New episodes of the All That Chazz podcast and the Cool People Podcast will return soon. In the meantime, there’s this (NSFW) awesomeness:
We keep the deepest secrets from ourselves. Maybe we should.
We do what we do and dream of what we want to do, but we will never know why. What motivates us to choose this over that? These are secrets we keep from ourselves. Hidden among many skeins of branches amid forests of neurons, the answers are locked away. Why did you choose this man or that woman, that ambition and this life? Did you really choose at all, or did invisible forces choose for you?
The answers to these questions is a mystery and sometimes (often?) a misery.
On dark nights we peer at the stars and wonder about what life on which planets might be born and living and dying beyond the reach of our senses, long ago and far away.
But we are just as much a mystery to ourselves. Our minds hold secrets and hide memories the brain will never yield. The gears of the subconscious spin and work, autonomous (up to something?) pushing and pulling us, this way and that. We say things we don’t mean and we don’t know why. We drive, zombies on automatic, and awake at our destination hoping the last three traffic lights were green as we sailed through, oblivious and unharmed.
We are not awake.
We do not see all there is.
Even as I write this? My heart rate, the secrets of my blood and what makes me write at all? All unknown to me.
I am still asleep, dreaming of waking. It’s hopeless.
We are never truly awake. I don’t even know which world is better. In moments when I swim closer to the lens that lets in light, I see things. More is revealed to me. I understand more. I am more interested in the world then, but less happy.
This is a dream. When that reality becomes too harsh, I escape to my bed, into a deeper dream within the dream. Each morning fool myself into thinking I am awake.
Maybe death could be merciful like that.
We die, but in the fog at the end, we do not notice our passing. We continue, dreaming that we are living. I don’t believe that, but I love the symmetry and grace of it. We could die and it wouldn’t matter because, no matter how absurd, dreams make sense and we continue dreaming, warm and insulated from the worst the world can offer.
Don’t let me die. Let me keep on dreaming I am alive. Just like tonight.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
~ Robert Chazz Chute is waiting for blood test results and thinking about mortality.
#Video: This is the End movie review
This Plague of Days is launching this week! Watch this space for announcements, or, better, sign up for the newsletter!
Each new sign up gets a shout out for their book, podcast, website or business on the All That Chazz podcast.
For more information about this cool horror serial (featuring a hero who’s autistic and a mix of The Stand, Cell, World War Z and 28 Days Later) check out ThisPlagueOfDays.com.
While working on revisions for my upcoming serial This Plague of Days…
I hit a spot in my current manuscript, This Plague of Days, where I’d left myself a note to come up with a Quebec town for a minor character to hail from. I did a quick search and an ad for one of my own books, Corrective Measures, popped up for Kobo. This was unexpected and fun:
Throttling You: And some of this isn’t very nice
Find Part 1 of this post, Amazon Throttled, on ChazzWrites.com.
Skip to Part 3: Me, Full Throttle for another answer for finding readers.
Time to wrestle and tell the dirty truth.
What else can you do to find readers for your books and give them the best chance in the Marketplace of Awesomeness? And what sucks? Here’s my take:
1. Are blog tours really doing it for you? Are blog readers converting to book readers? They should…but I don’t think they do nearly as much as we hope. If they did, I’d have certainly sold more books by now. Blog tours can work, but it takes a lot of work to provide unique content to each blog. Do that if you’re going to tour and hit the largest blogs first. (Also, once it’s posted to one blog, don’t repost it on your blog. Bad SEO.)
2. We complain readers focus too much on Free and reap the benefits without commitment. Oddly, we’re hoping to win over the world without paying a dime. We don’t have advertising budgets. It’s time to get real and set a budget and pay for help selling your books. Yes, we all want it to happen organically without extra work or money. We all just want to write. That’s not the way to bet. Grow up, stop wishing and spend money to make money.
3. Don’t do another author interview on yet another small blog unless you’re going to make it different and/or funny. Go for funny because those interviews all sound the same and yes, I know, we all drink coffee. I win for most caffeinated. What else you got? I’d rather hear about your choice of lingerie than endure another answer to the question: “How did you start writing and where do you get your ideas?”
4. Don’t do another blog post about how “content is king.” It’s either self-evident or it doesn’t really mean anything. I need more meat than that to click the buy button on your next marketing book.
5. Don’t ask me to read another interview with one of your characters. I might be interested in that, but only after I’ve already read your book, not before. I’d love to know what happens to the main character in Fight Club after the book hits “The End”. However, before I knew what that book was, he’s just be another guy struggling with macho bullshit issues and a sleep disorder.
6. Will you please just take my advice and get Kit Foster to help you with your book cover? Get a graphic designer to help you. Do not do this yourself. Don’t even do it yourself if you’re a graphic designer. Please! Sweet baby Jesus, I’m begging you! Help me help Kit help you! Great book covers do not suck. Bad book covers hurt you. We all judge books by their covers.
7. Revamp your website. Get a custom banner. (Kit does those, too. Look at the top of this page.) Also: White field, black type, no exceptions. Your pretty pastels and all those flowery serifs are repelling me from your site and making me squint so, perhaps unfairly, your book doesn’t get a shot.
8. Be bolder with your next book. Come up with a new angle. There are no truly original stories, but you have to find something fresh to sell us. Have you read a single description of a romance book that doesn’t sound like hundreds of other romance books? Do something different and experimental. Whatever you do: Stand up and stand out! Start thinking audiobooks, for instance. (But it’s still way too early to bother with setting up an app for your book. People aren’t using the medium that way in any numbers.)
9. Work harder with your editorial team. Expand your beta reader bunch. Make it cleaner. Don’t wait for perfection, but excellence will do nicely.
10. We write to be read. Shyness is not helping you. Do something to promote your books every day. Do not whine that this is necessary. If you aren’t going to promote, you may as well write for your desk drawer. That’s okay, if that’s what you want. (I sincerely doubt that’s what you want.) And stop tweeting book links without imagination.
11. Use video more. We are visual creatures, so use YouTube more on your website or try Vine. If they’re quick, video blogs are interesting. (WordPress allows you to do audio blogs pretty easily, too.) Reach people in new ways. Buy Six Seconds, The Unauthorized Guide to How to Build Your Business with the Vine App by Robert Chazz Chute. (I told you it didn’t pay to be shy.) The Vine app is an example of a new way to reach new readers. It’s video Twitter and the time to jump in early is slipping away. Join now.
Writing the novel: Overcoming plot problems & cranking up the pace
IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM…
I’ve been stymied. I hate that. I’ve been working on the new novel in the Hit Man Series, Hollywood Jesus. Several chapters went well, but there was something missing and I just figured out why it wasn’t firing on all cylinders. I was holding back. I wasn’t being reckless enough.
MY SOLUTION…
What makes Bigger Than Jesus such a great read is that it has the pace of a long chase scene with lots of twists and cliffhangers and no chance for anyone to catch their breath. I wrote Bigger Than in a certain way that was braver and less calculated than what I have been doing. As I wrote Bigger Than, each night I finished a chapter I often had no real idea how I’d get Jesus Diaz out of the corner I’d written him into. The next morning the answer came. (Sometimes it didn’t and I had to think longer, but when you ask the right question, the answer always appears.)
CUTTING & REWRITING…
The first stab at Hollywood Jesus wasn’t all bad. The chase scene with the cops and the scary way Jesus gets out of it? I’m keeping that. The meeting in the office? I’ll lose that. It’s too static and talky. I’m also keeping the big ending I’d planned, but the plots and plans and surprises go deeper and I’ll introduce new motivations.
The first two books started out with a murder. This time? It’s different, but no less scary and creepy. The key to making the character work for the reader is that he was terribly abused as a child and my funny hit man identifies with innocent victims. Jesus has a code and he always tries to make sure no civilians are hurt on his missions. Now that I see how this plot is going to unfold, it’s a much bigger, more sweeping story that has roots all the way back to the heart of book one of the series.
Jesus Diaz was in deep trouble with my first attempt at this book. I understand now how I can shove him down so deep, Hollywood Jesus will have a deeper emotional impact as well as more action with a pace that matches Bigger Than Jesus. Maybe even faster.
THE BIG PICTURE…
Bigger Than Jesus
New York; Opens with fast, perilous action; it’s a quest for money, love and escape with the alluring Lily Vasquez.
Theme: A man stands up to the Machine. He is not a cog.
Higher Than Jesus
Chicago; Opens with increasing tension, battling drug addiction while fighting two opposing forces over an arms deal and trying to save the body and soul of the sexy glamazon, Willow Clemont.
Theme: To become who you are meant to be, you have to conquer your failings.
Hollywood Jesus
L.A.; Opens with a rescue; opens old wounds in a war with multiple, powerful enemies, a slavery ring that hits Jesus very close to his heart and two beautiful women. Expect betrayal. Even so, you’ll be surprised from whence it strikes.
Theme: Sacrifice for the greater good…sucks.
I got my groove back, Stella! (That’s a dated book and movie reference, but it made somebody reading this smile briefly.)
~ Get all the books by Robert Chazz Chute here.
Congratulations to my American friends and readers
I caught a bit of the inauguration today. Five things:
1. I breathed a sigh of relief when it went off well (especially given some scary and relevant plot points from my crime novel, Higher Than Jesus.) This doesn’t mean all is peaceful. It suggests the Secret Service is awesome at their job. I guess when they do a preventive visit, it’s like the 60 Minutes camera crew showing up with the angry ghost of Mike Wallace for a surprise gotcha interview, times 1000. Wouldn’t it be fun to hear Ted Nugent’s interview with the Secret Service after his not-very-veiled threats last year? Given Mr. Nugent’s history with the draft, I’m betting he was privately apologetic in the extreme.
2. The president’s speech was at times pointed though it was also a call for unification. I especially liked “name-calling is not reasoned debate.” I don’t agree with US government policy on lots of things, but the alternative was not an alternative. Four more years! And Senator McConnell? Suck it up. The job is to serve the American people, not to try to delegitimize a democratically elected president to serve GOP avarice.
3. When Mr. Obama’s speech has more poetry and soaring rhetoric than the poet can deliver, dump that poet. The poets at the last two inaugurations gave Poetry a bad name: Overly long, uninspired and flat. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking it was egregious. He got a smattering of golf green applause and wow, were we relieved when Beyonce stepped up to wipe out any memory of the poetry.
4. It’s not supposed to be cool to like Joe Biden. We’re told he’s crass, crazy and a sleepy uncle. Forget it, Faux News. He’s likeable and the more vitriol heaped on him, the more we like him.
5. Michelle, if it doesn’t work out with Barry, I’m here for you. Sigh.