C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

02/03/2012 • 4:45 PM 3

Met Kevin Smith at Live From Behind in Toronto! He and Jay have my book!

Image via Wikipedia

Last night I shook hands and had a chat with Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith (Jay and Silent Bob for those not in the cult). Each now have a signed copy of my book, Self-help for Stoners. They couldn’t have been more gracious, interested, warm or friendly. It was a big moment for me, especially when Kevin recognized the book and said, “Hey! I know you!”

Each got a personalized recommendation for stories they might particularly like from Self-help and it was a genuine pleasure all around. We laughed a lot. As always, of course, Kevin spoke inspired and inspiring words about writing and the creative process.

I’m a bit emotional today. It was a milestone in the evolution, not just of the book, but for me taking the leap to writing full-time. It was just over a year ago that I decided I needed to “stop chasing the puck” and quit my job of twenty years. Things went full circle last night. And now? Onward. Three novels are coming out this year with my name on them. Hoo-ha!

I must make this writing thing work.

Bonus? As I walked up onstage, Jay sang Paperback Writer. Yes!

‘Kevin Smith: Live From Behind Featuring “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” ‘ info – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
Kevin Smith: Live From Behind Hits Movie Theaters Nationwide For First-Time Live Audience Interactive Event (prweb.com)
Live From Behind, Kevin Smith Hosts Unique Live Jay And Silent Bob Podcast Event (laughingsquid.com)
Jay & Silent Bob strike up a conversation, on a podcast near you (arts.nationalpost.com)
How Kevin Smith Changed My Life (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: All That Chazz, authors, Books, ebooks, My fiction, What about Chazz?, What about you?, Writers, writing tips, #livefrombehind, Jason Mewes, Jay & Silent Bob, jay and silent bob, Kevin Smith, KevinSmith, Live from Behind, Paperback Writer, Toronto

02/01/2012 • 12:08 PM 0

Plots and Plans: The great ebook giveaway & other book marketing thoughts

I promised a follow-up report on the Corrective Measures giveaway. After two weeks, 113 people downloaded the free short story about the serial killer who wants to kill someone over a parking space dispute. I received a

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT

couple of nice reviews immediately and I’m hoping for more when people get around to it soon. The upshot of the gift giving is, I don’t know how well it did yet. People kindly took me up on the offer, but who knows how long it will take them to get around to reading and reviewing it? The toughest thing has got to be getting reviews. Several people have told me how happy they were with my work and that they intend to write reviews. However, they have lives, too, and I can only hope they’ll get to it. Soonish.

So what’s the next step? Patience and see what happens with Corrective Measures. It’s now for sale at the same price as all the other short stories (a colossal 99 cents!)

But that’s just one thing. I’ve got lots of egg baskets. Tomorrow, another brick in the marketing campaign for Self-help for Stoners hits and next week I’ll be running an ad on Smodcast Internet Radio that ties in with said brick. I’m also planning for another ad (on a different podcast) for Sex, Death & Mind Control (for fun and profit). My podcast is up every week, as well, reaching people I wouldn’t ordinarily meet. Yesterday I fired off a pdf of The Dangerous Kind for a book blogger to review.

I think there is one area I need to focus upon: Send out more review copies to book reviewers.

Most important? Get on with the next book. I’m aiming for April 20 for the release of my novel; think Incredible Journey meets autistic boy’s family in the post-apocalypse. It’s called This Plague of Days and it is a very ambitious story. Stay tuned.

FOR MORE SCARY THOUGHTS ON FREEBIE BOOK PROMOTION,

READ THE VANDAL HERE.

And now…back to work.

~ I am Robert Chazz Chute, author of Self-help for Stoners, the bathroom book of suspense, packed with points and punches. It’s not what you think it is: you don’t have to be a stoner to love it. (Check a sample here.) Sex, Death & Mind Control is a dark short story collection that includes a couple of award winners; try the magical realism express. The Dangerous Kind is a suspenseful novella packed with edgy family dynamics and small-town claustrophobia. I write from experience. My home town fit me like a fat kid fits in a sandpaper leotard. (Came up with that simile in a writers’ forum this morning. Weird images make me chuckle.)

Maxwell Cynn: A Life Changing Event – Leukemia (chazzwrites.com)
Self-help for Stoners: The Mind Bend Edition (allthatchazz.com)
The ebook marketing experiment (chazzwrites.com)
Book Marketing: What I didn’t know about resistance to ebooks (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
The 99 cent ebook sale (allthatchazz.com)
The ebook pricing and gifting experiment (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
The Jesus Harold Christ Edition (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: podcasts, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, reviews, self-publishing, What about Chazz?, What about you?, book marketing, book promotion, book reviewers, Corrective Measures, fiction, Internet radio, marketing strategies, plots and plans, Robert Chazz Chute, short story, Stoners

01/24/2012 • 10:13 PM 1

Another Day in The Life

Things always take longer than you expect and it’s always later than you think.

Image by mshea via Flickr

8:00 AM: I’m up and getting the kids off to school. Got to bed early last night, so I’m actually functioning on six-and-a-half hours of sleep. Bonus!

9:00 AM: Kids are delivered unto the local indoctrination centre and nobody’s crying including me. Success.

Coffee x 2. Research some information and loiter over an argument about the merits and sins of book and music piracy.

Autograph a book for a friend who stops by. (This is an event, but I pretend I’m casual about it. “And who should I make this out to?”)

Holy crap it’s 10:30! In my research, someone wrote a blog post on how regurgitating from elsewhere is bad. This strikes me as funny because said article was rescooped via Scoopit! and that’s how I found it in the first place. (I love Scoopit!) Still, I haven’t written an original post on here for a few days, so I fire off a blog post on the virtues that tie the martial art of Hapkido and writing. I wonder where Chang Man Yang, my old instructor is now. After he was terribly impaired in a horrific car accident, I don’t know what became of him or his family.

11:15 AM Post is done and twittered. I follow up with a couple of readers about reviewing my books.

Call Canada Revenue Agency about a tax filing. Despite my misgivings, they are surprisingly polite and cooperative.

Fire off an email to Smodcast about an upcoming ad I’m running.

Lunch. (Nine and a half hours later, I have no idea what I ate. Apparently it was inconsequential. Even to me.)

1:00 PM Revisions to The Novel. It’s going to be good, but my progress is slower than I’d like, though this would be true no matter my speed.

3:00 PM Come up for air. Tend the fire and then grab my script. I’ve already written most of this week’s podcast, so I take half an hour to record what I’ve got. I’m getting more efficient and less tongue-tied on the mic so the podcast is taking less time.

3:30 PM Get a reminder of a writing contest that I had ignored. Inspiration strikes and I grab a couple of old non-fiction pieces to meld together for the contest. It’s all fully formed in my mind so cobbling it together goes incredibly quick…except for the frustrations of getting the files from the old computer (that needs an enema) to the new computer. Also? The main printer is out of toner. Damn.

5:30 PM Contest entry is submitted. I generally don’t do contests anymore, but I’m excited about the possibilities this one presents. Next? Check email, triberr, Facebook, and Twitter. There’s very little I have to say or deal with. Amongst this, the kids and SHe Who Must Be Obeyed have returned with tales of the outside world. It sounds grim out there. I stoke the fire higher and congratulate them for their bravery in facing what, alas, I cannot.

6:30 PM: I’m told to eat. As soon as that’s done, I ask the children to clean up the skinny pig’s cage as I head off into the darkness to Future Shop to get toner cartridges.

6:50 PM: They don’t have all the toner cartridges and I definitely need black. I am instantly reminded why I hate dealing with The World: The couple ahead of me takes more time to complete their purchase than I took to get the sale through on my house. I’m told Future Shop has one black toner cartridge for me. At the other Future Shop. At the other end of the city. While waiting, I have three times picked up and put down a back up drive I’m been debating about for some time. It’s $139.00 but I decide I can’t afford not to have the insurance and ease of the back up. Maybe the slow couple ahead of me work for Future Shop and they’ve just been waiting for me to buy more before clearing the way to the cash register.

9:00 PM Finally back home. Traffic was a bitch, but I have the black toner!

9:10 PM I’m informed the skinny pig’s environs are now poopless. Excellent. If only we could all say that.

I check email. The most important email message is at once reassuring and baffling. Last week I asked BookBaby about getting an ITIN so the IRS won’t hold back 30% from my book earnings. I thought my message had been lost or ignored but it turned out I’m just an impatient dick because they’re very busy at BookBaby these days. I’m informed BookBaby doesn’t hold back any earnings and just gives me the whole nut. Really?! If it’s true, it’s great because it greatly simplifies my tax reporting. I just can’t believe it’s true nor can I divine how it could be true. I will have to confer with my accountant. (INSERT INVOLUNTARY SHUDDER HERE.)

Bookbaby also informs me that I can easily withdraw my books from all other outlets but KDP Select if I wish, but if I change my mind later, it will be a whole new submission and I’ll be charged again for resubmitting each book to the other platforms. Hm. Okay. My plan is to go with KDP Select for all my books soon and for the long term, so fine. Not great, but fine.

9:44 PM This blog post is done. What’s next? Another chapter to revise or go to bed early tonight? And I do have books to read… Hm.

9:45 PM Decide to throw children in bed at high velocity. Must read a chapter of Eric Walters‘ Shattered to Boy or Boy will become difficult. Will pet the skinny pig briefly and see if I can engage She Who Must Be Obeyed in a taped episode of House before returning to the screen for another go at something or other.

Projected bedtime, 1 or 2 AM, depending. (Do something fun, like writing, and it’s never really work.)

Afterthought:

The writing contest thing was an exception to my regular routine and as I write this post, it is clear to me I must spend at least twice as much time on revisions tomorrow, stopping just before my brain refuses to continue.

I need some time on the treadmill.

And absolutely zero time at Future Shop.

UPDATE: The funny thing is that, after writing today’s blog posts, I googled my old teacher. I had done this some time ago but he was nowhere to be found. The last I’d heard, he was in a terrible car accident driving home from a class with a student. I had heard he was be permanently injured. Tonight, after mentioning him in two blog posts in one day, I idly plugged his name into the search engine again. My old teacher is alive and teaching in Halifax! What a great way to end the day!

Writing like Hapkido (chazzwrites.com)
Self-help for Stoners is now available on Stitcher (plus the Christmas message of hope and gooeyness) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: DIY, getting it done, My fiction, What about Chazz?, a day in the life, Canada Revenue Agency, Chang Man Yang, Eric Walters, Hapkido, printer, schedule, self-publishing, writer's schedule

01/07/2012 • 4:11 AM 0

Author interview: Me on The Spacejerker Show!

I’m interviewed on The Spacejerker Show! This was a lot of fun.

It was a long interview about movies, video games, books and where the Darkness comes from.

UPDATE: Alas, there was a problem with the Skype recording of the podcast, so the syncing is off. It clears up later in the interview, but the first half or so will make you feel stoned.

You might try skipping forward when the talking over each other makes you loopy. It sounds like we were talking to each other through a time machine. LOL!

Hot Sweaty Hottie Motivation (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: What about Chazz?

01/03/2012 • 5:13 PM 4

How Kevin Smith Changed My Life

I had a secret worry.

Our walls are full of books. My curse was that many of my books are about publishing and how to write. There’s a good chance I’ve read every book in English on how to write and edit. My secret worry was that I would die and my children would be left with all these books, each one a reminder of the books I had failed to write. The idea of my wife and children seeing me that way scared the shit out of me. But I still wasn’t betting on myself. I wasn’t all in.

Then in November 2009

(UPDATE: Whoops! That was actually 2010 so I made the jump in one year)

I saw director Kevin Smith onstage in Kitchener.

I expected to laugh a lot and I did.

What I didn’t expect was inspiration.

I had thought about writing full-time but I only thinking, not doing. I attended writers’ conferences and wrote novels I kept secret from the world. I had a few drafts written but hadn’t polished and submitted them anywhere. I’d won seven writing awards, but hadn’t leveraged that fact. I wrote the back page column in Massage & Bodywork magazine for several years, freelanced some speeches and marketing materials, ghosted a bit and edited for writers and publishers on the side. Still, I hadn’t committed to making a real change for me. I was helping to make other people’s dreams come true. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I was ignoring my dreams and I wasn’t setting goals for myself.

I was waiting for…something.

Image via Wikipedia

Don’t wait. Take your shot.

Life is too short to wait to pursue your dreams.

I figured out the math. The risk I wasn’t taking was more dangerous than failing to try.

No matter how this experiment turns out, I can say I tried.

As you can see from the video, things have changed for me.

I’m having more fun. I’m putting myself out there.

Self-help for Stoners, Stuff to Read When You’re High, is now available in paperback.

The Self-help for Stoners podcast is on iTunes and Stitcher and six ebooks are up for sale just about everywhere.

Look for three novels coming in 2012.

Thanks for the laughs and the inspiration, Kevin!

I went all in before it was too late.

The curse is broken.

Hot Sweaty Hottie Motivation (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: book trailer, Books, DIY, ebooks, getting it done, publishing, self-publishing, What about Chazz?, Writers, book trailer, commitment, inspiration, Kevin Smith, resolution, start your business, video

12/31/2011 • 1:54 PM 5

Self-pub Highlights: The Best and Worst of the First and How to Succeed by Failing

Please click here to pick up Parting Shots.

When you can’t get out of the bathtub on your birthday, something’s gone wrong in your life. And by your life, of course, I mean mine. The other night I tore a rotator cuff muscle boxing. It hurts when you throw a hook and miss. I ripped it up pretty well. I’d had shoulder pain off and on for weeks due to to my incredibly sedentary lifestyle and the computer mouse. I sit very still to write. I can’t write and walk around at the same time. I’m chained to a desk by an intravenous tube that carries coffee. When the shoulder pain hit, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. The pain is enormous. I almost called my wife to help me out of the bathtub. On my birthday. Not one of my best birthdays, I have to say. In fact, it might have been the worst.

Long-term?

Pain is good.

I will use this.

I did manage to get myself out of the tub. Getting my shirt on? That was five minutes of hell and wishing the Advil would kick in faster. It didn’t. I’ve had shoulder pain this bad before (on the other shoulder.) When it hurts to laugh, you know it’s bad. When you have to devise new strategies to do mundane tasks, it’s makes you mad. When it happens on your birthday, it makes you sad.

However, I won’t let all this sadness and badness and madness go to waste. At some point, I’m sure I’ll have a hero try to fight the bad guy in a climactic scene and the hero’s shoulder will be all messed up. That’s the easy take away from this experience.

Let’s go deeper.

Staying home to write books full-time? This is awesome. This is the fulfilment of a dream. I am so lucky to be able to devote myself to this enterprise all day. However, if I don’t take better care of my physical body, I will lose this opportunity. When every movement reminds you of pain, it’s hard to concentrate on work. Pain saps productivity, whisks away opportunities and manufactures misery far from the site of origin.

But let’s go deeper.

The pain in my shoulder is not simply a rotator cuff tear. It’s a symptom. I have not been to the gym for quite some time. I have not been taking care of myself. Why is that?

My excuse…no…my dumb reason is that I have been swimming in the launch of my books. I have no excuse. I let myself forget that success is not a single facet. To get my shit together, I have to take time to take care of all aspects of my life: family, fitness and work. I am not of one dimension. I was so busy with work, it gave me the excuse to be lazy in other areas of my life.

Translation:

I have books to publish! I have no time for the gym! Publishing is so exciting I don’t even have to feel bad about not going to the gym because I’m being productive!

Yeah, right. But for low long, Spock? How long?!

Concentrating so much on marketing made the disappointment at the initial outcome darker. My sales aren’t anywhere near where they need to be (yet, goddamnit! Yet!) The reviews haven’t been rolling in (yet, goddamnit! Yet!) But I’ve started up businesses before. I know how this works…or doesn’t work. These things take time. Readers will get around to writing reviews. Word will spread. It doesn’t happen on a schedule. You may as well try predicting cloud formations as plot book sales. But I do have a strategy. While figuring out how to manage our time in the new year, I told She Who Must Be Obeyed that I think I’m through The Worst of the First.

The Worst of the First is the downside of that incredibly creative, energetic time when you start up a new enterprise. You have to get a business license and take care of paperwork that is not directly related to your success. You order business cards or figure out technical aspects that feel removed from the core of your enterprise. The Worst of the First is about trying to do everything at once, just to get things rolling forward. The Worst of the First is about the trivia that no reader ever sees. It’s the behind-the-scenes stuff no one cares about, including me, but it has to get done. It’s part of building inertia, too.

Then there is The Best of the First. Here are the highlights of my first couple of months as founder, president, author and Chief Dude in Charge of Wastebasket Emptying at Ex Parte Press: Three ebooks up on Amazon and just about everywhere else by November 1. Recorded a podcast, Self-help for Stoners, to help market my book of the same name. Tried and failed to get my first podcast published. Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting helped me to get the podcast up and out there. He helped me get control of my author website, too (allthatchazz.com). Got the paperback formatted with Jeff Bennington’s help. Got new art for the paperback done with my graphic designer, Kit Foster. Published Self-help for Stoners through CreateSpace. Published three short stories in the last week (Parting Shots, Asia Unbound and Vengeance is #1) on Smashwords.com. Maintained my Scoopit! Page, three blogs, three Twitter accounts and published six podcasts. Now the podcast is also available on the Stitcher app as well as iTunes, so it’s everywhere.

When so much positive stuff was happening at once, I was riding high. But I wasn’t leaving my desk. I’ve been married to my Mac, which makes She Who Must Be Obeyed jealous. I’m through the imbalanced part now. My shoulder reminds me with every move that I have to concentrate on the core. That means publishing three novels in the next year, yes. That also means taking better care of me so I can accomplish those goals. It means eating right and getting to the gym. That’s also part of the writing process. It clears the brain and keeps my body ready for writing marathons. Sitting still for too long is too hard on the body. We’re made to move and if we don’t, we die.

On my birthday, I checked my book sales and found the accounting had finally come through. It wasn’t good, but the beginning is rarely good. I’ve been here before. I know the terrain. I know the pain hammering me in the shoulder is a reminder of what a low point feels like. The sinking feeling as I looked at my first sales numbers—on my birthday!—made me think for a moment that all my marketing efforts had been wasted. But no. It’s just a normal part of The Worst of the First. My readership hasn’t found me yet. You have to market your books when you think you should be using all your time to write. In weak moments I do think, All I should do is just write and revise and do nothing else. But then I remember this is not 1987. Seclusion is a luxury for old media authors. I’m a new media author. I must not hide from the world if anyone is to ever hear me.

The fattest kid at Fat Camp has the most potential. When you reach critical mass and are feeling low, you can look up. There is so much to learn and so much to conquer. I am grateful to have so much fun and trial ahead of me. When we succumb to the idea that the best times of our lives are behind us, we truly begin to die. This is just the beginning and there is so much to look forward to! Writing this post, holding tight to this pain and this disappointment? That’s going to make the triumph all that much sweeter, don’t you think? I’m going to appreciate the win more when it comes. And I’m through the gauntlet and into the glove already! I made it through the Worst of the First. Yes, there will be frustrating times ahead, but I got through the first couple of months of the enterprise. I got to the starting line. A lot of people dream of the starting line but never get there. They never get the chance, or take the chance, to run. Now I’m running and I’ve got some inertia behind me. I have you behind me. (I know because you’ve read this far.)

My resolutions for 2012?

I will use this. Failure is fuel.

Failure is only failure if you let it keep you stuck in the tub.

Happy new year.

If it isn’t happy,

MAKE IT SO.

Self-help for Stoners is now available on Stitcher (plus the Christmas message of hope and gooeyness) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Stuff to Listen to When You’re High (allthatchazz.com)
Self-publishers: Why I went multimedia (and why you should, too) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Book Marketing: What I didn’t know about resistance to ebooks (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
A Series is Born: Free ebook and Parting Shots, a new short story (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Podcast #3: How to Beat a Murder Charge with a Skunk and a Smile (allthatchazz.com)
How to sell cross-genre books in The Land of The Easy No (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: DIY, ebooks, getting it done, publishing, self-publishing, short stories, What about Chazz?, What about you?, Writers, writing tips, Advil, Amazon.com, Asia Unbound, iTunes, Parting Shots, Podcast, self-help for stoners, Stitcher, Twitter, vengeance is #1

12/29/2011 • 2:03 PM 0

How-to: What can you get done?

Some time ago a writer friend on Twitter asked:

“I have two novels I’m working on. I could write this or revise that, but I really am not invested in which one I should do first. Which should I do first?”

My answer:

“Do the thing that is closest to done.”

In the next week or so, we’re going to be inundated with advice about new year’s resolutions and changing our lives and making ourselves better people (sweating, remodelling and starving ourselves, if necessary.) I have something planned for that, too, so buckle up for more on that later.

As you evaluate what to do next, especially in your writing, do the thing that’s closest to done. You need to get your work done and out there. No, I’m not saying publishing is a sprint (though it is that and a marathon, too.) No, I’m not saying you have to change. Maybe you’re one of the few who have everything going for you. But probably not. That’s not saying anything against you. It’s just statistically likely that you’re just as screwed up as most everyone else. Few of us will keep our high-minded resolutions past January 15th. But we could. It’s our choice to screw up and our choice not to. You can do everything right and still fail, of course, b

English: Two New Year's Resolutions postcards

Image via Wikipedia

ut your chances of not failing are much better if you at least play, participate, ship, compete and do.

As Seth Godin says, “You’ve got to ship.”

As Bruce Lee said, “You must compete.”

As Larry the Cable Guy says, “Git ‘er done!”

Oh my God, I just quoted Larry the Cable Guy. Shit. I really have to change my life around.

Seth Godin Challenges You to Fail [VIDEO] (bjconquest.com)
Make Small Changes Now to Boost the Chances of Success with Your New Year’s Resolutions [Resolutions] (lifehacker.com)
New Year’s Resolution: Don’t be skinny fat (achampionsblog.wordpress.com)
New Year’s Resolutions and why you need to set them (lovesexandhappiness.wordpress.com)
85% of New Year’s resolutions fail, so pledge not to make one with this app (thenextweb.com)
Is Your New Year’s Resolution Really Worth Doing? v2012 (studio44concepts.com)
Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail (And How to Keep Them) (livescience.com)

Filed under: getting it done, What about Chazz?, What about you?, writing tips, Bruce Lee, completing work, Larry the Cable Guy, New Year, new year's resolutions, seth godin

12/27/2011 • 12:27 AM 1

A Series is Born: Free ebook and Parting Shots, a new short story

Have you taken advantage of the COUPON CODE at my Goodreads blog yet? Get Asia Unbound for free! The coupon expires Jan 1.

At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, but wait there’s more! The new short story, Parting Shots is what happens the morning after the events that occurred in Asia Unbound. The stories are complete and can stand alone, or read both to discover the weave. Parting Shots is available at my Smashwords page.

In Parting Shots, Marcus in the Morning gets into an argument about God and the nature of the universe,

proving that sometimes when you win, you lose.

Poeticule Bay, Maine is a mix of towns I grew up in on the east coast. Think Stephen King minus the fun clown in It and you have the flavor of my childhood. The small-town claustrophobia and dark family dynamics kept showing up in my fiction so much, I had to succumb to the call and admit escape, redemption, sacrifice and the twisted and twisty were recurring themes. There’s no sense fighting the muse. I look forward to writing many books that will take place in my favorite foggy inlet tucked away from the world. Even though it’s tucked away, Poeticule Bay is not immune from the world’s ills. Instead, its small size amplifies the darkness in a microcosm. Check out the books now and you’ll see the evolution behind the suspense series.

The Poeticule Bay stories evolved organically, so some characters recur across the Fictionscape. The novelette, The Dangerous Kind, all takes place in Poeticule Bay. Asia in Asia Unbound was born years ago in my imagination. However, an incarnation of that character, Legs Gabrielle, returns to Poeticule Bay to confront her past in Self-help for Stoners. If you’ve read the short story Context, at the end of Self-help for Stoners, you might have picked up on the clue that the alcoholic cop is Asia’s uncle in Asia Unbound. I’m working on a Poeticule Bay novel that brings back several characters from these stories: Sheriff Rose, Joey and Jason (from The Dangerous Kind). Legs Gabrielle from Self-help for Stoners is the main character in the novel. (More on that later.)

Please check out all the books through the Smashwords link above.

But Chazz! I only read paper books! Sure! Check out the Self-help for Stoners paperback here.

I hope you enjoy them all. Happy Boxing Week!

My new short story: Asia Unbound (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
I just received my first review on Goodreads! And it’s a good’un! (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Don’t we all draw on childhood trauma for our fiction? (allthatchazz.com)
Book Marketing: What I didn’t know about resistance to ebooks (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Self-help for Stoners is now available on Stitcher (plus the Christmas message of hope and gooeyness) (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Sex Alert! It’s here to take you away (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
The downside of cheap ebooks (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: All That Chazz, Books, ebooks, getting it done, self-publishing, What about Chazz?, fiction, genre, My fiction, origins, short stories

12/24/2011 • 12:46 AM 3

Self-help for Stoners is now available on Stitcher (plus the Christmas message of hope and gooeyness)

What a week! Self-help for Stoners is now available in paperback. I have a new short story up at Smashwords and tonight I just got an email from Stitcher that my podcast, the companion to the book Self-help for Stoners, is available on their app. Here’s part of the email they just sent me:

Self-help for Stoners is now available on Stitcher! Thank you
so much for joining the Stitcher lineup. We are thrilled to offer the
show on the app! We are really excited that you have joined the platform. Your show
will now be available with one click on mobile phones and iPads all
over the world, SONOS systems, in-car dashboards and more to come!
I hope your audience will enjoy the flexibility and ease of the Stitcher app.
I know many of our Stitcher listeners will enjoy your show as a new
listening option.

Yes, I know it’s a form letter. That knowledge doesn’t detract a bit. I’m thrilled. (The Self-help for Stoners podcast is also available, as usual, at iTunes or straight from my website —which, as of today, is officially all mine— at allthatchazz.com.)

I plan for a busy “holiday” in that there won’t really be one. I have a lot of writing and revising to do to make the novels available faster and who takes a vacation from playing, anyway? I usually feel harried, but I think I’m learning to embrace the chaos. I’m having so much fun that I don’t want to take a break from writing at all. I’ve also learned to take advantage of my manic phases of activity when they strike. Given my Getting-Stuff-Done Mode lately, I imagine it’s like being on Adderall minus that pesky expense. This Christmas, my present to myself is the gift of repairing broken promises I made when I was eight years old. I wanted to publish books. I’m doing it now and staying in the driver’s seat. This wasn’t possible just three or four years ago. Now, for better and worse, I’m in control.

And I’m so grateful. I’m working full-time, working longer hours than I ever have. It feels like I’m in university again and it’s always crunch time. I knew working full-time as a writer and publisher would take up a lot of my time. I didn’t expect it would be this much fun. When my family asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year, I told them, “Nothing. I don’t deserve anything.” Oddly, I don’t mean that I’m in Hate-Myself Mode. I mean, every day is already a gift. Cliche. And true.

Whether you buy my books or not, I hope you find value in this blog because it’s a labor of love that gives back to me in so many ways. I learn so much by the research I do for the blog. If not for the blog, I never would have met author Jeff Bennington, for instance. He ended up formatting my paperback and he always has advice that makes me think. If not for this blog, I would have missed out on the talent of Kit Foster, my amazing graphic designer, who, so far, has made three book covers for me. I made friends with Dave Jackson at The School of Podcasting. He helped with starting the podcast and also with the author website. There are so many talented authors I’ve met through Chazz Writes who have been so helpful, like Lorina Stephens, Rebecca Senese, Roz Morris, Reena Jacobs, Lisa Stull, Eden Baylee and many more.

Take a trip through the archives here and you’ll find many articles on the craft of writing and editing, but also author profiles of intrepid fellow writers who are putting themselves out there. We wave banners and take risks. We reject the rejectionists. We say no to the naysayers. We aren’t looking for followers. We are recruiting revolutionaries to our cause and that cause is free expression. We are all so lucky to live at a time when dissemination of our words, broadcasting our thoughts and publishing our books has never been easier or less censored. The rising voices are a din, yes, but I don’t hear desperation in the new wave of information and entertainment. I hear joy and bravery. I hear greater independence and more choice. You can buy books cheaply and quickly. We can debate how healthy this is for writers. We can worry about the state of traditional publishing and bookstores. Though some people whine about to many books, that’s crazy. More choice means more freedom. Whatever happens next, one group has already won: readers.

There are too many people to name here who have helped me to begin this journey. If you have helped me by example, with advice, with encouragement, with proofing, with editing, with design or financially by buying into my fiction, please know that I appreciate it so very much. If we already know each other, I’ve already thanked you for your part in helping me move forward and I’ll no doubt thank you again! One more concrete way I thank people is by promoting your books and hosting guest posts and retweeting your posts and aggregating the best information I can find for you here and on my Scoopit! page. I’ll continue to do so. I promise.

After putting off this life for a long time, my present has finally arrived. This has got to be the gooiest post I’ve written. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, I’m sorry for all this sugar and syrup (but it springs from a happy place.)

This will be my last blog post until 2012. (Okay, I’ll be checking in, continuing Scoopit! and I might pop in with more good news if I get some.) However, my plan is to disappear into some pages and go on a writing binge and get some more stuff done. The guy who gets stuff done is the new me.

This Christmas, I wish you the gift of happiness.

If you don’t have it yet, know that you can make it so.

If I can, you can.

How to sell cross-genre books in The Land of The Easy No (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Stuff to Listen to When You’re High (allthatchazz.com)
My new short story: Asia Unbound (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)
Podcast #3: How to Beat a Murder Charge with a Skunk and a Smile (allthatchazz.com)
Episode 6: Xmas Erotica & a Goiter (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: All That Chazz, getting it done, podcasts, publishing, What about Chazz?, What about you?, book, Christmas, indie, indie authors, indie spirit, IPad, iTunes, Podcast, publishing, short story, Stitcher, Stoners

12/21/2011 • 11:40 PM 3

A Day in the Life of a Writer

4 AM: The iPod is still in my ear when I wake from a dream in which She Who Must Be Obeyed tells me I have a “liganda” tumor in my nose.

4 AM plus 20 seconds: Look up “liganda” on the iPod. It’s ancient currency in the form of an iron spear.

4 to 6 AM: Listen to hypnosis recording, listen to Michell Plested’s wonderful Irreverent Muse podcast (great interview with Mike Stackpole on the business of e-publishing). Listen to StoryWonk Daily (a podcast that is new to me but good.) The hosts talk about the humorous potential of Bartleby The Scrivener. When I studied it, it was in an existential angst/philosophy context and I totally missed the laughs. Great discussion on The Princess Bride, though. Shower.

6 AM – 7:30 PM: Edit a typo in the file to be printed at CreateSpace that’s been bugging me. Release print copy of Self-help for Stoners to the world in print on Amazon. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! The people who prefer print can finally order it in paper.

7:30 PM to 8:45 PM: Make lunch sandwiches and evict children to local indoctrination centre. Make coffee and prepare myself for the day’s onslaught.

8:45 to noon: Inspired by Mike Stackpole interview, I think about what I’ve got in the story stockpile. I dig up Asia Unbound from Dropbox. That’s a good short story I wrote ages ago that’s doing nothing for me where it sits. Resolve to format it and put it up on Smashwords. I revise the short story, format it, find a great shot to use from Morguefiles, run it through a free graphics program (Picnik) so I have a cover in record time (only one sad aborted attempt.) Get an ISBN from Canadian agency online (they’re free and easy in Canada) and insert metadata. Upload. For a change, I price it at $1.99 as an experiment even though The Dangerous Kind is only 99 cents and is much longer. I tell myself it’s a better cover and it’s all still just couch change. I got that done so quickly and without problems that I allow myself a feeling of triumph. The morning went so incredibly well.

Noon to 1 PM: Lunch and watch an old episode of Newsradio on The Comedy Network. I love Newsradio. I mourn Phil Hartman every time. Always and forever.

1 to 2 PM: Let the world know Asia Unbound is available on Smashwords: Facebook, two blogs, three Twitter accounts, Google+. Find several articles of use for research and stimulation. Use Scoopit! to post them to the blog. Check three of the four email accounts. Find some nice reader mail. Ask for some reviews of new and old books. Delete all other email.

2 to 3:30: Rush off to the other side of the city to perform last ditch Christmas offensive while listening to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast to get myself through the mall crowds without using a machete.

3:30 PM: Back just in time for spawn’s return from local indoctrination centre. Debrief/start laundry for this evening’s Christmas concert.

4 PM to 5 PM: Email check. No love. Search Dropbox for more old short stories that are brilliant. I reject three but find four that will be suitable for more Smashwords books. Around 4:45 I begin this blog post.

5 PM: #1 Son announces that he has changed his mind and he doesn’t want a globe for Christmas, which is surprising because he is a cartographical prodigy. I abandon writing this blog post. The boy now wants a saxophone for Christmas. He has a letter for Santa. I inform him that Santa’s surely already packed his order for the globe and the letter will not arrive in time for Christmas. #1 Son announces that Santa is magic and that if he doesn’t deliver, he’s not real and this will be the worst Christmas ever. The boy begins to sob as I realize that the Christmas concert is only one hour away and I’m not wearing pants. The laundry must be switched to the dryer if we’re to get to the Christmas concert in time. I comfort #1 Son as I rush to the dryer. His angst turns to anger. My guttural comforting sounds turn to gritted teeth and a harried quest to boil frozen hot dogs. (Hint: Nuke ’em first and let the water do only a quarter of the work.) Scream for #1 Daughter to get ready for Christmas concert. Pray for happy asteroid strike.

5 to 5:55 PM: Diatribe escalates. Tears are shed, most of them his. I tell him Santa is made of generosity and that the joy of giving is the essence of Christmas and so Santa can never die. A circular debate on the nature of magic ensues. Boy gets sent to his room. Daughter goes to concert. Boy is scarred for life, though he soon apologizes for being miserable. We hug it out. He’s both sure there’s no Santa and still wants to send his letter to Santa. (Syllogism? Never mind. This is not the time to discuss that.) Pretty sure my mother would have beaten him with a wooden spoon by now. I would never have gotten away with this and I would have been hauled off to the concert by my ear. I understand the impulse but instead hug him harder. Consider choking him out so he has a nap and I leave no bruises. I eat a hot dog in anger and sadness. He still breaks into sobs at his realization that we are filthy liars and the world is not as he has been told. The sweet innocence was what we wanted and it was great. Now? We pay in emotional cataclysm. And he’s not going to the concert. She Who Must Be Obeyed takes #1 Daughter to said concert since I saw the same concert last night.

6 PM: I’m wearing pants that are hot from the dryer. The effect is like morphine and I realize I’ve been up since 4 AM. Sweet oblivion wraps its loving arms around me and I pass out. Just before I lose consciousness, I am so grateful. Boy is anaesthetized by a cartoony video game that trains him for warfare. Good. He’ll need it.

7:30 PM: Awake in time for a Big Bang Theory and note that I’m not getting to the gym today. Again.

8 PM: She Who Must Be Obeyed and #1 Daughter return from Christmas concert. Boy has returned to his human form and is apologetic and resigned to a world without magic or charm. Dying inside, I retreat to the basement to finish this blog post. And hide.

The plan for the rest of the evening:

The children shall be read to and then thrown into bed at high velocity around 10 PM.

Back up plan:

Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?

I’m not up to writing another chapter of my new novel, anyway, so that’s a write-off. It must be the top priority in the morning. Tonight shall be for editing the Self-help for Stoners podcast. It won’t take long. The program is improving and I’ve found ways to make the production process go much faster. It will be done tonight and posted Thursday night. It’s Christmas…so will anyone be around to listen to it? I shrug and push forward with the grim determination of that dumb workhorse that ends up as glue at the end of Animal Farm.

Also to-do: Must research Podiobooks. Also, the tech consultant for one of my web pages calls tomorrow so I must make sure I have all my passwords and questions ready. Call Dad. (UPDATE: Forgot to call Dad. Too late to call him since it’s now 10 PM in Nova Scotia. Damn.) Address Christmas calendar envelopes. Figure out an actual schedule for tomorrow so it’s less random and I get some revising and writing done.

Input into iCal and USE IT!

The rest of the evening, the recreational part: Devote self to a book on the craft of writing mysteries which I’ve been trying to get to for days.

UPDATE at 8:38 PM: Boy sneaks past the machine-gun nests and barbed wire and arrives in bunker office to report that his #1 Sister is calling him a Pample Moose. “What’s a Pample Moose?” I correct his pronunciation and inform him that the translation from French means “Grapefruit.” #1 Son collapses in hysterics and I remember why I neither strangled nor chased him around the house (outside and around the house) with a wooden spoon. Still giggling, #1 Son races up the stairs yelling, “You called me a grapefruit, you hoser!”

Projected bedtime: 1 AM.

(Who are you kidding? You slept one and a half hours. You’ll be up till 2 AM at least.)

Tonight’s post-hypnotic suggestion just before I pass out:

What happens next in my book? Is it time for Legs Gabrielle to meet the deputy who suspects her of murder, or is that rushing it?

C’mon unconscious genius! Roll me a seven!

Tomorrow’s wake up call:

Either the clock radio at 8 Am, or much earlier if I have another dream about fictional nose tumours.