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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

08/14/2011 • 10:49 AM 1

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!: My Night with Obama

I had all the answers.

President Obama was visiting my parents. I was a kid, maybe fourteen, living on a Kennedyesque estate (but without the accent). I somehow convinced the president I knew what to do. I called in emergency help.

Two jets and two helicopters later, the team arrived.

1. Rachel Maddow appeared in the doorway, confused that she’d been called to the Hamptons for a secret meeting with the president. I told her to explain her genius idea to the president. All the Republican candidates took TARP funds for their states and took credit for creating jobs while condemning the same funding. Spending is frozen, but as Miss Maddow explained, they still want to fund their pet projects to create jobs by fixing bridges and highways. “So say yes.” Maddow said. “Michelle Bachmann is first in line. She wants a bridge fixed. Say yes, Mr. Obama. Say yes to all of them. The USA needs infrastructure, so say yes. They won’t say no to that. They already asked. We have the documentation. Rebuild America like Truman did.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I got a guy coming who will make sure the Republicans don’t steal the credit. But first, have you met Mr. Maher?”

2. The secret Service ushered in Bill Maher, stoned, flanked by two models. “We had to take him by force, even after we explained who was asking,” a big Secret Service agent shrugged.

“Mr. Maher, we need your patriotism. You said, ‘The problem is we have one party with no brains and one party with no balls.’ Mr. Obama needs a life coach. Be the balls, Mr. Maher. Be the Cheney, but with a heart in your chest instead of The Pulsing Stone of Pure Evil. We need a Cheney in the administration, but with blood instead of bile. Your country needs you.”

Mr. Maher refused immediately, of course.

I looked over to Mr. Obama. He nodded.

“He’ll legalize it,” I said.

For the cause, Bill agreed to help, with the proviso that he could handle all the renegotiation on his own (and that clouds of marijuana smoke would be pumped into Congress during all debates.)

“New Rule!” Maher said. “No more golf with Boehner! You sit with him in a room with the doors locked, don’t let him have any cigarettes or booze and nobody gets to go to the bathroom until we fix the country because the bathroom is for closers! And Mr. President? You’ll be wearing Depends.”

3. Jon Stewart walked in chewing a bagel and cracking up the Secret Service. He had the air of a guy who always knew it would come to this and it was about fucking time he was called in.

“Mr. Stewart, Rachel’s the brains, Bill’s the muscle. You’re the mouth. We need a press secretary who can effectively mock stupid ideas. Do what you do. Get the Democrat’s message out there. And destroy from the podium like you’re on stage at the Comedy Store on a Saturday night. When the press tries to say ‘On the one hand, on the other,’ mock them until they cry. Shame them until they admit crazy ideas are crazy and the truth isn’t always in the middle. Bring along John Oliver, too, if you want. He’s fun.”

Stewart replied by doing a spit take and rubbing hits eyes in exaggerated comedic gestures as if he was Buster Keaton in a silent film. Stewart made that work and even the president allowed himself a grim smile.

4. I turned to Mr. Obama. “With respect, sir, you’ve got to stop showing so much respect. We know your internal monologue is, ‘I can’t believe I have to put up with this shit.’ Bill’s going to show you it’s okay to say that. In fact, people will love you for it. All the stuff you don’t say? That’s what he’s going to show you how to do. Be a more of a dick.”

Mr. Maher shrugged his agreement. “Call them on their shit. That’s my whole career, actually.”

“In fact,” I said, “I suggest we get the president a copy of the pussy/asshole/dick speech at the end of Team America: World Police.”

5. Next: While we waited for the last guest, I had more suggestions. “US forces are in 150 countries and they are all coming home. You know those YouTube videos where everybody gets choked up when soldiers show up and the family rushes in and hugs them so glad they’re alive? For the next month, there’s not going to be a dry eye in America. Everybody comes home and the military does two things: A. Help with natural disasters and build new bases in New Orleans and Detroit to revivify. B. Defend the borders. With everybody home, it’s going to be safer than Switzerland. From now on, you’re going to handle anti-terrorist strikes the same way you got Bin Laden. In and out and nobody stays. The United States is the only war-ravaged country where America needs to do nation-building.”

6. Next: “Close tax loopholes and tax the rich. When the Tea Party and the Republicans cry foul, tell them the rich aren’t just “job creators” with untaxed private jets. They are patriots and patriots pay taxes. Mere Clinton era taxation will cut the deficit in half, not just shave it back over many years. When they whine about it, question their patriotism. When they keep whining, call them weak. When they say you’re a tax-and-spend Democrat, tell them you’re a tax-and-save-the-middle-class Democrat. And raise the debt ceiling with the constitution, not negotiation. When they complain about that, tell them you’re saving the country.

7. When you get flack for all that, pull a George Bush. “Tell them God told you to do it,” I said. “Mr. Stewart will handle burying them in ‘What would Jesus do?’ jokes while making funny faces and doing his Italian mob guy accent. Make sure to say it was the Christian God to head off Fox News. God trumps all objections. Really surprised you kept that in your holster this long, sir.”

8. One last thing. Doctor Brown? An old man with wild, white hair and a lab coat entered. Mr. Obama stood, looking at him curiously. His jaw dropped. “Is that?”

“Yes, sir. A fiction based in reality,” I said.

The old man extended his hand and gave a craggy smile. “Just call me ‘Doc’. Marty and I have rebuilt the DeLorean. It’s parked out back by the pool. We’re going back in time to get you a new policy assistant. The assistant will work with you and Mr. Maher to get some things done, like really shutting down Gitmo. Stuff like that.”

Mr. Obama’s eyes widened. “You mean?”

“That’s right!” Doc Brown explained. “We’re going back to 2007 to pick up the Hope and Change Obama to bring him BACK TO THE FUTURE!”

I woke up.

And waking up was disappointing. I didn’t have the solution after all.

Filed under: Rant, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, rant, United States

08/12/2011 • 3:37 PM 5

The Trampled Author’s Curse upon nasty reviewers

It’s time to say “yes” to something. Maybe even “YES!”

Art is about saying yes. Making it, consuming it, enjoying it. Enjoying anything means saying yes to it. Whatever your art, it is a hopeful thing. Art affirms possibility. It may not be for everyone, but it is for someone.

This morning I read an article extolling the virtues of five self-published books. There were some nice comments and some lukewarm comments. What shocked me were the truly vile comments. I’m not kidding. Numerous commenters, no doubt bolstered by the anonymity of the Internet, went after the chosen indie books with a vehemence I’d expect for child molesters. Full of bile and blanket condemnations, quite a few whined about how bad the typos were or how only traditionally published authors were worth their time. (I can think of numerous traditionally published authors I’d never read, though I can think of none I’d condemn so harshly. That would make me the bad guy and a drama king.)

They weren’t just saying “No” or “No thanks.” They weren’t even saying “We’ll see.” They were knocking down the attempt. How dare theses people write their books and offer it on the market for 99 cents! One perversely claimed that these authors should pay the reader for their books. Considering anyone can read a hefty sample of any ebook before they buy it, the answer to that is a two-word answer. “And those two words are not “Thank you.”

People of No. They don’t interest me. They’re not passionate about literature. Passion yields sweeter fruit than this. That’s not conviction I’m smelling. Maybe those commenters are simply haters who enjoy trying to make others feel bad so they can feel good. Maybe they need therapy. Maybe they need a hug.

I love books. I don’t love all books. But I don’t hate the authors of the books I don’t like. That’s not a flaw in books. That’s a flaw in reviewers who take their comments too far. I just wanted to get this post up and out there before I have my ebooks available. I want the record to show I put this up before anyone tore into me. When I see such rudeness, I won’t be replying. I’ll just be sending a link to this post. And a mental hug for the sad perpetrator.

They’ll never make art of value because art is a creative juice, not poison.

They’ll never bring joy to others or allow it in themselves.

And that is The Trampled Author’s Curse upon our transgressors.

Filed under: authors, DIY, ebooks, Rant, Rejection, reviews, Writers, Art, Arts, book, E-book, nasty reviews, rant, reviewers, reviews, saying no

08/11/2011 • 4:35 PM 0

Ponderables

1. Even when I don’t want to work, there’s always a little something I can do while listening to podcasts that still makes me feel like I’m edging forward. But underneath that? It really feels like I’m fooling myself.

2. I feel most energized about eating well right after I’ve eaten something I shouldn’t have. Clearly this is stupid. And repeated often. Why am I repeating behaviour I know hurts me and may kill me? Common doesn’t make it any less crazy.

3. Watching the news, this seems like a good time for bad ideas. From flirting with default to stock market plunges to riots in Britain. It’s like a vortex of Bad has opened and started spewing. It’s sucking energy from the Good vortex.

4. In university I sank to my enemy’s level. I had a very bad professor in Journalism school who was a real sphincter. In retaliation, I too, was an asshole. And I still don’t see any reasonable alternatives after all these years. Still!

5. A teenager I knew years ago was a tremendous singing talent. I was sure he’d be famous someday. I checked. He’s not. In fact, he disappeared. I know he didn’t get picked up by a record company because he was almost as fat as he was talented. He should be a household name, a millionaire, a success. I hope he’s the best something else he can be. But how many of us are destined for one pinnacle and reach our zenith elsewhere?

Filed under: publishing, What about Chazz?, ideas, ponder, Regret

08/09/2011 • 8:30 PM 2

Truman Syndrome & the writerly mindset

While sipping the best coffee ever at Coffee Culture, I saw a handsome, young black man standing across the street. Beside him sat an elderly white woman in a wheelchair.

I swear this is true: I watched him light a very fat joint, take a hit and pass it to the old woman. Without looking at him, she took a hit and passed it back. This wasn’t merely unexpected. It was surreal. As he rolled her out of sight I thought there was a story there but I wasn’t sure yet what it would be.

As I headed home, I had a Truman Syndrome moment. Everything looked slightly fake, like I was on a movie set made just for me. An old man with a nose like The Penguin’s beak and horrible posture scrabbled across the sidewalk as if pulled along by his cartoonish nose. At the same time, a woman ran the other way in a gait that looked…contrived. She wore a pastel green blouse that matched her socks and she ran like she was holding back a terrible case of diarrhea and trying to hop in time to an urgent nursery rhyme.

If I were to see each person individually, it would just seem odd. However, the juxtaposition of all of them made them not real people, but characters. As I scanned the sidewalk, everyone looked like an extra in an early 90s low-budget movie. I could picture the AD whispering instructions to concealed earpieces for each passerby. “Keep moving! Don’t look at the camera. Don’t look at the actor! Don’t look at Chazz! He still has no idea!”

The sense that everything is slightly off, somewhat “presented”, and utterly skewed? That feeling hasn’t left me all day.

I’m either in a writerly mood or this is a narcissistic psychosis.

Not that those conditions are mutually exclusive.

Filed under: What about Chazz?, Writers, Writing exercise, characters, Truman Syndrome, write, writer, writerly, writing

08/08/2011 • 11:31 AM 0

Improving ourselves: Bruce Lee, Reading self-help, writing horror

I’ve been trying to improve myself to make me worthy of your love. I’m not eating sugar so I’ll lose more weight (after gaining some back.) I’ll get to the gym. I’ll keep slogging on making my ebooks. I’ve been reading a time management book by the Bruce Lee of Time Management.

I’d tell you more about the book, but it turns out the author and Bruce Lee have something in common:

good at what they do, sure, but jerks.

Bruce Lee was a kung fu legend who made some interesting movies for 14-year-old boys and those with chronically arrested development. (Yes, I was so afflicted until quite recently.) But Bruce Lee also picked a lot of fights just so he could beat up his physical lessors . (You didn’t see that much in the biopic Dragon, but getting into too much trouble and buying too deeply into his macho bullshit was one of the reasons he had to flee Hong Kong for the United States.) Bruce Lee was also (struggling for a kind euphemism here) an intense individual. He had a thing about staring into people’s eyes as he spoke, even when he was driving. He got into several fender benders because of that macho man/genius policy. Bruce was an amazing innovator and there is much about him that is enviable. He’s inspired people far beyond the bailiwick of kung fu. The legend obscures the flawed person who stands behind the fiction.

Then there’s the time management guru: He started off with some good points, though his unexpected obsession with making more time for sex hit kind of a weird note. I’m sex positive, so I didn’t write him off quickly. Making more time for sex is a good thing rarely spoken, so good on him for speaking it. Then, for some reason (no editor or an editor who got overruled) he veered off into a narrative ditch. People in China die without healthcare because they don’t have money, he said, and that’s the way it should be. If you want to be able to afford healthcare and not die horribly, get off your lazy ass. Surgery is for closers!

Whoa.

His vision of getting the best out of life seems to be scheduling your time properly in an Ayn Rand hellscape where only the strong survive as you drive your enemies before you, crush them and hear the lamentation of their women. Okay, I’m paraphrasing Conan the Barbarian there, but seriously, the author crammed some pretty ugly beyond-far-right politics into his time management book and derailed his book.

I’ll learn to manage my time from someone else. I admit it, I’m not reading the whole thing. This isn’t a book review. It’s a warning to keep your inner disregard for fellow humans tucked away when you write a self-help book. Unless you’re a horror writer. I don’t want to read more and share a mind meld with someone whose concept of compassion for the sick is to cackle while he watches the poor die, drinking from a gold goblet while scheduling a spa treatment on his oh-so-organized Blackberry.

Hey, come to think of it…I am writing a book that has “self-help” in the title and there is a lot of horror in it.

Hm. I’m complex. And I’m trying to do better.

In my horror stories, I hint at a high regard for the worth of humanity.

There’s no horror at the loss of a life if you’re just losing another nosey neighbour you never liked anyway.

Filed under: book reviews, Books, writing tips, horror, self-help, Time management, writing tip

08/06/2011 • 8:56 AM 5

Don’t listen to writers too much

Image by pirateyjoe via Flickr

When I first graduated from massage school, I visited new massage therapists all the time. Too often, I didn’t enjoy the experience much. I was too evaluative of each therapist to just lay back and receive the treatment in the spirit in which it was given. I wasn’t concentrating on the feeling of the massage, but on the mechanics. It took me some time to get past that mindset.

You see the same thing with editors sometimes, too. A bad editor jumps straight to corrections too fast without reading for story first. Typos are the last thing you correct in the story construction process. You need to look at the big blocks in the structure first to see how it holds together. Developmental editing always happens before detailed copy editing.

You shouldn’t listen too much to other writers for similar reasons. They see your work through a prism that doesn’t necessarily match ordinary reader expectations.

Writers are great people, but they usually aren’t your market. We sometimes forget that there are a lot of people in the world who have no literary ambitions. They don’t want to write a book. They just want to read a good story.

Writers are readers, but they aren’t typical readers. Writers look at your work differently. Writers are not the average reader.

Among writers, there is a higher percentage of people who will pick apart your mechanics. Any grammatical variation from what they expected (and there are variations) will provoke more irritation than may be warranted. They will be the readers who skip from irritation at your typos to outrage, indignation and threats to take away your writer’s license and livelihood. Some will want to burn down your house.

Writer friends and editors can help you develop your work, improve and self-publish. But because of the way we are wired, we might not enjoy your work as much as typical readers will.

BONUS:

I’m networked with a lot of great writers who help me a lot. I like them, appreciate them and thank them.

However, you’ll run into some writers who are so competitive, they do not wish you well.

Either through jealousy or the misconception that your success takes something away from them, they want you to fail.

Watch out for the hypercritical, the rabid grammarians, the perfectionists, the haters and snipers. They mistake their subjective taste for law all the time.

By the way, I wish you every success.

Self-publishing: The Couch Change Economy vs. The Great Personality Argument (chazzwrites.wordpress.com)

Filed under: publishing, Rant, Rejection, writing tips, editing, grammar, grammarians, haters, typos, write, writing

08/05/2011 • 9:08 AM 0

Same Tired Arguments

Via Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction

Misquoting me makes you sound stupid. So does taking what I say out of context, putting words in my mouth, and drawing false conclusions based on things I’ve said. That out of the way, I keep seeing the same poor, tired arguments and examples repeated over and over around the Internet. Either folks are writing about self-publishing for the very first time, and naturally falling into the lazy trap of not thinking clearly, or they’re purposely trying to disguise failed ideas as something new, like intelligent design and creationism. (Just to be clear–intelligent design is no different than creationism, and creationism is flat-out wrong. Period.) Here are some outright falsehoods that continue to perpetuate.
Show original

Filed under: publishing

08/04/2011 • 7:17 PM 0

How do you like me now?

It occurred to me this evening that the big book I’m betting on heavily to put me on the map is…unconventional. By that I mean it’s a mongrel of a book that breaks a book full of rules. It mixes stories of horror and erotica, philosophy and thought experiments with a sprinkling of non-fiction. It’s got a marketing hook that better be strong enough to overcome the “traditional” liabilities of stories told in second-person present.

Either I’m an evil genius or an idiot, but I keep flashing on Keanu Reeves in The Matrix when he’s about to rescue Morpheus:

Trinity: “No one’s ever done anything like this before.”

Neo: “That’s why it’s going to work.”

November 1 will be my Indie-pendance Day.

More to come.

Filed under: Books, DIY, self-publishing, What about Chazz?, Writers, writing tips, book releases, books, Carrie-Anne Moss, indie, Keanu Reeves, Matrix, Morpheus, self-publishing, tense

07/31/2011 • 12:27 PM 4

TOP TEN: What used to be cool

I used to think people don’t change, but we do, around the edges.

Here’s my list of what used to impress me…overly.

1. Movie memory: My wife remembers where we were on vacations. She recalls the restaurants, the sights and the good times. I can’t remember any of that. My memory box is stuffed with movie dialogue. In fact, that’s my super power. My parents owned a video store and I watched at least two movies a day for years. If you’re watching a movie with me and I feel the urge to show off —a sad, dependable occurrence — I’ll jump in and tell you the next line before the actor can deliver it. It doesn’t have to be a great movie like The Karate Kid. It could even be The Karate Kid 3.

I’m briefly, ridiculously, proud when this happens and She Who Must Be Obeyed smiles tolerantly. But it’s not a super power that saves babies from house fires. I can’t monetize it. Any memory that’s at all useful, and much that isn’t, can be found on the web. Every time I hear a podcast where the host and guest speculate about what happened, which movie was what and who was Miss October 1993, I think: Look it up! We don’t need our pitiful brains anymore for trivia!We’ve got Wikipedia and the hive mind! Google it!

If our experience makes us what we are and all I’ve got is movie dialogue?

I. Am. Screwed.

2. Unguarded moment memory: Yesterday I chatted with a college buddy on Facebook. We have a strange friendship because: on the political spectrum, I’m Lefty Lefterson, he’s to the right; he loves debate and I love people who agree with me too easily; and we weren’t that tight in college. We even came close to getting into fisticuffs once. And what’s more? He doesn’t remember it. I have joked with him, somewhat passive aggressively, that I remember all his unguarded moments. We spent very little time together at school, but for some reason, as soon as I was around him, my brain box was wired in to his every utterance as if he were on film. (See #1)

One incident in particular became a source of hilarity: In the journalism school newsroom, he looked at me and then he ogled my girlfriend (who years later became my wife.) “How could a guy like you get a girl like that?” he asked, genuinely dumbfounded. I was a tad sandpapered by that at the time. Now, as I write this, I’m suppressing a giggle. He’s a supportive, funny guy who manages to think and smile, often at the same time. I don’t have that capacity and I admire it. But my wife’s still hot.

When I bring up unguarded moments from the past, my buddy has a certain lopsided smile of chagrin. I confessed to him yesterday that I have an eidetic memory for everything he said or did in college whenever I was within ten feet of him. (No, Marvel Studios won’t be making a superhero movie about this mutant power, either.) I told him that if I were him, I’d kill me.

But we’ve found transcendence. We laugh a lot. And I’d rather laugh than remember #2 sandpaper moments from the dead past.

(I’m an asshole for carnivoring yesterday’s conversation and bringing this up at all, so this was the last time.)

3. Domination: I used to watch Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan and a host of Hong Kong martial arts movies obsessively. The idea that one man could dominate others with precise kicking skills was attractive. Now it strikes me as silly, simplistic and repetitive. Back then, I aspired to — this is really embarrassing — a whole whack of macho bullshit. As I edit my books, the theme that macho doesn’t mean mucho comes up a lot. Many of my stories explore how men relate to men, how men relate to women and how to be a man without devolving into a bully or a pussy.

I’ve figured out that my need for domination wasn’t rooted in strength.

That bullshit was all about fear.

4. Being a loner: I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, so I wasn’t brought up by parents, but by movies. And what do all cool movie gods have in common? They’re alone.

Dirty Harry didn’t have to pick up the kids from daycare. Except for Casablanca, even bulldog-faced Bogey got the girl. The movie was about the getting, never about enjoying the having. Bachelors are available and open to romantic and adventurous opportunity. They don’t have to arrange a babysitter before they go on safari or take up a mission. Martin Sheen wasn’t on screen debating about who left a ring in the tub after the crazy caper to tunnel into the bank vault in Loophole. Heroes were alone and liked it until they chose, at the end of the story, to start a new, more mundane, domestic story. The few female heroes of that era were largely indistinguishable from men. The glamorous life was not a life that included children. All movie heroes (who aren’t superheroes) were, and are, marvellously egocentric.

Since I’m not-so-marvellously egocentric, emulating The Loner with a Mysterious Past or The Last Honest Man seemed a good thing. I need space and a buffer zone and time to myself, too! I’m a writer. Of course being a loner was the key to happiness!

But I was confusing fiction and reality.

Being a loner in real life isn’t glamorous. It’s lonely.

5. My library: I’ve been getting rid of a lot of books, but I still have a lot of books. My collection not only conveys to visitors that I’m bookish. It says, I’ve found an alternative way to further insulate my home. Look at all those books! See? I must be smart. Please love me! Respect me even though I prefer books to interacting with people!

SAT question:

A doughy guy in a midlife crisis is to an expensive red sports car

as you are to…?

Choose one:

A. The hypotenuse of the square

B. John Adams

C. the Bill of Rights

or D. books.

Yes, D was the correct answer.

As my e-readers fill up, the walls of books look less like a personal statement of integrity and more like (Krom forgive me) clutter.

My new policy with paper books is to sell them or give them away once I’m done with them.

If all that macho bullshit was about fear,

my hoarding is about low self-esteem.

6. Anger: I mistake self-righteousness for being right. Often.

I always loved that line from Dr. Bruce Banner just before he turned into the Hulk: “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

You know what I’ve figured out about readership with all the blogging I do?

People don’t like me when I’m angry.

People like me when I’m honest and authentic.

Well…most people. Fuck those trolls.

(See what I mean?)

7. Heroes: My daughter asked me who my heroes are. Her first guess was, “Kevin Smith, right?” A few glib, funny answers sprang to mind, but she had that earnest look on her face, so I went serious and gave her the true, complicated answer.

I like Kevin Smith a lot for his independent spirit, wit and smarts. We agree on a lot. He’s definitely Top 10 material, though I get the feeling he’s also a mercurial god who can be moody. Maybe that’s why I relate to him. But I’m lucky because I know my top heroes personally. They aren’t nationally known, but they should be.

My heroes are celebrities in small circles who lead by example:

Anne is the bravest woman I’ve ever known. She suffered greatly from a terrible disease, nearly died several times, and overcame it all to rise again from her electric wheelchair and walk again. She remade her life long after most of us would have given up.

The late, great Reverend Johnny T. Collins was the single best Christian I’ve ever known. My love and respect for him hasn’t changed a bit though I became an atheist after his death. It would grieve him enormously to discover that I became an atheist largely because of his death.

One of my best friends (I’ve mentioned several times in this blog) is Peter. He has a super power that’s much more useful than mine: Peter makes friends easily and unselfconsciously. Few people have so deep a capacity for joie de vivre. He’s forever the Big Man on Campus no one can hate. (As opposed to the other Big Man on Campus, the smug bastard who led the football team and everyone secretly hoped would get leprosy.) Everyone is richer who has Pete in their lives.

And number one? I’m a very lucky man because my wife is hero number one. She’s the single most kind and generous person I know. (Also, as previously, pervilly mentioned, hot. Really can’t go without mentioning that.) It makes sense that the woman I’m married to must be a paragon of patience.

The heroes I know as individuals are beyond cool. But heroes as a class of people to look up to? No. Heroes as a group are overrated. Kevin Smith, for instance, idolized Brice Willis until he worked with him. I’ll never forget Kevin’s look of regret and disappointment when he stared at the floor and said, “Never meet your heroes, man.”

My heroes are stellar people who are my friends and family. They are people I can rise to be among and still belong. Any hero worth the title empowers you, assuring you that you can be a hero, too.

Don’t just watch heroes. Be one.

8. Greatness: Perfectionism is self-hatred or, as writer Mur Lafferty says, “It’s okay to suck.” I write books. I’ll begin making them available to the universe this fall. The universe may or may not notice. That’s okay because this is what I do now, whether it goes big or stays small. Of course I want all my books to be made into movies and checks in the mail, but that sort of all-or-nothing thinking will hurt and hold me back. Last night I was up until two finishing a draft of my third book. I had stamina because I was excited about what I was creating. I wasn’t living in the future, thinking about accolades from strangers from whom I desperately want love, respect and money. I do want those things. But writing is about how to make the story more clever, more funny and more surprising. I get brain tickles from the dopamine kick of doing my thing.

Enjoying the journey is the only way to get to the destination.

BONUS:

We learned in The Matrix “There is no spoon.” There’s also no destination. It’s all a journey.

CHAZZ PARADOX:

Knowing there is no destination allows you the chance to get to the destination

(Yup, I have a minor in philosophy, studied Zen and yes, that was annoying!)

9. Ego: When I started out as a therapist, I put on my ID badge and my shoulders went up and my chest went out, much the same way Erik Estrada always substituted posing for acting on CHIPS. I walked into my clinic, “The Expert.” I didn’t know it at the time, but this was self-aggrandizing bullshit I used to meet challenges I wasn’t sure I equal to.

Ego can make you do stupid things. Longer. Everybody needs self-esteem, but too much ego pushes people away and makes you a prick. As a prick in rehab, I know.

Ego leads to stupid shit, like planking. All over the web you can see pictures of people doing the latest thing: Somebody had the balls to stand up and call it planking. Or, as we used to call it, “Lying down.”

Too much ego betrays the truth about ourselves:

NOT. ENOUGH. SUBSTANCE.

10. Certainty: I used to want to know exactly how things will turn out. That’s part of the whole, living-in-the-future disease. I thought that if I could just get this one thing right, everything else would fall into place and success would be mine. Certainty is poison, though. Success comes from doing a lot of little things right along the way, not from sweeping mission statements (like this.) A need for certainty can lead you to avoid tackling those little things.

For instance, I don’t know how to format my manuscripts for ebook formats. Yet. If I had to know it all before I could start, I’d never get it done. Instead I’m learning as I go and nibbling away at it. I’ll never know it all and get it “perfect”, but eventually I’ll be able to digest enough to get my ebooks done and out there.

Recently I listened to a podcast about how to podcast. There is a staggering amount of trivia to know about podcasting. But you don’t have to know it all to begin. You just have to begin. A need for certainty can give you paralysis by analysis (a confident, oft-spouted aphorisms which must be true because it rhymes.)

George Bush elevated certainty as a virtue over intelligence. (Obama doesn’t convey any certainty, so the culture may have over-corrected on that one. Oops.)

Certainty is a conceptual synonym to dangerous things like patriotism and zero tolerance. When someone comes at me with too much certainty, my bullshit detector rings an alarm. Absolute certainty tells me there’s a loss of nuance, somebody’s a quart low on compassion and probably suffering a dearth of thinking.

And I’m sure of that.