Mr Giangregorio churns out books at an incredible rate, mostly anthologies, using free technology. As you know, I'm self-publishing my novel Thy Fearful Symmetry in August this year (and blogging about it every Saturday up to there, for those interested in seeing how that can work). The tools I'm using to physically publish the book are free. I'll be investing in it financially, but I don't need to put my money (well, not enough to sneeze at) into the printing or distribution of the paper copies. Same thing for the ebooks. The money and time I'll be spending will be going on various other things, that I'll be talking about as we go along (come back on Saturday - we'll be looking at the first hard cash investments I'm making then).

The point is, I don't have to make that investment at all. Anybody with time on their hands and words to go in it can now publish a book. This means you have to think very carefully indeed when you're dealing with a publisher.

Ask yourself, what is this publisher for? What do they bring to the table? If they're just going to 'get your work out there', then you need to take a deep breath, step right back, and have a cynical look at what's happening. You can 'get your book out there', if all that means is making a shoddy product available to purchase. Publishers, real ones, do stuff. They're proactive, they invest money and time. They don't just throw words into a bookmaking machine, and sell whatever comes out the other end.

Mr Giangregorio has been doing much the same as I'll be doing with my novel, except he's invested no time, no money, and no effort into doing so. Everything he does reflects that. The World's Collider anthology, of which I'm extremely proud to be part of, was initially en route to being wrecked by this guy, before our editor jumped us off that sinking ship. We're now with Nightscape Press, a terrific new outfit that has already been open to author-friendly contract negotiation, demonstrated an investment of hard cash, and put terrific energy and organisational skill into preparing for the book's release. Thank god.

Anyway, the story of Open Casket/ Undead / Living Dead Press is getting rather diluted, by being told and retold. Allow me to point you back to Mandy DeGeit, the first time author who first spoke up about how she was treated. Read and digest. If you want more, the briefest Google will give you warning after warning.

Research, in the Internet age, is easy. Do it, if you ever have doubts about a publisher. Hell, do it anyway. It only takes a minute or two to reassure yourself.

A good summary of what any author should take away from this debacle can be found here. Read and digest.

Finally, here's a summary of why World's Collider went in search of a new publisher, from our editor Richard Salter. Read and digest.

Before I go, this has stirred up strong feelings in a lot of people. That's as it should be. There's such a grand violation of trust (and more) involved, that tempers are bound to flare. That's right and proper. Flare them at the right person, and make it as difficult as possible for him to abuse anybody else from this point on. Unfortunately, some of Mr Giangregorio's victims are finding themselves tarred by association. That's not good. You don't cure plague by beating the plague victims to death with a club. You don't attack an abuser by raging at his victims.

Read and digest.

In three months, around about August time, I'll be releasing an original novel, Thy Fearful Symmetry, in paperback to sit on the shelf next to my other stories, and in all ebook formats. Until then, I'll be blogging every Saturday, sharing how I'm going about it. When it's released, I'll continue for a little while, and let you know exactly what happens with the book.

Saturday is Thy Fearful Symmetry day! Mark your calendars!

Today, by way of preparation, I'll cover what the book is, why I'm self-publishing it, and what's behind my taking you through the process step-by-step.

1 - Thy Fearful Symmetry.

The end of the world. Fire, raining from the sky. Rivers and oceans turning to blood. Crazed angels on the streets with blazing swords, while beasts from hell surge from dark places to claim humanity for their own. Thy Fearful Symmetry is the apocalypse. The novel's set in Glasgow, where I was living when I wrote the first draft. This is a large cast, blockbuster of a book. If you're looking for horror and adventure,it has those in spades. At the book's heart, there's another story about faith, and what that word means to different people. In August, you'll meet Father Baskille, Malachi Jones, Inspector James Gemmell, and the beings known as Ambrose, Pandora, and Leviathan.

The end of the world starts with a kiss, and that's all you're getting for now.

2 - Self-Publishing.

If you've been here for a while, you'll know about last year's self-publishing experiment, in which I resuscitated my long out of print novel Cuckoo. You can go and buy it now, as a smart paperback, or in pretty much whatever ebook format you like, wherever you are in the world. I learned things, doing Cuckoo, and it's time to put them to the test. There was less risk last year. Cuckoo had already been released, by two publishers at two different times, and so I was bringing back a book which had already proven its worth. I don't have a safety net this time. Thy Fearful Symmetry is an original novel, which I've spent years writing and rewriting. If I get this wrong, all that time and effort was for nothing.

And I could get it wrong. It takes seconds to scout online and find hundreds and hundreds of self-published books that should never, ever have seen the light of day. You might even have the misfortune of accidentally owning some. A lot of people see self-publishing as a cheap and easy way of releasing a book, and in truth, they're right. The tools are there to throw a novel into the aether almost as soon as you write The End, and too many people do just that.

I'm not here to sit in judgement on what other people do, though. All I can say is that I don't want Thy Fearful Symmetry to be lost in the mess they're making of the self-publishing landscape. I'm only feeling my way through how to do this, and the chances of succeeding are actually fairly slim. Yet I'm convinced that these days, self-publishing has to be a part of any author's arsenal. I've other novels and stories that are destined for what is becoming known as 'legacy publishing' (bleeeeuuugh - hate that phrase). At the same time, I have plans I want to take forward myself. It's empowering, but dangerous. If I balls it up, there's no going back.

So, in short, I want to build on what I did with Cuckoo, and take it further. If it works out, I've got ambitious plans for 2013 (more ambitious, even, than a blockbuster novel about the end of the world), but this has to pan out first. For now, it's all about Thy Fearful Symmetry.

3 - Behind The Scenes.

Why am I blogging my potential errors for the world to see? Lots of reasons. Firstly, we're at a stage now in self-publishing where everything is possible, but almost nothing works. With self-publishing being 'easy', it's harder to do it 'right'. There isn't even a definition of 'right' that works. Big successes share almost nothing in common in their approach. Books that should be big successes stumble from the first, and vanish into the vast morass. I thought it might be useful to blog what I'm doing and when, both for myself to look back on (if there's a...) next time, and for others to benefit from now. That benefit might come from my doing something that works, that you can refine. It might come from my screwing everything up right here, in front of you, so you can vow not to ever do the same thing yourself.

One of the things lacking in a self-publishing world is conversation. Publishers are good at conversation. It happens between authors and editors, editors and artists, money men and marketing types, marketing types and distributors. A lot can go right, when you start having conversations - that's the first rule of any big project. Whether this turns into a conversation between me and you, or me and myself, doesn't really matter. Nailing ideas down, watching them wriggle before deciding whether they should live or die, can be a very useful thing to do.

Feel free to join in. I'll be here every Saturday as I build the book, release it, then try to convince people they want to read it. I'll probably keep going at least until I take the book to Anthocon in November (and yes, for those who want to know, I'll tell you exactly how the book sells when it's released). Do come back, and do comment. If your only contribution is to shoot me down when I make a disastrous misstep, then that could be the saving of the whole thing. Thy Fearful Symmetry  already blows up the world. I'd hate for it to also blow up whatever it is I call a writing career.

So, that's a summary of what I'm doing. There's more, but there are also a lot of Saturdays between now and Anthocon. I'll dip in and out of various topics as we go along, and hope you might raise some of your own. You don't need to be a publishing expert to have ideas I'd never think of. Don't be shy in sharing them.

Over the next week, I'll be getting the artwork started, and editing a short story that might help me sell the big one. More on that next Saturday. See you then. Any early thoughts? Tell me about them below...

Among other things, I'll have an author table at Anthocon. I'm not quite sure what to do with an author table. Sit on it, perhaps, while wearing a conical hat with the word 'author' scribbled on it. People who aren't authors can stare as they walk past, or prod me with sticks to see if it makes me write stuff. People who are authors can point and laugh, probably from the bar. I do hope some of you folks will come along, if only so you can nod supportively in my general direction as you wander between events.

I suppose I'll have books there. Cuckoo, of course, and Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow. By then, World's Collider will be available, so I'll try to have some copies of that to hand too. Though you don't know anything about it yet, I'll also have a free mini-book available, on actual paper, called When The Stars Threw Down Their Spears. All you'll have to do to claim one is come up and say hello. The REASON I'll be giving this away, will be to promote the new novel.

The title of the novel will mean something to some of you, and nothing to most. It's called Thy Fearful Symmetry, and I blow up the whole world in it, more or less.

If you want to know more, pop back here on Saturday, and every Saturday, until I publish it in August. It's one of two new books I'll have available that month. The other I can't talk about, though I'm writing it right now. Thy Fearful Symmetry is this year's self-publishing experiment. After re-releasing Cuckoo last year (it covered its costs very quickly, and continues to find new readers) , I'm keen to keep exploring the world of self-publishing at the same time as I work other projects with publishers. The thing with self-publishing is, it's easy to get wrong. This year, I'll let you see just how wrong, or right, it can be. Every Saturday, we'll sit down, and I'll tell you what I'm doing to prepare for releasing the book*. I have ideas. Some are sensible, and others are a leap of faith. It'll be fun.

Of course, it's a long way to August. Many, many, many self-published authors will wonder what could possibly take that long. Some will even wonder why such a series of blogs couldn't just be daily, and last less than a week before the book is thrown up on Amazon (especially as this novel's pretty much finished).

Well, read along and find out. There are good reasons. You might disagree with them, and I'll welcome any and all comments as we go along (you might even steer me in directions I wouldn't find myself, and vice versa). Lively debate will be actively encouraged.

I promise not to preach. I can't, even if I was inclined to, as I'm feeling my way through this just like everyone else. Part of the fun could easily include me falling on my backside, and you lot pointing and laughing. That's fine. We'll all walk away wiser, and some will have cheered up considerably.

Right, I need to go away and do stuff. My writing tip for the day:

When you have a generous deadline, write it down correctly. If you don't, you'll look like the worst kind of cack-handed amateur when you casually fail to deliver, and leave yourself frantically scribbling at the last minute, with blind panic jumping up and down in your head.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that, based on his own personal experience. Or, possibly, me. Oh - writing rule two:

If this does happen to you, don't waste time writing a chatty blog about stuff! You've got things to do! Shut down the Interweb, and get on with it!

Oh... erm... right. See you Saturday...

This week, I've got rather lost in season one of Game of Thrones, courtesy of a blu-ray box set. That I love this show is no surprise at all. I'm entirely predisposed to do so, as I adore the book it's based on, and the adaptation of that extraordinary novel is both sumptuous and accurate. The casting is superb, and they've captured the most groundbreaking element of the story (the gritty humanising of a fantasy world) with deceptive ease. What's on screen is the most uncanny depiction of a story that previously existed in the mind's eye since Jackson's Lord of the Rings. It's rightly lauded for its production, performances, and bold storytelling, and a delight to see realised so well.

What's more surprising is that my wife loves it too. While Kirsty and I share many of the same tastes, nothing from the fantasy genre has ever convinced her that my love it it is anything but an aberration. Even the Lord of the Rings, which she enjoyed for about an hour, was eventually dismissed as just an endless series of walks, talks, and fights*... with unexplained elves in it. I'd given up all hope that she might one day be turned around, but then Game of Thrones came along. She's as hooked as I am, probably more so as she has no idea what's going to happen next (shhh... we're on episode seven, so by my reckoning her jaw's going to hit the floor very soon - no spoilers!).

Of course, it's not the production or performances that have snared her - a like for like comparison with LOTR shows there's little between them on that front. Both are visually arresting, lavishly produced, and feature excellent central performances. It's the story that makes the difference. In particular, there are two aspects that have made this the fantasy story that people like Kirsty can finally get to grips with.

The first one, worn on the show's sleeve, is the reality of the world. Many reviews and appreciations have stated that Game of Thrones is fantasy with the emphasis off the fantasy. They're quite wrong. If you've read the books, you'll know that more overt fantasy elements are woven through this world and story. The difference is that George R.R. Martin is playing them like a horror writer (and yes, I know there's plenty of horror to be had in both the show and the books - not surprising, if you look through the breadth of Martin's back catalogue).

A good horror story gives you a real world, with real people in it. The horror elements - often something fantastical that you don't expect to find in a real world - emerge slowly, a little at a time, bleeding into the tale until they dominate it. Because the horror element is the hardest thing to sell to the reader or viewer (hence the eye-rolling when you watch a clumsily executed horror film), it only works as it should when the 'real world' of the story is established well. When you recognise the world you're watching, and the characters as real people you can relate to, then the horror becomes all that more affecting when it starts to tear down the walls. In literature, you don't have to look further than Stephen King for countless examples of stories where your reaction comes from not wanting these terrible things to happen to these people. Martin sees no difference between fantasy in Game of Thrones, and horror. First he gets the story going - the families, the politics, the almost historical reality of the piece (visualised very much as history, for an even easier connection), then he starts to drip feed the fantasy into the book, building it slowly, letting the characters be amazed and terrified by the strangeness, just as the viewers are.

Game of Thrones has also managed the rare trick of being event television, without an actual event. In Homeland, the whole show is driven by the question of how one man becomes a terrorist, and whether he can be stopped. In Dexter, everything stems from the central character's hidden nature as a serial killer. Once Upon A Time is... the most inept piece of storytelling I've ever seen, actually, so that's a bad example, and a blog for another time. 24 was a race against the clock, to stop specific events. And so on, and so on.

Game of Thrones is none of these. There are certainly threads that underpin the thing, notably the question of who will one day rule Westeros, but you don't see the trailers for each episode teasing you with who might one day be king or queen. The battle for the throne is just something that's happening in that world. It's not allowed to disrupt the exploration of relationships and personal choices. We happen to be watching events in Westeros at a certain moment, where the choices of a few have created a particularly interesting time. However, if we'd joined twenty years earlier, perhaps when Robert and Ned rebelled against the Mad King, with the unplanned help of the man who would one day be called 'Kingslayer', that would have been just as involving. I'll be fascinated to find out how Martin is going to stop his sequence of novels. I doubt he'll be able to 'end' the story, because it's about the lives of the people involved, and some of those will go on beyond the final page (notorious thought the series is for killing the people you think most likely to survive!). By daring to be a vast and multilayered saga, event television without an event, Game of Thrones reaches to an audience who couldn't care less whether one ring may or may not rule them all.

To cut a long story short, it's Dallas, with swords. Think on.

Oh all right, it isn't. Dallas, and most soap operas, deal with archetypes. Fantasy usually does this too, establishing character 'types' and letting them loose. Even the plots are of a 'type'. Nobody, beginning The Lord of the Rings, can be in any doubt whatsoever that the forces of darkness will be overcome. There may be terrors along the way, but storytelling convention demands that the Ring is destroyed, and order returns to Middle Earth. Everybody who watched Dallas knew that JR would get his comeuppance at some point, even if he was never brought low for long.

In Game of Thrones, it's hard even to tell what the forces of darkness actually are. I'm too early in the series to see it realised on screen yet, but in the books none of the good guys really are good. None of the bad guys are bad either. Just like you and I, they are all shades of grey.

There are only two men of genuine honour presented in the first season, and their fates tell you all you need to know about the nature of the world they're living in. Ned Stark is immediately recognisable as one, and we mark him straight away as the 'hero'. Yet we soon discover that he's only survived as such by ostracizing himself in the North, where life can be as he sees it. Once forced to go south and rejoin the rest of the world, his physical and emotional deteriorations are brutal (and how brilliantly does Sean Bean play them?). There are few places for men of honour and idealism in Westeros, and that must be familiar to all of us, as we look around every day. Nobody gets to be wholly good or wholly bad in real life, however much they want to.

Jon Snow is perhaps the second honourable man, and by episode two of the series he's already on his way to the only place in the land where he might be allowed to remain so - the brutal world of the Wall, where the balance between life and death is such that it allows for absolutes. There, it is possible to be good or evil, to set your store in one camp or the other, but the sacrifices that must be made to get there are themselves brutal.

For the rest of them, and the rest of us, there are no absolutes to cling to. We, and they, are defined by the choices we make at any one time. Yet there's always another choice approaching, with another definition to carve out for ourselves.

So, is that why Game of Thrones reaches so far beyond its natural audience? It's certainly what works for me, and is what draws me most as both a reader and a writer. I'm fascinated by how people respond to fiction though, so tell me - why does it work for you? Assuming it does, that is. If it doesn't, tell me that too. Why doesn't it work for you? Answers on a postcard, please**.

* it's difficult to argue with her about this, because she's fundamentally correct. And yet...

** or, obviously, in the comments below, if you have any to make.

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Nope. It's bloody loads of them, pouring out of a Rift torn open by a disaster at the Large Hadron Collider. This is, of course, the finished cover to this summer's anthology release World's Collider, from Nightscape Press.

A round of applause to Lukas Thelin at Foxrain in Sweden. It's a hell of a visual.

It's amazing how much a cover changes your perception of a book. The cliche isn't true. You do judge books by their covers - that's pretty much their function. We've been very spoiled with art for this book. Remind yourself of the promo image put together by Carolyn Edwards for the book.

I love this image. It's haunting and elegiac, pushing aspects of the book front and centre that the final cover doesn't, with its distinct sci-horror feel. Both make for great book covers, and I'm incredibly pleased that we get to use both in various ways. The thing that pleases me most is that both images are absolutely true of the book. I hope, when it's released this summer, you'll pick it up and find out why.

I'm just back from a long weekend in Shimla, which nestles among the foothills of the Himalayas. That doesn't quite do the altitude justice. It sits over seven thousand feet above sea level - a Ben Nevis and a half (and a little bit more), to give you an idea. When the British were ruling India (not a period to declaim with pride, but history nonetheless), they weren't able to function in the brutal mid-year heat of Delhi, and so every summer the entire parliament relocated hundreds of miles to Shimla.

It's easy to see why. Not only is the climate better suited to Europeans, but there's an eerie familiarity to the landscape too. The occasional examples of mock Tudor architecture enhance the oddness, being cut straight from the UK heartland, but the chill on the air and the pine forests on the slopes would ring of home to anybody from the UK.

That said, there's not actually much to do in Shimla except wander round. A weekend is exactly long enough to spend doing so, unless you plan on using it as a base for some serious hiking. Pick the right routes, and you'll spend most of your time tripping over the views. They're vast, spectacular mountain vistas, the sort that fill you with peace in an agreeably passive-aggressive way. They're so big that they don't leave any space in your head for turbulence and troubles. It was the perfect mini-break for us, right now.

Shimla looks like it's sliding down the mountain, and it will surprise nobody that it's made up mostly of hill. For the broken-footed, it presents something of a challenge, but I staggered through somehow. Yesterday even featured a three hour hike. Granted, it wasn't supposed to be a three hour hike (we got a bit lost on the outskirts), but hills were suitably conquered. Hurts a bit now though.

Other than hilly bits, Shimla is defined mostly by wildlife. There are hundreds of brazen Rhesus monkeys all over the place, which are delightful and charming until the exact moment they bare their teeth and lunge at you. We saw a couple of incidents like that. One involved a monkey and a toddler. To be fair to the monkey, the toddler charged it, trying to "playfully" scare it into the trees, and thus learned a Valuable Lesson about the natural world.

We also bore witness to some very pretty biblical style plagues. On Saturday, we were beset by thousands of ladybirds. They were on our clothes, in our hair, and underfoot (alas, in the form of a squishy pulp at that stage). Thousands of them. I've no idea where they came from, but by Sunday they'd somehow all transformed into pale butterflies. Very pretty. Possibly a miracle from the bearded sky fairy, but probably not. If anybody knows what those two swarms, one after the other, were about, and whether they're regular, I'd love to know (without having to bother Googling, of course).

Before I move on from Shimla, I have to mention the Chapslee, our hotel. It's bloody expensive, but strangely amazing. It's a British style baronial mansion, owned and run by the great-grandnephew of the last Maharaja in the region (a splendid chap, with a moustache befitting his heritage). When you step inside, you discover a grand, broken down cornucopia of bric-a-brac collected through the years. Some of it appears to be genuinely antique. Some of it looks like it was just picked up from a second-hand store specialising in tacky ornaments like your gran used to collect. It's bewildering, but a proper treasure trove. On a side note, the declaration of war against the Afghanistan (the first one the British got carried away with) was signed there.

Plus, there were bells we could pull or push in every room, which brought awesomely behatted staff running up with silver trays of coffee whenever we wanted a cup. Which was nice.

As you can imagine, our twin loves of novelty and buttons have left us incredibly wired...

Right, I have emails to catch up with, and caffeine to expel from my system. I'll pop back tomorrow. In the meantime, check out this interview with my World's Collider cohort Megan Moore. Be gentle with her. We need her back in good condition to finish the book.

Earth Hour, 2010. Kirsty and I had no idea that it was, in fact, Earth Hour. We were trying out a restaurant called Frontier, which does an impressive line in piles of marinated meat. It was dark. Atmospheric. Only when the lights were turned on at nine thirty did we actually realise that we'd dined through Earth Hour.

Earth Hour, 2011. Kirsty and I realised it had been quite some time since we enjoyed piles of marinated meat at Frontier. It was dark. Atmospheric. Slightly familiar... then the lights came on at nine thirty, and we realised exactly how long it had been since we last ate there.

Earth Hour, 2012. We seized the day, and made sure we were at Frontier when the lights went off at eight thirty. Somehow, it just wasn't the same.

Nevertheless, good patterns should be honoured. If I'm in Delhi next year, when Earth Hour comes around, I know where I'll be.

My foot is healing. This is not unexpected, and barely counts as news. However, there may be fans of the fractured metatarsal out there who would never forgive me if I let a blog post slip by without reference to the ongoing reconstitution of a small bone.

I can now put some weight on it. Not much, but a little. The special magic robot boot may be helping. It may not. It certainly garners attention, even occasional awe. I'm tempted to pimp it up, or maybe just invest in go faster stripes*.

That was your weekly installment of Footwatch. Tune in next week, for more exciting... um... healing.

If books excite you more than bones (come on, there must be some of you), then I'm pleased to be able to tease you with the foreknowledge that August will see two brand new books from me, available to you, subject to the exchange of some filthy, dirty lucre. Neither will cost you much, and both will smash an enjoyable storyboot against your boredom bones. They're very different tales. While one is a big, apocalyptic beast, the other is an action-packed, off-the wall adventure yarn (that I haven't actually written yet - but as I do, it will be entirely to the soundtrack of an Indiana Jones movie). One of these will be announced by the publisher fairly soon, I hope. The other, a little later on. August, though. Mark it in your diaries**.

In other news, life is tough. Yep. Tough. Toughy, tough, tough. I know, about as significant a revelation as the fact that bones heal. Still, it's been a difficult time here, and is likely to be for a while longer. At some point, when I have perspective, I'll blog about it (oh, the anticipation). Right now, it's all a bit swampy. Better to concentrate on getting through than pontificating about it. The only bit relevant to this blog right now is that I'm 'blocked' on the writing, and have been for a week or two.

'Writer's block' doesn't actually exist, by the way. It's just a lazy way for writers to make the fact that 'life happens' a more unique and authorly thing than it actually is. Writing, despite the grand and poetical claims made by some, does not happen in some crystalline mental void, pure and separate from the real world. It happens despite  the real world, and is often the first thing to suffer when life goes through one of its frequent tricky bits. That's where I'm at right now, which is a bit frustrating, because I know that filtering life through some honest fiction*** would help enormously. I'm getting there though. Today I nearly wrote something. I certainly stared at a blank page for a long time, pen poised, speculating on how I might connect the two. That's an enormous improvement from the mental fugue of the last fortnight.

Fingers crossed, a breakthrough is imminent. All it usually takes is a bit of a run-up.

Behold, the full promotional postcard for World's Collider, which you'll find in swag bags handed out at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City next month. Marvel at its prettiness! Quiver with trepidation at the promise of doom it offers! Moisten uncomfortably at the tantalising promise that the book is "Coming Summer 2012"!

Not long now...

Other than that, I have nothing. There's plenty happening, both as a writer and as an actual human person, but none of it is currently fit for a blog. The writing stuff, including two big releases for later this year that haven't been announced yet, isn't greenlit for disclosure yet. The human person stuff is for another time, when the dust has settled and perspective is owned. It's been a troublesome couple of weeks though, and no mistake.

But for now - marvel, quiver, and moisten! More soon.

The foot could not be saved, and they were forced to amputate. Fortunately, they had Robocop's right foot aside for just such an emergency. I am now able to stomp slowly and awkwardly around crime infested slums, although as I'm completely unarmed, this is not an advantage.

Not really.

It's a pneumatic boot/cast. There are airbags inside that I inflate when I put it on (to immobilise the ankle), and deflate when I take it off. I was sceptical, but it's a big improvement. Yesterday, I was dragging myself around on two crutches, keeping all weight off the foot, and it was bloody exhausting. Now I can hobble about with one stick, and life is easier.

If only it made an electronic whirrr thunk noise every time I took a step, my life would be complete. If it did that, I'd buy a matching one for my other foot, and wear them all the time.