Category: Musings

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Wanna see my blanket fort?

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The coffee shop (AKA the coffice) is no longer an option, of course. Freedom awaits, but relief shall not come until at least two full weeks after that longed-for goal: Vaccination Day!

I’m writing fiction and working on audiobooks in the blanket bunker. If you can manage it, I highly recommend a similar retreat. Failing that, pull blankets over your head and breathe through a hose. Crawl under the bed to cry. Hide under a friendly dog and whisper your deepest sins into his big floppy ears.

Then? Wait.

Then wait some more.

Patience.

Don’t binge on bad news all the time. Stay sane. Perform a kindness. Poke your head out a window and curse the distant, uncaring stars. Have a cookie. Have another cookie. Exercise by pounding a pillow and cursing. Works for me.

Today’s message is:

You will feel fear. You will feel grief. As the pandemic rages on, anger may grip you. I hope we live to feel gratitude for being spared.

Whatever you’re feeling, it’s valid.

Much love,

Robert

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Forgive us our unbridled thoughts

Last night I dreamt that I met an old enemy at a restaurant. He was with his family. I sat beside them but he refused to acknowledge me. I took him aside and said, “I forgive you.”

Wow, that sure pissed him off. “What? What did you say to me?”

I replied, “Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?”

His rage was very satisfying.

I woke up thinking about forgiveness.

Have I ever forgotten a single offense? No. That’s the burden of possessing an eidetic memory for every negative event. I don’t know how to rewire my brain to make my opponents feel more comfortable. I don’t want to forget so I guess forgiveness is out, too. I let myself off the hook of that common social obligation. (I call it learning.)

We often call for victims to forgive their enemies. Says so in the Bible, too. However, that frequently serves the oppressor more than the oppressed. Offenders try to take a shortcut to salvation. Offering neither apologies nor recompense, they expect absolution. They place the burden of “moving on” where it does not belong. A consequence-free existence increases the chances they will offend again.

I will never demand that anyone forgive transgressions in the name of becoming more healthy. That’s up to each individual to decide for themselves.

If this post offends you, forgive me.

 

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The Most Chilling Aspect of this Crisis

I just heard a report from New York detailing how hospitals are already slammed. They thought the peak would come in two weeks. It’s hitting harder and sooner than expected. We’re all in for it, aren’t we? Yes, I share your creeping anxiety. I going to give you some real talk because I am not a shiny, happy person today. This is urgent and it’s past time to get real.

I’ve gone back and forth, bingeing bad news one day and trying to avoid information overload the next. Of course, it’s not really information that’s overwhelming. It’s our emotions that can rise beyond reason. COVID-19 is coming and hell’s coming with it. If you doubt me, ask China and Italy. They tried to warn us, but many people did not take them seriously. To get this under control, we must be proactive and take serious measures: isolation and confinement for extended periods.

Given my health history, I feel like I have a target on my lungs. My amygdala is packed full of dread. When even the most reasonable experts lay a heavy on you that sounds like the worst of worst-case scenarios, a trip forward in time to when the vaccine exists feels in order. I’m working on a time machine. It’s hard to do much with assorted screwdrivers, a hammer, a box of nails and precious little understanding of quantum physics.

I’ve written a lot about the apocalypse. Though I never intended to depict the future accurately, I think I got This Plague of Days right in some crucial ways. The apocalypse, contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, is not fun. It’s not easy. Chances are excellent that you don’t have a castle with endless supplies of food, guns, and ammo. If you went a little crazy, the closest you’ve come is to have a nigh-infinite supply of toilet paper. As I predicted, “the apocalypse seemed to come slowly at first. Then it was everywhere, all at once.”

Medical personnel do not have enough masks. The call has been sent: If you can sew, make us masks! If you have a 3D printer, we need face shields! There aren’t enough medicines, medical supplies and ventilators to go around.

Because of the lack of preparedness, we do not have enough PPE (personal protective equipment). We will send doctors and nurses into situations where they cannot protect themselves. These are extraordinary people, but they are also ordinary mortals with families and dreams. Many will become infected and go into quarantine. That will deplete our forces combatting the virus.

Worse, we may even reach a point where hospital staff declares, “If you can’t protect us, we shouldn’t be here.” That’s the most chilling possibility. I heard it for the first time today and I thought, I’m surprised I haven’t heard that before. Should it come to that, those doctors and nurses who elect to retreat will not be wrong. It is not for any of us to determine the depth of someone else’s sacrifice.

I used to be a health care practitioner. My regulatory body came up with a stupid emergency plan after SARS hit Toronto. The powers that be stood up on their hind legs and said that in signing up to be a healthcare practitioner, I automatically got drafted to first-responder status. No one told me that they’d be sending around a truck to take us to work in hospitals. I just wanted to get off the corporate ladder to rehab strained necks and torn shoulders. Even if I were to accept their stupid premise, my family didn’t sign up for this. Glad I retired and left that field of battle. 

However, like it or not, on some level we are all in this war against the virus. If you are non-essential personnel, please self-isolate. You’ve heard it all before, yet there are still selfish people who remain defiant and dumb. They are putting many lives at risk. My life is at risk. It so incredibly frustrating to watch so many unforced errors take us down.

I would attempt to end this piece on a hopeful note, but that is not how I’m feeling this evening. I will have a different message tomorrow. All I have for you now is, please, self-isolate. If you are in quarantine, I know it sucks but please stay there. Do not be casual about this pandemic just because COVID-19 hasn’t hit you personally yet. In some way, it soon will.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you reason to hope. Tonight, I want us all to stew a little in the juices of personal responsibility. We all have a part to play in this war. Some are bound to fight on the front lines. For the rest of us, our duty is to help each other, self-isolate and stay out of the way of the many dedicated professionals who, as I write this, are trying to save the world. 

 

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Overwork, Suffering & Canada

Glad to be Canadian

As I write this, it’s July 1. I’m in a coffee shop. Some smooth jazz is going down easy in the background as my caffeine boost brings me up. And I’m grateful. It’s been a year since I left the day job that was killing me so I could devote all my time to writing books. And here’s the kicker: I probably couldn’t do this if I lived somewhere else. Canada supports the arts and, indirectly, my art.

Before anyone complains about taxes…

Due to 2018 being a weird year financially, I had to work out a payment plan to pay my taxes. However, I’m getting my money’s worth from my country. A year ago I had emergency eye surgery to save the vision in my left eye. This spring I got hit hard by pneumonia and, aside from the $8 for the taxi to the hospital, the ordeal cost me nothing. It would have been free if I’d had to call an ambulance. We take care of each other. That’s a good sign of a healthy society.

Unfortunately, many of my friends have to choose between medical care and paying the rent or buying food or paying off exorbitant student loans. They spend a lot of time scared. What if that’s not a bump? What if it’s a lump? When life-saving insulin costs so much, how much do they dare ration their medication? None of these friends are Canadian.

The Delusion

It’s a popular notion that starving artists make great art. It’s taken as a given that food insecurity is a motivator. No, please don’t try to craft a virtue out of cruelty. When you have to worry about the basics, all other endeavors suffer. Stress and suffering are not noble. Requiring stress and suffering of others doesn’t make anyone a hard-charging go-getter. When art happens in egregious conditions, it’s not because of the egregious conditions. That value bubbles up despite horrible circumstances.

Suffering is poison. The pushy tech-bro is anti-life. The outlier story of the rugged individualist who owes nothing to anyone is propaganda. It’s the lie that tells people who already have two jobs that they’ll be worthy of love and their families will be safe if only they’d work just a little harder. The mania of constant overwork does not serve humans. We are not robots but the propagandists would have people work like machines, at least until they can be replaced by machines.

Think you can live on your own and don’t need anybody else to succeed? Actually, we’re all in this together. Businesses need a healthy economy supported by people making a living wage and paying taxes. Think of yourself as a rugged individualist? When your retina tears spontaneously as mine did last year, are you going to perform the surgery with a mirror, a butter knife, and a welding kit? I don’t think so, Butch.

It’s not a little ironic that abrasive guru Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Fear kills growth.” Fear of disease, illness, and failure to care and provide for our loved ones kills more growth than any uncompromising motivational speech can overcome. We are all worthy of love, whether we’ve “earned” it or not. Suffering is poison, but so is the conviction that you can’t be seen until you’re rich and famous. I do work hard, but any success that may come my way will not rise from the pain of another.

Don’t wait until people are famous to love them.

There’s a common expression I despise: “So-and-so is doing well.” That’s code for, “So-and-so is making a lot of money.” Okay, good for them. But is so-and-so doing any good? Your worth isn’t all in your wallet. If that were true, late-stage capitalism would ensure only a handful of people are worthy of love and care.

Despite my frustrations, I’m not here to condemn anyone. I’m writing today to express my love for the benefits of living in Canada. It’s a stretch for me to pay my taxes this year in particular, but better that than saddled with a crippling medical debt that would bankrupt me if I lived elsewhere.

To paraphrase George Carlin, it makes sense to be glad to be Canadian. Pride overlooks the fact that my citizenship is an accident of birth. I was lucky enough to be born here. I didn’t earn my citizenship. That’s why I’m also glad to say that we take in many immigrants. People who work hard to get here and gain citizenship earn what I have the privilege of taking for granted.

Apologies

Canada is not perfect. Like any country, Canada has problems. Those frets need to be addressed but we’ve got a lot of love around here to help fuel the solutions. As long as care and compassion are guiding principles, we surely can’t go too far wrong.


I am so grateful that our country is not seen as a great power full of threats. Instead, our reputation is that of a people who are so polite we apologize too much. Better to say sorry too often than not at all.

I’m a writer in Canada, feeling safe, sound and productive.

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My Top Ten List of Books

Yes, if you look closely you’ll see my autographed photo of Kevin Smith.

Please note: What follows is a post from my Facebook Fan Page. If you’ve read my books and dig what I do, you could join us for daily updates, peeks behind the curtain, excerpts from my work in progress and assorted fun bits of nonsense from Ex Parte Press.

I have revised 20,000 words of Bright Lights, Big Deal. I have 93,000 to go. I’ll probably end up cutting a lot of that down. For every book I write, I keep an ODDS file. In this file, I put all my deleted passages, the boring bits, the inappropriate bits and stuff that doesn’t work or serve the story.

I wrote Bright Lights, Big Deal a very long time ago, before This Plague of Days. It’s been interesting to see what I did then and how I’d do things differently now. The differences are fairly subtle most of the time. The later, genre stuff is more action-oriented. I’d say my main sin from back in the day is that my prose was too Canadian. By that I mean there was too much emphasis on character rather than plot movement. I like it when a lot of stuff is happening and character is revealed in reaction to the action.

Same thing happened with This Plague of Days. Originally, it was a plague novel but it was not a zombie novel. I wrote the first book with no zombie content. It was more about society falling apart and how the disaster affected one family. As I wrote and revised and wrote and revised, I added more action because (shrug and smile): too Canadian. (I wanted to write something commercial with the literary aspect in the background.)

There isn’t much Canlit I really like. I have a Robertson Davies reference in Amid Mortal Words. I liked Atwood’s Oryx and Crake but couldn’t get through The Handmaid’s Tale. The Canadian sci-fi I read was Spider Robinson, Robert J Sawyer, and William Gibson.

The writing I love is mostly from American writers: Heinlein, Truman Capote, Stephen King, and William Goldman. (I went through a Norman Mailer phase in university but got past it.)

Who are the authors you most admire? What books are on your must-read or must-read-again list?

My top ten list is:

1. The Color of Light by William Goldman.
2. The Stand by Stephen King.
3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (loved all the movies, too, but especially the version with Phillip Seymore Hoffman.)
4. Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman.
5. The Princess Bride (Goldman again for the win.)
6. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth.
7. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
8. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (the only book that ever truly scared me)
9. The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (wild card choice a lot of fans wouldn’t put in their top ten but I loved it and learned a couple of writing tricks from it, too.)
10. Stephen King On Writing, more for the biography than the writing advice. I’ve read it once and listened to it twice.

I’m looking at favorite books I didn’t write, of course. Choosing favorites from my backlist is like asking me to choose a fave child.

~ I am Robert Chazz Chute, a writer from Other London. I pen killer crime thrillers and apocalyptic epics. Want a binge read? Click the links to the right. Want to join us on the Facebook Fan Page? Here’s the link to Fans of Robert Chazz Chute.

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What I’ve learned (and something I haven’t)

What I learned in high school:

Who do you think you are? Dream small.

What I learned in university studying journalism:

I’m on the wrong career track. I want to write for a living but I want to write stories that last.

What I learned at the Banff School of Fine Arts:

I’m much funnier than they gave me credit for in university. Maybe that was because I wasn’t so angry all the time as soon as I got out of journalism school.

What I learned in my 20s:

I used to believe a bad thing: Pay your dues. Be patient. Wait your turn.

(What was implied: “This has nothing to do with keeping us up by keeping you down.”)

What I learned in my 30s:

I wanted to be a spiritual person for the comfort. It didn’t stick because I looked honestly at all the suffering. Also, I unlearned the lesson from my 20s. Underestimating me and keeping me a second-class citizen was always about fulfilling other people’s dreams.

What I learned in my 40s:

My kids redefined love for me. They expanded my capacity.

What I’ve learned in my 50s:

Not everyone who acts like a friend really is. Unfortunately, learned that lesson before but I think this time I really get it. Betrayal sucks and sticks. Not everyone you meet along the way will stay by your side. For those who do, we cherish and support each other. We stick together.

What I know now:

Dream bigger. Ask for help. Work like hell to make it happen.

I have yet to learn:

Forgiveness. Yes, I hold grudges. In AFTER Life, the flawed hero admits that he supposes he must have forgiven somebody once but he can’t think of a single example of having done so. That’s me. I’m not sure that forgiveness is something I want to learn, either. If someone treats me badly, shouldn’t heightened vigilance and isolation simply be called learning? People can make mistakes and I’ll let that go, of course. (I’m Canadian.) But when malice is involved? Hell, no.


~ I am Robert Chazz Chute. I write apocalyptic epics and killer crime thrillers and I’m best known for This Plague of Days. My latest books are The Night Man and Amid Mortal Words.

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2019 Writing and Publishing Goals: Specifics

Please note: The Night Man has just been released.

It’s about a wounded warrior who returns home to the shady side of small-town America. Earnest “Easy” Jack just wanted to come home to train guard dogs and be left alone. Then his father got kidnapped. Between a billionaire’s bomb plot and dirty cops, Easy has hard problems to solve.

You can grab it now at this link or wait until tomorrow, Saturday, January 12, for fan pricing (read: free)! Either way, enjoy!


And now, on with the nigh hopelessly ambitious list of what I plan for 2019. (I said nighhopeless, dammit!)

1. Revise and publish the huge vampire novel I’ve got banked.
2. Revise and publish the huge literary novel I’ve got banked. (Or submit it to a publisher. Since it’s more literary, trad pub may be the way to go.)
3. Revise and publish my next Hit Man novel I’ve got banked (working on that now).
4. Publish The Night Man, my new crime thriller. I’ll do that this week.
5. Write and publish the sequel to The Night Man, launching in November.
6. Publish a big book and a novella under a pen name (in progress). 
7. Publish six anthologies (five stories each).
8. Revise and prepare three books for publication that will finally go wide, off the Amazon platform. (Here comes Kobo, Apple, etc.,…!
9. Learn how to make my AMS ads work using Dave Chesson’s course.
10. Figure out how to use Machete properly.
11. Blog three times a week, twice on AllThatChazz.com, once on ChazzWrites.com.
12. Set up the website and email etc for the launch of the pen name.
13. Write a paranormal thriller trilogy with Armand Rosamilia (the first book’s already done.)
14. Contribute 10-minute segments to the Mando Method Podcast (all about writing and publishing).
15. Send out a newsletter once a month and build my email list. (Yes, I have some ideas on that I got from Seth Godin.)
17. Facebook Live, every second Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EST.

I’m writing full-time but this list is too ambitious, isn’t it?
Fetal position.

Weeps softly.

Passes out.


Gets up.

Gets at it.