Sophie Jack attended one meeting in the last summer of her life that gave her something set in stone. One of the attendees, a breast cancer survivor who had beaten the odds and far outlived her doctors’ dire prognosis, read a little story. Mom copied it out in big block letters in pencil on a lined sheet of looseleaf. She brought it home and posted it on the fridge door under a yellow butterfly magnet. The story was called Master of the Seven Seas.
There are seven seas we all must cross.
The first is the Sea of Struggle, to be born and raised.
Next comes the Sea of Pleasure. These are the teen years where the responsibilities are few and most worries are either illusions or far off along the journey.
Though the voyage may be stormy, the Sea of Love is long and it is the deepest of all seas. Our sails are full and the greatest adventures happen in this leg of the journey.
Love is followed by the Sea of Loss. As the sun dies, this passage is fraught with dangerous rocks that threaten to sink our ship.
Loss opens to a great sea called Suffering. It will be a journey in darkness. We may be forced to navigate by faith and by the stars. As the wind dies in our sails, we man our posts and stay on deck, watching for light, waiting for the far side of night. We will feel the wind in our hair again.
The calm Sea of Glass awaits with the dawn. Here, the sailing is so smooth, the water’s surface is like a mirror. We can peer over the side and see our reflections. As our ship slices on, our stores of fear are used up. The Sea of Glass yields a glimpse of the world as it really is.
It’s a short sail to the Sea of Tranquility. Here, we leave our losses behind. Our hold is empty of regret. No more tears are needed.
When we finally run aground, we are grateful our work is done. On that far shore, we burn our ship and bask in the heat. In the ashes, we finally find what we came for: peace.
This story touched Mom in a way that lasted. The words inscribed on my mother’s tombstone read:
To arrive here, I crossed all seven seas.
The Night Man is my new novel about crime, justice and redemption. It will be released soon. It’s an action-packed adventure full danger for cool characters, loyal German shepherds and plenty of jokes. However, there are quieter moments like this one. Master of the Seven Seas is an excerpt, yes. It may also be useful to those who feel pain and who are struggling to accept the sorrows of life along with the joys. I struggle with that, too, but this small thing does give me some peace.
We’re all in the same boat on this journey. Feel free to share this little story within the story with someone you think might appreciate it.Â
I had a great time doing my first Facebook Live. I am definitely going to do that regularly in the New Year. It’s so much cheaper and easier than doing a podcast. No administration, no fees, just jump on and talk! Love it!
You can download ten of my books for free tomorrow, Friday, December 21st. Merry Christmas!
AFTER Life, INFERNO: Nanotechnology was supposed to be a medical miracle. Then AFTER became weaponized. See the apocalypse from the zombie’s perspective in this series!
Machines Dream of Metal Gods: See the future of San Francisco and the world through artificial eyes.
All Empires Fall, Signals from the Apocalypse: The world ends five ways. Find out how in this anthology.
Wallflower: Have a good laugh as a failed comedian tries to figure out how to change the course of history with his guide to time travel, Kurt Vonnegut.
Dream’s Dark Flight is a stand-alone novel in the Dimension War Series. Science meets the paranormal and surreal when people all over the world start dying in their sleep.
Brooklyn in the Mean Time is my criminal autobiography from some very shady and dangerous business in ’90s New York.
Bigger Than Jesus is the first Hit Man thriller. Jesus Diaz wants out of the mob. He’s a funny guy in bad circumstances.
Murders Among Dead Trees is my anthology featuring award-winning short stories.
Self-help for Stoners, Stuff to Read When You’re High: Another short story anthology. The paperback is a popular gift every Christmas. It’s a read on the toilet sort of book.
Do the Thing is the one non-fiction book on the list. It’s a stress buster with everything you need to boost your relaxation response and become more productive at the same time.
Download one book you think you’d like or download them all for free. No strings, Just enjoy them.
This link will take you to my Amazon page for all my books.
BONUS: Hit subscribe when the pop-up hits and I’ll let you in on the new and cool stuff happening at Ex Parte Press.
Also, are you already a fan of my work (AKA powerful fiction that will blow your mind and melt your face)? If you dig my sling, please leave a review. Even better, join my Inner Circle on Facebook. My Facebook group is Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. I share more about the writing life and assorted fun and nonsense daily.
Membership has its privileges: Fans get free ebooks to review and, with your permission, you will be entered in a raffle to get your name on a character in a future novel. Join us here.
Newsletters are hard. I wasn’t enthusiastic about writing them for a long time. I only wanted to write killer thrillers and apocalyptic epics. When I finally got my Facebook fan page going, I changed my mind. Touching base with readers personally on Facebook turned out to be a fun thing I enjoy.
Now that I’m over that mental block, putting together a newsletter is more fun, too. I don’t want to bother people with newsletters too often, though. The Facebook group is really for those readers who are curious about what goes on behind the curtain. People check in and find out what’s up on daily: progress with the writing, excerpts, sneak peeks, notice about advance sales, free books, fun and funny stuff. It’s really whatever comes up. They’re doubly invested so, with their permission, I do a raffle wherein characters in books I’m writing get their names from readers.Â
The newsletters are about providing value to more casual readers. That’s peachy with me, too.
In my latest newsletter, I let subscribers know that I am making ten of my ebooks free for everyone on Friday, December 21. These are gifts with no strings attached. I hope everyone downloads them all. I also announced a Facebook Live Event. I’m popping on tonight and popping off starting at 8 PM EST. I hope subscribers see that as big value. Though the newsletters are easier, they still aren’t easy. How often should I send them out? To use the industry jargon, “How much is too little to keep the list “warm”? How much contact is so little that when you do hear from me I’m a stranger? Hardest of all, how can I get more people on my crazy train (besides writing more books?)
I hope subscribers understand the balance I aim to hit. I won’t bother them often but I will be more regular about checking in than I have been in the past. I always try to have something for you that isn’t just a waste of time or a hand in your pocket.Â
That’s my deal on newsletters and the Facebook group, FYI. Â
I hope to see you on Facebook tonight! I’m taking questions and you can always contact me at expartepress@gmail.com.
On Wednesday, Dec 19th at 8 PM EST I’ll be doing my first Facebook Live. Let me show you how to do it wrong. I’ll be taking questions and chatting. If I cry or throw up on Facebook Live, well, I’ll just keep going cuz that’s good TV. Do I really look to you like a guy with a plan?
Oh, and did I mention free books? A giveaway is the only plan, I have.
Yes, Christmas will come early this year. I’ve got a big giveaway coming up and I’ll tell you about that, too. That’s right, free ebooks are coming before Christmas. Take that, Santa, you milk and cookie mooch!
Got a question?
Please email me at expartepress@gmail.com with FB in the subject line. I might do my Joker impression. Haven’t decided yet.
To save you some time, my favorite color is turquoise but only as paint. I only wear black. A black turtleneck says: He might be a spy. A turquoise turtleneck says: He’s in a fashion magazine modeling a shirt no one wears in real life.
AIR TIMES
8 PM EST, 7 CST, 1 AM GMT, 5 PM PST, 6 PM Mountain and 10 AM in Japan. I think that just about covers the planet. I predict three people will show up. Good odds.
Since this will be my first FB Live, really, please do tune in. It should be an entertaining disaster. Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything more than I have to, if that.
I’ve been using Scrivener to write and format my books for years. I remember, before the dawn of time, having to format my first book manually. The challenge of constructing a working Table of Contents was a real chore when I used chisel and stone. Then Scrivener came along and life got easier. With the release of Scrivener 3.0, things have become harder again, at least for me.
Let’s be clear: I love Scrivener as a word processor
Microsoft Word was developed for composing business documents, not killer thrillers. With Scrivener, writing is so much easier. I can bop all around a manuscript and find what I need to make edits in a flash. As a formatting device, Scrivener has a learning curve that can be pretty steep at first. When I first dove in, I remember spending many hours trying to get a print book design just right. As I published more books I cut my formatting time down. The summer I published a weekly serial to Amazon, I got so good at it that I couldn’t remember what my initial mental blocks had been. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. Life was glorious.
I’m a tad less than enthusiastic now.
How things went off the rails
Last week, I finished revisions to The Night Man. The manuscript was finally ready for the editor. I hit compile to get a Word doc to send to Google Docs. Simple, right? The evening was young. Hit share and hit the gym. That was the plan. Then the tooth grinding began.
It seemed that no matter what I did when I hit compile, I got wonky formatting. I tried many variables. Either the resulting document was all underlined, or all in italic or I lost all italics. I could create a pdf file but I couldn’t use that for my editor. Frustration mounted. I’d used Scrivener for years. How different could the new version be? Quite, as it turned out.
I broke down and went back to the manual. My search words were of no help. I watched YouTube instructional videos and hunted through forums. Since it’s a new update, much of what is out there on YouTube is out of date. In the forums, I found threads where some power users scolded those of us with less technical expertise.*Â
Finally, I found a note that hit on the problem.Â
There’s apparently a bug between Scrivener and .docx files. This doesn’t appear to be an especially new bug but it persists. Switching to .rtf fixed the problem. I did not get to the gym. It was about midnight when I finished. All this to compile one Word document?
Looking around, I’m not the only one who has struggled with the compile feature. I get it, though. Scrivener can do so many great things that it has to be complex to carry its heavy load. When one piece of software can create ebooks, print books, film scripts and proof copies etc, it’s bound to be complex. It’s also valuable. I still like Scrivener as writing software.
People tell me that, mostly, Scrivener is still great. However, for formatting and book design, I’m not up to climbing that learning curve again. I use Vellum for book design now. It’s awesome and easy. Some of Vellum’s interfaces are reminiscent of earlier versions of Scrivener.
Vellum is not inexpensive. An unlimited license will set you back $250. If you’ve got plenty of books to create for yourself or others, the investment makes sense.
Here’s what I’d humbly suggest:
1. For software developers: I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just a novelist. You’re way smarter than me in the ways of the tech force. Please recognize that and make the user experience more intuitive. More intuitive to mere mortals, I mean, not your fellow tech geniuses and power users.
2. For software developers: Please bring in a focus group of idiots like me before you revamp your software so much. Digging through the instructions, I felt like I had to hire Sherpas to climb that learning curve.Â
3. For software developers: Fix the bug if it’s on your end. My understanding is that this .docx bug is not actually Scrivener’s problem. The fault, if it must be assigned, lies elsewhere. However, it is a problem for Scrivener users.
4. For software developers: Try to make sure users are alerted if there is a bug even if it’s not on your end. I figured out the problem but it took a lot of digging while my blood pressure went up and my spirits went down.
5. If you’re a writer: Buy Scrivener. I’m still a fan. It is wonderful and wondrous as a word processor. If you only have one or two books in you, take the time to learn how to use all the miracles it has to offer. I took the time to learn the earlier versions and I’m very grateful Scrivener came along to rescue us from building TOCs manually. Copy special to create a Table of Contents with a click? That was a huge time saver.
6. If you write a lot of books and the expense is in your budget, write in Scrivener but format your ebooks and paperbacks using Vellum. It’s as user-friendly as can be.
*The title for this article (Scrivener: Just a Word Processor Now?) was inspired by an unknown user in a forum. She was trying to figure out Scrivener. That question was her lament. The replies she got were insistent that no, she was just being silly and obtuse. Well, no, she didn’t understand the new version of the software. Neither do I so I sympathize.
(The standard license for Scrivener is $45 though deals do seem to come along frequently. For all it can do, that price is very reasonable.)
~ Hi! I’m Robert Chazz Chute. Thanks for reading this far down! You’re a keener, aren’t you? I like that! Maybe you’re willing to go a little farther and meet me in Zihuatanejo, Red?
About me: I escaped the 9 – 5 for the 24/7/365. I construct apocalyptic epics and suspenseful crime fiction. My next killer thriller, The Night Man, will be released soon. Please subscribe to be alerted when Easy’s adventure in darkness becomes available. Thanks!
BONUS
Hit subscribe when the pop-up hits and I’ll let you in on the new and cool stuff happening at Ex Parte Press.
Also, are you already a fan of my work (AKA powerful fiction that will blow your mind and melt your face)? If you dig my sling, please leave a review. Even better, join my Inner Circle on Facebook. My Facebook group is Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. I share more about the writing life and assorted fun and nonsense daily.Â
Membership has its privileges: Fans get free ebooks to review and, with your permission, you will be entered in a raffle to get your name on a character in a future novel. Join us here.
We’ve got plenty of movies about superheroes and cops tracking down serial killers. We need more good movies about writing. Here are my top picks (and why) plus a few runners-up.
Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys is one of my favorite movies. Based on the book by Michael Chabon, Michael Douglas stars as a college professor who can’t seem to bring himself to finish writing a massive manuscript. (The manuscript is called Wonder Boys, too, by the way.)
There are a lot of fun moments in that movie and Toby Maguire is cast perfectly as the weird and aspiring young writer, James Leer. There’s a great scene where three drunk writers make up fictional histories of fellow bar patrons. I do that, too (the making up part, not the drunk part.) Great characters and intrigue are everywhere.
Reading Wonder Boys, I find the interiority of the main character is interesting in its depth. There’s plenty to admire in Chabon’s imaginative use of language. In one scene, students stand by an open door blowing “bored clouds” of cigarette smoke. I found myself wondering how many editors would cross out that line and sneer in the margin: “bored clouds? Really?” (Typical editors, not all editors. In context, it’s a great line.)
If a book description includes the phrase, “beautiful language” I’m usually suspect that it will be a literary novel in which nothing much will actually happen. When critics of old felt they had to give a pulp writer any credit, they’d grudgingly observe that the prose was “muscular” or “workmanlike.” (They often used to say sort of thing about Stephen King and Dashiell Hammett.) From the mouths of snobs, they damned fun books and good writing with faint praise. Readers ate it up and couldn’t wait for more. In Wonder Boys, Chabon finds the middle ground. The use of language is often innovative but the guy can paint a picture and there’s lots of fun and hijinx going on.
I love the line about James Leer’s second-hand smelly overcoat. I’m going from memory but it goes something like, “Standing nearby you could feel your luck change for the worse.” Beautiful.
I won’t spoil what happens with Professor Grady’s overlong manuscript but it’s memorable if you love books at all.
Finding Forrester
Sean Connery plays the successful recluse whose novel hit huge (like To Kill a Mockingbird huge). He mentors Jamal Wallace, a young writer with promise played by Rob Brown. The student is ready, the master appears. The apprentice writer finds the old man has critiqued his work savagely, exing out page after page in red ink. Jamal has talent and his prose is visceral but needs refinement.
That’s not the moment that really sticks with me, though. What resonates is a moment when the young man walks home at night past a burning car. Cops slide past in a cruiser, giving Jamal the evil eye. It could have been a throwaway scene but it’s not. Jamal is intelligent, observant and vulnerable. That one short scene is a nod from the director that connotes: yes, he’s young but his experience of the world is complicated, painful and worthy of being written.
I never had to walk home past a burning car but that hit me hard. In my twenties, I worked in Toronto’s book publishing industry. I was part of an army of underpaid professionals filling editorial positions and working in the sales force.
We were young, often underestimated, underappreciated and sometimes even belittled. I met smart people in that profession but the smart ones weren’t all in charge. The industry valued us only as cheap labor. In one job interview, my prospective boss told me I wouldn’t get to have an opinion for seven to ten years. I told him I may as well go to med school because they’d let me perform cardiothoracic surgery faster than that.
In Finding Forrester, it was nice to see a movie that didn’t undercut the young simply because they’re young. I had lots to say back then but unfortunately, I believed I had to wait. If you’re a writer, don’t wait. Gather experience. Read more. Write now.
As Sean would say, “Punch the keys!”
Runners-up
There are several runners-up for my top three. Throw Mama from the Train stands out, especially when Mama comes up with the crucial word (“sultry”). That’s the moment Billy Crystal, playing the writer frustrated and blocked, decides he’s willing to murder her.
In Bullets Over Broadway, the struggling playwright played by John Cusack gives up. He announces, “I am not a writer!”
It’s devastating. As Cusack walks off-screen into The Future of Abandoned Dreams, I thought, No! Don’t give up! I was a child when I saw that but I wanted to be a writer. I took his failure personally.
Adaptation is pretty great. Nicholas Cage plays twins with an appropriate level of weirdness. The portrayal of Robert McKee is spot on. Playing the famous writing teacher, Brian Cox gives a blistering speech in which he eschews the notion that a plot point is unbelievable. That’s worth the price of admission. It’s also fun to watch the writer who insisted on no car chases ends up writing about a car chase.
Misery is a good movie but I prefer the book. I read it in fascination because most of the action takes place in one room. King keeps it going and flowing. In several of my books about global apocalyptic conflict, the settings are quite expansive, more like the structure of The Stand. (As in, “Meanwhile in Jakarta…) By comparison, watching Stephen King keep a whole novel to one claustrophobic space is almost a stunt.
I don’t think Barton Fink is a great movie. However, John Goodman screaming, “I’ll show you the life of the mind!” Gold.
Those are the runners-up but the bronze medal goes to…
Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction was good for me in part because of the great character work by Will Ferrell. However, it’s Emma Thompson standing on the desk that makes it for me. She’s imagining stepping out on a ledge and looking down, figuring out what it would be like to feel the wind between her fingers before she leaps to her death.
We don’t have to experience everything nasty in order to write about it. I forget who said that by the time we’ve gone through high school we’ve experienced enough trauma to write for the rest of our lives. Writers observe and imagine. We put ideas through the brain blender, bake it up and, if done well, the fiction souffle rises.
Imagination allows me to write crime thrillers packed with murders. I have rage. I am vindictive. Still, I keep it to the page. Somehow I’ve avoided killing anyone in real life just for the sake of experimentation. The truth is, I think about murdering people in imaginative ways quite a lot. I mean, a lot.
Writing novels allows me to make an acceptable living of which my family disapproves. It’s also a healthy and entertaining outlet. I never have to taste prison coffee.
What are your favorite movies about writing? Tell me.
BONUS
Are you a fan of my strange fiction? If you dig my sling, please leave a review. Even better, join my Inner Circle on Facebook. My Facebook group is Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. I share more about the writing life and assorted fun and nonsense daily.
Membership has its privileges: Fans get free ebooks to review and, with your permission, you will be entered in a raffle to get your name on a character in a future novel. Join us here.
There’s more to the writing and publishing process than swilling coffee and banging your head against a keyboard. Those caffeine injections behind the eyeball do help immensely, though. (Ask your doctor.)
Here’s how I do the deed, from words to action.
My Flowchart of Tears and Triumph is as follows:
Compose in Scrivener > revisions > Grammarly > Scrivener > Google Docs for Editor & Betas > Word Doc > Vellum > publish > exalt briefly > repeat until they nail they casket shut, squelching my screams of protest that I am immortal.
The Ex Parte Press breakdown :
Scrivener is a writing program I’ve used for years. The writing interface is easy and intuitive. I love how I can jump around in a document so I can find what I need quickly. I can’t make such easy changes in a Word document. Microsoft Word was designed for business writing, not quickly finding details in full-length novels. Moving chapters around is also easy, should you feel the need. As easy as writing in Scrivener is, publishing with this program takes patience as you climb the learning curve. Since it can publish anything from manuscripts to movie scripts, the details are more complicated than the software I now use to format and publish. (See Vellum, Step 7.)
How many times do I revise a manuscript? That depends on the project. My first draft is about getting the story out of my head and on the page. Character work and action comes pretty easily to me on the first go. Tweaking the plot details and finding more jokes tends to come with the second draft. I want the dialogue to sparkle so I tinker with that quite a bit. When revising feels like an exercise in procrastination, it’s time to move on to the next stage.
Grammarly is an online spellchecker. I’ve tried ProWritingAid and found that it gave me too many false positives. Grammarly doesn’t give me too much or too little to consider. No matter how many revisions I’ve done, I read the book again in Grammarly. No online spellcheck is perfect. If my typo is “he packed it” instead of “he picked it,” Grammarly won’t catch that mistake. (I also have Autocrit but that’s not part of my regular publishing process yet. I’m still evaluating it so that’s a post for another day.)
Once a draft is corrected in Grammarly, I paste it back to Scrivener a chapter at a time. That’s one way of getting a sense of my progress so I can try to warn my editor how late I’m going to be with the manuscript. I write every day and it’s serious business. However, my editor understands that I need to have the book well developed before I show it to anyone. I’m self-conscious enough as it is and, as she says, “Some books need to simmer.”
I post the whole thing to Google Docs for my editor (Gari at strawnediting.com) and my beta reader. Sometimes I have more than one beta reader, sometimes not. I’ve been very lucky to find editorial support from sharp people who dig what I do. Editorial support from people who understand your genre and were fans first are aces.
Once the editorial suggestions and corrections are made, I weep profoundly at all that I missed. Then I download the novel as a Word doc and take a look at it one more time, basically scanning for red squiggles and spot checking. Something will be missed. My first job in Toronto was in production at Harlequin in the ’80s. There were eight levels of editorial staff then. Very few publishing houses can afford that now and fewer still pay for that much input anymore. Even with eight editorial monkeys massaging the manuscript, there could be as many as six to eight little corrections to be made. In the end, I want as clean a presentation as can be. My people do not disappoint.
Uploading to Vellum is quick and easy and some of the interface is similar to Scrivener. Formatting and book design with Vellum is a joy. I’m fussy and I’ve done some pretty tricky things with certain design elements that would be very challenging without this software. When I’m done constructing the formatting for the book I have files ready to upload to sales platforms.
I publish exclusively to Amazon at the moment but that will change in 2019 as I expand my options. (The why of all that is a ranty blog post for another time.)
When I hit publish on my first book in 2010, I took two weeks off to recover. I poured libations to the publishing gods and rested on my laurels. As I’ve progressed with publishing plots, plans, policies and practices I take less time to rest after all those p-words. There’s too much to do to enjoy the feeling of having published more than an hour or two. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes of elation. That would sound sad, pathetic and Sisyphean except I’m always excited about writing the next book. I jump on the next project until the tale is polished to excellence and I’m sick of it. As long as I’m satisfied readers will love the book, live in the world I create for them and laugh in the right spots, I’m happy.
Being a novelist now is lot like being a pulp writer in the ’40s and ’50s. I have to write the next book so maybe someone will pay attention to this one, that last one or, preferably, all my work. When people ask me how it’s going I say, “It’s like always having homework, but I love it and I get to work in a coffee shop without wearing an apron. This is the writing life.”
Hot Extras:
Writing and publishing is not a race but it is a marathon. When searching for editorial support, find people who notice your clever turns of phrase and aching awesomeness. Editing is more than scolding what you did wrong. When you see what your audience likes, you get clues on how to repeat those awesome feats of prose in the future.
By the time I’m deep into making editorial decisions with other people, I’m becoming sick of the book. A cheery LOL in the margin is energizing and the odd “Attaboy!” gives me the strength to persevere and run to the finish line.
Some authors claim they want their manuscript torn apart savagely. I suspect those folks are either lying, posing, preaching, masochistic or maybe they’re just really bad writers who need a spanking. It’s true that you could learn a lot from a thoughtful savaging from a good editor but eventually, you’ll tire and find an editor who treats you like a human being with feelings. The editorial process is best when it’s a collaborative effort of the likeminded. I do learn from my editor and I know she’s trying to make my books (even!) better. She never makes me feel worse about the process than I do already.
I mention this because I have met editors who think they’re in the mock and scold business. And yes, too many of them worked for traditional publishing houses and held the authors in their stable in contempt.
Expectations:
Gari keeps a style guide written just for me. My idiosyncrasies include:
No Oxford commas unless required for clarity. (Yes, I’m one of those monsters who fails to worship your blessed Oxford comma. Gather your torches and pitchforks and chase me around the village.)
I’m not a fan of commas before but. Commas are speed bumps. As long as it’s consistent and clear, cool. I do not want to slow the reader down too much on their merry way to turning the page toward another visceral word punch.
One editor (not Gari) once insisted that I describe my characters in exhaustive detail. I refuse. Readers will meet us at least halfway on this. I once taught a writing class in which I read one of my short stories. That done, I polled the class as to what the main character looked like. Beyond being male and almost thirty, there was no description in the text. Despite this, everyone had a clear picture in mind as to what the character looked like. The pictures in their minds varied immensely but that did not matter to them. The guy had a live skunk in the back seat of his car and a dead ex-friend in the trunk! No one was shortchanged.
I’m Canadian. I use American spelling conventions because most of my readers live in the United States. UK readers don’t seem to mind but some American readers take offense if the word color has a u in it. (Probably a patriotism thing?)
Our style guide is generally The Chicago Manual of Style until I come across something that feels like it should be an exception to a rule. Things change. Internet used to be capitalized and I thought that was stupid. The CMoS now accepts internet. I assume they noted my objections. You’re welcome.
~ Hi! I’m Robert Chazz Chute. Thanks for reading this far down! You’re a keener, aren’t you? I like that! Maybe you’re willing to go a little farther and meet me in Zihuatanejo, Red?
About me: I escaped the 9 – 5 for the 24/7/365. I construct apocalyptic epics and suspenseful crime fiction. My next killer thriller, The Night Man, will be released soon. Please subscribe to be alerted when Easy’s adventure in darkness is available. Thanks!
More about The Night Man: Wounded in Afghanistan, Earnest “Easy” Jack returns home to rural Michigan to train guard dogs in the family business. His high school sweetheart is on the run from a very bad husband. His father is kidnapped by a dirty cop. Easy thought his war was over. Trapped in the middle of America, the Night Man is still in a war zone.
BONUS!
Are you a fan of my work? If you dig my sling, please leave a review. Even better, join my Inner Circle on Facebook. My Facebook group is Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. I share more about the writing life and assorted fun and nonsense daily.
Membership has its privileges: Fans get free ebooks to review and, with your permission, you will be entered in a raffle to get your name on a character in a future novel. Join us here and exalt at length.
