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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

12/09/2010 • 11:49 AM 0

Writers: Update & three links for you

a Science fiction city (Paris in a future.)

Image via Wikipedia

I had another frustrating day dealing with tech support that, for awhile, actually made things worse. Now another modem is on order and I’m searching for a technician to come save me. Yeah, it’s that bad.

However, this too shall pass. I’m going to try to get some writing done on my little AlphaSmart Neo. Once you’ve done all you can, you’ve done all you can. I’ve messed with the computer so much I’ve lost two days of my life. While others were enjoying snow days, I was staring at a screen trying to move the immoveable. No more.

Today I get back to my life and focus on the fun parts. I’ll let the on site tech deal with the trouble. (For those who missed it, a cyber attack is to blame, but don’t be afraid. I’m not contagious.)

I recently finished a major editing stage for a client’s book so now it’s time to work on something of my own: a dystopian novel about soulful robots and a drug that improves human brains. Think Robert J. Sawyer meets William Gibson. Ooh, that’s high falutin’ talk. Anyway, I’ll put aside my present-day tech troubles and write about future tech troubles.

And finally, I’ll have some fun. Writing fiction is always fun. If you aren’t having fun as you write, your readers won’t have a chance. Stop putting it off. Go have fun, too. If you have to delegate your worries to get them away from you, then do that.

(Well…after you check out these cool links, anyway.)

The Writers Alley: The Quixotic Pull of Your Future Novel‏

10 media and tech luminaries on the future of reading

7 Ways to Help Writers Survive the Holidays

Audio from last night’s live event with William Gibson and Cory (boingboing.net)
Am I better off living a different dream? (tobiasbuckell.com)
Update: David Milch (gointothestory.com)
Duplicate Content and Ways around It (searchenginejournal.com)
Need for new utopian stories (rs.resalliance.org)
Zero History. William Gibson (regnordman.com)
William Gibson Serves Up Zero History (time.com)
Unsuccessful treatment of writer’s block: a replication (mindhacks.com)
Writers on Writing: Booklife by Jeff Vandemeer (tor.com)
The Six Gifts of the Writer’s Workshop Weekend (planejaner.wordpress.com)

Filed under: authors, My fiction, publishing, Useful writing links, What about Chazz?, writing tips, Author, Cyberpunk, Robert J. Sawyer, William Gibson, writers, Writers Resources, writing, writing advice

12/08/2010 • 12:36 AM 0

Snowstorms & Setbacks: Dealing with them (somewhat)

Image via Wikipedia

My apologies for no post today. (I’m on a borrowed computer for this post.) Two interesting things have happened. I was the victim of a cyber attack and a state of emergency has been declared in London, Ontario due to unprecedented snowfall which has shut the city down. We’re trapped, but it could be worse.

I’ve taken some measures to deal with the cyber attack. My computer has been damaged and some more will have to be done on that score. When things you don’t budget for happen at inopportune times (i.e. right before Christmas in the middle of a blizzard) it can really drag you down and sap your energy. And by “you” of course I mean “me.” You’re probably more resilient. I get headaches and need to lie very still.

I could have used to today to get some writing done and get productive. Instead I alternated between fiddling with the computer and shovelling to try to keep up with the snowfall. And, of course, there was the laying down, headachy part. When the computer is down and I can’t see clients, I’m not making money. Worries and the headaches grow in that fertile soil.

It really is an amazing storm, especially if you are looking at it from inside. The thing that I think is my van is now a pile of snow, now elegantly sculptured by the wind and almost as high as the house. I’ve knocked snow off my satellite dish five times now and each time there is just as much snow. As we shovel, the sirens keep wailing in the background. (House fires, people who ignore the warnings to stay off the roads, people who have to get to a hospital and will go by ladder truck, fat guys with heavy shovels and thick hearts etc.,…)

After the massive black out a few years ago, I started preparing for this. That black out happened during the summer and all I could think then was, what if the power outage that took out half of North America had happened during the winter?

We started scraping together emergency supplies. We have a cord of wood and a good wood stove. We’ve stocked up on batteries and the flashlights are ready. We have packaged food set aside. The kids won’t like it, but no one will starve. At some point the power will probably go out and then the challenge will be keeping the kids occupied and the fire stoked through the night, snuggling close and calling it the Adventure They Will Remember. We’re ready. Not Walking Dead ready, but reasonably prepared. We don’t have anywhere to go and we’ve cancelled everything that required face-to-face contact. Lie jail, even if you have nowhere to go, knowing you can’t go is the claustrophobia of it.

Which leaves my disappointment over the cyber attack. I worry about malware and wonder how expensive this will be for me, just so someone with no life could take over my Facebook page address. (And I’m hoping that was all they were after.) If you have the power to annoy someone with your technological expertise, why wouldn’t you go after one of those Goldman Sachs fraudsters or a North Korean dictator or Sarah Palin? Why, hacker? Why victimize a writer? (With kids? Before Christmas? In the library? With a candlestick? Up the…you get the idea.)

So tomorrow I’ll begin again. I’ll have a coffee and make some phone calls to get my computer to recognize the modem that sits beside it. Currently the machine is blind to the existence of the little machine that sits so near, no matter how many times I say, “Look! It’s right effin’ there!” And I’ll hope the power doesn’t go just as I’m finding the solution from Bangalore.

And some day, I’ll use this feeling. The particular circumstance won’t make it into my writing, but the feelings I endured will wind their way into a story. This is not to say that bad things happening does a writer a favour. We have great imaginations for that, thank you very much. But we do use what we have, whatever it is. The heart makes it to the page, all bloody and awful, to deepen our connection with our readers and their problems.

Through writing and reading, we recognize each other. “I get it,” we say. And by getting it, we mean we’ve made the human connection through our web of shared experiences, the large and small pains spread amongst the roses.

Environment Canada admits to underforecasting snow by 1,000 per cent (theglobeandmail.com)
Southern Ontario snowfall continues into third day (ctv.ca)
Near emergency-level snowfall in London, Ont. (ctv.ca)

Filed under: What about Chazz?, Writers, London Ontario, Snow, Winter storm

12/03/2010 • 11:12 AM 2

Christopher Hitchens yelled at me (and rightly so)

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine my dismay. I sat at the front of the room in the middle of an editorial meeting when the crowd parted. There was Christopher Hitchens sitting alone in the middle of the room. He was angry with me.

“You need a lifestyle editor!” he said. Not that he was applying for the job. He was talking only to me and the group I had been speaking to became a faceless mob. My job was managing editor for a magazine. And here was someone I admire proclaiming that I was screwing it up.

“You have to take responsibility!’ he said. “How do you expect to succeed without a lifestyle editor?“

His last words to me were, “The clock is ticking, you know. How much time do you think you have?”

Wow. I was confused for a couple of reasons. Though I’m a big fan, I couldn’t picture a situation where I’d be in an editorial meeting with Mr. Hitchens. More to the point, I played managing editor on my college newspaper. I’m not a managing editor at the moment.

I was dreaming.

But dreaming with a point.

I woke up startled. I pulled back the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed. “My unconscious is telling me to work on my lifestyle, to chase my dreams with more awareness that life is an opportunity that does not last forever.” I exited the dream vehicle, not just reminded, but committed to continuing my lifestyle changes as well as alterations to my professional life.

The message was made all the more stark considering the challenges the real-life Christopher Hitchens is now facing. Esophageal cancer is a bitch.

It’s one of those weird little life fictions from the dreamscape that, even if it’s wrong, it’s right. The experience affected me deeply.

So it was like all good fiction.

Religion is a force for good in the world — a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair (boingboing.net)
Christopher Hitchens: my hero of 2010 – Richard Dawkins – Guardian.co.uk (richarddawkins.net)
Analysis of Hitchens/Blair Debate (dangeroustalk.net)
Christopher Hitchens on his ‘living’ cancer (news.bbc.co.uk)
Richard Dawkins | Christopher Hitchens is my hero of 2010 (guardian.co.uk)
Hitchens interviewed by Paxman (newhumanist.org.uk)

Filed under: authors, Horror, What about Chazz?, Christopher Hitchens, dreams, God Is Not Great, lifestyle changes

09/28/2010 • 10:00 AM 3

10 Things that Happen When You Win a Writing Contest

You get the letter or the phone call. You’ve won a short story contest!

What happens next?

1. Dance.

2. Call your spouse. “I knew you could!” they say. “This makes all those times I watched the kids while you wrote…almost worth it! Dinner’s on you tonight, Snoogums!” Get your freak on.

3. Call your non-literary friends. “Congratulations!” they say. Then, “I have to get back to work. I don’t hang around a home office, alone all day celebrating like some people I know.”

4. Call your literary friends. “Congratulations!” they say, through gritted teeth. Make encouraging sounds. Assure them they could have won in your place, but it’s a subjective business. (True, though you will never, can never, think of these small triumphs as mere luck. To continue as a writer, you must know you deserve it all. Otherwise you’ll come to your senses and start making money doing something more people value, like grouting.)

5. Call your parents. “Congratulations!” they say. “How much money did you win?” For most contests, when you buy the celebration dinner tonight, there goes at least half. (I won $1,000 for a short story once. I blew that on paying taxes. Whoo-hoo.)

6. Go out for a coffee. This is an obvious ploy to tell strangers. They don’t care. Tip the barista well.

7. Wait for the prize and or publication. The prize may come along quickly assuming it’s a legitimate contest. If publication is part of the prize, it will be a long wait.

8. Discover typos or tiny changes you’d love, nay, need to make to avoid immortalizing the coming ridicule. They won’t make the changes. The release you signed but did not read said so in a sub-paragraph. You’ll try to pester someone about it, but the happy people who called to say you won will now no longer return your calls. (This is also when you figure out you gave away more rights to the story than you would have if you weren’t so giddy when they called. Don’t blame yourself. When they called to inform, you were like the zittiest kid at junior prom asked to dance by the prettiest girl.)

9. Before you can tell them you’re pulling it, you shall receive rejections from other contests and magazines for the same story who apparently thought it sucked. (Don’t let the spark of your enthusiasm get drowned out.)

10. (a) Publication and then anonymity as history moves on.

(b) Publication on the net will result in comments (possibly even an awful blog post railing against you as happened after one of my tiny triumphs) from a bunch of bitter losers who can’t believe their genius went unrecognized. Oh, they’ll be mean. They’ll demand the judges quit and express disgust at your existence, you know-nothing poseur!

BONUS:

11. Reminisce about your past triumph, write something else, put something else in the mail and sublimate your rage with a passive-aggressive blog post.

Two more contests, Dialogue, and more (motleyvision.org)
Joyce Carol Oates’s ‘In the Absence of Mentors/Monsters’: Narrative Magazine (huffingtonpost.com)
9 (Arbitrary) Ways to Get Your Writing Rejected (psychologytoday.com)

Filed under: What about Chazz?, writing contests, writing tips, Contest, short stories, short story, Winning short story contests, Writers Resources

09/01/2010 • 12:12 PM 1

Issues in Titling & Marketing a Manuscript

Image via Wikipedia

I’m editing Romeo, Juliet & Jerome, my novel about a ADD-addled young man who dreams of becoming a movie star. He needs an acting credit and figures Romeo will be his ticket. When the dude who plays Mercutio overdoses and dies, the school shuts down the play and so, our hero’s dreams. He has to battle the school and stage the play himself, but now someone blames him for the drug death and wants to kill him with a hammer. Complications ensue. Also, Juliet’s a hottie so there’s young love. Will Romeo escape from New York to Hollywood‘s bright lights?

It’s a hip coming of age story with dark humor, a gay subplot and lots of drugs and indie rock that tops out at about 80,000 words. It’s written. I’m just tinkering with the edit.

Here’s the thing: Lots of books have incorporated Romeo and Juliet into their plots (and even more have used Shakespeare of all kinds. If you missed it, find Ten Things I Hate about You for a really funny modern take on Taming of the Shrew.) Today, while cruising Twitter I found that someone has written a book called Romeo and Juliet and Vampires. (There are similar videos, too. I had no idea.) Several books published in the last couple of years have joined classic tales and horror elements. I haven’t read them, but I think that horror subgenre has taken off; the cover art is hilarious. Abraham Lincoln with a bloody axe. Queen Anne, also with an axe. Lots of zombie-axing action.

The question is: will that book affect my book?

The answer is: No, but for marketing purposes, it could change my title. I’m sure the premises are totally different so in terms of story, it’s a non-issue. However, when I pitch it to publishers, Shakespeare is familiar enough. I will not want them to think I’m trying to capitalize on someone else’s idea (who isn’t the long dead father of the English theater, anyway.) I’m not trying to catch up with a trend that will probably be dead by the time of actual publication. Story titles can sound familiar, but not too similar to something that has been published in the last couple years (unless it’s part of a series by the same author, of course. The Dexter book titles run together in my mind now, so even that may not be desirable.)

I’ve said it before: Ideas are cheap. Your execution of an idea and mine will be very different. No matter how many people you stuff in a room, from a single idea, their plots will spin out in all directions. Don’t sweat that your idea sounds something like another idea. It’s all been done. There are no new stories, but there are infinite permutations and combinations. The trick is to make the familiar taste new and fresh again for jaded palates.

Filed under: agents, My fiction, publishing, What about Chazz?, writing tips, Juliet & Jerome, manuscript submission, publishing, queries, Romeo, Romeo & Juliet

08/27/2010 • 8:08 AM 0

What got done this week

Hey folks! For a change, a little about me, me, me.

In addition to editing my novel (Romeo, Juliet & Jerome) I completed an editing/ghostwriting job for a client. The fellow wanted his content punched up for a magazine article which will publicize his business and connect him to new customers. His allotted word count limit was 3,000 words. He submitted 1,000 words to me. This could have been a problem, but I came up with another 500 words after the edit/ghost job. We solved the rest of the shortfall with photos so everybody’s happy.

I also finished a preliminary edit on a memoir this week. Great life stories are so humbling.

I joined Goodlife Fitness and now I’m exercising every day. If you’re a writer, please do the same. Nobody talks about this much, but as a writer, you’re sedentary. You spend hours sitting still. This wasn’t healthy when it was TV and it’s not any more healthy now. Writers need to get out the door, hit a gym, go for a run or at least a brisk walk. Counteract the damage to your body that writing demands. We are human. We aren’t supposed to stay still as long as we do. In the near future, I expect to be in great shape. (Okay, really good shape.)

Happy Friday! More links are coming later today as I scan the publishing blogs for you, you , you.

Filed under: Editors, getting it done, This Week's Missions, What about Chazz?, editing, editing jobs, mission accomplished, this week's missions

08/26/2010 • 4:16 AM 0

It’s a New World. Join the Publishing Revolution

I just added a five-star system so you can rate posts, a Digg button so you can “like” posts and several ways to share posts (Twitter, Facebook, Print, Reddit, Email, etc.,…) Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true.

Your rare shameless (and fun!) plug begins here:

If you like the blog, please let me and your friends and followers know! Hit the Digg button above the comment box to “like” it. Share on Facebook. Tweet on twitter. I’m above grovelling, but I am willing to ask nicely for your support.

This is the fun part: I have added these buttons in a craven attempt to spread the word about Chazz Writes. I have big plans for the blog. As we get bigger I want to include book reviews, contests for prizes and, ultimately, annex a small tropical island nation whose national drink will be hollowed out pineapples with five kinds of rum. I shall be king, of course, but benevolent in my clothing-optional palace. We’ll be nuclear-weapons free, nuclear-capable, solar and wind-friendly, and establish a very reasonable flat tax. There will be free healthcare for all. We’ll be weed-legalized, jerk-averse and twelve kinds of awesome sexy. And everybody will get a Mac. (Acers for jerks. That’ll teach ’em!) Also, clothes lines are allowed and I’ll keep the needless spending down by force of Nerf bats and exile to lesser, non-Chazz-infused nations. (All that therapy is really nipping my narcissistic megalomania in the bud, huh?) But I digress…

If you like my stuff, please let other people know. This is a relatively new publishing blog, but I’m not new to publishing. I do have a lot of information to share with writers from a writer’s and editor’s perspective. (Don’t know Chazz and wonder where he gets off talking publishing? Click here.) I just love to talk to people about their writing projects, publishing issues, and that book you’re going to publish some day. Every day I curate the best information on publishing I can find as I search the web for news about writers, interesting stories and stuff that helps writers figure out the best routes to getting published.

I also look for laughs along the way. We need it. The writer’s life can be a grim nobility. Unlike some writing blogs I detest (i.e. a few agent blogs and angry blogs that mock writers) you are not a minion here. You are a travelling companion and friend. I love books and I love the people who love them.

Return often for updates and keep an eye on that Twitter feed to your right

OR

simply follow me on Twitter @RChazzChute

AND/OR

go to the bottom right and subscribe so you won’t miss a thing!

Like the blurb says:

The publishing revolution has begun.

Join me.

Rare shameless plug ends.

Filed under: blogs & blogging, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Social Media, Twitter, What about Chazz?, Writers, book publishing blogs, publishing, writers

08/18/2010 • 11:53 AM 0

I won a Maggie Award! (Not!)

Good news! Last night I thought I was a finalist for the Maggie Awards for my column in Massage & Bodywork. There was a mix-up at the magazine so I wasn’t told until this morning that I wasn’t just a finalist. I won a Maggie! Yay! (This is writing award #8 for me…er, not that I’m counting.) Ahem.

My lovely editor wrote in this morning: “It’s a big deal. It’s the Western Publications Association headquartered in LA. It’s the second-biggest magazine organization to Folio.” The good people at M&B also won in another category for their very well-executed digital edition. Kudos to them. They’re great people to work with.

This is a great way to start the day. In fact, I think this requires a Starbucks coffee. Then back to the keyboard.

UPDATE:

Due to a miscommunication at my magazine, I was informed this afternoon (August 19th) that, though I was indded a finalist for a Maggie, I did not, in fact, win a Maggie. Ack! I announced it on Twitter, on Facebook and here and for 24 hours, as far as I knew, it was true. It’s not a big deal since a couple days ago I didn’t know I was even up for the award. Runner-up kinda takes the piss out of the honor of the nomination though. Heavy sigh.

Thanks to my friends and followers for your support. Now, back to the keyboard…

Filed under: What about Chazz?

08/05/2010 • 11:11 PM 4

What I believe about FICTION

I believe:

1. in the word, the power and the glory of its creation.

2. in the free expression of the word in all its forms.

3. free expression does the service of exposing bigots and liars.

4. censorship is for children who can’t handle all the adult input at once.

5. censors would infantilize us all if they could.

6. we speak truth to power through the power of the word so we must preserve that power.

7. words can transport us and help us transcend the ill winds of circumstance.

8. sometimes fiction is our only escape and our only hope.

9. dreamers write so that one day they can make their dreams true.

10. fiction is the lie that tells the truth.

11. books, in whatever form they take, are our chance to better ourselves because we can sift through others’ experience without suffering their lives.

12. novels measure what we believe, poetry measures what we believe about ourselves and rock and roll allows us to escape who we suspect we are. (Rock out and rock on!)

13. Fiction is pretend, but it lets us open a crack of light in the darkness so we gain an opportunity to see ourselves as characters in the story of our lives.

14. through this device of fiction, we can safely explore who we pretend to be.

15. through fiction’s device, we can get past the lies we all tell about ourselves to reach authenticity.

16. when we put pretending in its place, finally we can reach for the heroes we could be.

17. good reading can fill an afternoon.

18. great reading can fill your brain.

19. excellent reading can fill your heart and spur you to change yourself and others.

20. if I did not have words, I would paint and if I had no paints, I would sing. If I had none of these things to soothe my racing mind, I would be an evil zombie combination of Darth Vader and Dick Cheney on PCP in a Sunday school, naked and raging with automatic weapons and a Joker smile that would chill your heart.

Filed under: Rant, What about Chazz?, fiction, rant, What I believe about fiction

06/11/2010 • 1:22 AM 0

Overlap. Overlap. Matrix.

When my daughter was three, and in a philosophical mood, she told me, “Some things happen and other things don’t happen.”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “That’s true.”

Some things happen and they seem like very odd coincidences. For instance, I was working at Harlequin Enterprises (yes, that Harlequin) on the night shift. I’m too tired and ashamed to type out the details of my job there, but one odd story stands out in my mind.

A woman who also worked on the night shift recounted her previous journalism experience. Uncaring, egomaniacal jerks surrounded her. That was my experience, too. In fact, I was one of them. Monica, the fellow employee of the Dark Empire, told how she was working on a story at a newspaper close to deadline when a nosebleed came over her. She bled copiously. I sat up a little straighter, remembering that the same thing had happened to me. I wondered if newsrooms in daily newspapers above the 49th parallel all have such uncommonly dry air that this might be a common experience.

Then she told me about how an editor came over to her work station and handed her a piece of paper. Something to be rewritten or a press release to follow-up or some such thing. She couldn’t remember. The grating thing about the incident was that he did not acknowledge her hemorrhaging in the least. Reporters are a dime a dozen apparently and if you bleed to death at your desk, you can quickly be replaced. I sat so straight at attention my bum felt light in the chair. The exact scenario had happened to me…to the letter.

Odd. Small world. Maybe it’s The Matrix Phenomenon: so many stories overlap because there are so few stories because it’s all fake. We’re just coppertops feeding the machines. Maybe. I’m just still egomaniacal enough to consider that possibility seriously.

In other news, I’m going to try pronouncing the “b” in the word doubt for a week and see if anyone notices. I wonder how often it will come up.