Hey folks- Jack Wylder here. For those of you who missed the State of the Swag Address last Friday, here’s your update:

1. The plushy Wendells have been temporarily detained by the US Customs office- as soon as they’re done admiring them, they will continue their journey to us to be properly distributed to their final homes. This project has been plagued by problems with materials availability and transportation issues (which are a HUGE problem at the moment) so we’re waaaaay overdue- but we’re still moving forward and will have them out ASAP.
2. This delay has badly set us back on our schedule; we hate taking orders while there are still unfulfilled orders so we’ve held off. The original plan was to open the shop 4 times this year- if we wait until the plushy project is done, we will probably end up being open only the once. So we’re faced with a choice: take orders while there are still open orders out there or only be open once this year. As much as it pains us, we’re going to go with the first choice and reopen the shop while there’s still time to hopefully get everything out before Christmas.
3. We have new patches and new stickers available for sale! They are already made and in our possession so there’s no waiting on manufacturing or shipping.
4. We are doing a Series III set of Challenge Coins! The artwork is finished, the molds are in progress, and these are being done in the USA so delays should be minimal.
5. The plan is to open the shop to WriterDojo backers 24 hours early- if you are a backer PLEASE get us your email address! We’ve got some other thank yous coming up soon and we want to be able to tell you about those too. (www.Anchor.fm.WriterDojo to become a sponsor, CorreiaTech1911@gmail.com if you are already one.)
6. We’re going to be recording a special Q&A episode of WriterDojo with questions from our backers so if you’ve got something you want to ask the guys, let us know!
7. We’re HOPING to have everything out by Christmas and we’ve done everything we can to make that happen but the Lovely and Patient Mrs Wylder gently reminded me after the LiveStream that I didn’t emphasize quite enough that we can’t make any promises. She knows where I sleep and she can get kind of stabby so I really need to emphasize this- WE CAN’T PROMISE ANY DATES. We will begin fulfilling orders as soon as we can- orders without coins will go out while we get them minted and after that we’ll fill them on a first come, first served basis.
8. This is a limited time deal- we’re going to open the shop from Thursday October 7th (for backers, Friday the 8th for everyone else) and close it again Sunday October 17th at 4pm CDT.
9. On the coins, this is your one chance. It’s highly doubtful we’ll ever do the designs again so if you want them either for yourself or someone else, you need to jump on it now. This might be your only chance to order before Xmas so if you’re wanting to get something as a gift, don’t delay.
10. We are shipping internationally, but we cannot be responsible for orders once they leave the USA. (Which is why we hadn’t done international for a few years.)

So here’s what’s new in the shop!

and the Series II Challenge Coins are:
(note: these are the initial concepts- the actual final coins will vary slightly)

Mike Massa just HAD to suggest a boat that had less than 200 ever made- in Russia- so not a whole lot of references. I found one though! This coin probably took longer because of that than any of the others. The waves on that concept art will be much more realistic- those are just placeholders.

On this one, the different levels of the Mandala will be different thickness, and the mask will be raised with a heavy emboss.

Doing the Northern lights will be challenging, but I think it’s going to come out great and unlike anything we’ve done before. The backside is based off of native Alaskan artwork (but all monster-fied)

We hadn’t done a spinner and I love trying new stuff- the center logo there is pivoted along the vertical axis so it can be spun.

This coin commemorates the historic ‘3 Days of Peace’ back in 1970, when an unusually large blizzard resulted in a temporary armistice between these 2 warring nations.

Things around here get weird sometimes. If you don’t know what these coins are about, do a search up top there for either ‘Moon Ferrets’ or ‘Common Internet Shit Gibbon’ and enjoy (but don’t drink anything that is unpleasant coming out your nose while you read them)

Possibly the most requested bit of swag has been Team HooDoo. Team HooDoo Team HooDoo Team HooDoo Team HooDoo It’s almost as if y’all liked that trilogy or something…

There is a large blank space on one side so you can take it to your local jeweler/engraver to get the names you want put on there. (I already know which names I’m getting on mine) The front has the poem ‘Requiem’ from Robert Louis Stevenson:

Under the wide and starry sky,
    Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
    And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
    Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.

The back has the Viking prayer which dates back to about 1100 AD but is most famous for being quoted in the movie ‘the 13th Warrior’:

Lo, There do I see my Father Lo, There do I see my Mother and My Brothers and my Sisters Lo, There do I see the line of my people back to the begining Lo, They do call to me They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla , Where the brave shall live Forever

Since we did the Series I coins, Larry has picked up more than a couple of new fans, many of whom were very upset to find out they missed their chance on getting a PUFF Exemption. This is how we can offer people their own exemption without in any way diminishing the folks who got the dog tag version. Genius!

This week Steve and I talk about how to write interesting characters and some traps to avoid. Character creation is a huge topic, and writing good characters is one of the most important keys to being successful as an author, so it is a topic we will be visiting many times, from a lot of different angles.

So please mash the reviews and subscribe the likes, or whatever all that podcasty stuff is. And if you are enjoying WriterDojo, please tell your friends. Our mission is to counteract all the crappy woke writer advice out there that’s trying to suck the fun out of fiction.

Most people listen on Apple, Spotify, or Anchor, but we also stick it on YouTube and Rumble for the non-podcasters.

If you’d like to become a backer of the program, you can do it at Anchor: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo  We will be be doing special Q&A episodes where we answer backer questions at the end of every season.

If you were reading my blog back around the election you know I’m a big fan of audits. They keep things honest. Auditing internal systems and looking for fraud and getting companies through 3rd party and government audits was a big part of my old career.

So like most of you I was really interested in seeing how this Arizona audit shook out. Leading up to it the democrats fought this audit every step of the way, in court, logistically, and by just being noncompliant pains in the asses (as companies which have nothing to hide often do!) My favorite part was when the democrats were freaking out about how the auditors weren’t certified by the governing body which doesn’t provide certifications to do this process there’s no certifications for. Good times.

When I googled the results on Friday, there were literally hundreds of news articles all sharing the same exact message. “Biden won. Cope losers. The audit was a sham put on by grifters, but simultaneously its recount proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Biden totally won. If you ever thought there was any fraud in the election you are a stupid gullible idiot who believes conspiracy theories, and now shut up forever. Also it cost 6 million whole dollars and for the first time ever democrats care about fiscal responsibility. Orange Man Bad. etc.”

As I scrolled through dozens of these, I realized that none of them actually said what was in the audit report. Nor were there any links to the actual audit report. As a guy who used to write audit reports I’d rather read the actual document than take some journalism major’s take on it.

https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/cyber-ninjas-report

And sure enough, as usual, the narrative was designed for maximum spin.

It turns out the audit findings are a lot more complicated that portrayed by the narrative. Shocker. Basically the headlines are all coming off of the executive summary, section 2. And note, they’re only taking the very first part, and then quit reporting as soon as they get to “based on our other findings, however” –

https://c692f527-da75-4c86-b5d1-8b3d5d4d5b43.filesusr.com/ugd/2f3470_a91b5cd3655445b498f9acc63db35afd.pdf

To break this down, the first part, the recount/canvass matches what was there before, and the only differences are statistically insignificant. News media goes Yay! Biden won by even more votes! Cope! Cope! Cope!

Except, the second part they aren’t talking about is… are those votes all actual legal votes? And the answer is possibly not (why possibly? I’ll get to that). Then see all those bullet points of problems, weirdness, and fuckery. Which comes down to there being about five times as many questionable votes as Biden’s margin of victory (for the state, in this one county).

This is where it gets sticky. Here is the breakdown of the findings.

https://c692f527-da75-4c86-b5d1-8b3d5d4d5b43.filesusr.com/ugd/2f3470_d36cb5eaca56435d84171b4fe7ee6919.pdf

Section 4 is the tally results. That’s what the media is talking about. Section 5 is the problems. That’s what they are studiously avoiding talking about.

They are divided into 13 types of problems, ranging from critical to inconsequential. Statistically, it’s the first few that are the big ones, and each of those gets their own breakdown in 5.3 and 5.4. Go read through those.

On some of these types you’ll be thinking, why didn’t the auditors take these problematic ballots and track them back even further to see if the signatures match the actual human being who supposedly cast the vote? Sorry. I believe the democrats blocked them from doing that in court. (which is totally not suspicious at all from people who have absolutely nothing to hide!)

Auditors go through the available data looking for problems. They can only take it as far as they are allowed by the system they are working in. In this kind of case, to go beyond these steps would require the law to step in. Will that happen? Beats me. I don’t know jack about Arizona politics.

Auditors aren’t cops (usually, unless you’re getting audited by certain government agencies, but you get my drift). They simply investigate and then provide a report to the body which makes actual decisions based upon their recommendations.

The rest of the report is about the systems and controls, and how they should be improved. This part is really telling. Basically the Arizona election system is easily manipulated trash, with crap controls, and if any private company I ever worked at got caught with this many holes in it, they’d fire all the accountants and half the managers.

Now, for the idiot brigade that is crowing about how this proves whatever they want it to prove about the election and how everybody else should shut up forever, here’s some stuff that’s not in this report to think about.

This was the audit of one county, in one of the questionable states. Back in the aftermath of the election, I found Arizona to be the least interesting of those questionable states. Other counties had way more fuckery afoot. Atlanta and Detroit were way crazier than Phoenix on election night. No audits there.

And even in Arizona, this is one county. I don’t know the area that well so I’m just going off of what friends of mine who live there say, but Maricopa is usually the red county. Pima (2nd biggest) is the blue county. And they still found 5x the margin of victory in questionable votes in the red county. I’m sure next door was totally clean.

So basically, of the handful of problematic places, we took a sample of one of the least problematic ones, and still found a bunch of problems… ergo, the narrative is that everything everywhere is fine, and you are stupid if you question it.

The media is just as smart and honest about how audits work as they are about how to ride horses.

Both sides are claiming victory based on what the report says. Only one side owns the media and big tech, so that’s going to be the prevailing narrative (and interestingly enough, that narrative was determined before the final report was given). What it says is what it actually says. So I’d recommend reading it for yourself to draw your own conclusions, rather than letting some pundit decide for you.

This week Steve and I talk about the concept of “genre”, what it actually is, what it is actually for, and why most of of the “genre rules” that get crammed down aspiring authors’ throats are nonsense. As usual our goal is to teach you how to work the system in order to Get Paid!

Link

(edit, and I do silly voices to make fun of dumb tweets giving bad writing advice!)

Also, we are going to be doing special Q&A episodes every season, where the questions are supplied by our backers. If you are a backer and would like your questions answered on the air, please email Questions@Writerdojo.com to get on the list (unfortunately when you sign up as a backer it doesn’t give us an email list, just names, so we have to manually compile that)

If you would like to become a backer of the podcast, go here: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo

This week’s episode is sponsored by Dan Willis ‘In Plain Sight’

That’s right! We are such mercenary capitalists that we’re gonna advertise other people’s books! (if you are interested in that, use the same email above)

WriterDojo Episode 5 is out. This week Steve and I talk about how to get, develop, organize, and use ideas for your fiction. Ideas are everywhere. (and I forgot last week to post that Episode 4, Outlining vs. Discovery Writing was out, and it’s a good one) This episode I also tell the story for the first time of where the idea for Wendell T. Manatee came from.

If you would like to support the podcast with a small monthly donation you can do it at Anchor: https://anchor.fm/writerdojo . Later in the season we will be doing some Q&A episodes using questions from our backers. As always we really appreciate you subscribing and liking and all that other podcasty stuff that helps us get more listeners.

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Most people listen through one of the podcast services, but we have also been posting these to YouTube and Rumble (though they’re sometimes a day later there). If that’s how you prefer to do, you can subscribe to the WriterDojo channel there.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVzOkQ046Fav9ZukaK36eiA