Note: This anthology will be fan-priced this Sunday, January 20. (Hint: that means free.)
The new cover reflects my favorite story of the collection: a planet-killing meteor striking the Earth. This new design take reminds me of a bunch of SF covers so -4 for originality, +8 for SF reader appeal. (Numbers are approximate.)
I liked the old cover very much but it wasn’t as clear as it could be as a thumbnail image. Also, it reflected multiple disasters befalling Earth instead of one big one. This new one should have more punch and attract SF readers.
The story behind the stories
I’ve written several big apocalyptic epics with long story arcs. Here’s the weirdo rundown:
This Plague of Days is a paranormal on the spectrum zombie/vampire/good versus evil apocalypse.
AFTER Life is the nanotech-zombie apocalypse/invasion of America from Canada.
Robot Planet is the humans versus the Singularity war.
The Dimension War is aNew Adult alieninvasion/ghost fantasy series written with Holly Papandreas.
For a while there, I swore off writing shorter fiction. Then my friend Armand Rosamilia asked for a short story as part of a promotion for the Project Entertainment Network. When Armand said short, he meant just 750 words. I figured I could accomplish that, no problem. It didn’t quite work out that way. I knocked out a story that was much longer than what Armand was looking for. Then I wrote another, and another, and…suddenly I had a little anthology.
It occured to me then that I’d been a little too precious about writing shorter fiction. I remembered that I loved a format where anybody could have a quick read they could enjoy on a long commute or over their lunch hour. All Empires Fall hits on several apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic scenarios and I had a really good time writing it.
Here’s the promise: You’re going to love the escape you feel when you read The Night Man.
Earnest “Easy” Jack Jr. is a wounded warrior with harsh history and a very uncertain future. He returns home from war to his father’s house on the edge of Lake Orion, Michigan. His father raises guard dogs and works as a long haul trucker. When Easy’s mother got sick, Easy Sr. began smuggling to make ends meet. That’s how the trouble really started.
This novel is packed with witty dialogue and plenty of action and plot twists. However, the narrative has some things to say about the decay in Middle America, too. The root of Easy’s problems rest in fertile soil: the failures of late-stage capitalism, the gig economy and the trap we’re all in. Just about every character in The Night Man feels trapped. The only one who doesn’t feel trapped is a monster.
Don’t get me wrong: This crime thriller is fueled by tons of surprises, fascinating characters and fun dialogue. But I feel trapped sometimes. A lot of us do. Even fun escapist fiction can have a subtext that addresses what’s real. That’s important in fiction. A real context helps readers suspend disbelief.
As I write this, it’s Saturday, January 12, 2019, and The Night Man ebook is available to download for free. If you’re reading this too late, it’s still a very inexpensive and compelling read that will keep you entertained and smiling for hours. Enjoying a good book is one of the few ways we have to escape the trap.
Enjoy The Night Man and all my books by clicking the links to your right. Thank you for being a reader.
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.
I’m getting a lot more out of Seth Godin’s This is Marketing than I expected. This author has a knack for taking complex ideas and boiling them down to their essence. Less a to do list than other books in his genre, this book breaks down quite a bit of how the world works.
I’m fascinated by the motivations behind people’s actions. Godin explores very interesting insights about why we are moved by hidden forces. (Well, maybe not “hidden” but largely ignored. )
Status, affiliation, dominance, inertia.
Our motivations are a complex mixture but Godin breaks it down so people’s actions are more understandable. How we see ourselves determines how we act. Yes, there is free will and we can each take control of our destinies. What would be the point of any business book if we couldn’t change course, do the unexpected and be contrarian? However, after reading Godin’s book I understand how unlikely that most people will change course. We are constantly asking ourselves, “Am I the sort of person who does this or that?” and “Who is my tribe?” We conform to our self-image.
Godin’s observations of human behavior explain a lot about the divisions in society and the arguments people get into. How could anyone be a liberal? How could anyone be a Trump supporter? The why of human behavior is all there. I’d like to see this book become required high school reading alongside To Kill a Mockingbird.
We often operate on unreasonable expectations. In general, we expect others to act as we would react. That’s because of a critical flaw in our programming: We expect others to know what we know and to act rationally. People aren’t rational. If rational arguments worked, we’d all arrive at the same conclusions given the facts.
To paraphrase Godin: Sonder is the empathy that arises when we understand that others have the same noise in their heads going on all the time, each with their own interior lives.
Though, we know this on some level, we obviously don’t organize our thinking, our society or our politics that way.
This is elucidating but it’s also a bitter pill to swallow.
This is Marketing provides familiar revelations. For instance, the market is so fragmented, we’re all joining smaller and smaller clubs. I knew that but I had not considered all the implications and what it meant to my little publishing company. Godin’s many points are so well articulated that I often found myself saying, I get that but I never really thought it through that far.
Conspiracy theorists identify with the underdog. If you tell a conspiracy theorist that most people agree with him, he is very likely to reject the theory he previously espoused. If 80% of people believe Elvis is still alive, that’s a disappointment. If only 19% refuse to accept the king is dead, you’ve made your conspiracy theorist friend very happy. Truth was never the point. Identifying with a subgroup was the cause. Navy Seals are an exclusive club that’s hard to get into. However, affiliation is easy. Whether we carry official membership cards or not, we’re all in a club and eager to conform.
There’s much more to this quick read. Godin talks about marketing failures, the fear of missing out and the folly of trying to please everyone. For an author, his take on book reviews is particularly compelling. There are interesting distinctions between the kind of book reviewer who says, “I like this,” or “I don’t like that,” versus the book reviewer who declares, “Everyone should like this,” or “No one should like this.”
The challenge of the book is to see the world the way it is and adjust our behavior accordingly. As I said, it isn’t a checklist. Godin is clear that he’s asking his readers to take a fresh look at their marketing strategy. Specific tactics will emerge from that new understanding. (I especially enjoyed how Godin pointed out the uselessness of traditional business plans.)
This is Marketing is a book to ponder, reread and digest. I have been averse to marketing my novels. All I wanted to do was swill coffee, be loved, live forever, write books and be found organically. That doesn’t cut it. Godin’s insights make me realize I have to come out of my shell. I have to find my ideal readers instead of hoping they’ll find me.
Understanding the forces that act on others left me less angry at people with whom I disagree. If you’re up to the introspection and taking action on new insights, This is Marketing might improve your position in the market and help your business. Best of all, reading this book might improve your life.
Recently I was struck by a post by someone telling us what not to say. The plea came as a strike against cultural appropriation. This can be a dangerous path. Here’s how I navigate this debate when I’m writing fiction.
Monoculture is boring
Literary society in the West has been too monochromatic for too long. By that I mean it’s been filled with white people telling stories solely about white people. White guys owned the big publishing companies. Most women who worked in traditional publishing were either on the front line selling books in bookstores, writing books or in the editorial end of the business. There were not a lot of people of color in that mix.
In the ’80s in Canada, a marginalized group of writers came up with an idea that did not fly. They proposed that white people should only write about white people. Leave other cultures alone, thank you very much, and let minorities and the oppressed tell their own stories. The response at that time was basically that writers of any color or creed should write what they want. It’s up to readers to decide whether they will buy it. We shouldn’t self-censor (or be “pushed around”) depending on how you felt about the demand.)
In recent years, this idea has resurfaced and gained steam. The tac is slightly different now. The phrases you’ll see frequently focus on the following phrases: “not your stories to tell,” “cultural appropriation,” and “check your privilege.” I am a bit conflicted about this because most people who feel this way are not trying to censor me. They are trying to be sensitive to a history of colonization where white guys feel entitled to own everything or exploit anything. Yeah, that’s not good.
But what about reflecting the world as it is?
In a recent review of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the folks at Pop Culture Happy Hour praised the show for the writers’ depiction of Captain Holt, a gay African American man who dealt with homophobia as he climbed the ranks of the NYPD. It’s a fine comedy that somehow navigates these waters in a way everyone loves. Holt is gay, but that’s not a joke. He’s black, but that’s not a joke. These are aspects of his identity that are treated sensitively. His personhood is not denied, watered down, stereotypical or incidental.
That success is quite a contrast to the short shrift female characters got in Star Trek (both the original and TNG). I loved STTNG, yes. However, I rarely felt they wrote well for women. I guess this is my way of pointing out that when we write women and minorities well, it’s rightly celebrated. Perhaps the problem is that it’s not done well often enough.
The loss of representation
Years ago I watched a John Travolta movie that everyone has probably forgotten. White Man’s Burden was released in 1995. Here’s the description: “In an alternate universe, successful African-Americans live in gated communities, while impoverished Caucasians populate crime-ridden inner-city ghettos.”
The best of this film was how it turned our world on itself. A white child clicks the remote on the TV. She sees no one of her race on television. She is not represented at all in mainstream culture and it’s clear she has no place among the elite, celebrated or wealthy. In another scene, a black clothing designer comes out on the stage surrounded by a gaggle cute little white kids. It’s a great satire and a righteous skewering of cultural norms. Using cute little black children as props used to be a real thing.
I’m old enough to remember commercials for fast food outlets that were segregated. You could go to the black McDonald’s or the white McDonald’s but the streams did not cross.
What happens when we cross the streams. I imagine racists imagines it would the same as the worry from Ghostbusters: “It would be bad… Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.”
Geek cred achieved. Back to racism and perceived racism in literature…
Reality is diverse. Fiction should be, too.
I want my novels (yes, even and especially the science fiction) to reflect our world. Mirroring reality is how fiction works. Recognizing a familiar context is how strong fiction connects to readers. For instance, much of the feedback I have received on AFTER Life is so positive because it takes place in our world. Readers dig the story because “it could happen.” It’s a zombie apocalypse novel that starts when we lose control of nanotechnology. Diversity of the series’ cast and realistic details allow the suspension of disbelief.
I’m a white guy who is a member of a mixed race family. I don’t claim any special insight into Asian culture. However, I want Asian characters and black characters in my stories because diversity reflects our world. Though some might say I should censor myself, that would take away one of my writing tools.
Any agent will tell you they don’t want yet another story about middle-aged white guy existential angst. I’m open to all kinds of stories and I don’t want to limit myself. I want my fiction to roam free in the literary universe. How would self-censorship end? I guess I’d have to mimic Portnoy’s Complaint with an Irish protagonist for the rest of my life. No, that’s not going to work.
Fragmentation into more monocultures isn’t going to bring about world peace. Diversity and representation across cultures might solve a lot of problems, though.
All that stipulated, I don’t aspire to offend with the (other) F-word, the R-word or the N-word. I don’t want to tell a First Nations story that is too far outside of my experience. However, I can write characters from varied backgrounds without poaching their experience or plagiarizing their fables.
One of my favorite characters from This Plague of Days was a black South African woman living in England. Dr. Chloe Robinson from AFTER Life is the engineer behind AFTER. Joshua, in my new thriller, is an American of Philippine heritage who lives on the wrong side of the law. The physiotherapist who emerges to play a key role in Dream’s Dark Flight is an African American woman. I’m writing these characters like people we all know. These are, in most respects, ordinary people places in extraordinary circumstances: no Mary Sues, no othering, no idealization and no racist stereotypes.
I want to write compelling fiction. Real world details provide a context that makes the fantastical elements believable. I live in a diverse world and I want readers of many backgrounds to be able to see themselves in the pages of my books. I think I can achieve that aim with sensitivity because my intent is pure. I’m pretty sure most readers recognize that.
A writer’s experience does inform their writing but I’m far less interested in the writer than the writing. There is a mistake around the consumption of fiction that is quite common. Readers assume writers of erotica are all sexpots and if you write action adventure, it would be best if you’re a male ex-CIA operative. That’s not only silly given the vast research resources available, it divides and limits us. The ghettoization of literature is not good for readers.
Ghettoization. Hm. Aye, there’s the rub. Balkanization might be a better word choice but maybe not. Some readers look for opportunities to be offended and others actually enjoy the self-righteous high condemnation yields. Take the word ghetto. Boombox is the preferred term because ghetto has racist undertones. However, if you assumed ghetto has a racist subtext against blacks, you might be triggered for the wrong reasons. Here’s the quick internet pull on that complex etymology: Early 17th century; perhaps from Italian getto ‘foundry’ (because the first ghetto was established in 1516 on the site of a foundry in Venice), or from Italian borghetto, diminutive of borgo ‘borough.’ Ghettoization was originally aimed at Jews.
We must also recognize that the cultural rules change and not everyone gets the memo at the same speed. Twice in the last three months, I noticed someone objecting to the cultural appropriation implied with the use of the phrase “spirit animal.” This was news to me but I’m glad to avoid its use. That particular phrase didn’t come up in my lexicon often and I’m not invested in offending anyone. (I’d also appreciate getting the benefit of the doubt if I screw up due to sheer ignorance of the shifting tides.)
There are also folks who are a little too interested in defending their privilege in the name of anti-censorship. I hope you feel by now that my position is more nuanced than that. There are those who will say that language that ingrains racist stereotypes may not be helpful but it’s not important enough for them to worry about. In other words, we are wasting our time or are too sensitive. Snowflakes, for short.
I don’t agree with that, either.
As John Cleese has said, snowflake is a term used to devalue the virtue of empathy. All language, messaging, art and nuance matter. 1984 taught us that words have the power to shape ideas or destroy them. If you mislabel a government shutdown as a strike, for instance, you’re trying to deceive someone.
Writers and readers respect language. Is the potential for cultural appropriation implied in “spirit animal” more important than the ongoing water poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan? That tragedy is rooted in racism and no, a spirit animal meme is not life and death. However, we spend an average of eighteen minutes just trying to find something to watch on Netflix. Surely, we can try to solve both those problems and many more.
Don’t get too distracted by people who don’t have time to worry about minor racial offences. Most of those people aren’t really worried about the major abominations, either. They’re just trying to skate on civil rights violations and don’t give a single shit about the brown and black people poisoned in Flint.
The good news
Fortunately, since around 2009 forward, we are in a new era of writing and publishing. There is more meritocracy, more diversity and less gatekeeping that insisted on too much monoculture. A privileged elite is not steering the cultural bus anymore. They’ve been replaced by more options from smaller operators in a fragmented marketplace of ideas.
The new world of books offers a wider and more varied experience. Representation by more and varied authors is here and their characters will reflect that diversity, too. I’m glad. That’s the world I want my kids to live in. I didn’t care for the world when artificial divisions erected barriers to mutual understanding and love.
I will continue to include characters of different races, faiths, beliefs, sexual orientation and gender identities. Any character inside or outside of fiction can be relatable to an open heart. People who object to inclusiveness in favor of a white monoculture don’t interest me. If a racist world makes them feel more comfortable, their amygdalas are hijacked. Those readers are not among the demographics I wish to serve. That’s okay. There are plenty of other readers and I suspect there are more of them with each new generation.
Last night I was writing late. It was New Year’s Eve. At midnight, I got up from the keyboard very briefly to hug my wife. Then back at it. It is tempting to make resolutions but habits are better. Mornings are for coffee and writing. Afternoons are for revisions and marketing. I try to eat clean, cut back on the carbs and get to the gym.
Those are the basics and they don’t vary for holidays. Rain or shine, I’m at bat, swinging for the fences. I love to read fiction and write fiction. This is my happy heaven. I have several manuscripts to revise and new thrillers to publish so 2019 will be a very busy year.
I hope you have a heaven on Earth, too. It’s a tenuous state. Going through some scary medical tests, I ate my feelings and soothed myself with too many carbs. That didn’t help, of course. (Actually, it did help but the soothing endorphin effect was temporary.)
I’m back to the routine. “Routine” sounds boring, but the writing life is never boring. I’m creating worlds, reflecting this world and listening to the many voices in my head have fascinating and funny conversations.
Wherever you are, I hope you have a reading life and I wish you a fantastic 2019. There’s much work to do, but it’s not all grim grind. We can work toward saving the planet and escape into books when we need a break from being superheroes.
Cheers!
Chazz
PS Speaking of heroes, my new crime thriller, The Night Man, launches later this week. This roller coaster is packed with action and jokes as we delve into intrigue and betrayal is rural Michigan. Watch this space (and subscribe!) Thanks.
