August 30, 2025 • 56 mins
We’re diving into a world where journalism and psychology intersect with the unexplained. Our guest is an author, former rock journalist, and paranormal researcher. Author Maxim Furek has a unique perspective on the strange and the sublime. Get ready to explore the myths, the music, and the miracles.
All this plus more!
Guest information: maximfurek.com
All this plus more!
Guest information: maximfurek.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Are you curious about the unknown theunexplainable. Do you find yourself intrigued by
the mysterious in paranormal side of ourworld? Join us on an adventure into
the world of inexplicable discoveries and investigationsthat may someday give us a final answer
as to what may be behind aveil of reality. Then it's time to
(00:22):
turn your pods up because we're liveto tape from the mountains of West Virginia.
It's time once again for Let's findOut with co host Diego. The
universe is waiting for you, Liveto tape from the mountains of West Virginia.
(00:42):
It's another episode of Let's find Outwith co host Diego. Thank you
for taking this journey with me onthis episode of Let's find Out. Our
guest is a creator of the Associationof Ishtar. He started with the series
in twenty eighteen and published his firstset of books in twenty twenty one.
He also brings you a comic bookstory about steampunk astronauts on an adventure of
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mystery and discovery as to unveil theseekers of an ancient space station. That's
the exciting world of Journey to Elysium. We're going to be covering all this
plus more. Please welcome to Let'sfind Out, author, creator and master
of all things steampunk. We'll startvocal, We'll start my friend, Welcome
to Let's find Out. It's greathaving you on tonight. Yes, thank
(01:26):
you for having me. Greetings fromthe Netherlands everyone, and uh yeah,
happy holidays. I hope you're gonnahave a wonderful time with friends and family
at the end of the year.This is a great gift because you're actually
my first guest from the Netherlands.And no, that's pretty exciting. Well,
I hope I won't disappoint then,No, not at all. I've
(01:47):
been watching your videos, and disappointmentit would not even be a word I
would use. First of all,you know, congratulations on a very successful
kick started with Journey to Elysium studyingartwork and looks to be a great Thank
you, my friend. Before wedive into Journey into Elysium, let's get
a history about the Association of isstarback starting in twenty eighteen. As with
(02:09):
all great works and projects, there'salways a backstory for us who are new
to your projects. What is theAssociation of Ishtar so there's a long backstory
to that. Matter of fact.So in about twenty twelve, I got
into steampunk. Before that, Ialready did some writing in Dutch, mostly
(02:31):
fantasy fantasy science fiction, and thenI kind of got into steampunk, and
yeah, I really wanted to explorethe scene. So I started a blog
called Topperware Steampunk and that kind oflike set me on a journey to blog
about what is steampunk that that's alsowhat inspired the name of the original blog.
(02:53):
But then I also wanted to doother things in the future, so
I created Radio Retro Future as ayou Tube channel where I started blogging,
and soon after that I started makinga series called The Steampunk Beginners Guy,
which has been pretty successful. It'sstill being watched after I think I published
a first episode about seven eight yearsago now and it's still being watched.
(03:20):
And yeah, for that series,also started doing a podcast simply Culled the
Radio or to a Future podcast,which is also on YouTube, where I
talk with creators, mostly in thesteampunk space, but also other related genres
like pulp fantasy, science fiction.I hope to do some on Western as
(03:42):
well. That's something I need toexplore next. I talk about it in
my last video, and yeah,through that network, you know, I
got a lot of ideas. Igot a lot of input, and because
of how my Steampunk Beginner's Guide seriesevolved, there was really generally about the
culture of steampunk, the various aspectsin which its manifested itself, that being
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costuming, stories and of course aesthetics, you know, then gaming, et
cetera. And you know, butI started really talking about world building and
writing, and so I was like, well, maybe I should start writing
my own like exemplar steampunk stories,like what is my vision for steampunk?
And that became the Association of Ishtar, starting with a short story called as
(04:29):
Pretty six the call Girl, andthat lay the foundation for the whole thing.
And I wrote like a couple ofdozen short stories in a similar vein
which are sold separately as companion booksto my novels. But before I wrote
my first novel, I showed theseshort stories to some publishers who said,
well, we love the short stories, but because they're written in a very
(04:51):
unique format, that being files thatare compiled by the association of each star
cells. So it's also kind oflike a role playing game that way.
He said, well, we cannotsell this to an audience, not without
proper associated stories. And that becamethe range in the machine, which I
cannot show you right now because mycamera is not working. But yeah,
(05:15):
that started to develop, really startedto develop into its own thing. I've
got two novels now, two anthologies, which are the companion books to the
novels. Well, we've got thefirst issue of our new comic book series,
Journity Elysium, which I'm doing togetherwith Joan Alexander. He's an illustrator
(05:38):
from Indonesia. We also have acoloring book that's how I met him.
And yeah, my next book iscoming out on January fourth on Amazon called
Anwin Adventures Irresponsible Dual Ownership, whichis now available in pre purchase. And
now I heard you earlier say thisone of the questions I was going to
(05:58):
ask you. I mean, you'reold now, and you are the person
ask this talking about the series ofvideos that you have on your YouTube channel
to help educate those to learn moreabout what steampunk is all about, understanding
that steampunk is just more than dressingup and getting together with your friends.
Honestly, I don't have a fullgrasp of what steampunk is It feels sometimes
like if I were to go oneof these conventions or order to ask to
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somebody's it almost feels like I'm walkingin the middle of a movie and I
don't know much about the subject yet, you know, And I'd be very
honest with you about that. Iknow it's been around for many, many
years. I'm an older guy,So how would you explain to somebody like
me what steampunk is about without maybeI wants say, confusing me, but
you know, trying to get meto what it really is all about.
(06:45):
Well, so when you use thewords steampunk, it can refer to three
different things. As I said before, it kind of refer to the genre.
It can refer to the aesthetics,and you can refer to the costume
culture, and in particular the costumeculture as its own set of well,
let's say, traditions. But they'relike small communities scattered all across the world
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of people coming together, and they'rethey're mostly interested in the social aspect about
it. So they have like allthese these meetings and it's mostly social day
what you'll find and what's a frustrationtoo many creatives like myself that first of
all, steampunk is not like,well, it didn't used to be like
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normal cosplay, right. Well,when we talk about cosplay, i'm talking
about people dressing up like familiar characterslike Spider Man, Batman, other characters
from movies, let's say the matrix, and steampunk is very unique in a
way that it is completely its ownthing. I actually started drafting a book
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on this. It's more of aside project, so it doesn't really have
my full attention at the moment,but I call it steampunk. Bread in
the era of Iron Age media,And for those who don't know what the
Iron Age of comics is, orrather the Iron Age of creators, is
this idea that we're currently living inan era of self publishing, kind of
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like you had the Silver Age ofcomics, the Golden Nature comics. Now
we have the Iron Age, whichis mostly all these self published authors,
many of whom outperform like established brandslike Marvel and DC. Now that's not
a high bar at the moment,but still that was unthinkable thirty years ago.
And I think steampunk My thesis thatsteampunk falls into the same thing as
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this self created grassroots movement in popculture that is heavily inspired by well the
romantic futurist of the nineteenth century HG. Wells, Jules Verne, the pulp
stories in some regards, but alsomodern pop culture. If I would have
to describe steampunk aesthetic in particular,it's a millunge of history with modern pop
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culture tropes. So you have IronMan, but his entire outfit is based
on nineteenth century technology, and thesame goes for Batman and all these versions
you can find. You know,there are nineteenth century versions of Star Wars
characters. So for me the relationshipbetween in a way, steampunks are really
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the antiquarians of pop culture, asthey also love to at least they are
the writers the creatives love to referto, like archaic pop culture icons and
obscure histories that well used to bea very common thing in the nineteenth century
but are forgotten now. Like electriccars. You know, everyone thinks of
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electric cars or something of the lastthirty years, but now the first cars
were all electric. Just the namea few things. So yeah, it's
yeah. There are so many waysin which tan punk can be expressed.
You know, it can be donethrough text, dermy or paintings or you
know, making strange vehicles. Iused to be part of the costume community,
(10:15):
not so much anymore. I dohave costumes. Many of the characters
in the books are actually inspired bycostumes that we've created. Yeah, those
Does that clarify some things? Thanks? That's very helpful, which brings me
to one of the reasons why weare here with the project of Journey to
Elysium. You had a long processof starting a Kickstarter. How did you
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start that? And when I asked, how did you start that? What
is the what's been the most challengingpart about a kickstarter? Finding your audience,
promotion mostly you know, like Idid some extra schooling and like how
do you do kickstarters? What isthe essential parts of kickstarter? But really
finding your audience, Like it's onething to have the best kickstart a page
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you could possibly make, but thenit's like, Okay, how do you
get people to find it and supportit? And there are many other challenges,
but you know, before any ofthose matter, you have to find
your audience. That's one of themajor things. That's one of the most
time consuming things, and that's probablywhat broke my back that I'm struggling with
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right now, is that desire to, and yeah, you also have to
able to deal with the disappointments becauseyou know, we had a lot of
people dropping off, a lot ofbackers retracting their pledges, and you know
when you see that happens like wellwhy why why did they retract their pledges?
You know, did I say somethingwrong or whatever. So that that's
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something that was very disappointing to seehappen this time around. Maybe November what
not the best time to do it, because you know, especially with Black
Friday and stuff like that. Marketingis definitely the most complicated thing. And
what people do not understand about Kickstarteris it's not just a page that you
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put up and people flock to it. You see pages like that where people
think, oh, I'm just gonnaput up a Kickstarter page and then people
give me money, and no,it doesn't work that way. And yeah,
it's really growing that audience. It'sreally the same thing. The thing
about Kickstart. It's really like howdo I sell myself? It's really just
a storefront, and you know,how do you draw people to that storefront?
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That's that's the biggest biggest challenge becauseI noticed you not only through social
media, but you've also been usingthe YouTube channel to record these amazing videos.
What are the inspirations behind some ofthese videos because they're very well done.
I mean, you're you're out there, you're living the life of the
person that you are out there onthe camera as Yeah. So the first
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videos, well it goes back toby time at Topperware steam Bank, where
I wanted to do interviews with people, but I didn't want it to be
like typical interviews. I actually wantedlike to interview their stems, so nas
as it were. So I createdthis character called Dankard Lexicon who basically started
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like interviewing these people, but Ihad no character for him. So through
the interviews and the stories that Iwrote behind him, like how did he
meet these people, he became kindof like this burglar slash hacker, breaking
into people's places, going into placeswhere he shouldn't go. And the interesting
thing with Dankard Lexicon is that,you know, I started having a costume
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for him. I started giving likespecialized prop for him that would help me
during conventions, making recordings, interviewingpeople live on air, so to speak.
And now he's actually a character inbunks with the sticks which is the
second novel. We have a videocalled Welcome to Arcology, which is the
city that I created for him,and now that's one of the reader's favorite
(14:07):
locations in my multiverse in the associationof your Star. But yeah, when
I made the move to YouTube,I already had the costumes I had to
look, so I started using denkerdLexicon as this very pedantic kind of self
important masterminds, you know, explainingto the platf what steampunk is and myself
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bonsored vocals is kind of like it'sFlunky in the background doing his editing and
then commenting on his stuff. Lateron, I also started adding another character
called fitz Gerald H. Bendall Smith, a name created by people in my
community, who is more on thelower side of things. He does more
lare related stuff, and I usehis voice currently to explain the stories behind
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my world. It's a new seriesthat I call the World of Atlas.
He also has his own costume.A funny thing, it was actually supposed
to be a new costume for dankedLexico. It was too too mercenary like,
So that's how fitz Gerald came tobe. And yeah, so I'm
(15:15):
really integrated that's how I integrated onmy costumes and characters into the stories.
Now, going back to when whenI first introduced you on the show,
you started doing some of these thingsback in twenty eighteen, and then you
plush your first sit of books intwenty twenty one. Did you imagine yourself
having this far of a reach asfar as these projects just keep going moving
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forward? You know with the videosnew series, did you ever imagine it
would blow up like this? Well, it's I mean blown up. I
mean I have yet to sell morechoice of words. But I'm sorry,
Yeah, yeah, I get whatyou mean. But who knows. I
mean, it's something that I workon. But you know, so far,
people keep coming back for the newbooks, people who supported previous kickstarters
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every two and for the latest kickstarter, So I'm doing something right. You
know. It's great to go toa convention and then you return and then
you meet people you met previously andthey buy all your books right away.
So there's definitely a growing audience there, and it's gonna take a lot of
patience to get where we are.But we are also working on a role
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playing game, so who knows whatwill happen if that launches, and yeah,
we'll see where it goes. WhenI started with the Kickstarter, like
I said, I'm not a greatpromoter. I'm not a very optimistic person.
So when I reached like two thousandsubscribers at some point, I was
like, wow, I wasn't sureI would ever make that number, but
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you know, I kept going atit. We're nearly at the five hundred
and fifty hundred subscribers now, andthen those numbers keep going up and faster,
so we'll see where it goes.You know. I'm still kind of
waiting for the for the breakthrough momentswhere I actually start reaching like the big
audiences, you know, and thenpeople start buying my books on mass That's
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kind of like what I'm working towards. And I have a lot to learn
in regards to marketing about that.That's yeah, that's where you keep going
back at, is marketing and gettingyour voice out there. Yeah, I
completely understand I having the same challengeas far as with this show as well
as far as marketing. Because we'repretty much a one man band. You
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take care of everything, but ifit's not the recordings, the editing,
the writing, all these things,sometimes there are certain things you will neglect,
not because you do it on purpose, but because it's one of those
things that maybe you'll have to growas you go through the process. So
speaking about a process, as youmentioned earlier that you're connected with somebody from
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you said Indonesia as far as artworksconcerned. Yeah, So how's that process
like to when you're writing a bookand you're trying to give somebody the vision
of your characters, how they shoulddress, how should look, the machines,
the cities, how does that collaborationgo. Well, Joan Alexander was
with the project from from the firstmoment onward and be a very similar interest
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in that regard, very similar vision. So it's yeah, I'm very proud
to have met him. And youknow, the wonderful thing about him is
that so many illustrators, you know, they make some work for you and
then they never respond to your messagesever. Again, that's what I'd say
about ninety percent of illustrators that I'veworked with. Wow. Yeah, that's
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uh, that's that's the reality ofit. Finding hard working illustrators is very
difficult, and Joan as is justa workhorse. You know, he keeps
on producing for himself for me.You know, he did all the illustrations
for n when I gave him alot of free freedom for n Win.
(19:08):
But I also make a lot ofsketches. Currently, we're working on The
Costcut Girls, which is more ofa military side story set in the same
universe, and I made the conceptsfor the robots, so he had like
a clear image of what I wantedand how I wanted them, you know.
And like I said, sometimes Igive him a lot of freedom and
(19:30):
like, oh wow, this looksamazing. Don't change anything. Other times
we go like back and forth,like oh no, I want this post,
I want this change, like wewere doing that for the cover of
The Costcut Girls right now. Youknow. It's it's for many artists.
I make like complete Excel sheets withall this information, reference material, historical
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references, you know, and it'scrazy the kind of the details that you
like, Oh, we should includedead in there as well, And that
is what I for My first Kickstarterwas a coloring book, and one of
the rules that I have where thatcoloring book was that everything needed to look
ninety percent historical and ten percent fruturistic. That's pretty much the golden rule for
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most of the series, so that'swhy everything looks that consistent. And yeah,
it's it's a lot of sometimes it'sa lot of a big going forth.
But you know, like I said, Joan as a real workhorse,
so sometimes I give him a likeagain. And when wonderful cute illustrations ideal
for the dark era of the yearif you want to, you know,
(20:38):
if you're having a bad time,go read and when the images alone will
put a smile on your face.And yeah, so it's kind of it
kind of differs per project how wework. Well. I also done here.
I have the anthologies. This theArchology Companion, which is the companion
to bound for the sticks, andthree and twenty on Notebook, which is
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the companion of the range in themachine. And these are completely in colored.
They actually look like files. Butyou know, I also love sketch
work, so you know, justthe playing line art. So what we've
done is, you know, Ijust asked people in our community, Hey,
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would you like to have like acrew drawing made by you of whatever
or your vision of the world.And they're included as kind of like sketches
made by the associates inside the files. So that's some ways of doing it
now. And I'm looking at andI know the listeners of the of Let's
find Out I can't see because wedo audio. But some of the beautiful
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artwork that you're showing us or showingme here if you were to go back,
I don't know when you first startedwriting these books and having these ideas.
And I know it's one of thosethings where a lot of people know
what my source material is or peoplewho have influenced my work is. You
may have mentioned a few before whatwe're talking about. Who are some of
the go to people or books thatyou've written in the past that is still
(22:06):
in your mind, a little seedthat influences what you do with. One
of the wonderful things about steampunk isthat what it excels at compared to other
genres is trope stacking. It's agenre that lends itself well to combining various
genres and works. So I ammuch of my character work is inspired by
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Westerns. I think that Western isan essential genre to to understanding steampunk characters.
In the Ranging the Machine, thereare a lot of references to ghosts
in the Shell. I mean,the title itself is a reference to ghosts
in the shell. So my definitionfor the steampunk genre is cyberpunk in the
past, by the way, andthat I kind of dial that to eleven
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in this book. And one ofthe things that I also want to achieve
with the range in the Machine,that kind of started as a kind of
like with my parents, I usedto watch like a British police procedurals,
like a touch of Frost Inspector Mars. So what I kind of wanted to
have is like it started out askind of like a murder mystery in the
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in that vein, and then itjust like developed into insanity essentially where where
things went all the way over thetop. So and I think the Ranging
Machine in that regard was successful.But yeah, a lot of people called
the Ranging Machine love homes in becauseit has like both elements of Sherlock Holmes
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and a love Craft. So Ithought that was fun that even though the
it's not really cosmic horror, althoughdefinitely the writing is very focused on keeping
the reader guessing to what's going tohappen next, really hold on to that
(23:57):
mistered feel of my history and exploration. So I guess that's that's how people
came to call it a lot ofhomes in and so yeah, I have
a very specific way of world building. I don't know if that's inspired by
I'm dyslectic, so I'm not muchof a reader. I depend on audio
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books and film adaptations for most ofmy work. I'm also a very visual
person. That's why my books havethat many illustrations to begin with. So
yeah, I don't really have oneparticular inspiration. It's it's really a lot
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of me analyzing genres, how ourstory is written, how our characters written,
like what makes them tick, andthen how do they relate to my
work? And the same goes forhow I build my sentence structures. For
that is, you know, forme the secret to world buildings how you
construct your sentences and not how youdesign a no, I mean, and
(25:02):
everything you said right now, Imean it seems to be working for you,
obviously, because look at what you'redoing right now. And it's interesting
when I read certain types of books, for genres of books, and I'll
ask this question to be a weirdquestion. Sometimes I like to think what
kind of soundtrack I would have tothese stories. So if from all your
collective work right now, let's talkabout Jorging into Elysium. What kind of
(25:26):
soundtrack do you think you can putto that story? Oh, dear,
well, unfortunately, I have thehonor of meaning Marco Ilianello. He's a
former musician in a steampunk belt calledKlocwork Opera. He's currently very successful musician
making soundtracks for various things. Andyeah, he made some tracks for me,
(25:52):
which is the Arcology soundtrack which isin the your Collogy video. It's
a bit more orchestral mombastic. Italso really depends on this on the on
the setting and the topic. Youknow. I I love the kind of
like dark Western inspired stuff for certainthings, for certain adventures. Yeah,
(26:18):
it's it's it's like because of thebecause of the how I right, Like
every story has inspirations from different genres. Again, like the Orange Machine is
very much inspired by like cyberpunk.So I guess something akin to the track
of Peaky Blinders that makes sense tome, I suppose. But yeah,
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I wish I could answer that questionbecause I really want to commission music for
the series. But I I strugglewith that question myself. So I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to put you onthe spot, but you know,
it's one of those things. Iguess it's one of the things like if
I'm reading something, or if I'mreading anything, I think what would be
(27:03):
playing there? Like if I'm inan eighty sitting, would I play,
you know, Man without Hats?Or would I play Thompson Twins, or
where I play a rock band.You know, it's one of those things
that, yeah, I get itnow for drinking to Alesium, I would
know for the first few issues itsjust something a bit more epic, something
of a musical or a movie soundtrack, something like that. And for the
(27:30):
later issues that take place inside theLeasium structure, it would be I guess
a bit more tribal. Maybe areyou familiar with The Who? This is
Mongolian inspired metal band something like that. No, yeah, I'll go go
look them up. I think they'recalled The Who, and they they do
a metal with froat singing. Imean, I mean, I'm a I'm
(27:52):
a I'm a metal head, butyou know, I want to scape me.
I will definitely take a look atthat tonight. And and I want
to say a few things here.But before I say that, for the
listeners of Let's find Out, Ican tell a little more about your works
because I know association of Ishtar dotcom, but you also have a lot
of other things too. If youcould run by that, where can they
buy their copy of Journey to Elysium, Well, turn to Elysium. They
(28:15):
can either order it through my ownweb store, which is a bone shirt
at gumrooads dot com. Link ison our website, and you can find
my books on most websites as ebookspaperbacks, mostly on Amazon, and I
think I published some of them throughDirector Digital as well, so they might
(28:37):
appear on other websites as well.So Amazon is probably the easiest way to
find me, but I would preferif people go to my gum broad store,
which is linked on the association freestrugg dot com excellently. One of
the things I was gonna say beforeI asked you where to find the be
able to download or order the physicalcopies of your books. I've been watching
(28:59):
your videos here the last few days, and I'm going to say this,
and I finally extremely entertaining, andI really respect the hell out of you
what you do to at least showpeople to learn more about what it is
that you do and about steampunk.And I kind of felt a little bit
better by the interview. As faras when I was having you ONAID,
I want to ask you really onehundred thousand questions. You've always get asked
(29:19):
the same thing. But you know, I really appreciate the educational value of
the videos if I can say that, I'm an educator at heart. So
that's that's a lot. I recentlymade a video where I respond to a
YouTuber culty library letter. Uh,I'm not mistaken. This general's called where
he kind of like has a awhich is funny. He had this this
(29:42):
this bibliophile approach to the steampunk genre. So there's like this overview of you
know, from the romantic futurists dothe so called proto steampunks like Michael Morcock
and contemporary steampunk. So it wasit was fun to respond to that from
a career creative's point of view.And yeah, that's that's kind of where
(30:03):
I'm at, and I try to, you know, keep things practical what
not, Like with for example,most of BookTube as it's called, where
they say, well you got touse show down't tell. It's like,
okay, well how do you doshow don't tell? Because when I read
people who watch videos like that theyhave no clue what it is world works
(30:23):
and yeah, that's that's kind oflike a point of frustration for me.
So I try to find a way, Okay, like how do I explain
this to people? And you know, it's not the kind of content that
that people are looking for on YouTubebecause, like you said, people want
to be edutained. They want tobe educated and entertained at the same time.
(30:44):
Yeah, and for something like showdon't Tell that that's hard because show
to Tell's a takes a lot ofeffort to do properly, and like I
said, for me, it's alsoa lot of in the sentence structure,
so it really turns into a schoollesson. So what I want do?
People can support me on places likePatreon, but also on a new website
(31:07):
called rain Stories. There they getweekly free stories if they become a follower
there for free, and they canalso become a member. And you know
what those sponsor used for is mostlyto pay my illustrators, So it's not
really even for me. I'm makingother people's money that way. But yeah,
(31:29):
it's a very happy I discovered platform. I had the creator of that
website on it as well. Ijust just sent you the link to it.
By the way, Michael Evans,who's also well, he's actually pretty
well published. He's one of thoseguys that managed to like publish like a
new book a month. So I'mnot there yet. People think I'm very
(31:52):
prolific, but not that prolific yet. Don't understand yourself. You're doing a
great job. And for those thatwant the immediate factor, they want to
get a hold of you and findyou through social Media's well, you have
an Instagram, you have Facebook,you have the Twitter x. Yeah,
we have a discord as well forpeople who want to join our community.
(32:14):
I really hope to get started ondoing mining sprints so I can also like
people can also ask questions directly andget feedback on their stuff and also turn
out ideas for the Association of Ishtaras well. I have this strategy for
a submission procedure, which is twostep. The first step is like,
(32:36):
write one hundred and fifty word story. This is a great world building exercise,
like how do I how do Ipitch my idea to readers? Like
this is the kind of stuff thatyou're going to do if I get to
finish my short story, and againwe can also implement all these ideas in
our role playing game. So that'sthe goal of the one hundred and fifty
word thing. And it's also oneminute of text for a YouTube shore,
(33:00):
so that's another reason why I wantto do that. And yeah, once
I see that, and then theycan like write the full story or let
somebody else write the full story.So amazing, star my friend. And
if you don't mind, I knowwe're closing up twenty twenty three, twenty
twenty four, it's coming soon.I know you have a lot of things
(33:22):
coming out. Would you mind comingon back to Let's find Out and we're
going to discuss some more about whatit is that you're doing. No,
no problem, Love to thank you, my friend. This has been another
excellent episode of Let's find Out withco host Diego. Please check us out
on all our social media pages aswell as our YouTube, and we're also
on Rumble, like, share,and subscribe. Thank you for taking this
(33:45):
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(34:07):
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(34:30):
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Are you curious about the unknown theunexplainable. Do you find yourself intrigued by
the mysterious in paranormal side of ourworld? Join us on an adventure into
the world of inexplicable discoveries and investigationsthat may someday give us a final answer
as to what may be behind aveil of reality. Then it's time to
(00:22):
turn your pods up because we're liveto tape from the mountains of West Virginia.
It's time once again for Let's findOut with co host Diego. The
universe is waiting for you, Liveto tape from the mountains of West Virginia.
(00:42):
It's another episode of Let's find Outwith co host Diego. Thank you
for taking this journey with me onthis episode of Let's find Out. Our
guest is a creator of the Associationof Ishtar. He started with the series
in twenty eighteen and published his firstset of books in twenty twenty one.
He also brings you a comic bookstory about steampunk astronauts on an adventure of
(01:03):
mystery and discovery as to unveil theseekers of an ancient space station. That's
the exciting world of Journey to Elysium. We're going to be covering all this
plus more. Please welcome to Let'sfind Out, author, creator and master
of all things steampunk. We'll startvocal, We'll start my friend, Welcome
to Let's find Out. It's greathaving you on tonight. Yes, thank
(01:26):
you for having me. Greetings fromthe Netherlands everyone, and uh yeah,
happy holidays. I hope you're gonnahave a wonderful time with friends and family
at the end of the year.This is a great gift because you're actually
my first guest from the Netherlands.And no, that's pretty exciting. Well,
I hope I won't disappoint then,No, not at all. I've
(01:47):
been watching your videos, and disappointmentit would not even be a word I
would use. First of all,you know, congratulations on a very successful
kick started with Journey to Elysium studyingartwork and looks to be a great Thank
you, my friend. Before wedive into Journey into Elysium, let's get
a history about the Association of isstarback starting in twenty eighteen. As with
(02:09):
all great works and projects, there'salways a backstory for us who are new
to your projects. What is theAssociation of Ishtar so there's a long backstory
to that. Matter of fact.So in about twenty twelve, I got
into steampunk. Before that, Ialready did some writing in Dutch, mostly
(02:31):
fantasy fantasy science fiction, and thenI kind of got into steampunk, and
yeah, I really wanted to explorethe scene. So I started a blog
called Topperware Steampunk and that kind oflike set me on a journey to blog
about what is steampunk that that's alsowhat inspired the name of the original blog.
(02:53):
But then I also wanted to doother things in the future, so
I created Radio Retro Future as ayou Tube channel where I started blogging,
and soon after that I started makinga series called The Steampunk Beginners Guy,
which has been pretty successful. It'sstill being watched after I think I published
a first episode about seven eight yearsago now and it's still being watched.
(03:20):
And yeah, for that series,also started doing a podcast simply Culled the
Radio or to a Future podcast,which is also on YouTube, where I
talk with creators, mostly in thesteampunk space, but also other related genres
like pulp fantasy, science fiction.I hope to do some on Western as
(03:42):
well. That's something I need toexplore next. I talk about it in
my last video, and yeah,through that network, you know, I
got a lot of ideas. Igot a lot of input, and because
of how my Steampunk Beginner's Guide seriesevolved, there was really generally about the
culture of steampunk, the various aspectsin which its manifested itself, that being
(04:06):
costuming, stories and of course aesthetics, you know, then gaming, et
cetera. And you know, butI started really talking about world building and
writing, and so I was like, well, maybe I should start writing
my own like exemplar steampunk stories,like what is my vision for steampunk?
And that became the Association of Ishtar, starting with a short story called as
(04:29):
Pretty six the call Girl, andthat lay the foundation for the whole thing.
And I wrote like a couple ofdozen short stories in a similar vein
which are sold separately as companion booksto my novels. But before I wrote
my first novel, I showed theseshort stories to some publishers who said,
well, we love the short stories, but because they're written in a very
(04:51):
unique format, that being files thatare compiled by the association of each star
cells. So it's also kind oflike a role playing game that way.
He said, well, we cannotsell this to an audience, not without
proper associated stories. And that becamethe range in the machine, which I
cannot show you right now because mycamera is not working. But yeah,
(05:15):
that started to develop, really startedto develop into its own thing. I've
got two novels now, two anthologies, which are the companion books to the
novels. Well, we've got thefirst issue of our new comic book series,
Journity Elysium, which I'm doing togetherwith Joan Alexander. He's an illustrator
(05:38):
from Indonesia. We also have acoloring book that's how I met him.
And yeah, my next book iscoming out on January fourth on Amazon called
Anwin Adventures Irresponsible Dual Ownership, whichis now available in pre purchase. And
now I heard you earlier say thisone of the questions I was going to
(05:58):
ask you. I mean, you'reold now, and you are the person
ask this talking about the series ofvideos that you have on your YouTube channel
to help educate those to learn moreabout what steampunk is all about, understanding
that steampunk is just more than dressingup and getting together with your friends.
Honestly, I don't have a fullgrasp of what steampunk is It feels sometimes
like if I were to go oneof these conventions or order to ask to
(06:23):
somebody's it almost feels like I'm walkingin the middle of a movie and I
don't know much about the subject yet, you know, And I'd be very
honest with you about that. Iknow it's been around for many, many
years. I'm an older guy,So how would you explain to somebody like
me what steampunk is about without maybeI wants say, confusing me, but
you know, trying to get meto what it really is all about.
(06:45):
Well, so when you use thewords steampunk, it can refer to three
different things. As I said before, it kind of refer to the genre.
It can refer to the aesthetics,and you can refer to the costume
culture, and in particular the costumeculture as its own set of well,
let's say, traditions. But they'relike small communities scattered all across the world
(07:05):
of people coming together, and they'rethey're mostly interested in the social aspect about
it. So they have like allthese these meetings and it's mostly social day
what you'll find and what's a frustrationtoo many creatives like myself that first of
all, steampunk is not like,well, it didn't used to be like
(07:28):
normal cosplay, right. Well,when we talk about cosplay, i'm talking
about people dressing up like familiar characterslike Spider Man, Batman, other characters
from movies, let's say the matrix, and steampunk is very unique in a
way that it is completely its ownthing. I actually started drafting a book
(07:50):
on this. It's more of aside project, so it doesn't really have
my full attention at the moment,but I call it steampunk. Bread in
the era of Iron Age media,And for those who don't know what the
Iron Age of comics is, orrather the Iron Age of creators, is
this idea that we're currently living inan era of self publishing, kind of
(08:16):
like you had the Silver Age ofcomics, the Golden Nature comics. Now
we have the Iron Age, whichis mostly all these self published authors,
many of whom outperform like established brandslike Marvel and DC. Now that's not
a high bar at the moment,but still that was unthinkable thirty years ago.
And I think steampunk My thesis thatsteampunk falls into the same thing as
(08:39):
this self created grassroots movement in popculture that is heavily inspired by well the
romantic futurist of the nineteenth century HG. Wells, Jules Verne, the pulp
stories in some regards, but alsomodern pop culture. If I would have
to describe steampunk aesthetic in particular,it's a millunge of history with modern pop
(09:05):
culture tropes. So you have IronMan, but his entire outfit is based
on nineteenth century technology, and thesame goes for Batman and all these versions
you can find. You know,there are nineteenth century versions of Star Wars
characters. So for me the relationshipbetween in a way, steampunks are really
(09:28):
the antiquarians of pop culture, asthey also love to at least they are
the writers the creatives love to referto, like archaic pop culture icons and
obscure histories that well used to bea very common thing in the nineteenth century
but are forgotten now. Like electriccars. You know, everyone thinks of
(09:48):
electric cars or something of the lastthirty years, but now the first cars
were all electric. Just the namea few things. So yeah, it's
yeah. There are so many waysin which tan punk can be expressed.
You know, it can be donethrough text, dermy or paintings or you
know, making strange vehicles. Iused to be part of the costume community,
(10:15):
not so much anymore. I dohave costumes. Many of the characters
in the books are actually inspired bycostumes that we've created. Yeah, those
Does that clarify some things? Thanks? That's very helpful, which brings me
to one of the reasons why weare here with the project of Journey to
Elysium. You had a long processof starting a Kickstarter. How did you
(10:37):
start that? And when I asked, how did you start that? What
is the what's been the most challengingpart about a kickstarter? Finding your audience,
promotion mostly you know, like Idid some extra schooling and like how
do you do kickstarters? What isthe essential parts of kickstarter? But really
finding your audience, Like it's onething to have the best kickstart a page
(11:01):
you could possibly make, but thenit's like, Okay, how do you
get people to find it and supportit? And there are many other challenges,
but you know, before any ofthose matter, you have to find
your audience. That's one of themajor things. That's one of the most
time consuming things, and that's probablywhat broke my back that I'm struggling with
(11:22):
right now, is that desire to, and yeah, you also have to
able to deal with the disappointments becauseyou know, we had a lot of
people dropping off, a lot ofbackers retracting their pledges, and you know
when you see that happens like wellwhy why why did they retract their pledges?
You know, did I say somethingwrong or whatever. So that that's
(11:46):
something that was very disappointing to seehappen this time around. Maybe November what
not the best time to do it, because you know, especially with Black
Friday and stuff like that. Marketingis definitely the most complicated thing. And
what people do not understand about Kickstarteris it's not just a page that you
(12:09):
put up and people flock to it. You see pages like that where people
think, oh, I'm just gonnaput up a Kickstarter page and then people
give me money, and no,it doesn't work that way. And yeah,
it's really growing that audience. It'sreally the same thing. The thing
about Kickstart. It's really like howdo I sell myself? It's really just
a storefront, and you know,how do you draw people to that storefront?
(12:33):
That's that's the biggest biggest challenge becauseI noticed you not only through social
media, but you've also been usingthe YouTube channel to record these amazing videos.
What are the inspirations behind some ofthese videos because they're very well done.
I mean, you're you're out there, you're living the life of the
person that you are out there onthe camera as Yeah. So the first
(12:54):
videos, well it goes back toby time at Topperware steam Bank, where
I wanted to do interviews with people, but I didn't want it to be
like typical interviews. I actually wantedlike to interview their stems, so nas
as it were. So I createdthis character called Dankard Lexicon who basically started
(13:16):
like interviewing these people, but Ihad no character for him. So through
the interviews and the stories that Iwrote behind him, like how did he
meet these people, he became kindof like this burglar slash hacker, breaking
into people's places, going into placeswhere he shouldn't go. And the interesting
thing with Dankard Lexicon is that,you know, I started having a costume
(13:41):
for him. I started giving likespecialized prop for him that would help me
during conventions, making recordings, interviewingpeople live on air, so to speak.
And now he's actually a character inbunks with the sticks which is the
second novel. We have a videocalled Welcome to Arcology, which is the
city that I created for him,and now that's one of the reader's favorite
(14:07):
locations in my multiverse in the associationof your Star. But yeah, when
I made the move to YouTube,I already had the costumes I had to
look, so I started using denkerdLexicon as this very pedantic kind of self
important masterminds, you know, explainingto the platf what steampunk is and myself
(14:28):
bonsored vocals is kind of like it'sFlunky in the background doing his editing and
then commenting on his stuff. Lateron, I also started adding another character
called fitz Gerald H. Bendall Smith, a name created by people in my
community, who is more on thelower side of things. He does more
lare related stuff, and I usehis voice currently to explain the stories behind
(14:52):
my world. It's a new seriesthat I call the World of Atlas.
He also has his own costume.A funny thing, it was actually supposed
to be a new costume for dankedLexico. It was too too mercenary like,
So that's how fitz Gerald came tobe. And yeah, so I'm
(15:15):
really integrated that's how I integrated onmy costumes and characters into the stories.
Now, going back to when whenI first introduced you on the show,
you started doing some of these thingsback in twenty eighteen, and then you
plush your first sit of books intwenty twenty one. Did you imagine yourself
having this far of a reach asfar as these projects just keep going moving
(15:35):
forward? You know with the videosnew series, did you ever imagine it
would blow up like this? Well, it's I mean blown up. I
mean I have yet to sell morechoice of words. But I'm sorry,
Yeah, yeah, I get whatyou mean. But who knows. I
mean, it's something that I workon. But you know, so far,
people keep coming back for the newbooks, people who supported previous kickstarters
(15:58):
every two and for the latest kickstarter, So I'm doing something right. You
know. It's great to go toa convention and then you return and then
you meet people you met previously andthey buy all your books right away.
So there's definitely a growing audience there, and it's gonna take a lot of
patience to get where we are.But we are also working on a role
(16:19):
playing game, so who knows whatwill happen if that launches, and yeah,
we'll see where it goes. WhenI started with the Kickstarter, like
I said, I'm not a greatpromoter. I'm not a very optimistic person.
So when I reached like two thousandsubscribers at some point, I was
like, wow, I wasn't sureI would ever make that number, but
(16:44):
you know, I kept going atit. We're nearly at the five hundred
and fifty hundred subscribers now, andthen those numbers keep going up and faster,
so we'll see where it goes.You know. I'm still kind of
waiting for the for the breakthrough momentswhere I actually start reaching like the big
audiences, you know, and thenpeople start buying my books on mass That's
(17:11):
kind of like what I'm working towards. And I have a lot to learn
in regards to marketing about that.That's yeah, that's where you keep going
back at, is marketing and gettingyour voice out there. Yeah, I
completely understand I having the same challengeas far as with this show as well
as far as marketing. Because we'repretty much a one man band. You
(17:32):
take care of everything, but ifit's not the recordings, the editing,
the writing, all these things,sometimes there are certain things you will neglect,
not because you do it on purpose, but because it's one of those
things that maybe you'll have to growas you go through the process. So
speaking about a process, as youmentioned earlier that you're connected with somebody from
(17:55):
you said Indonesia as far as artworksconcerned. Yeah, So how's that process
like to when you're writing a bookand you're trying to give somebody the vision
of your characters, how they shoulddress, how should look, the machines,
the cities, how does that collaborationgo. Well, Joan Alexander was
with the project from from the firstmoment onward and be a very similar interest
(18:22):
in that regard, very similar vision. So it's yeah, I'm very proud
to have met him. And youknow, the wonderful thing about him is
that so many illustrators, you know, they make some work for you and
then they never respond to your messagesever. Again, that's what I'd say
about ninety percent of illustrators that I'veworked with. Wow. Yeah, that's
(18:45):
uh, that's that's the reality ofit. Finding hard working illustrators is very
difficult, and Joan as is justa workhorse. You know, he keeps
on producing for himself for me.You know, he did all the illustrations
for n when I gave him alot of free freedom for n Win.
(19:08):
But I also make a lot ofsketches. Currently, we're working on The
Costcut Girls, which is more ofa military side story set in the same
universe, and I made the conceptsfor the robots, so he had like
a clear image of what I wantedand how I wanted them, you know.
And like I said, sometimes Igive him a lot of freedom and
(19:30):
like, oh wow, this looksamazing. Don't change anything. Other times
we go like back and forth,like oh no, I want this post,
I want this change, like wewere doing that for the cover of
The Costcut Girls right now. Youknow. It's it's for many artists.
I make like complete Excel sheets withall this information, reference material, historical
(19:53):
references, you know, and it'scrazy the kind of the details that you
like, Oh, we should includedead in there as well, And that
is what I for My first Kickstarterwas a coloring book, and one of
the rules that I have where thatcoloring book was that everything needed to look
ninety percent historical and ten percent fruturistic. That's pretty much the golden rule for
(20:17):
most of the series, so that'swhy everything looks that consistent. And yeah,
it's it's a lot of sometimes it'sa lot of a big going forth.
But you know, like I said, Joan as a real workhorse,
so sometimes I give him a likeagain. And when wonderful cute illustrations ideal
for the dark era of the yearif you want to, you know,
(20:38):
if you're having a bad time,go read and when the images alone will
put a smile on your face.And yeah, so it's kind of it
kind of differs per project how wework. Well. I also done here.
I have the anthologies. This theArchology Companion, which is the companion
to bound for the sticks, andthree and twenty on Notebook, which is
(21:00):
the companion of the range in themachine. And these are completely in colored.
They actually look like files. Butyou know, I also love sketch
work, so you know, justthe playing line art. So what we've
done is, you know, Ijust asked people in our community, Hey,
(21:21):
would you like to have like acrew drawing made by you of whatever
or your vision of the world.And they're included as kind of like sketches
made by the associates inside the files. So that's some ways of doing it
now. And I'm looking at andI know the listeners of the of Let's
find Out I can't see because wedo audio. But some of the beautiful
(21:42):
artwork that you're showing us or showingme here if you were to go back,
I don't know when you first startedwriting these books and having these ideas.
And I know it's one of thosethings where a lot of people know
what my source material is or peoplewho have influenced my work is. You
may have mentioned a few before whatwe're talking about. Who are some of
the go to people or books thatyou've written in the past that is still
(22:06):
in your mind, a little seedthat influences what you do with. One
of the wonderful things about steampunk isthat what it excels at compared to other
genres is trope stacking. It's agenre that lends itself well to combining various
genres and works. So I ammuch of my character work is inspired by
(22:27):
Westerns. I think that Western isan essential genre to to understanding steampunk characters.
In the Ranging the Machine, thereare a lot of references to ghosts
in the Shell. I mean,the title itself is a reference to ghosts
in the shell. So my definitionfor the steampunk genre is cyberpunk in the
past, by the way, andthat I kind of dial that to eleven
(22:52):
in this book. And one ofthe things that I also want to achieve
with the range in the Machine,that kind of started as a kind of
like with my parents, I usedto watch like a British police procedurals,
like a touch of Frost Inspector Mars. So what I kind of wanted to
have is like it started out askind of like a murder mystery in the
(23:15):
in that vein, and then itjust like developed into insanity essentially where where
things went all the way over thetop. So and I think the Ranging
Machine in that regard was successful.But yeah, a lot of people called
the Ranging Machine love homes in becauseit has like both elements of Sherlock Holmes
(23:37):
and a love Craft. So Ithought that was fun that even though the
it's not really cosmic horror, althoughdefinitely the writing is very focused on keeping
the reader guessing to what's going tohappen next, really hold on to that
(23:57):
mistered feel of my history and exploration. So I guess that's that's how people
came to call it a lot ofhomes in and so yeah, I have
a very specific way of world building. I don't know if that's inspired by
I'm dyslectic, so I'm not muchof a reader. I depend on audio
(24:18):
books and film adaptations for most ofmy work. I'm also a very visual
person. That's why my books havethat many illustrations to begin with. So
yeah, I don't really have oneparticular inspiration. It's it's really a lot
(24:40):
of me analyzing genres, how ourstory is written, how our characters written,
like what makes them tick, andthen how do they relate to my
work? And the same goes forhow I build my sentence structures. For
that is, you know, forme the secret to world buildings how you
construct your sentences and not how youdesign a no, I mean, and
(25:02):
everything you said right now, Imean it seems to be working for you,
obviously, because look at what you'redoing right now. And it's interesting
when I read certain types of books, for genres of books, and I'll
ask this question to be a weirdquestion. Sometimes I like to think what
kind of soundtrack I would have tothese stories. So if from all your
collective work right now, let's talkabout Jorging into Elysium. What kind of
(25:26):
soundtrack do you think you can putto that story? Oh, dear,
well, unfortunately, I have thehonor of meaning Marco Ilianello. He's a
former musician in a steampunk belt calledKlocwork Opera. He's currently very successful musician
making soundtracks for various things. Andyeah, he made some tracks for me,
(25:52):
which is the Arcology soundtrack which isin the your Collogy video. It's
a bit more orchestral mombastic. Italso really depends on this on the on
the setting and the topic. Youknow. I I love the kind of
like dark Western inspired stuff for certainthings, for certain adventures. Yeah,
(26:18):
it's it's it's like because of thebecause of the how I right, Like
every story has inspirations from different genres. Again, like the Orange Machine is
very much inspired by like cyberpunk.So I guess something akin to the track
of Peaky Blinders that makes sense tome, I suppose. But yeah,
(26:42):
I wish I could answer that questionbecause I really want to commission music for
the series. But I I strugglewith that question myself. So I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to put you onthe spot, but you know,
it's one of those things. Iguess it's one of the things like if
I'm reading something, or if I'mreading anything, I think what would be
(27:03):
playing there? Like if I'm inan eighty sitting, would I play,
you know, Man without Hats?Or would I play Thompson Twins, or
where I play a rock band.You know, it's one of those things
that, yeah, I get itnow for drinking to Alesium, I would
know for the first few issues itsjust something a bit more epic, something
of a musical or a movie soundtrack, something like that. And for the
(27:30):
later issues that take place inside theLeasium structure, it would be I guess
a bit more tribal. Maybe areyou familiar with The Who? This is
Mongolian inspired metal band something like that. No, yeah, I'll go go
look them up. I think they'recalled The Who, and they they do
a metal with froat singing. Imean, I mean, I'm a I'm
(27:52):
a I'm a metal head, butyou know, I want to scape me.
I will definitely take a look atthat tonight. And and I want
to say a few things here.But before I say that, for the
listeners of Let's find Out, Ican tell a little more about your works
because I know association of Ishtar dotcom, but you also have a lot
of other things too. If youcould run by that, where can they
buy their copy of Journey to Elysium, Well, turn to Elysium. They
(28:15):
can either order it through my ownweb store, which is a bone shirt
at gumrooads dot com. Link ison our website, and you can find
my books on most websites as ebookspaperbacks, mostly on Amazon, and I
think I published some of them throughDirector Digital as well, so they might
(28:37):
appear on other websites as well.So Amazon is probably the easiest way to
find me, but I would preferif people go to my gum broad store,
which is linked on the association freestrugg dot com excellently. One of
the things I was gonna say beforeI asked you where to find the be
able to download or order the physicalcopies of your books. I've been watching
(28:59):
your videos here the last few days, and I'm going to say this,
and I finally extremely entertaining, andI really respect the hell out of you
what you do to at least showpeople to learn more about what it is
that you do and about steampunk.And I kind of felt a little bit
better by the interview. As faras when I was having you ONAID,
I want to ask you really onehundred thousand questions. You've always get asked
(29:19):
the same thing. But you know, I really appreciate the educational value of
the videos if I can say that, I'm an educator at heart. So
that's that's a lot. I recentlymade a video where I respond to a
YouTuber culty library letter. Uh,I'm not mistaken. This general's called where
he kind of like has a awhich is funny. He had this this
(29:42):
this bibliophile approach to the steampunk genre. So there's like this overview of you
know, from the romantic futurists dothe so called proto steampunks like Michael Morcock
and contemporary steampunk. So it wasit was fun to respond to that from
a career creative's point of view.And yeah, that's that's kind of where
(30:03):
I'm at, and I try to, you know, keep things practical what
not, Like with for example,most of BookTube as it's called, where
they say, well you got touse show down't tell. It's like,
okay, well how do you doshow don't tell? Because when I read
people who watch videos like that theyhave no clue what it is world works
(30:23):
and yeah, that's that's kind oflike a point of frustration for me.
So I try to find a way, Okay, like how do I explain
this to people? And you know, it's not the kind of content that
that people are looking for on YouTubebecause, like you said, people want
to be edutained. They want tobe educated and entertained at the same time.
(30:44):
Yeah, and for something like showdon't Tell that that's hard because show
to Tell's a takes a lot ofeffort to do properly, and like I
said, for me, it's alsoa lot of in the sentence structure,
so it really turns into a schoollesson. So what I want do?
People can support me on places likePatreon, but also on a new website
(31:07):
called rain Stories. There they getweekly free stories if they become a follower
there for free, and they canalso become a member. And you know
what those sponsor used for is mostlyto pay my illustrators, So it's not
really even for me. I'm makingother people's money that way. But yeah,
(31:29):
it's a very happy I discovered platform. I had the creator of that
website on it as well. Ijust just sent you the link to it.
By the way, Michael Evans,who's also well, he's actually pretty
well published. He's one of thoseguys that managed to like publish like a
new book a month. So I'mnot there yet. People think I'm very
(31:52):
prolific, but not that prolific yet. Don't understand yourself. You're doing a
great job. And for those thatwant the immediate factor, they want to
get a hold of you and findyou through social Media's well, you have
an Instagram, you have Facebook,you have the Twitter x. Yeah,
we have a discord as well forpeople who want to join our community.
(32:14):
I really hope to get started ondoing mining sprints so I can also like
people can also ask questions directly andget feedback on their stuff and also turn
out ideas for the Association of Ishtaras well. I have this strategy for
a submission procedure, which is twostep. The first step is like,
(32:36):
write one hundred and fifty word story. This is a great world building exercise,
like how do I how do Ipitch my idea to readers? Like
this is the kind of stuff thatyou're going to do if I get to
finish my short story, and againwe can also implement all these ideas in
our role playing game. So that'sthe goal of the one hundred and fifty
word thing. And it's also oneminute of text for a YouTube shore,
(33:00):
so that's another reason why I wantto do that. And yeah, once
I see that, and then theycan like write the full story or let
somebody else write the full story.So amazing, star my friend. And
if you don't mind, I knowwe're closing up twenty twenty three, twenty
twenty four, it's coming soon.I know you have a lot of things
(33:22):
coming out. Would you mind comingon back to Let's find Out and we're
going to discuss some more about whatit is that you're doing. No,
no problem, Love to thank you, my friend. This has been another
excellent episode of Let's find Out withco host Diego. Please check us out
on all our social media pages aswell as our YouTube, and we're also
on Rumble, like, share,and subscribe. Thank you for taking this
(33:45):
journey with me. Until next time, my friends, thank you for listening
to Let's find Out with co hostDiego. We're on Spotify, Google Podcasts,
Tuning, pocket Casts, and onAnchor For more information about Let's find
Out with co host Diego. Pleasevisit us on Facebook, dot Com,
(34:07):
forward Slash, co host Diego,on Twitter at co host Underscore Diego,
and on Instagram as co host Diego. Copyright co Host Diego. All content
for Let's find Out is the propertyof co host Diego and is served directly
from our servers with no modification,read directs or rehosting. All celebrity impersonators
(34:30):
are paid performers. The impersonated celebritiesdo not endorse or promote any views or
opinions expressed by our guests, cohost Diego or Let's find Out. The
information shared on Let's find Out isprovided on him as is basis, with
no guarantees of completeness, accuracy,usefulness, or timeliness.
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