Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign came up with an excellent demotivational poster based on the beginning of Bigger Than Jesus.
Jesus Diaz, my loveable, luckless hit man, would definitely approve! (I do, too!)
The Unknown Man Edition
In this edition of the All That Chazz podcast: Oscar fallout; scary health scares; great big kid love; Higher Than Jesus wins a cover design award; Six Seconds is released and I do a challenging (some dicks would say embarrassing) reading of chapter 7, “The Unknown Man”, from my crime novel. When I wrote the character of Chillie Gillie, I gave him a lisp. It reads well, but I had no idea how hard he would be to read aloud. You can be entertained by the story or laugh at my unintentional humour as i struggle through Chill’s dialogue.
This podcast is sponsored by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. In case you didn’t love Kit Foster’s work enough already, you should know that it was his work on Higher Than Jesus that earned Venture Galleries’ Cover Design Award for Hardboiled Mystery! Thanks again, Kit! Check out Kit’s portfolio. He does web banners, too, so everyone can benefit from his services.
The big announcement this week is that my quick guide to using Vine is launched! The book is Six Seconds, The Unauthorized Guide to How to Build Your Business with the Vine App. Vine is the Apple app to make short videos. I write about how to make stories, art and humour to promote your services or products in a fun way without feeling spammy. It will be available on more platforms than Apple soon, I’m sure. Think of Vine as video Twitter and get in early to make the most of it. Vines are so much fun to make, it’s an end in itself. However, I think the app has great potential for business. Finally, a fun way to promote your work and enliven your Twitter stream with easy to make video! Six Seconds is 18,000 words, brief and funny for just $1.99. Get it here. If you love it, please review it. Thank you.
Enjoy all the awkward lisping and thanks for listening!
~ Chazz
Six Seconds is launched. Learn about Vine with this fun guide
Finally, a fun way to drive traffic; promote your business, your website, blog or podcast; enliven your Twitter stream with quick and easy video. Click the cover to find out more.
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
#Podcast: Night & the City Edition
Pope Benedict retirement plans, struggling with Angst and the beginning of a romance in a reading of “Night & the City”, the fifth chapter from Higher Than Jesus, the hardboiled thriller from Robert Chazz Chute.
This podcast is sponsored by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com.
Music today is Hitman by Kevin McLeod of Incompetech.com.
Thanks for listening to the podcast! If you like it, please leave a review at iTunes so more people can find my strange brand of whimsy.
Cheers, mates!
~ Chazz
The What’s Uncool Edition
Blame the media over two outrages you probably won’t believe. Annoying grammar police shoot three and The Undercover Man, Chapter 4 of Higher Than Jesus pours you some hot coffee.
My mistake: The link to the Moment of Clarity podcast is actually leecamp.net (not the link I gave in the podcast. Here’s the link to Lee Camp’s video with more about the true perpetrators of the assassination of MLK. To donate a tweet to Lee Camp, go here.
Check out our sponsor, Kit Foster at KitFosterDesigncom. Excellent graphic artist!
Check out the Fitbit by clicking the affiliate link in the right sidebar. Click donate to help with bandwidth and best of all, buy the books by Robert Chazz Chute from the “Shop” menu.
Thank you and thanks for listening!
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.