New episodes of the All That Chazz podcast and the Cool People Podcast will return soon. In the meantime, there’s this (NSFW) awesomeness:
2014 resolutions: How winning is done
Fresh year. Clean slate. New attitudes. New you. How about it?
I’ve been away a while. Had some health problems. Had some issues. However, I didn’t (couldn’t) wait until the New Year to start making major changes. It turns out, the key to change was deciding to.
When that failed, I decided to again. That choice isn’t made once each New Year’s Eve. It has to be made each morning, each hour and each minute.
Come with me if you want to live.
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.
Despite being bitten by a vampire, I’m still alive
I’ve been unwell, but each morning when I wake up, I think about This Plague of Days and what comes next. I think about the holes in the plot I must plug and the nice people I have to kill (some even in fiction.) Armies of humans, zombies and vampires will gather to fight for the future and some characters we’ve come to know well are not going to live to see it. Fear not. I’ll balance out the bleak, the outrageous and the hopeful…somehow.
Writing a serial this big is not easy. It’s not digging frozen ditches in December difficult, but it has its challenges. That’s why I appreciate your kind reviews and emails so much. You nurture me. You keep me going. I can hardly wait to hit you with Season 3 of This Plague of Days. I just read another five-star review of TPOD! Wow! I’m so happy about how things are working out.
I had planned to write another book first, but Jaimie Spencer kept coming to me in my dreams and telling me to let the last of the trilogy unfold and get to it. I’m not even kidding. The boffo conclusion of This Plague of Days is a persistent itch that only writing can scratch. And so, yes, be assured I’m working on it. Not as fast as either of us would prefer, I suppose, but each week I steal a few more hours to chisel at the block of granite. The story is emerging in surprising ways.
All runners stumble
This week I allowed a vampire (an energy vampire) to sap me of creativity. I lost sleep and time and got sick. I allowed the vampire into my brain when he had not earned that privilege nor was he invited. If you have even a little success, occasionally you’ll become the target of a stalker or get a rude message from people with ulterior motives. An email dripping with condescension threw me off my stride. Lesson learned. I’ll hit the spam button faster next time.
And so I come back to what’s important: creating great experiences for me and my readers. I love to play with words. I love to tell stories. I thank every single reader who digs what I do and lets me know they get it. This Plague of Days is our party and, honestly, letting go of the guest of honor, Jaimie Spencer, will be hard to do.
For me, leaving Jaimie and the Spencers behind to write other books is going to be like leaving The Last Cafe…and that statement will be explained in Season 3 of This Plague of Days.
We appreciate your patience. Please stand by…
My Covers for Season Two of This Plague of Days by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com
For Joel Friedlander’s Ebook Cover Design Awards (since I guess I have to pick one), I’m nominating the Season II, Episode 5 cover below:
- Just for the extra implied menace, I had to go with this cover, but I love all the covers of this serial (Season One was brilliant, too!) I love all of Kit Foster’s cover art. Kit has won two awards from Joel Friedlander for two of my books already, so if you’re looking for a cover designer, definitely check out Kit’s work at KitFosterDesign.com.
Looks like Mark’s co-presenter is a PSYCHO!
#Podcast: The Hunger Games Edition
In this, the 82nd episode, a rant about the why of the downfall of US democracy (well, one why), a taste of what The Little Book of Braingasms is like and a reading from the Hunger Games chapter of the crime novel, Higher Than Jesus. Brace yourself for glamazon ideation and deep reflections on addiction. Chill’s been stabbed and Jesus Diaz has to somehow track down Willow Clemont before the Fat Man and Lurch kill her. This could prove difficult. They’re somewhere in Chicago, but that’s all our luckless Cuban assassin knows. Lesson: Don’t get involved with arms deals with crazies.
This podcast is sponsored by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. Go check out his work. If you need a web banner or a book cover, he’s the Scottish man of your dreams.
Sorry this episode is late. Had to get a day job. Long story. Please donate to support the podcast or buy the books in the sidebar at AllThatChazz.com. And, by the way, Season One of This Plague of Days is now available in paperback! (Working on the same for Season 2.) To learn more about This Plague of Days, check out www.ThisPlagueOfDays.com.
Thanks for listening!
~ Chazz