and like, maybe I’ll decide I’m going to flip through this book and see if I had anything good in there. And I don’t know what the fuck.
00:31:37:22 – 00:31:41:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s true. When it’s when it’s completely original, you can’t Google it.
00:31:41:32 – 00:32:02:19
Tony Rapino
Yeah. It’s like what was going through my mind on that occasion. It could have been like a dream I had. It could have been just something I saw as I was walking to the store. Who knows? And like something, clearly something about it clicked in my mind enough that I thought there was like a story there, or at least the beginnings of a story or scenario that I could explore.
00:32:02:19 – 00:32:08:54
Tony Rapino
And yeah, sometimes you find those scribbled notes and you’re just like, I don’t know what this is, and it’s gone. Even though you did write it. Them.
00:32:08:57 – 00:32:32:38
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. And there’s I mean, that’s I don’t want to say it’s an always kind of strike while the irons hot kind of a thing because sometimes we write these things down fully formed, but we don’t write the fully formed thing down because we’re like, I’ll, I’ll never forget. I absolutely know what this means. Yeah. Next week, not realizing that next week is not next week.
00:32:32:38 – 00:32:37:48
Agent Palmer
It’s two years from now and I have no idea what this means. You know.
00:32:37:50 – 00:33:16:12
Tony Rapino
Weirdly, this this conversation is making me realize that I, sometime in the past year, had an idea for a novella that I was so excited about that I went to Google Docs. I believe it was Google Docs. Now I have to go look for this. Now. I don’t know where it is, but somewhere there exists a document where I like outlined the major beats of the novella, the premise, maybe even the first paragraph, or to just like have something down because I even remember thinking, I won’t know what this is unless I like, put some work into it so that when I find it again, I can continue.
00:33:16:14 – 00:33:28:25
Tony Rapino
Yes, and I completely forgot about it until this conversation. It. I believe it’s in Google Docs somewhere. I’m not going to go searching now because I don’t want to interrupt the flow of our conversation, but it’s somewhere.
00:33:28:28 – 00:33:48:17
Agent Palmer
Well, then that’s so that that that leads me to the other thing, which is you sometimes rifle through a notebook, and I have more than one Google account, and I have more than one place where I put things. And so it’s, you know, when I talk about going through all that stuff, I’m sure I haven’t gone through everything.
00:33:48:17 – 00:33:56:36
Agent Palmer
I just went through the three obvious places where I usually put ideas. But that’s not always where the ideas end up.
00:33:56:41 – 00:34:11:04
Tony Rapino
Know for sure when you start talking about this. I quickly went to my writing folder to to look, and I in fact do have a folder that is entitled Failed Attempts, and it’s filled with stories that I started to write.
00:34:11:06 – 00:34:42:07
Agent Palmer
Now do you go through so these so what the the ones that I discover for the most part they’re just unfinished. And so and obviously blog posts are not nearly as complex as, say like a full story or even a short story. But, you know, I can I can always put it aside. Do you go back through your that through that fail folder and just I’m not saying resurrect ideas, but do you go back through it.
00:34:42:11 – 00:34:44:47
Agent Palmer
Maybe not on a regular basis, but at all.
00:34:45:02 – 00:35:05:05
Tony Rapino
Yeah I do sometimes. I called the, I called the folder failed attempts, but they aren’t really failed attempt so much as more than more often than not a story. I started to write and then got busy with something else and never finished. Okay, in some rare, more rare occasions, it might be something where I like hit a solid brick wall and didn’t know where to go.
00:35:05:08 – 00:35:05:32
Tony Rapino
With.
00:35:05:34 – 00:35:19:26
Tony Rapino
Okay, but more often, yeah, it’s more often just something like I started writing Lost Steam or got busy with something else, and there were more of those that aren’t in the failed attempts folder, because I’m certainly not very good at like putting them in the folder.
00:35:19:28 – 00:35:42:03
Agent Palmer
It would be. Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. I mean, I will say for the both of us, it would be great if there was one folder, one document, just one list somewhere. But we both know that there are many folders and many documents and many lists of all of these things, and some of them are mixed in with other things.
00:35:42:08 – 00:36:01:43
Agent Palmer
You know, there’s the I’ve got notes where it’s like, this was a shopping list. And on the back of the shopping list is a just, you know, don’t forget to invite so-and-so on the podcast or don’t forget to write this blog post and like, again, you find it and you go, wait, who’s Tim? Like, I have no like, you know, it’s like I knew at the time.
00:36:01:43 – 00:36:24:22
Agent Palmer
Sure. But I don’t know now or yeah, you know what? Yeah. Again, 74 minutes. What what what is this mean. Like what’s. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s crazy. But I do feel like I need to. And look, I don’t know why I decided in the last few days to go through and find that stuff. I just thought, hey, maybe I could clean some of this stuff.
00:36:24:22 – 00:36:47:23
Agent Palmer
I honestly, I think it was a digital cleaning. I was like, oh, maybe I can clean some of this stuff up. If I write about it, it won’t be in here and I can move on. I need to get better at maybe going through that stuff on a more regular basis. I don’t know if you want to call it a, like a digital spring cleaning, but I don’t know that annually is enough because then we get into situation.
00:36:47:25 – 00:37:07:34
Agent Palmer
If you do it annually, you get into situations where it’s been a year and I don’t know what this means anymore. I don’t want to do it every month. But like I do need to find a better rhythm for revisiting these, this field of ideas that I either do or don’t let grow.
00:37:07:39 – 00:37:08:17
Tony Rapino
Yeah.
00:37:08:19 – 00:37:27:23
Tony Rapino
I can see that. For me, it tends to be like when I have the time to if I want to start writing a new story and I have the time for that, I’ll sometimes use that as a the impetus for like looking through that folder, looking through stuff that I’ve started and seeing, is there anything here that I want to continue?
00:37:27:25 – 00:37:46:48
Tony Rapino
Yeah. In some cases it’s led to and I can’t remember the specific story. This was, to be honest, but at least one instance, it led to me taking two separate stories and splicing them together, because I realized that they had a lot in common, and I was able to connect these ideas, and it became this whole other thing.
00:37:46:53 – 00:38:03:40
Tony Rapino
So I do like hanging on to these things, because even if they were actual failed attempts and never you never know if you might even just a paragraph from it, you might decide as like some great description that I want to use somewhere else. So yeah, I mean, I absolutely will do that on occasion, but.
00:38:03:40 – 00:38:04:30
Tony Rapino
I usually, like.
00:38:04:30 – 00:38:34:25
Tony Rapino
I said, usually it’s only like if the opportunity arises more and more, I’ve become less interested in writing short stories and more interested in just working on longer stuff. Okay, I think at some point they are separate skills to a certain extent, and at certain point I had been working on so many longer things. I went back to write a short story and it turned into not a short story, and I that’s actually the novel I’m working on right now that is at 90,000 words.
00:38:34:27 – 00:38:38:09
Tony Rapino
I mentioned that was going to be a short story, believe it or not.
00:38:38:12 – 00:38:45:35
Agent Palmer
So for those listening and for me, you’re at 90,000 words. You want to get to 105 is.
00:38:45:38 – 00:38:46:28
Tony Rapino
90,000.
00:38:46:30 – 00:39:01:08
Agent Palmer
90,000. You want to get to 105. You said ish. What would it what would the target have been had it been a short story? Like if it had remained a short story? What are we talking about just so we can have a difference?
00:39:01:13 – 00:39:05:27
Tony Rapino
It started out where I was shooting for about 5000 words.
00:39:05:29 – 00:39:14:48
Agent Palmer
Okay. So yeah. Okay. That’s that’s the that’s that’s a yeah. Okay. And a novella is what probably 30.
00:39:15:02 – 00:39:34:27
Tony Rapino
I forget the exact cut offs, but I believe it’s like, you know, the real low numbers. They call it flash fiction, micro fiction, yada yada. And then you go usually from like a thousand to maybe I want to say like 8000. 10,000, I think is the upper limit for a short story. Then between 10,000 and 3035 is novella.
00:39:34:30 – 00:39:50:19
Tony Rapino
Okay. And then, you know, above that 45 is probably a bit too short for a novel, but usually like around 60,000, I believe is like maybe 50,045 they because then they’ll just call it a short novel. Yeah. It’s a little you know.
00:39:50:31 – 00:40:14:37
Agent Palmer
It’s very like I just bring up word count so people understand what we’re talking about. But when you talk about like the specific definitions, it’s very inside baseball. And some people sometimes it varies by publisher I know as well. So it’s like all right, well we’ll see. Do you have any interest in I mean, obviously you’ve you’re doing longer and longer stuff.
00:40:14:39 – 00:40:23:03
Agent Palmer
Do you want to like, stretch the muscle and go like, all right, let’s try and write a short story again. Like do you want to attempt it.
00:40:23:03 – 00:40:45:45
Tony Rapino
I did recently I mean I, you know, I, I say I’m like getting less interested in short stories. Part of that is how hard it is to place them. It’s almost easier to place a novel these days or a novella. There are fewer and fewer outlets for short stories. There are like random anthologies. A lot of the anthologies, though, or invite only.
00:40:45:45 – 00:40:55:39
Tony Rapino
Or they might only open up to like two, literally like one to 3 or 4 spots for unsolicited submissions and that.
00:40:55:42 – 00:40:56:39
Tony Rapino
You know, it’s.
00:40:56:42 – 00:40:59:13
Tony Rapino
Would you there are a lot of people vying for those spots.
00:40:59:15 – 00:41:12:34
Agent Palmer
Would you have an easier time if you came with your own short story anthology where it was like, these are, you know, this is like, I don’t know what it is like. This is eight of my own short stories, and you filled.
00:41:12:41 – 00:41:13:26
Tony Rapino
Just a collection.
00:41:13:29 – 00:41:24:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah. You filled your own collection with that? I’m not I’m not saying you would, but I’m just. I’m just in spitball. Like, would that be easier than, say, like, trying to get in an anthology of many.
00:41:24:40 – 00:41:54:43
Tony Rapino
Of everything that you can sell? Selling a short story collection is probably one of the harder ones to sell to a publisher. Okay. And there are percentage. This is very inside baseball too, but there are like percentages of like if you’re going to release a collection, you want to be fairly well established to create enough interest that people are, you know, that the publisher believes people will want to read your short stories in a collection, and then there’s a percentage of those short stories that should have been previously published versus new.
00:41:54:45 – 00:41:55:45
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:41:55:50 – 00:41:56:09
Tony Rapino
00:41:56:12 – 00:42:06:14
Agent Palmer
This has been in four magazine or I’ve got four that have been in magazines that did well, and then I’ve got four brand new ones. And here’s my collection of eight.
00:42:06:16 – 00:42:26:22
Tony Rapino
Yeah, something like that. You probably want like it doesn’t hurt to have like a solid theme to it and things like that. Which is all to say. I mean, I have a short story collection out from years ago called greetings from Moon Hill. That’s that one. Okay. That was a real fun project, but it was a have I talked to you about that before?
00:42:26:22 – 00:42:28:34
Agent Palmer
I don’t think so. No, I don’t think we have.
00:42:28:36 – 00:42:49:35
Tony Rapino
Okay. Yeah. So that was after I released my, my first novel, soundtrack to The End of the world. That one was published by a small like an indie publisher, a Bad Moon Books. And then on the heels of that, my friend Todd Kiesling, who’s also a writer and he is an excellent writer. I’ve talked about him before on the show.
00:42:49:35 – 00:43:15:24
Tony Rapino
I think he was kind of starting his own publishing house and was interested in working with me. So we ended up doing like a Kickstarter situation for the collection. And it was this very, just a real big project where we took a lot of my previous stories that have been published. We added a bunch of stuff that was not yet published.
00:43:15:24 – 00:43:45:03
Tony Rapino
I wrote brand new material for it, and we did like a wraparound story, okay, as well as interstitials that were, kind of related to the other stories. Everything was connected with the town, Moon Hill. So while the stories themselves weren’t necessarily connected by plot, there were recurring characters and there was this sense of place because everything was either in or around that, that small town.
00:43:45:03 – 00:44:03:54
Tony Rapino
And it also included a novella that I had written and had published previously, only an audio form. So it would be the first time that it was actually in print, but had been published by an audiobook publisher. And then for the Kickstarter, I did a bunch of exclusive sculptures that were related to things from the book.
00:44:03:57 – 00:44:39:40
Agent Palmer
Okay, so how does a connected series of short stories in the ones that were previously written and then trying to, you know, connect them compared to, say, just a novel, just a singular entity like that. You don’t have to connect like harder, more, more challenging, more fun, like same but different, you know, because listening to you talk like it sounds like the collection of short stories was more complicated and harder than just sitting down and writing.
00:44:39:55 – 00:44:44:30
Agent Palmer
I mean, not to make light of it, but 105,000 words, right?
00:44:44:33 – 00:45:06:12
Tony Rapino
There was. Yeah, there was definitely something, there was a difficulty level to that. And then also, just like determining what belonged in the collection, what didn’t belong in the collection, because it wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to take, like a weird story and say, you know, that maybe didn’t have a very firm setting and just be like, well, we’ll say it’s in Moon Hill.
00:45:06:15 – 00:45:25:21
Tony Rapino
Yeah. And we didn’t want to just go around doing that, because a lot of my stories started out as Moon Hill stories. And then there was maybe 1 or 2 that fit well enough that we were like, yeah, we can do that. We can kind of call it Moon Hill. And then there were, like I said, the newer things that I had written specifically for that setting.
00:45:25:23 – 00:45:58:04
Tony Rapino
Yeah, it was hard. It was making sure that the characters were playing the right way, that they were like connecting the right way, making sure that we were the continuity issues that might arise from that, the timing of everything. Yeah, there was a lot in there. And then we we’ve had we’ve had readers that didn’t realize it was supposed to be a collection of stories and reviewed it poorly, reviewed it poorly because they thought that it was a novel and couldn’t understand why some characters, like disappeared and never came back.
00:45:58:04 – 00:46:01:47
Tony Rapino
And like, yeah, there’s I thought it was pretty clear, but.
00:46:01:52 – 00:46:35:51
Agent Palmer
So you are going to have a book coming out. You will be back to promotion, promotion, promotion. Are you gearing up for that? Are you? I mean, there will hopefully be a book tour for you, whether it’s just, you know, more podcasts, more speaking engagements, whatever, more social engagements, more YouTube stuff, who, who knows. But I mean, obviously you already know all the things that come along with being an author, a published author and then going out and promoting.
00:46:35:53 – 00:46:42:21
Agent Palmer
Are you are you ready for the world? When, when, when when it when it’s time.
00:46:42:31 – 00:47:06:51
Tony Rapino
I’ve been gearing up mentally. Okay. I haven’t done any real legwork for this yet. Because partly because as of this recording, as you know, we don’t know what the the, the date is that the novel is coming out. So part of it is like if it’s coming out late in the year. I am mostly going to want to be scheduling stuff in probably like next year.
00:47:07:03 – 00:47:40:05
Tony Rapino
But yeah, you know, I historically have not been good at this. Historically, I’ve done a few podcasts. I would maybe do a convention or two, maybe not do any conventions. I really do want this one to be. I want to support this one more wholeheartedly than I have in the past. And so yeah, I don’t. That’s where I flounder a bit though, so I don’t have someone in my corner necessarily that like, is good with marketing or like a publicist or an agent who’s going to tell me, like, okay, these are the places you want to contact.
00:47:40:05 – 00:47:57:21
Tony Rapino
This is how we’re going to do that. So I, I’m a little bit out to sea when it comes to that stuff, but it is something I want to do. Okay. I’m definitely gonna do Alter Con again next year. Like that’s a given. If there’s a couple other conventions that I can get seats into, I’ll be doing those.
00:47:57:21 – 00:48:04:11
Tony Rapino
Anything that I don’t want to have to drive too far like that one’s in Virginia. So that’s probably the furthest I’d want to go.
00:48:04:21 – 00:48:41:35
Agent Palmer
But I mean, the good news is there are I mean, you know, there are podcasts, right? Like, you have the ability I mean, maybe more now than maybe ten years ago. 20 years ago, like, your book tour doesn’t have to leave your house. Really? I mean, you have to do a lot more legwork in finding places to guest, you know, people that whether you talk about, like, you know, we if we have a date for the book when this comes out, I will promote it or I will have promoted it in the intro and you’re about to hear me promote it again in the outro.
00:48:41:35 – 00:49:02:29
Agent Palmer
And that’s just I would do that anyway, but we didn’t really talk about it during the conversation. And you got to find podcasts that are. That’s the hard part. I mean, even as a podcaster, like finding places to guest on to promote this is like, yeah, we should we can start a group, a support group of like, how do I how do I do this?
00:49:02:29 – 00:49:15:02
Agent Palmer
Because I feel like we’re all not doing enough. And yet I don’t know that, I don’t know I this part fun, but everything leading up to this is just. Can somebody else. Yeah. It’s not. Yeah.
00:49:15:02 – 00:49:35:18
Tony Rapino
Not easy. I’ve never been a fan. I’m getting so I mean that’s what I’ve been working on though. That’s what. And you kind of you kind of asked me that, a version of that question earlier with the readings and that this is part of that, you know, it’s that like, do it more, do it as much as you can, get comfortable with it.
00:49:35:32 – 00:50:11:49
Tony Rapino
I’ve been just in my life in general, trying to be a bit more out there, a bit more just even just social. And it has to a certain extent, you know, things get easier to do. And I’m hoping that like by the time the book is coming out, I’d love to do like a real, like actual book release party, like a find a place, throw a little a little bash, get people to come out, you know, do a reading or something, get a few I don’t want to do like a solo book tour because I’m, you know, those things can go south real easy.
00:50:11:49 – 00:50:22:17
Tony Rapino
But like with other people in groups, if there are again, depending on when it comes out, maybe some Halloween little mini book signings at like a Barnes and Noble kind of thing?
00:50:22:17 – 00:50:51:01
Agent Palmer
Well, I’ll say this, I’ll, I’ll try and make it. If it’s if it’s if it’s within our area. And I will also say I will hold us to this, I will I have no problem trying to hold us to this. We haven’t met yet. So before, if it takes another two years, if I. If apparently if your guest cycle on the Palmer Files is every two years, sometime in the next 24 months, we have to get together.
00:50:51:01 – 00:50:59:18
Agent Palmer
At some point I will this will be my. I’ll put it on one of my many to do lists and hope to not lose it.
00:50:59:22 – 00:51:07:43
Tony Rapino
Yeah, I think I want to say the premise of our last conversation was even like kind of based around that, that notion. Yeah, it was.
00:51:07:48 – 00:51:18:12
Agent Palmer
And it didn’t it didn’t happen. And so this time around, boy oh boy. Anybody listening? Well, we’re on the clock now.
00:51:18:16 – 00:51:28:57
Tony Rapino
But I mean, it makes sense though. Like I know how I am with stuff like that. I’m quick to say, yeah, of course, but I’m also not necessarily the type to like, make it happen. You know what I mean?
00:51:28:59 – 00:51:49:31
Agent Palmer
Yeah. The follow through is always pretty hard. And that’s not just you. I think that’s just everybody is like, everybody’s willing to say yes without thinking about like the logistics of where and when and what. So I will I will take those upon myself and we’ll we’ll find something that works.
00:51:49:36 – 00:51:50:22
Tony Rapino
Yeah, absolutely.
00:51:50:24 – 00:51:58:26
Agent Palmer
And hopefully the next time you’re on, we’ll be able to report to the listeners that we’ve met.
00:51:58:31 – 00:52:16:49
Tony Rapino
Very cool. Yeah. I you know, it’s one of those things it’s like life gets in the way sometimes. And I, I’ve been trying to take like make an effort to and just do more because I’m one of those people who can absolutely like kind of like fall into a trap of like, okay, I have so much work to do.
00:52:16:49 – 00:52:40:33
Tony Rapino
I have to finish writing this thing. I have to do that and then not take enough time to get out there and do other things. That’s what I was briefly. We were talking prior to recording, and we were briefly talking about a tabletop RPGs, and I mentioned that the one shot thing and that actually grew into, I was invited to join a.
00:52:40:38 – 00:52:48:47
Tony Rapino
I don’t are you familiar with girl? No girl is, generic universal role playing system. Okay.
00:52:48:49 – 00:52:55:08
Agent Palmer
So yeah, it’s it’s it’s a it’s a, it’s the it’s the generic D&D Pathfinder stuff.
00:52:55:11 – 00:53:26:47
Tony Rapino
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s own system. And the GM who runs the one shots that I was going to had his own story basically. Is this his own creation that he runs with this group system? And so I’ve been doing that too. And it’s been you know, it’s a really fun way to like for I’m I told you like, this is me coming to RPGs for the first time for anyone who hasn’t done that before, I’m finding it to be like a really great way to just stretch your mind.
00:53:26:52 – 00:53:54:33
Tony Rapino
And, like, I didn’t realize how much of it was just improv narration kind of stuff. It’s an improv narrative where you’re thrown into these situations and sure, there’s like the gaming elements of it, but there’s also this, you know, very social storytelling element where you’re kind of sharing a story, creating a story together, and as storytellers, as writers, you know, that is an exciting thing to do in a different way.
00:53:54:36 – 00:54:26:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I’ll say this, having where we started with all the things that you do and I’m guilty of this too, it’s very easy to use the weight of all of the things we do. And I’m not complaining. I think you and I like what we do the writing, the creativity, the sculpture, the podcast, all of it. But that weight is the easiest thing to use as a shield for social things.
00:54:26:39 – 00:54:44:40
Agent Palmer
Hey, I don’t need to do this. I’ve got a podcast tonight. Hey, I don’t need to do this. I’ve got it right. Yeah, I’m not saying that that won’t happen in the future, but I’m just saying that we’ll we will we will strive to do better. And the next time you’re on, if we remember, hopefully we can. We can see how we both do.
00:54:44:42 – 00:54:53:27
Tony Rapino
Absolutely.
00:54:53:32 – 00:54:57:49
Agent Palmer
Tony and I are but two of the many examples you’ve heard on this show.
00:54:57:49 – 00:55:29:42
Agent Palmer
Of Creative Workaholics. We’re always working on more than one thing. There is always something after anything gets done. And so we just keep on keeping on. As you heard, it can make socializing a bit challenging because like most creatives, we do like what we do. It’s not that we don’t like people, but we like our projects equally. And of course, it’s also why we could all do better to promote ourselves because we like working on what we do more, so we’ll rely on each other to get better.
00:55:29:45 – 00:55:54:38
Agent Palmer
No, Tony and I haven’t met in real life yet, despite our less than one hour proximity to each other. But as a holdover from his second appearance, Autumn is just around the corner and I believe chili will be on the menu as the temperature drops. And I did promise Tony some chili, so I’ll work on keeping up my end, and Tony and I will both keep on doing what we do, perhaps with a bit more socializing in the future.
00:55:54:45 – 00:56:12:54
Agent Palmer
Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 180. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact Tony or myself in the show notes. Tony’s next published work, Precipice of Nowhere, will be released at the end of October.
00:56:12:56 – 00:56:30:24
Agent Palmer
Be sure to preorder wherever you get your books. Be on the lookout for what else Tony has coming up, either with published works or events, by getting information and social links from Tony’s website Anthony J Rapino. Com that’s ant o n y j.
00:56:30:29 – 00:57:34:51
Agent Palmer
Plus you can watch Tony’s Retro Days scripts come to life on youtube.com. Retro days. That’s right. Oh. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember your home for all things Agent Palmer is Agent Palmer.
00:57:34:56 – 00:57:37:18
Agent Palmer
All right, Tony, do you have one final question for me?
00:57:37:20 – 00:58:05:14
Tony Rapino
I do so as I listen to your podcast. I remember you talking a lot about how you can’t wait for your child to be able to talk, and so that you can get to know them and understand who who they are. So I’m curious, like, what are the top few things that you’re excited to share with them about you, about the things that you’re interested in, things that you hope that maybe they’ll also like, be into and dig?
00:58:05:14 – 00:58:38:12
Agent Palmer
So hilariously, I feel like. So, during Steph’s maternity leave, you know, newborns eat and sleep, okay. Like, that’s that’s what they do. And we had obviously a lot of time to just, you know, well, you’re also very tired. But we had a lot of time to have screen time and, and watch comfort movies that we don’t mind missing stuff.
00:58:38:14 – 00:58:56:46
Agent Palmer
Right. Like you go, you dig into, all right. Like we love Fifth Element in this house and we love twister in this house. And we quote these things over and over. And there are other movies, but those are the two that spring to mind, because those are the two we quote the most. And so and Jurassic the whole Jurassic franchise.
00:58:56:46 – 00:59:18:02
Agent Palmer
And as we were watching these, especially when, like, friends would come over and we’d leave the TV on or whatever, and Sapperton was a big part of this because I think he was here one time when we really got into this. This doesn’t quite answer your question, but it gets to part of it. And we started listing all of our as a discussion point, right?
00:59:18:04 – 00:59:44:58
Agent Palmer
Like, hey Tony, how old for twister for Jurassic Park? How old when we get to first introduce, you know, Star Wars as and obviously I’m a big fan of let’s not spoil the reveal. Let’s watch and release order. But like but what’s the age right. Like because I remember like, I mean and some of it is completely up to us, right.
00:59:45:00 – 01:00:14:39
Agent Palmer
Like I was ten when Jurassic Park came out. I could not have watched it any earlier, but his eight is Jurassic Park age appropriate for eight? If the kid is a little bit older then then maybe, you know, the age appears like is seven, is six like and and so we started going through all of the classic not just our favorite movies like Fifth Element and Twister, but like classic movies like so.
01:00:14:39 – 01:00:39:24
Agent Palmer
So how early for Star Wars or or like how early for like back to the future? And there is obviously kids grow up at different rates, so language skills will play a huge role in a lot of this stuff. But it started to be like, all right, we started making this list and I turned Steph into a sports fan.
01:00:39:28 – 01:01:04:44
Agent Palmer
And you know, she enjoys baseball and football and basketball. And she puts up with me watching racing. I don’t know that she’ll ever like actually watch racing. She prefers like a few specific drivers who are very candid after the race. And she enjoys people being like, yeah, I don’t know what happened there, like, especially when they’re honest.
01:01:04:44 – 01:01:25:16
Agent Palmer
And not a lot of them are. A lot of them are very much in the the vein of like, well, the team did well, I let it down whatever. And like occasionally you get people that I don’t know. They’re just personalities and they’re going to be honest. But that’s the thing. We play Magic The Gathering, we’ve played RPGs, we play board games and video games.
01:01:25:16 – 01:01:48:05
Agent Palmer
There’s sports, there’s movies. We’re both big readers. Music is big in this house. So the answer, I guess, is whatever I can pass on. I am more than willing to pass on. I just know that this house as a whole between Steph and myself is so well rounded.
01:01:48:15 – 01:01:48:31
Tony Rapino
Yeah.
01:01:48:33 – 01:02:14:20
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I don’t know. There is anything my kid can enjoy or love that one of us is not all so passionate about. Like we are very I don’t want to say Renaissance people, because I feel like that term gets thrown around too much, right? But we are very well rounded when it comes to the things we watch, the things we consume, the things we enjoy.
01:02:14:25 – 01:02:46:09
Agent Palmer
And I feel like as long as we can share any of that. I’m fine. Like, I don’t need the kid to enjoy Magic The Gathering or all of Star Trek, or all of Star Wars or comic books or baseball. I don’t, but if the kid loves music, hey, you know what? That that’s. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it’s it’s any of those things, but we don’t know the, the other part.
01:02:46:09 – 01:03:05:44
Agent Palmer
And this is the thing that obviously I’m not going to change who I am, and I’m not going to ask my wife Steph to change who she is. But some of how much of this is, nature in that this kid is growing up in this house where we play Magic the Gathering, and I listen to music and we watch baseball.
01:03:05:44 – 01:03:31:06
Agent Palmer
And, like, these things happen as the kids growing up, they just happen. So even without talking specifically and being like, this is, you know, this is a comic book, this is a novel, this is a collection of short stories. This is a magic card. This is a this is a this is an RPG manual, like I, you know, without going into specifics, these things are on the shelf.
01:03:31:08 – 01:04:20:46
Agent Palmer
These things are around. These things are on the screen. These things are heard through speakers. So honestly, I’m kind of more excited to find out. Like what is everybody’s nature is different within the house they grow up in. And, you know, having a kid really, it engages people into their own childhood, right? In the first 5 or 6 months of being a parent, I talked to more people about either their there being new parents or them being children growing up and being like, well, when my kid was this, you know, young or whatever this happened or when I was, you know, for I remember X, y, z.
01:04:20:51 – 01:04:40:45
Agent Palmer
And I didn’t expect that, by the way. I didn’t expect, like I expected people to be like, oh, maybe. Here’s some advice for new parents. But I never expected stories about like that were completely unrelated to like what? Anything you would need. It’s just. Hey. Okay. You’re a parent now. I want to tell you this, and it’s not useful.
01:04:40:45 – 01:05:09:27
Agent Palmer
It’s just I want to I want to tell you this story because you might appreciate it now, like, kind of a deal. And so, listening to all of that, the amount of nature versus nurture makes me feel like, oh, boy, it’s all a crapshoot. So I’m just, I mean, to not to cop out. Like, I would love if, if the movies if we can quote movies as, as, as the three of us instead of just Steph and I like it would be great.
01:05:09:31 – 01:05:28:49
Agent Palmer
You know, when it’s dinner time twisters got that famous third third line in it. It would be great to have like a four year old yelling food to one of us. Like, that would be hilarious to me in all the right places, right? That would be great. I do, I think it’s going to happen. I have no idea.
01:05:28:52 – 01:05:51:10
Agent Palmer
Right? Yeah. But you know, there’s we’ll find out, I guess, in this, you know, and, you know, the kids sleeping right now, the kids going to grow up in a house where dad goes to the basement or his office, wherever the office is, like, if we move, whatever. But I go into my office and I record a podcast.
01:05:51:14 – 01:06:09:21
Agent Palmer
This kid going to be interested in podcasting? I don’t know, but I got a microphone over there and, you know, they can introduce themselves to the world if they want. I’m not going to say no, but I’m also not going to be like, get on Mike. Like it’s, you know, it’s okay. We’ll we’ll see where you gravitate, kid.
01:06:09:21 – 01:06:34:48
Agent Palmer
And then I think that’s, that’s kind of where I’m at right now because I feel like, yes, I want to know all the thoughts in the head, like, I really, you know, I want to know those things. But for for what? I pass along, you know, I, I, I not because you asked the question, but just in general, I think a lot about like where I get my stuff from and my parents never pushed anything on me.
01:06:34:53 – 01:06:47:45
Agent Palmer
And I still have a lot of their stuff, their their likes, dislikes, their, their ways of being. So, I don’t know, I guess I’m just going to.
01:06:47:49 – 01:07:04:22
Agent Palmer
Let nature or nurture or both, I guess because I have control over what I have control over both of those things. As I control the nature of the house and I control the nurture of what I do, but I I’m not I’m not forcing anything. And I think that’s.
01:07:04:27 – 01:07:25:14
Tony Rapino
No, that’s. Yeah. No, that’s the way to go. You know, what you said earlier really struck me. And I think that is going to be such an amazing thing, is just the nature of your household and all of the stuff that’s around, and not just the stuff being around, but the love that you both have for these things.
01:07:25:18 – 01:07:50:53
Tony Rapino
Yeah, that shines through. And that even though you’re not pushing it or saying like, you have to like this thing, seeing that love for something, I mean, I feel like that’s why I ended up liking reading and writing as much as I as I do, because as a kid, I was exposed to the love of it more than I was exposed to it as like homework or a punishment or what have you.
01:07:51:00 – 01:07:59:35
Tony Rapino
So having an environment like that where all of these, all of this stuff, all these different hobbies and loves and. Yeah.
01:07:59:38 – 01:08:20:08
Agent Palmer
And and I’m not going to pull the kid aside and go, you’re not going to be a writer. But, you know, I mean, hey, it’s at some point you should probably say like, maybe, maybe just be honest and be like, there are better ways to make money. It’s not it’s not that you shouldn’t be a writer. It’s just there are easier ways to make money.
01:08:20:13 – 01:08:24:44
Agent Palmer
There are many, many billions of easier ways to make money.
01:08:24:48 – 01:08:27:46
Tony Rapino
Yeah, don’t do it because you think you’re going to be rich or famous.
01:08:27:48 – 01:08:28:34
Agent Palmer
There you go.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).