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Author’s Crashing Out is Great Drama (but what can I do?)

You know what authors used to do to promote their work before the internet era? They toiled, mostly in obscurity, and if they were lucky, their publisher put them on tour to bookstores. Lucky ink-stained wretches sometimes got on big media (back when media wasn’t social). Some fiction writers even got on TV!

If you want some more joy in your life, watch old YouTube vids of author nonsense. For instance, here’s the great Truman Capote.

Or witness Norman Mailer versus Gore Vidal!

It’s different now.

The last time a fiction author made it on to a major TV spot was Jon Stewart’s interview with Kurt Vonnegut. He was a great sci-fi author, but he only made it to air because (a) he was about to die, (b) he had a lot of brilliant observations, and (c) he’d just published his non-fiction book, A Man Without a Country.

These days, with our fragmented attention and millions of distractions, authors are pretty much screaming into the darkness. We hope to be heard about our fiction, but our voices are muffled under Reality’s onslaught.

So what do we do now?

When the great exodus from X happened, a plethora of other platforms rose up to compete. Bluesky is fairly popular. I’m on there (@robertchazzchute.bsky.social‬), though I have mixed feelings about its functionality. Thing is, there is no single destination for social media attention.

One commentator suggested a simple solution: Be everywhere. That was well-meaning, but if I were everywhere on social media, when would I have time to write the next book? I can’t be everywhere. I don’t have the bandwidth. Who does?

That said, I need to be available in more places, so I started up on Substack. This move is not about monetization, at least not for a long time. It’s about sharing more, spreading the word to new readers, and curated ubiquity.

I’d probably get more views if I engaged in high drama like Truman and Norman, but I’ll opt for engaging with readers in a more sane way.

Today, on Substack, I wrote about The Terrible Dread. If you dig it, please do subscribe.

https://robertchazzchute.substack.com/subscribe

You’ll also find me on Medium. Plenty of fun to read on my profile here.

Oh, before I go, let’s not forget this scream into the darkness. I just launched Vengeance Is Hers!

This is not a guide for aspiring vigilantes, but it might inspire you!

Welcome to Poeticule Bay, Maine, a village where justice is scarce, and secrets have deadly consequences. When a gay student is brutally attacked and exiled from his home, the police turn a blind eye. Fueled by rage, Molly Jergins launches a relentless campaign against the school bully and his sinister family.

As Molly’s quest for retaliation spirals into chaos, the lines between hero and villain blur. To hunt monsters, must she become the very thing she despises? In the end, will revenge prove the best success?

I WANT TO READ THIS NOW
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Vengeance is Yours! It’s finally here!

Now on Amazon: Ebook, paperback, and in hardcover!

This is not a guide for aspiring vigilantes, but it might inspire you!

Welcome to Poeticule Bay, Maine, a village where justice is scarce, and secrets have deadly consequences. When a gay student is brutally attacked and exiled from his home, the police turn a blind eye. Fueled by rage, Molly Jergins launches a relentless campaign against the school bully and his sinister family.

As Molly’s quest for retaliation spirals into chaos, the lines between hero and villain blur. To hunt monsters, must she become the very thing she despises? In the end, will revenge prove the best success?

Get your copy today!

With the state of the world, something else feels more raw and human than ever: our righteous outrage. VIH touches that nerve in happy ways.

It’s been a long time and a long journey since my last novel.

When I published Endemic, Amazon squelched the launch of the novel. I couldn’t promote it, and Amazon could not be reasoned with. I suspect the title alone got it pushed down in the algorithms. Though sabotaged from the start, eventually Endemic got out there.

Then this happened:

Endemic won multiple awards. That made me feel a bit better.

The Amazon experience left a sour taste in my mouth, though. I love that novel and hated to see it sabotaged. It’s an apocalyptic tale with a fascinating character. It’s also about how people change, and how they don’t. Great stuff, but the launch to readers was strangled in the crib.

Then came the tribulations:

Pain, pain, two hip replacements, pain, and a long recovery.

For six weeks after each surgery, I was prohibited from even crossing my legs or bending over. I had to relearn how to walk and rebuild my broken neural connections. My wife laughed and cried as she struggled to get my compression stockings on me. (If you know, you know the struggle.)

Stuck in bed and working on rehab, I binge watched Justified. I loved that fun distraction, but I was also ingesting the rhythms of interesting dialogue.

That show was set in Kentucky, and VIH is set in Maine. Very different, of course, but I started to hear how my characters might express themselves uniquely. So much of this book draws on my childhood in rural Nova Scotia. There, I felt there was a threat of violence much of the time.

I began to pull from my dad’s litany of odd expressions, too:

  • “That boy’s got the world by the ass on a downhill drag.” (Good fortune.)
  • “That smell would drive a dog off a gut wagon.” (Bad odor.)
  • “You’re young and fulla blue piss…” (A prelude to telling someone to do a chore.)

Characters arose from people I knew. I had material from real life, so I kept pecking away at this big story about a heroine versus a school bully in Poeticule Bay, Maine. (Fans of This Plague of Days will recognize that name.)

My protagonist from VIH, Molly Jergins, began to speak to me.

I resonated with Ovid Fairweather, the protagonist from Endemic. We share some of the same sensitivities. Molly spoke to me in a more visceral way. She was sick to death of bad people getting away with doing bad things. She’s not above good people doing bad things to bad people. We both fantasized about vengeance and the many clever ways we might achieve righteous vengeance. (I think about revenge. A lot. Don’t you? Is it just me? Nah.…)

That’s how Vengeance Is Hers grew.

I wrote and rewrote more as my recovery progressed. I just had eye surgery last week, and I’m happy to say that, as a cyborg, I’m much better than I was. Ironically, with more artificial parts, I feel human again. With the state of the world, something else feels more raw and human than ever: our righteous outrage. VIH touches that nerve in happy ways.

Vengeance Is Hers is not an instruction book for vigilantes, but it will give you vicarious thrills. It will make you giggle at the revenge, big and small, you could visit upon those who have wronged you.

But the feelings go deeper than that.

Beyond the action, Vengeance Is Hers is a story of the bond between a father and a daughter. Dark family secrets and deeply held resentments rise to the surface. The psychological effects of bullying and abuse delve into the mindsets of both the bullied and the abused. The twists, reversals, and betrayals will keep you guessing to the last page.

Vengeance Is Hers is a big book, too!

Molly’s self-destructive addiction to righting wrongs unfolds over a twelve-year span. It’s 448 pages of beach read that will keep you turning pages to discover the fate of characters you’ll grow to love, hate, and laugh about.

This was so much fun to write. With Vengeance Is Hers, I put a movie in your head that I hope you’ll want to read again and again. Enjoy, and thank you for being a reader!

CLICK HERE TO BUY VENGEANCE IS HERS ON AMAZON
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No apologies

Citizen Second Class

America has fallen.

The rich have retreated behind the walls of the fortress they call New Atlanta. They won’t give up their power easily. Oppression and starvation gave birth to the Resistance, but every rebellion needs a champion.

Desperate to save her grandmother, Kismet Beatriz must make the journey to infiltrate the stronghold of the Select Few.

From the author of This Plague of Days comes a near-future thriller built for fans of Nineteen Eighty-four and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Endemic

Endemic won the prestigious North Street Book Prize in genre fiction, the Literary Titan Award, and first place in science fiction at both the New York Book Festival and the Hollywood Book Festival.

Ovid Fairweather is a neurodivergent book editor in New York when a deadly plague sweeps the United States. Bullied by her father, haunted by her dead therapist, and hunted by marauders, Ovid must find courage amid the chaos to become the person she was always meant to be.

She was a nail. She will become a hammer.

I am Robert Chazz Chute, and I hate police states.

Being against fascism shouldn’t be a controversial choice, but our world has changed. If you’re looking for anti-fascist news, check out #worldtok on TikTok or read HuffPost.

If you’re looking for inspiration, read Citizen Second Class and Endemic.

Whether you defy, flee, or resist, I’m on your side.

Never 51. Elbows up. Hands off.

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Robert Chazz Chute! Where are you?

Answer: Everywhere!

I’ll soon pitch my next thriller to agents. I needed to expand my presence on the infobahn to appear everywhere with annoying rapidity. To that end, I’ve been writing on Medium. I have to admit, I’m having a good time with it. Plus, I’m on a couple of podcasts this week!

First up, the MMMM pod with my friend and author Andrew Butters. MMMM stands for Music, Musings, Moments, and Misfortune. Every Monday, Andrew posts about one of those aspects. I am his first guest, and ours was the fourth episode. (That qualifies as a Moment.) We had a great time talking about writing, reading, the worst thing I forgot, and the greatest frustration we share.

Next up: My interview with Buddy Gott on Pop & Prose!

This recording got hilarious fast. The subject is novelty songs. We came up with some good ones, a couple of horrible tunes, and two of my favorites.

Spoiler: “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” is my favorite.

This novelty song is my favorite, but Buddy and I talk about so much more! You’ll find us on Pop & Prose here:

You can also find Pop and Prose here:

Substack 

Spotify

Here are posts I’ve placed on Medium. Enjoy!






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How do you forgive and forget?

Hint: You don’t.

Forgiveness versus Vengeance is one of the central themes of my next vigilante justice thriller. From Luigi Mangione’s actions to burning Teslas, this is a timely topic. Many turn away from these highly publicized acts of violence with little more than a shrug. There are good reasons for this. In the battle between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, fear wins. Fear is the emotion poorly hidden beneath anger. It’s a neurological response, and schadenfreude is baked into our brain’s wiring.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” ~ Yoda

Yoda is quotable. It’s a good line (and you heard the Yoda voice, right?) However, I think he’s got it backward (which fits his typical grammar). Fear is a protective mechanism. Wariness of dangers increases our odds of survival. Frustration and fear lead to anger and resistance. The Jedi weren’t a bunch of pacifists. Hence, all the cool lightsaber duels. Those Jedi knights were down and out for quite a while but rose again to fight the Empire. I agree, don’t succumb to evil, but don’t be a chump, either.

For Mere Mortals, Forgiveness Isn’t So Easy.

Sixty-seven percent of people surveyed say they believe in forgiveness. Sounds good and upright, doesn’t it? Dig deeper. Fifty-six percent admit they don’t practice that virtue. I don’t blame them. Most would agree that forgiveness is healthy for the person doing the forgiving. However, no one instructs us how to forgive and forget. Instead., we get guilt-ridden platitudes that deny our humanity and our reality.

To err is human, to forgive divine, but we’re no angels.

I have an excellent memory, so how am I to forget? Frontal lobotomy? And if I forgive you your trespasses, do either of us learn anything? By refusing to forgive, I deny the offender the opportunity to trespass against me again. Sounds to me like carrying grudges is a safer course.

I asked my psychologist if she believes in forgive and forget. (When I say “My psychologist,” I refer to She Who Must Be Obeyed, AKA my wife.) She holds a doctorate in psychology and is the most sane person I know. That’s why I was so surprised when she did not hesitate to answer, “No.”

She acknowledges that forgiveness is difficult. In many cases, it’s an unreasonable expectation set by out-of-touch purists. The good doctor offered hope, though. She suggested, “Maybe the best you can do is to get to a place and time where you just don’t care anymore.”

“Or,” I countered, “write a massive hit thriller that’s packed with clever revenge fantasies to plague your real-life enemies!”

She’s going to start charging me for these sessions, isn’t she?

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The Best Book I’ve Heard This Year

When my kids were little, we watched iCarly together. I spent my non-house husband hours composing apocalyptic fiction, so iCarly was a nice break. It was a silly, cozy, comfort watch curled up with the children on the couch. My bailiwick is crime fiction and dystopian stuff, but there’s definitely a place for low-stakes stories where you know everything will work out fine. That feeling is tarnished now that we know the truth about the abuse and controversy on the Nickelodeon set. However, I’ve discovered a great authorial voice in the finding-out phase.

I’m Glad My Mom Died was published in 2022. I’m late to the party on this, but I just finished listening to Jeannette McCurdy narrate her amazing memoir. It’s a fantastic book: stark, funny by turns, sad and infuriating. Jeanette’s manipulative and abusive mother was a monster who forced her child into a life she didn’t want. The author became laden with heavy burdens that damaged her self-esteem, her relationships, and her health. It was so heartbreaking to see Jeanette do all she could to please and appease her stage mother from hell. No matter how hard Jeannette tried, Mommy could never be satisfied.

From the description, you might pass on a crushingly sad celebrity memoir. Don’t. This book deserves to be on your shelf. Better, listen to the audiobook. The author narrates I’m Glad My Mom Died herself, and her performance is superb. She doesn’t want to act anymore, but she is a great talent. Besides a compelling narrative, Jeannette McCurdy’s relentlessly honest voice will keep you riveted. The author has such a fine gift for observation. Her ironic juxtapositions of the profound and the mundane made me smile while I still had tears in my eyes. This child star’s story is a journey to self-awareness and understanding. In the beginning, she’s so innocent in the ways of the world. She matures into a such a sharp and witty person that you’ll think of Dorothy Parker at her breezy, quippy best.

You’ll be glad to know Jeannette’s memoir ends on a clear-minded and hopeful note. She has declared her acting career is over, but I sincerely hope her literary career has just begun.

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New on the Menu

The writing workshop in Toronto is coming up in a couple of weeks. I am preparing to pitch literary agents for Vengeance Is Hers. Four agents I would consider partnering with are at the workshop. I have three others in mind, as well. Part of the prep work is to have the partial ready for their review. I have a sample ready.

Hot tip:

If you are pitching to agents or just want to give away a sample of your work for a book fair, a signing, or some other such trial by fire, get a QR code. I do have a presentation package for agents, but I won’t be lugging around a manuscript like some early 19th century peasant. I’m a modern ink-stained wretch. Instead, I’ll just give the QR code to link to the partial. If they want more, I’ve provided an email for further inquiries.

What’s New?

I have added menus to this website. Above, you’ll find links to my bio and what reviewers say about my work. The pitch and partial for Vengeance Is Hers is found under For Literary Agents. Of course, if you aren’t a literary agent but want a sneak peek of a badass story about a young woman on a righteous quest for revenge, enjoy a taste of vengeance!