Tag: writing

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Physical distance, not social distance

TPOD RED CONTAGION use this one
Coming soon!

She Who Must Be Obeyed (AKA my wife) mentioned that the new move in appropriate terminology is to encourage physical distancing, not social distancing.

With COVID-19 rampaging across Earth, isolating is necessary. However, you need not feel alone. All in this together even if we’re apart, right? Some experts suggest reaching out to three people a day (electronically). Give a call to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. Check in, especially with the elderly, vulnerable neighbors or family members who are stuck, alone or at risk. Alone doesn’t have to be lonely. Making and maintaining social connections has even been shown to be good for our health. Stress and strife is something we need to tamp down as much as we can.

Don’t know what to say to people going through hard times? Often, all you need do is listen so they feel heard and seen. Other times, you may be able to help people at risk connect to services that can assist them.

Speaking of Reaching Out

Did you know that avid readers of my work have a private Facebook group where I hold forth on the doings of the day? It’s often jokes and occasionally it’s serious. I add excerpts from my work in progress, too.

Example? Here’s a snippet from the This Plague of Days prequel I’m working on now: 

Armed only with the cane, Moira rushed toward the screams. She was still weak, but now that she’d survived the Sutr flu, she was determined to fight whatever came next. She did not spare a moment to tell Kevin Laughlin that she would return to his side. The dying have no time for lies.

For another taste from the group, here’s today’s post (a review of sorts): 

Hey, Monday, you great looming beast full of threats, coffin nails, and bat wings. And hello, friends.

When we ran out of our addictive Tiger King supply, we watched Wild Wild Country on Netflix. Again, I am amazed at the sheer amount of footage narcissists require. If you know someone who records everything, there’s a good chance they killed somebody or they’re about to do something super shady that should land them in a prison cell.

Wild Wild Country has been out for a while. I’d given it a miss, but it is so watchable after you slog through the first episode. It’s about a cult that started out with high hopes. Then god complexes, bigotry, and government corruption get in the way. A utopian vision in rural Oregon slides from peace and love to AK-47s. It’s disappointing and teaches us a lesson we should have learned a long time ago: Don’t trust the feds.

There is so much fascinating nuance in these tales of downward spirals. I don’t watch a lot of true crime. I imagine that if you binge too much of it, it’s difficult to see the good in humanity. I know I often sound like a cynic, but they say every cynic is a disappointed idealist.

If you dig what I do, this is your invitation to join our happy little group of readers.

My whimsy + nice people = happy nonsense.

Find us at Fans of Robert Chazz Chute today.

Cheers!

~ Chazz

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Writing: What’s to come in 2020

TPOD RED CONTAGION use this one

(Note: Want to hear the first chapter of TPOD: Contagion? Subscribers will receive a link to hear it!)

Here’s a list of books and assorted projects I’m working on for 2020!

  1. A prequel novella to This Plague of Days, set mainly in Dungarvan and Dublin. Currently at 12,000+ words.
  2. Entering three short story contests.
  3. I’m currently taking a Udemy course in audiobook production and narration.
  4. Working on a paranormal trilogy with author and friend Armand Rosamilia. The first book is written and we’re probably about a third through the second.
  5. A big publisher approached me looking for book proposals. One pitch missile has been fired. I’ll keep exploring this.
  6. I plan to take the Dimension War Series wide (i.e. beyond Amazon) but will to revamp it a little first.
  7. Working as a book doctor for another author’s project, waiting on the rewrite of the first draft.
  8. I’d like to get an audiobook or two out this year for Ex Parte Press, probably for Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close first, followed by Amid Mortal Words and The Night Man. At the pace of audiobook production, expect this much later in the year.
  9. I’ve been approached about doing another podcast (producing and possibly co-hosting). I love podcasting. It’s an exciting idea that is in development.
  10. A secret project for one of my pen names. Into the third round of revisions now and it’s killing me.

    Those are the broad strokes for Ex Parte Press for 2020. But wait! There’s more!

    I built a little sound studio (AKA Blanket Fort) in my basement to record and produce future audiobook projects.

    This Plague of Days is my most popular series. As an exclusive for subscribers here, I’ll soon release a reading of the first chapter of This Plague of Days: Contagion.


    Subscribe and stay tuned!

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Novels with secret messages

In writing a novel, my first priority is to weave a compelling story with interesting characters with fun twists and solid jokes amid the action. The theme emerges eventually, it does not come first. Now that I’ve written several apocalyptic books, here’s what came out of the subtext of the following works:This-Plague-of-Days-OMNIBUS-Large-2

This Plague of Days: The right person in the right place at the right time can make all the difference in the world and the two most powerful words are “Begin again.”

Amid Mortal Words - High Resolution

Amid Mortal Words: With great power comes great consequences.

AFTER LIFE INFERNO AFTER Life: Through adversity, we evolve.

Robot Planet: Solutions arrive when we embrace our problems, not when we run from them.

Robot Planet - High Resolution

Haunting Lessons: You don’t know the depth of your capabilities until you are challenged.
Screenshot 2017-06-08 22.24.50

Dream's Dark Flight REVAMP full


Dream’s Dark Flight:

We find our power when we let go of the fears that do not serve us.

 

 

Second-Class-Citizen-COVER-DEC-16

And now, Citizen Second Class: Even when at war against the powerful, peace may be achieved not by strength but by bravery and guile.

Citizen Second Class just released. You can pick up my latest dystopian adventure along with all the others here.

 

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Titles, Arcs and ARCS

I’m working feverishly on my new novel, Citizen Second Class.

We workshopped the title a bit within our Facebook group, Fans of Robert Chazz Chute. Originally, I thought about calling it Citizen: Second-Class. However, search engines can be hampered by punctuation. After consulting the group, I was assured going without was fine, hence the pared-down title.

A good title is important and many variables go into those decisions. I thought about calling Amid Mortal Words something else. The Murder Words or The Murdering Words was catchy. However, it was less on point for the novel’s genre. Amid Mortal Words is apocalyptic sci-fi, not a murder mystery.

Citizen Second Class is about a young woman trying to survive in a dystopian society where the American empire has fallen. Corporations have taken over from politicians. Militia groups have been absorbed into the military. The rich hide in oases and bunkers behind high walls and the rest of us are living a Third World subsistence.

I know that “Third World” is dated. The preferred term now is “developing world.” However, the problem is regression, not progression. The gears that make the republic work are broken and Kismet Beatriz, our young heroine, is trying to find a way to a better life. She may seem meek and unsure at first but underneath? Oh, yeah, you bet she’s badass.

The villains are cool, too. My policy is that no villain thinks they’re really bad. They all think their awful deeds are necessary. Their rationalizations run deep. That’s what makes villains so interesting.

For instance, in This Plague of Days, Season One, the Lady in Red seems a bit over the top, maybe even cartoonish, at first. Many readers were shocked to discover the reasoning and power behind Shiva’s evil plans when they got to Season Three. No apologies. The payoffs were worth the wait.

Exploration of motivations and longer arcs make for deeper character development, too. In the Dimension War Series, Tamara Smythe goes from country girl to city girl to demon/alien slayer. Some readers thought she was too naive and too concerned with her dead boyfriend in the first book. They wanted her to be a fully developed adult from page one. You know what? No.

I love how Tam changes into a warrior who finds her way. I write novels, not quick summaries catering to your private and peculiar proclivities, Carl from the Midwest! That’s right, I’m talking to you, Carl, you dick!

Heh.

Great Expectations

This week I sent out a newsletter seeking advance reviewers for Citizen Second Class. For any novel to succeed in today’s marketplace, it really needs a lot of reviews at launch. If the story behind Citizen Second Class intrigues you and you want to find out what happens to America and the world before anyone else, thank you and welcome to the Advance Review Copy Team

Join the ARC group, please email me at expartepress@gmail.com with the subject line: CSC Review Team.

ARC readers will have two to three weeks prior to publication before it’s up on Amazon. If all goes according to plan, the manuscript should be ready sometime in the third week of November, if not before.

And now, back to the blanket fort where I stir the word cauldron and do keyboard alchemy.

Cheers!

~ RCC

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Publishing: My Nervous Breakdown in Ten Steps

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 :

  1. 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.)
  2.  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.
  3. 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.)
  4. 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.”
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.)
  9. 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.
  10. 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. 

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The Flash: Five Surprises for a New Fan

I started watching The Flash on Netflix as a stress reliever. I wasn’t too invested at first. In fact, given the names of the villains and the source material, I mistook the series for something breezy to help me chill out. I was wrong. Though much of the dialogue is jokey, the characters are earnest and there’s a whole lot of death going on for a CW show. The show is not just bubblegum for the eyes, after all. I picked up on a few details which made it better than I expected (and useful to writers.)

Here’s what I learned from The Flash:

1. The Art of the Cliffhanger


These writers are the masters of cliffhangers that advance the plot. If this were a novel, each chapter would be a page-turner. They often throw in a double cliffhanger.

It’s great for Netflix viewing because the narrative makes you want to surf straight into the next episode to find out what happens next. Someone will curse imaginatively and shout that they hate cliffhangers. I know. The details of dealing intelligently with cliffhangers is a blog post all its own. I’ll give that objection a short answer here, though: We’ve been trained by decades of serial television to endure cliffhangers. Everybody hates pop ups on websites, too. But they work.

BONUS ANSWER: Lots of people say they hate cliffhangers but they will be back after the obligatory performative rage quit. It wasn’t the cliffhangers that drove people to wander away from The Walking Dead. It was the brutality of Glen’s death and the relentlessly grim outlook that left viewers questioning the value of surviving the zombie apocalypse. Since the producers of The Walking Dead seem to be bringing hope back, I suspect the show will regain some viewers who walked away.

SIDE NOTE:

The Flash springs from comics, obviously. I used to collect comics but I didn’t understand the art of comic book writing very well until recently. I aspire to write a graphic novel based on some of my previously published work. In Words into Pictures by Brian Michael Bendis, the author points out that a truly well-written comic has a cliffhanger at every turn of the page. That could be twelve cliffhangers for one twenty-four page story! Writing comics suddenly sounds more daunting, doesn’t it?

2. Plot and Plan Long Story Arcs

On the surface, it was a little too easy to dismiss a show that kept hammering a couple of solutions hard: “Run, Barry, run!” and “Believe in yourself.” I began watching carelessly so I popped into the show midway through the first season, just for a taste. Later, after watching the rest of the run, I circled back to the beginning. That’s when it hit me how much forethought seems to be involved. I’m impressed.

There are seeds planted early on that grow to mighty trees later. In the first season, the camera pauses on a shot of a cage labeled Grodd. The gorilla is a fixture later but the writers don’t answer all questions immediately.

If you’ve ever taken a writing class or watched comment threads devolve into insanity, you’ve seen someone demand that all the answers come front loaded and quickly. Long story arcs are for readers and viewers who like a little mystery. Quick answers are for impatient people who aren’t losing themselves to the narrative (AKA not in the reading/viewing demographic. If you’re into it, you’ll wait.)

I’m guessing that since the creators of the TV show had decades of original material to draw from, they could plot and plan far ahead using the source material. Sometimes you can get there the way Breaking Bad found their ending: pantsing it. Still, I do appreciate that the creators of The Flash appear to have planned well ahead (even if they didn’t).


3. The Art of Raising Stakes


After saving the planet (or at least Central City) from utter destruction over and over, you might finish a season of The Flash and think: Where can they go from here? The villains get even more interesting as the series progresses. They become more dangerous and meaner. The characters you’ve grown to love, or at least like, suffer more. When the hero is up against a villain and you’re thinking that the good guys can’t possibly win, you’ve got a compelling story.

SIDE NOTE: You know that famous hallway fight scene in Daredevil? Of course, you do. On The Flash, Neil Sandilands as The Thinker has a scene where he uses a conglomeration of powers to take out a SWAT team that is epic. When they composed that epic fight scene, I’m sure they had the Daredevil scene in mind. It’s a lot of fun.


4. Fearlessness


The Flash is a series that isn’t afraid to be complex. You know a time travel plot is difficult to deal with when you have actors drawing timelines and flowcharts as if they’re teaching metaphysical physics. But they’re also brave enough to be silly and good for them for having fun with it. If Christopher Nolan had more of a sense of humor, he could be the greatest director of his generation instead of one of the greatest.

With The Flash‘s multiverse packed with so many versions of one character, it is a joy to see Tom Cavanaugh play Harrison Wells et al in many hilarious iterations. He goes from cold and deadly to a stereotypically comedic German scientist to Matthew McConaughey parody to a French detective named Sherloque. When Vibe charges off to save the day, Tom Cavanaugh gets to deliver the gleeful line: “Good luck storming the castle!” Classic!

SIDE NOTE: The actor Tom Cavanaugh is a Canadian national treasure. Candice Patton is so gorgeous I’m not absolutely positive she is real. She might be CGI.

BACK TO THE POINT, ROB:

I appreciate The Flash‘s flexibility of tone so much. Too many shows (and books) have one note and hit it as if they’re playing triangle in the high school’s junior band. I want ups and downs and loops on my story’s roller coaster. The Flash delivers. As a guy who dared to include whales as part of the solution to a zombie apocalypse, I love that.

 

5. Heart and Relatability.

It’s interesting to see how the characters have evolved on The Flash. When the series begins, Jesse L. Martin plays Detective Joe West a little like he’s still NYPD Detective Ed Green on Law & Order. Later, we learn he’s a big softie. In his first appearance, Wentworth Miller plays bad guy Leonard Snart more seriously. Later on, his portrayal is looser, more fun and unexpected. It’s as if the show runner took the actor aside and said, “Have more fun with it.” And so we have more fun watching.

I love James Bond movies and I read all the books, too. However, that character is so iconic, he doesn’t change. He could be an android programmed with a very narrow range of emotions and a list of one-liners. I like when fiction is more connected and characters develop over time. History affects the future (or on The Flash, the future can rewrite the past).

Characters develop and change on this show. They don’t have to change much to be compelling but their ability to change over time makes them human and relatable. The transformation doesn’t have to be a preachy, “I learned this” moment, either. When Cisco hates Barry for a while, he doesn’t really have a big “I forgive you” moment. He just does what we all do when a good friend pisses us off: We get over it eventually.

What makes a hero? Barry Allen believes in empathy and the willingness to sacrifice. What’s more interesting is that he does not save the world alone. Unlike most other superheroes, he can’t do it alone. That’s where the heart of the show comes through. They’re friends. They’re family. They get annoyed with each other but love keeps them together and in the fight for the rest of us.

I know. It’s just a TV show and some of the lesser villains can be childish. However, this moment in history feels like a great time to be childlike. We need more empathy and hope. This is a great time for love so strong it keeps us together despite the fact that sometimes we hate each other.

We all want to be heroes but we can’t do it alone. I love the writing life, but sometimes I feel very disconnected from our current reality. I came to The Flash looking for a distraction from the endless scroll of bad news in my news feed. I grew to appreciate the writing. Then I forgot about the mechanics, left my stress behind and simply enjoyed watching the show. I didn’t expect to become a fan but I did.

P.S. I saw Grant Gustin on Glee before he sang on The Flash. Yes, the star of the show sure can sing. The musical team-up with Supergirl star, Melissa Benoist was a delight. However, the actor who plays Cisco is a singer as well as an actor. Carlos Valdes oozes charm all over the place. The show made it to its 100th episode on December 4th. I hope Carlos gets to sing a bunch on the show before The Flash finishes its run. 

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The Pain and My New Commitments to You

In this post, I’m going to cover a couple of cool things you may want to be involved in. It’s about a new show, a new book and a new life for both of us.

What you might now know about me is, in addition to writing crime novels and dark fantasy, I’m a Registered Massage Therapist with over 20 years experience in injury rehabilitation and the treatment of disease conditions. (See?)

I work at being an RMT part-time to cobble together an income that finances my writing. At the moment, I’m working very little and things are looking pretty bad. It turns out, I have to work on myself to save myself from myself. I’m going to help you save yourself, too. Here’s what happened:

The Twist

A couple of weeks ago I was home alone. Naturally, since no one could see me, I cranked up some tunes and worked on getting some exercise. Writing is incredibly sedentary so I have to work out when I can. Two minutes later, I twisted my knee by dancing too hard.

Ow. How ridiculous. And OW!

So…shit. Now what? I suspect it’s a medial meniscus tear. Basically, that’s the cushion in the knee and my cushion isn’t working right. The pain has been so bad sometimes that I sweat. Sleep is elusive. When the pain gets intolerable, I use a cane.

Next on the menu: painkillers, ice, chiropractic, exercise, alignment techniques, manual therapy, bracing, cupping, heat and kinesiotape. Turmeric supplements (and lots of the natural spice) helps with joint inflammation. Analgesic creams aren’t touching the pain at all. I can normally squat the whole rack at the gym but I don’t dare do that right now. In fact, the stairs up to the weight room are intimidating and I have to be very careful.

I saw the doc today.

An X-ray and MRI is scheduled. It’s up to me to rehab my way out of trouble before a surgeon decides to get in there with flamethrowers, holy water and hot pokers. There’s ultrasound at my clinic and my friend the chiropractor is excellent, too. Arthroscopy isn’t as popular a solution as it once was, but I’m hoping the answer to my pain will be nothing more than rehabilitative exercise. Fortunately, I’m an expert in that.

Working my way out of pain is one of my part-time jobs now.

It doesn’t pay, but it’s going to feel great to be healthy again. In fact, I’m aiming for more than just going back to normal. I want to be super again. Doesn’t everybody want to feel super? My goals include weight loss (also great for knees and osteoarthritis) and a healthier, more active lifestyle. That can be hard for a writer who often sits still for hours at a time. However, I’ve got a plan for that and it’s already in action. No whining necessary!

I’ve still got writing projects going and collaborators and readers depending on me. My collaborators are patient, but I’m not.

A couple of part-time gigs are in the works to try to make ends meet. Standing at a massage table all day is too much pain at the moment, so I’m off that work for now. I’m dedicating a huge chunk of each day to try to fix my damn knee quickly. However, my plans are bigger than one knee. I’m thinking about your knees, too.

THE PROJECTS

Book sales have tapered off lately so I have to get the next book in the Ghosts & Demons Series revised, edited and beta read etc. and out there! I’m pretty close to finished with the book. Number two in the series is called The End of the World As I Know It and I’m really happy with it. It’s got jokes, action and swordplay galore. Very Buffy.

I am asking for help, but I also plan to give more help. (More on that below.)

If you can spot a typo at arm’s length or shoot an arrow through a plot hole at twenty paces, please join my Steel Falcon Beta Read Team. You’ll get a first look at what happens to Tamara Smythe in the demon apocalypse and laugh your ass off, too. If you want to join the Choir Invisible, just email me at expartepress [AT] gmail [DOT] com with the subject line: STEEL FALCON.

Please note: If you haven’t read The Haunting Lessons (the first book in the series) yet, that’s okay. Your help as a beta reader is appreciated immensely and you’ll get acknowledgement in the book, too.

Now, about that love and joy I’m going to spread around:

Very soon, I’ll launch a health program with daily updates for anyone who cares to follow. I’m hammering out details now, but this is about exercise, eating right and accountability. It’ll involve reports on my progress, exercise tips and tricks to get healthier. This is for me because I need to get on track, but it’s also for readers, viewers and a lot of people I don’t know. Everyone needs to eat and act healthy. I’ll lead by example and report the truth of my successes and failures. I’ll measure every mile of the journey. The reports will keep me on track and I hope they inspire you.

Soon you’ll see posts from me on Vine, Instagram and here, at AllThatChazz.com. Subscribe if’n you ain’t already!

If you’re on the Fitbit, go to Fitbit.com, find Chazz (me!) and be my friend there to kick things off.

This commitment will bleed over to the All That Chazz podcast, as well. This post is already too long, so I’ll talk about that in the next podcast.

How about it?

 Join the fight to live healthier every day. Join me. I’ll share my struggle and encourage you in yours. Soon, I’ll get my health, my job and life back. This isn’t the end. It’s the speed bump before a new beginning. I believe in beginning again. Do you?

~ Steel Falconers: email me at expartepress [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

The rest of you, get a good pair of sneakers out and get a fitbit. First goal: Get at least 10,000 steps every day. I’ll catch up to you soon, and I won’t be hobbling around on a cane!