Tag: All That Chazz podcast

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News, Views, Podcast Ends and Beginnings

The Self-publishing Roundtable, a podcast that’s been going on for years, is ending. I’ve been a guest and co-panelist on this one and I’m a little sad to see it go away. However, new podcasts will rise in its stead. 

 HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT:

In addition to my fiction, I’ve written a book about stress management. In the second week of the new year, just as your resolve about your resolutions are waning, I’ll relaunch the All That Chazz podcast as the All That Chazz Stress Relief Podcast. 

The book will be available by January 1st!

Expect the book and podcast to be fun, funny and, most of all, useful. More details soon!

Film at 11. Speakers at 11. Everything at 11.

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The Writing Life: Big Changes and New Ventures

Hello, Loyal Readers! (and you traitorous hater bastids, too! You know who you are!)

Here’s what’s up:

I’m powering through the last bits of This Plague of Days, Season Two. (Read this post at ThisPlagueOfDays.com to find out more about the exciting stuff coming in Season Two.)

As the summer winds down and I toil on the manuscript, things have gotten a little crazy. Okay. Maybe the crazy is just me, but the point is, I’m overwhelmed with work. Solution? Oddly, the solution is: Add more work. 

In order to pay bills and get life on track, I’m starting another business in addition to Ex Parte Press. My daughter asked me today about my plans for the fall. 

“Daddy is setting up another business, sweetie. That’s what daddy does because regular jobs give daddy a rash.” It’s true. I have control issues, meaning I have to be in control to function in the world. If someone tries to control me, I alternate between depression and anxiety. There’s also a little bit of Jesus Diaz in me that gets activated. (If you don’t get that, you need to get this and this!)

Still…another business? Again?

It’s not despair I feel…I don’t think. It shouldn’t be despair. I admit that I do wish I could make Ex Parte Press work faster so all I had to do was write. (Hell, while we’re at it, why not hot and cold running interns, a latte fountain and a lottery win?)

However, I get excited about doing creative things. Starting up businesses is creative, too. It gives me anxiety, but also nervous energy that I can pour into all my endeavours. I crave constant stimulation. Whether it’s writing or helping people solve problems, business ventures and new books are on the same artful continuum.

But why another business now?

My publishing company isn’t making enough money to afford a vanilla bean latte fountain…yet.

I must emphasize: YET. Here’s why I’m optimistic:

This Plague of Days and Bigger Than Jesus have some big publicity coming their way soon. I’m revamping Crack the Indie Author Code for print and getting back marketing control of Self-help for Stoners. I have big plans for the third book (and a bunch written already) in the Hit Man Series. I’m already 25,000 words into This Plague of Days, Season Three. In November, I’ll speak at the London Central Library for an evening of readings and publishing Q&A. I’m juggling a lot of balls, but with heavy demand, I’m a high-functioning  cyborg from outer space.

I’m activating marketing plans for more of my books while writing more books. There aren’t enough hours in the day for all I want to create. Sometimes the headaches and insomnia hit when it’s all too much. Sometimes I work on stories and plans in my sleep. (No, really. That’s true.) In the past two years, since starting Ex Parte Press, I’ve published ten books. Despite my other business start-up, I do not anticipate my publishing pace will slow.

I’ve got big plans on several fronts. There’s much reason to be optimistic.

This Plague of Days is beginning to get traction. It’s a time of uproar as I fight to get another income stream started and my kids begin to attend two different schools. Our busy schedules are more complicated just as I launch more books and prep for the fall and Christmas book season. Plus, my podcasts and many blogs will continue. I am your friendly neighbourhood writing machine and together, we will overcome. I am Resolve.

Because of Season Two of TPOD, the All That Chazz podcast has necessarily been on hiatus for August. (The family wanted family time for a change and we had a nice and necessary break before diving back in.)

This is not a struggle. This is Nemo: Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!

A new episode of the All That Chazz podcast returns next week!

(Check out the latest Cool People Podcast here. )

 

 

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The Mean Streets Edition

It’s podcast #70! However, confidence shaken, join me as I go down the rabbit hole of angst and get past the ennui. Top secrets are teased; new podcasts, books and podcasts are launched; I talk about the glory of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men; writing contests, fear and gratitude. We round out the podcast with some What’s Cool News about a new app called Vine and I read one of my favorite chapters from Higher Than Jesus, my crime novel with a funny, luckless hit man.

Insider Information

Very astute readers might notice that, except for the final two chapters, every chapter title is a movie, usually something noirish.

In case you missed it, here’s the synopsis to bring you up to speed on Higher Than Jesus:

Yes, it’s time for a reading by the author and Chapter 6 is called “Mean Streets”. So far in the story, Jesus has killed a man on Christmas Day in Chicago. The promised payment for the murderous deed doesn’t come through so he heads over to the God Eats Diner to see the client face-to-face and to get paid. Then our favorite funny hit man falls in love with the blonde glamazon Willow Clemont, the client’s daughter. Just as he’s about to ask her out, two guys with guns burst in demanding to speak to Willow’s father, Samuel Clemont, the wheelchair-bound former Marine. Jesus defends Willow, along with Chill Gillie, a very skilled bodyguard. We haven’t seen the last of the two thugs from the local gang, but in the meantime, Jesus walks Willow home and Cupid’s got them both in the cross hairs. 

In “Mean Streets”, we finally find out a little more about Jesus Diaz’s childhood after he escaped that basement of terrors and enslavement in Miami. (For more on Jesus’s origins, get Bigger Than Jesus by Robert Chazz Chute.) Today’s instalment details how Jesus and Denny De Molina survived in Havana on the Hudson…and how Jesus got a taste for killing to survive.

Our sponsor is Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. Consult him for all your graphics needs. Special thanks to Dave Jackson of The School of Podcasting for his help this week. If you need a new website or a new podcast, I highly recommend you get Dave’s help.

Music for today’s podcast was “Truth of the Legend” by Kevin McLeod of Incompetech.com. Awesome royalty-free music there. Check it out.

Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please review it on iTunes, buy my books. If you care to donate, I sure won’t stop you. Thanks for listening, in any case.

Cheers!

~ Chazz