Huzzah, word warriors! What’s up? How are you holding up? Getting a bit of exercise. Even in a cramped apartment, there’s room enough to get into plank position long enough to wish you hadn’t.
Short update this week: I think I might be on the upswing personally. Still have to get taxes done and the garden in, but I’m feeling like it’s time to shrug off the funk and get more words down. The keyboard is right there, looking up at me. It appears decidedly judgmental.
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, try to stay safe. I noted that in my area, the premier tells us he thinks we’re past the peak of COVID-19. Not to be a downer, but we may be past this peak but it’s only a peak. Continue taking precautions wherever you can. Stop licking handrails and bowling balls. Watch the skies for meteors and aliens, instead.
Greetings from the blanket bunker in the Frozen North, inky internet chums! Whatever you’re dealing with, please stay as safe as you can. Disaster relief will not be immediate, but I am feeling some emotional relief knowing that armies of medical professionals and dedicated workers are determined to see this through and bring this ugly chapter of history to a close.
This is a challenging time and the horrors that have hit the world so hard make me weep. However, today my government’s leadership gave me pause and inspired me to hope for the future. Prime Minister Trudeau called for all of us to do what we can, whether that means staying the hell home, fighting the virus on the front lines or finding other ways to help each other.
(This is the cover for my next thriller. It’s coming out next week. Excited yet? Me, too! And now, on with the show.)
As the last hour of 2018 winds down, here are my offerings to writers to start off 2019 right:
Resolutions are forgotten. Work on habits instead.
Pop quiz, hotshot: If you have a plot problem and you aren’t coming up with answers, you’re asking the wrong questions. (This principle applies to lots of things.)
Plan. Plan for the plan to go awry. Have a plan B. Shoot the hostage.
Do not compare your progress to others. That way madness lies.
Listen to your editors and trusted beta readers. Don’t pay too much attention to reviewers and don’t write by committee. You don’t know those people. I just read a review that made me think, “It’s called character development. I have no regrets.” And I don’t. Movin’ on.
Go get some exercise. It’s good for your brain and writing is hell on the body.
Dump what’s not working. “Never quit,” is a well-meaning but brainless strategy.
Don’t expect everyone to love everything you do. I gave up sending my books to my Dad. I’m not his taste and I don’t dig his library, either. That’s okay.
Don’t check your reviews so much. We need them but I’m weaning myself off checking them obsessively. Every time I feel the urge I slap myself hard. Some teeth are getting loose but I shall persevere.
Don’t check your ads too quickly, either. The data you see isn’t actionable immediately. Give it a bit of time. Go write some more.
Working with a solid graphic designer is great. Check out their pre-mades. You may find treasures there. I sure have.
When you find a good editor, stick with them and consult them if they’re open to that kind of contact. I’ve never met my editor in person but we’re friends.
Get more sleep and pay attention to the ideas that hit you as you wake up. Those are often the best of the day.
Pay attention to your energy patterns. I write best if I write early. If I write late, my brain is overstimulated and I get insomnia which messes with tomorrow’s writing.
Listen to these podcasts: The Book Marketing Show with Dave Chesson, the Novel Marketing Podcast, the Sci-fi & Fantasy Marketing Podcast and The Prolific Writer.
Write often, not necessarily daily. Everybody’s got varied commitments and their own speed.
Start a mailing list ten years ago. Or today, if you must.
Don’t doubt someone’s quality because they appear to write faster than you. Or slower. Just give it up Judge Judy and cut the string Chatty Cathy.
Do write quickly enough that you keep the whole book in your head, just like the reader will.
Research before or after. Don’t slow down to research during the writing session. Put in XXX, figure it out later and fill it in later.
Writing sprints will probably make you write faster. If you can’t stand the competition, beat the clock and use the Pomodoro technique. (Pomodoro apps are everywhere. Really, Check under your couch cushions and behind the stove.)
Get Grammarly or ProWritingAid. Don’t depend on them exclusively but proofing software will save you and your editor time.
Consider using Vellum to format if you can. Otherwise, outsource. (I’m not so keen on Scrivener for formatting anymore.)
Longer isn’t necessarily better. Avoid the saggy middle and tighten. No one but that one pedantic reviewer is fixated on word count. Real readers want plot, characters, and to feel something.
Don’t be overly fixated on the price to word count ratio. Readers appreciate talent as long as you aren’t cheating them of story or milking them with too high a price point. They could afford to buy a tablet, a phone or an e-reader so don’t price everything as if it’s a fire sale.
Themes emerge. Don’t plan them up front or the story will be boring. Let that happen organically, between the lines and out of the mouths of your characters, not you.
Someone will assume they know you because of what you write. They have no fucking idea but smile and don’t bother trying to dissuade them unless it gets far too presumptuous and insulting. “Why, yes, mum, because I do write crime thrillers, therefore, I am a serial killer. And the research for all that erotica? Goodness, it is exhausting but strangers I meet at bus stations are very helpful!” (I don’t know why that voice in my head is British but no matter. There’s a choir bouncing around my skull all the time.)
Actually, never tell anyone how much you make. It’ll either be too little or too much. Don’t give them an opening. Keep your dukes up. Some people have decided to be transparent about their book earnings. I applaud them for sharing specifics and trying to encourage others but be ready. Somebody’s going to be snarky about it no matter how pure your intentions.
Help another writer if you can. If you’re being helped, don’t take too much of their time. We’ve all got shit to do and lots of it.
There is nothing at all wrong with writing in coffee shops. Some writers and civilians get their asses out of joint on this point. However, it’s great to go to a place where you don’t trust the wi-fi. It allows you to write without the temptations of distraction. The ideal gift for a writer is a gift card for more caffeine.
If you do access the internet in public places, invest in PureVPN software so hackers can’t pinch your secret pork roast recipes.
Don’t sit so much if you can help it and take movement breaks. Pushups and situps really break up a day and make you glad to get back to writing. If you’re going to get a standing desk, wear comfortable shoes and get a good mat or you won’t use it.
Punctuation is for clarity. Comma placement can be idiosyncratic. Your book’s style guide is what you say it is. Be consistent.
Talk about your novels less. Write more.
Enjoy the writing life. This is supposed to be fun and it sure as hell beats roofing.
Someone will try to kill your dream and stifle your joy in writing. Stab them in the neck with a #2 pencil. Metaphorically. Probably. Then move on.
Writer’s block? Get the pen moving by writing about your block. Usually, it’s just about getting started. Then you’re off and running.
Every day you procrastinate is another day closer to zero book sales. When there are no book sales, you’re closer to the day you start selling your shoes or murdering old ladies for a little bit of the inheritance money. Stop procrastinating. Save a little old lady and your dignity.
You might get a review that kills your passion for a series. Be prepared for this and go ahead anyway. What do they know? It is preferable to finish. However, if lack of sales tells you it’s a waste of time to write that next book in the series, consider the sunk cost fallacy and move on. We are not immortal. Time is angry, short and it flies fast.
Some write for money, some for art’s sake, others for spite. Doesn’t matter what your motivation is as long as you can say you wrote for the reader when you’re done.
Somebody’s going to hate you and they’ll make it personal. Block. Mute. Hire thugs. Move on. (If that third thing comes up in court, we never had this conversation.) Success and support from your team is your shield. I, for instance, have a team of thugs on standby.
When someone asks if you can make any money as a writer, tell them, “My good man, that is an impertinent question and you have forgotten your manners. If you must know, I make all the money and I’m buying an island next month. Why do you ask? How little money do you make?” Hey, they were rude so you can lie all you want. (British again. Hm.)
Stop worrying about things that are beyond your control. Do the things you can. Get a hug, give a hug. (Make it consensual but get one. We need them. It’s a cold world.) Buy a homeless guy a cookie. I do that each Saturday and he’s come to expect me. That’s one of the highlights of my week and it seems to cheer him up, too. No, I’m not kidding.
Go for a walk when the plot is not working. Cruise Wikipedia for inspiration. Dance with a dog. Catch an episode of Derry Girls and enjoy the musicality of Irish people swearing with abandon. Play poker with a raccoon. But not for long or all that wool-gathering is really just more wallowing in the Pit of Procrastination. Don’t fall in.
You will write something brilliant, something you consider your best work. It will not catch on. That doesn’t mean you were wrong. It very well might be your best work. Best does not necessarily equal sales. The premise is flawed because writers only talk to other writers. All we talk about is craft and quality and marketing and how nothing’s working. Readers don’t necessarily have our high standards. You only hear from the ones who love you or hate you. Most readers just read, appreciate your books or not, and then go read something else. Their analysis is not so granular. They’re just trying to distract themselves from the inevitable heat death of the universe and the utter meaninglessness of our existence. Oh, sweet Christ! (And again, the British accent. Hmm.)
Yes, it has all been done. So what? It hasn’t been done by you in your unique fantabulous way.
If it’s too unique, it probably sucks unless it’s Into the Spiderverse, a movie that will inspire generations of creatives.
Sometimes I do book doctoring and book project management. That has a certain set of parameters. Please don’t ask me to write your vague ideas for you. You’re looking for a ghostwriter, not a book doctor. I would ghostwrite if I could type faster.
Learn to type faster in any case.
Don’t write diversity for diversity’s sake. Write diversity because diversity reflects our world and is more interesting.
Don’t use fuck too much. Fuck! (See, that second one was rather gratuitous.)
Don’t rely on swearing to punch up dialogue. That’s lazy. It’s fine for comedic effect or to reflect reality. When I accidentally dropped caulking gel into my wife’s hair, she did not say, “Golly!” That would have undersold the emphasis she meant to convey.
You don’t necessarily have to get someone else to write your ad copy but at least ask someone else to read it before you use it.
You have to give away and/or sell one metric shit-ton of books to get 8 grams of reviews. (Measures are approximate.)
Watch old episodes of Hogan’s Heroes on YouTube and marvel that somebody made a comedy out of a WWII POW camp. Suddenly your plot twists don’t seem so undoable and ludicrous, do they?
I don’t feel the need to crush all my enemies. Mostly, ignoring them will do nicely.
You’ll find more scintillating posts on my author site at AllThatChazz.com at these links:
2018 was something awful, wasn’t it? 2019 won’t be much better. The ship is sinking and in this rant about the real-world challenges we face in the year and years ahead, I encourage everyone of like mind to start bailing fast. This post is not for the faint of heart.
A little excerpt from my upcoming thriller, The Night Man.
And that’s it for 2018. Fuck that year. Let’s go make a better one.
~ I am Robert Chazz Chute and I write suspenseful crime thrillers and apocalyptic epics. If you dig my sling, read my novels. If that grabs you, join the newsletter at AllThatChazz.com or join my Facebook Fan page here. It’s all great fun, I swear to Thor.
This isn’t a story about getting away from Amazon. It’s about sales page management, and you need to be aware, sales pages are not something you can just “set and forget.” You have to keep an eye on them for glitches. A glitch just happened to me.
Naturally, after those early strategies failed, I contacted Amazon. They said they’d get back to me within 24 hours. If this had been my first rodeo, I would have pooped kittens. However, they generally get back faster than that and, in this case, I had the fastest response I’ve ever had.
The email assured me there was a “slight glitch” that deleted the book from my sales page. Maybe a slight glitch to them, but I just launched! My interviews are appearing across various blogs promoting my latest books. It was a big deal to me. The email further assured me that the problem would be corrected within “one to three days.”
One to three days?
Vomit.
No, not really. Like I said, this ain’t my first time on a horse. Those emails always allow a long time for their fixes, but the Amazonian techs have, invariably, acted much faster than that. And so it was. This Plague of Days, Omnibus Editionfeaturing the complete three seasons of the apocalyptic saga with the autistic protagonist trying to save the world? We’re back, baby!
They fixed it within a couple of hours. I have it on good authority other sales platforms don’t swoop in to fix problems nearly so quickly.
Check your pages and make sure all your books are there from time to time.
Further thoughts on sales pages and serialization
After I brought out Season 3 in my series, I had a problem. The sales page looked cluttered and my work is not displayed in the order I’d prefer for greatest sales advantage. What to do? I skipped calling on Thor since he doesn’t show up unless I dress up as a hot chick. (I’m still carrying some winter weight and can’t sell the hotpants.) I sent another email to Amazon:
Could I, perhaps, edit my sales page to make it less cluttered and show my wares to greatest advantage?
The reply was, for now, a polite no. My Amazon contact did agree that mine was actually a good idea and they would pass the suggestion up the line. Currently, the order of book display is based on sales figures. Self-help for Stoners has been on sale longest, so it’s up top. That’s not the problem. Serial episodes are.
My Serialization Problem.
Season One of This Plague of Days was released as one book, but also as five episodes (and each episode’s price was 99 cents.) My Season One episodes sat there, clogging the page and confusing customers.
I came up with a solution that fit my longer game plan.
I unpublished the five episodes from the first book and set the price for Season One at just 99 cents.
This presents several advantages:
1. At 99 cents, Season One is a low barrier to entry into the series.
2. It gives readers a break on price.
3. It promotes my visibility and my other books. Sales are up, author rank is up.
4. It avoids (I hope) angry reviews from people mistakenly purchasing Episode IV and V at 99 cents each when they could have had all of Season One (which contains all five episodes) for one incredibly low price. It’s couch change, yes, but some reviewers go nuclear over such things and outrage is rarely expressed with a sense of proportionality. Angry? Burn down somebody’s house! Mildly annoyed? Burn down somebody’s house! See what I mean?
A note about the trouble with serialization.
Serialization certainly has its advantages and helped Season One and Season Two get more attention. However, no matter how much you might explain it and lay it out in the descriptions and vary the cover art, some readers seem determined to confuse Seasons and Episodes despite a lifetime of watching television. Quick to click, I guess.
I’m very sensitive to criticism (so yes, wow! I know! I am in the wrong business!) Anyway, the last thing I want is for readers to be confused or feel ripped off. That’s another reason Season Three is one huge book instead of broken into episodes. Serialization put me on the map, but the Law of Diminishing Returns has kicked in.
I still have episodes of Season Two on Amazon obstructing the view on my sales page. It is, as it has always been, cheaper to buy the season than to buy the episodes. I can’t let it go at 99 cents, though, so those episodes are going to stay up for a long time. Until Amazon changes its policy and allows me to control title placement, they stay and Season Two is priced as low as I will make it. When I do get control, the eps will go to the back of the sales page. I could just unpublish them, but I don’t want to leave the few who just bought Season 2, Episode III in the lurch.
How long is long enough to wait for those readers to catch up and complete their S2 episode purchases? A year? Two? I don’t know.
We are all struggling to find new ways to get readers interested and invested in our books. How do you promote reader engagement and launch your book higher? By engaging them in your process, I suppose. Here’s one way I’m doing that for the launch of two books this weekend.
Okay, now here’s what you need to know and who you really need to hire for your next book cover:
To be clear, the covers you’ll see at the link are my designs, not those of my graphic artist. Anybody who reads this blog knows my graphic artist is the great Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. He’s the sweet, book art genius. I came up with this idea because I already have Kit working on other designs.
Kit is working on my TPOD print covers in addition to keeping all his many clients happy. When does this man sleep? He doesn’t. While he’s helping me with other stuff, I’m pitching in with the draw. It’s a new way of getting readers involved in feedback on covers for This Plague of Days, The Complete Three Seasons.
My books about the autistic zombie apocalypse that will soon kill us all launches on Father’s Day and, because of the draw, I’m sure I’ll have a few more eyeballs for the release. Because of Kit’sTPOD3 cover, they’ll keep looking and check it out.
Eventually I’ll call in Kit for a much better cover for the compendium (because he’s the sweet, book art genius, that’s why, and, yes, you’ll find my efforts sad by comparison.) In the meantime, help me move more books through your input at ThisPlagueOfDays.com. You might be the one chosen to win a free book. So there’s that.
Reader engagement is often fun but it doesn’t have to be a one-to-one thing all the time. It feels great when people are curious enough to come find you. A for a nice prize and asking for an opinion is a solid way to do that.
I’ve finally begun reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63: A Novel.
Feeling a bit burnt out, I reached for an old reliable author to get me into relaxed creativity mode. The fire in the wood
Stephen King at the Harvard Book Store. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
stove is burning bright and hot as a cold blizzard’s squalls pull at the house. Under my wool blanket, I’m cozy and this book feels comfortable, too. Different story, same old friend in King. I’m one of his Constant Readers. To my delight, King has an Easter egg for writers right off the top.
His hero, a teacher grading essays, complains about his students “writing like little old ladies and little old men.” Heh. Yeah, I know exactly what he means: Grammar and spelling correct, but boring. Tried and true narrative, but too safe. I want surprises. The development of the story has to be logical, sure, but please, take a chance! Dare to take the reader by the hand and shove them on the roller coaster they didn’t plan to get on. Give them the adventure they didn’t know they wanted.
For instance, in Season One of This Plague of Days, I did a lot of plausible things with strange characters (and I put the implausible in a context that makes it believable.) In Season One, you see a kid on the autistic spectrum operating in our world (i.e. at the end of it.) That was cool, but to heat up the narrative and quicken the pace, I had to go deeper into the implausible and still attempt to make it as believable as it was fanciful.
In Season Two, the story takes some new turns and we’re in Jaimie Spencer’s world more than he is in ours. Though many people loved Jaimie in Season One, I wasn’t interested in making Two a copy of One. If One is a siege and Two is basically The Road, I had to take the crazy train to places people hadn’t seen before in an apocalypse. The virus that came to kill humanity keeps evolving and that takes us down unfamiliar roads. The Plaguers and I are happy with it.
People love Same Thing Only Different. Too different is a gamble, but some gambles pay off.
Changing a character people love is uncomfortable at times, but certainly do it if the story demands it. (By the way, nobody loves Jaimie more than I do, but he ends up doing a lot of questionable things for a Christlike figure.) I demanded development and change, so I got dreams, a touch of magic and some big questions for the surviving humans caught in the teeth of the gears of existence. If Sartre could read my apocalypse over a lunch of cold milk, ham sandwiches and angst, I think it would spark an interesting discussion about the existential subtext of ambition versus chaos theory. You know…sliding in the thin spaces amongst the bloody zombie attacks, scary new species and terrorized, grieving humans.
Dare to be wrong and, surprise! You’re right.
Sometimes it’s just simple mechanics where writers wimp out and opt for their grammar book over Art with a capital A. In Higher Than Jesus, for instance, a character uses the non-word “father-in-laws”. The correct plural is “fathers-in-law,” of course. Trust your readers to figure out that you know when you’re wrong. Better to stick with what’s true rather than what’s correct. The speaker of “father-in-laws” is an old, homeless guy whose education isn’t terrific. Talking like a Harvard law professor does not fit, so wrong is right.
Most readers will go along and the very few who will think you’re an idiot were never going to like your work, anyway. Grammar fascists don’t read for the enjoyment of reading, so relax and focus on the readers who are with you for the right reason. That reason is Story (and to forget we’re all going to die, and maybe soon, in Death’s razor claws and unforgiving, crushing jaws.)
I like prose that is edgy. Lots of book lovers love it when we’re gutsy.
I like Chuck Palahniuk a lot, perhaps especially when he cruises the experimental. I like much of Norman Mailer’s work for its simplicity. However, I love Stephen King. The narrative is straight A to B. Snobby readers might call it “muscular” or “workmanlike.” That’s old code for not “literary” enough or too pulpy by half. But who do you want telling you a story? An arid auteur who tells it correctly or a writer who get it across right? The writing I’m talking about is visceral. It affects you. It makes you think but it doesn’t have to call attention to itself too much. Have something to say and mean it. Lofty’s fine if your feet stay on the ground.
Don’t give me fancy writing tricks. Tell me the story, please.
You know all those New Yorker short stories with the super-opaque endings where it’s so very arty you can’t figure out what the hell the last paragraph is supposed to mean? Where they try to trick you into thinking vague ends equal powerful conclusions? You’ve surely read those stories so bathed in antiseptic that they have no honest feeling or real humor. The words are all in the right order but they can’t make you care. It’s hard to define, but when a book has no heart, you know it.
I suggest you do the opposite of all that empty scribbling and I’ll try to do the same.
A good short story, or a solid book, should deliver a punch and satisfaction (or at least anticipation of the next book in the series) with its last line. It should not generate a confused look on the face of an intelligent reader.
A great story can be read aloud in the flicker of a dying campfire. If the story’s solid, your rapt audience will worry about the characters in the book. They will be blissfully unaware of the starving bear watching from the woods behind them, sniffing the air, drooling, and measuring the distance to the fading circle of light.
Now, on to some wicked confessions of incompetence, poor judgment and a sad lifetime of reflexive defiance.
Defying expectations has not, in general, worked well for me.
At an old job, I was joking with office staff one day. I’m a funny guy. I thought I was killing. Then I looked up and a waiting room full of clients gave me that look. You know that mean look? I smiled and said, “I’m sorry. I was showing too much personality again, wasn’t I?” I wandered away wondering why boring people get to control everything. Yeah. Bad attitude, I’m sure, but don’t boring people run the world? And look what they did with it!
And so it is with books. I have a defiant streak I’d probably do much better without.
Self-help for Stoners is a funny little book of short stories with a few preachy moments. I might have sold more books if I’d ditched that title. But I might have sold less, too. My thinking was, at least I’ll hit an identifiable niche. Try it, for stoners and non-stoners alike.
I was so flummoxed that Self-help didn’t sell more, I compiled my big book of short stories. I put together my award winning stories and, desperate to be taken seriously, made some “serious” fiction. Pathetic lack of confidence on my part. Murders Among Dead Trees has a lot of gems in it. I’m especially proud of the three-star review that acknowledged the great writing but said it’s full of violence and “bizarre themes.” Sounds like a winner to me! It sells worse than “the stoner book.”
With crime fiction, I called the books Bigger Than Jesus and Higher Than Jesus.
In crime fiction, titles that have to be explained! (It’s pronounced Hay-soose.) Worse? Funny crime fiction! Worse than that? The hero is a Cuban hit man, not a detective. Readers tend to have certain expectations and I defied them with quirky titles that may offend some people at first glance. We usually don’t get a second glance.
I still think those books are fun, fast-paced thrill rides and the people who like them, like them a lot. A pity there aren’t more of those readers, but I’m sure the charm of Jesus Diaz will be discovered over time. In fact, I have several more books planned in the Hit Man Series because apparently I don’t know when to cut my losses. (Try them. They’re damn funny.)
But it turns out having trouble with Authority isn’t bad all the time.
I lost/resigned from another job because I would not bow my head. It’s okay. It was a lousy job and that incident became fodder for Season One of This Plague of Days.
I switched to suspenseful horror with an unconventional zombie serial and lost some rebel cred.
Zombie fans might have hated it because it wasn’t what they expected. Instead, it became a bestseller on Amazon. I made it a serial to further handicap myself, but serialization seems to have worked for me.
A comedian I love by the name of Mike Schmidt named one of his enterprises “The Success is Not An Option Tour”. I love a guy who’s the underdog and Mike’s turned “underdog” into a profession with The 40-year-old Boy Podcast, a CD and flying across the continent to perform his one-man show to a loyal fan base.
I’m not as brave as Mike. I’m make stuff up in a bunker, afraid to go outside. I didn’t set out to proclaim that success is not an option, spit Life in the eye and try to make a living out of attracting chaos and making fine comedy out of it. When I wrote my books, my reasoning was, “That’s weird and different enough to grab eyeballs.”
How weird and different? In Season One, it’s a slow build. I didn’t start in the middle of the action. I showed how the plague began and developed and it didn’t even start with a zombie virus. It started with a world flu pandemic. All the zombie action remains in Europe until Season Two! (Out now. Did I mention that? Right. Good.)
You want weirder? I’ll give you weirder.
The protagonist is a boy on the autism spectrum. Most heroes in zombie books are gun-totin’ ex-military types. Instead, Jaimie Spencer is a selective mute who’s fascinated with words and dictionaries, especially Latin dictionaries! Also, all the chapter titles? They make up one long, dark poem with twisted clues to the future of the story. Poetry! In a zombie book! The survivors argue about God and struggle with finding compassion and worry about losing their humanity. Not much gun totin’ in Season One.
Hm. Maybe I was setting out to fail and screwed it up. That premise sounds ridiculous!
And yet…writing something unconventional worked this time.
Which takes us back to novelist and screenwriter William Goldman who said of Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.”
I sure don’t. I was just being me. I was just writing the story that pleased me. I followed the Art.
What readers want?
That’s too nebulous, has too many variables and it’s a moving target. I write for me first. I could try to play it safe, but I really don’t know how. Until they perfect personality transplants, I gotta be me. I’m not bragging. I think it would be easier being somebody else.
Click it to grab it free before midnight tomorrow night!
It’s time to glimpse your future. The plague is coming. The pandemic will hit us in waves. One strange boy with hidden talents will determine whether this is the end of the world or the just the end of the world as we know it.
Horror lovers have plenty of surprises ahead with this dystopian serial. The infected are not what you expect and the heroes and villains of this zombie apocalypse are like nothing you’ve experienced.
Jaimie Spencer is a selective mute on the autistic spectrum. Read Episode One for free now and find out why parents of autistic children love This Plague of Days.
A savage virus spreads around the globe and society collapses. In Britain, the story has the flavor of the international thriller. In America’s heartland, you’ll see what happens when the Sutr plague comes for a family just like yours.
This serial is two books in one on a collision course.
Five stars from reviewers:
“Not your average Zombie story!”
*
I think this storyline is brilliant. It’s not your cliched, run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse story. It’s character driven. It’s cerebral. It’s awesome.
The first episode of This Plague of Days is the perfect balance of back story, anecdotes, and the events of the present crisis. Jaimie, the main character, is fantastically written and surprisingly well thought out.
*
Plague of Days Episode 1 takes the reader into a new perspective-the autistic. A different concept, refreshing as well as illustrating the challenges faced in real life as well as in fiction.
*
I’ve read and watched several zombie novels and TV shows. This one is told from a unique perspective and I can’t wait to read the next episode. I think this would translate to a miniseries!
Can’t have just one chip? Season One has five episodes. Get each one for 99 cents or get all of Season One at a discount for $3.99. Season Two hits this September.
~ Robert Chazz Chute is a former journalist, columnist and podcaster. This Plague of Days is his ninth book.
Apocalypse Art for This Plague of Days by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com
As I work on This Plague of Days revisions, there’s a big difference: This is the first of my books my 13-year-old daughter is allowed to read. No one is swearing in TPOD and any sex is PG-13, at most. Sometimes I think this serial (to be released at the end of May) could be suitable for Young Adult. However, I’m also not pulling back on elements of horror that range from Hitchcockian allusion (The Birds) to classic horror (a gross-out or three). It’s a post-apocalyptic world and things aren’t pretty.
Crass Commercial Considerations
A cross-genre flurry about society’s collapse under the crush of the Sutr Virus combined with a boy’s love for odd words, Latin dictionaries and his father.
I’ll admit it: I want This Plague of Days to sell to a wide audience. I want it to go huge! Multiple translations and audiobooks and mass consumption. I want this serial to be made into a movie or a franchise with TPOD lunch boxes and T-shirts at conventions. I don’t want to return to a day job and a very popular serial without cursing will help me toward that goal. I watched an interview with director Kevin Smith recently in which he breaks down the movie market. The same principles apply to us: R sells less than PG-13. Soften the blow. Make more money.
Yes, I know Fifty Shades of Gray is bondage porn that makes a ton of money off a wide audience. However, this isn’t that. This Plague of Days is about an autistic boy who is a selective mute. A plague spreads across the earth and as the mayhem goes up, society spirals down. Bad things happen. However, the story revolves around the boy and, though it’s third-person limited omniscient, much of it unfolds through the boy’s filter. His special interest is English dictionaries and Latin phrases. Nothing is lost if I don’t make TPOD a cursefest and I’ll gain more readers.
The Irony I Frankly Don’t Understand
Many people are comfortable with just about any depiction of violence but get squeamish about certain words and sex. We’re downright weird about cursing. It’s in mainstream media and on any school playground, but in print, daily newspapers put in coy asterisks like this: f***. As if our brains don’t just fill in the word automatically. Swearing is ingrained in everyday conversations, but we pretend it’s not.
Watching a show like Dexter on a non-Showtime channel, censors ensure the dialogue sounds silly. “Mothertruckers?” Really? (The practice was played to great comedic effect when, in the latest Spider-Man movie incarnation, our beloved hero blurts, “Mother Hubbard!“)
Meanwhile, I get queasy about certain entertainment that is considered mainstream even though it’s extremely violent. I’ll never see Jodi Foster in The Accused and I refuse to watch A Time to Kill. Frank depictions of sexual assault and child rape are not something I want to
My luckless hit man is a funny guy in big trouble.
see. I can’t watch CSI or its many iterations. That whole Special Victims Unit thing feels way too voyeuristic and definitely not for me. (I’m not campaigning for a cleansing, by the way. I don’t want art censored. What I don’t like, I don’t watch, read or listen to and that solves my problem nicely.)
Ever since I had kids, I’m generally more queasy about violence that’s too realistic. I’d rather keep my violence diet to thrillers like Bigger Than Jesus. Though there’s plenty of death and even allusions to Jesus’s abuse as a young teen, it’s treated carefully, not graphic, and balanced by the hero’s sense of humor. The funny makes the horrible feel safe, somehow.
This Plague of Days’ post-apocayptic genre puts the story into a realm that isn’t ours…at least not quite yet.
Sex and Curses Have Their Place: Serving the story
Jesus is resurrected in Chicago. Sex with the Queen of Giants. Violence with Very Bad Men.
My crime novels are funny but still gritty and hardboiled. The swearing in the Hit Man Series is a need. It would have been unnatural to write workarounds for simple, salty language. Acting too coy would have drained too much realism away.
As for sex, in Bigger Than Jesus, Jesus Diaz is constantly running for his life. The book plays out like a long chase scene. Beatings and murder don’t put the hero and heroine in the mood, even for a quickie. There is a great romantic love interest in Lily Vasquez, but her intimacy issues with the hit man aren’t about sex. Lily and Jesus’s drama deepens character and shows the impact of his awful history on his life. Through their interaction, the reader understands Jesus more and sees why he’s so screwed up (particularly about women). The reader ends up empathizing with a guy who kills for money. As for Higher Than Jesus, the sex scene with Willow Clemont and Jesus is both integral to the plot and erotic. Sex raises the stakes.
The Balance:
Despite any commercial considerations and the joy I feel at being able to show my daughter what I really do,
and packed with awesome fiction about friction. It’s often paranormal or at least strange. Everything looks normal until you look closer. I revised, edited again, added a sneak peek of a future book and topped it off with lots of behind-the-curtains commentary.
Also appreciated:
Click the LIKE button or add it to your wish list. Even if you hate my stinking guts and won’t get it or ever read it, this is a rare situation where wishing helps. Finally, you could even click the “Agree with these tags” button toward the bottom of the page. These things help get Amazon’s attention.
It’s that or the Mayan Apocalypse, people! Or send a virgin goat to appease me…oh. That sounded bad. I should be clear that I intend to eat these goats, so a virgin tofu goat would also do nicely. Thank you.
That’s right. I’m so damn powerful, I can stop the Apocalypse, but to move up the Amazon rankings by giving away stuff for free? Surprisingly difficult. These are some quirky superpowers I’m rocking here.
Okay, look. I don’t want anyone to worry and I’m not going to lie to you. Whether you help out or not, I promise to save the earth from the angry Mayan god, Lex Luthor or Galactus or whatever. I don’t really expect payment for doing the right thing. Like Spider-Man, “Action is his reward” and all that. Sigh…still…well, just so you know I’m not totally douchey, that’s all. Thanks for your help if you so choose. Thanks for your consideration.
PS: Virgin Tofu Goats is the new name for my band.
PPS: Won’t it be great to get past this? We’ve had a year of talk about the Mayan Apocalypse and after this, we’ll never have to hear a word about the Mayans again. You’re a footnote of a hoax of history and superstition! Take that Mayans! You and your funny plant hats. Ha!
“You will laugh your ass off!” ~ Author of Cybrgrrl, Maxwell Cynn
~Robert Chazz Chute is a crime novelist and suspense author who just received two new five-star reviews for the Hit Man Series books, but his bestseller is still Self-help for Stoners. (You don’t have to be a stoner to love it.) He’s still feeling so good about these developments, he’s writing about himself in the third person. Weird. And all that goat talk steered in a disturbing direction for a moment there, didn’t it? Hear his podcasts or learn more about all his books at AllThatChazz.com.
I see the actor's picture. I think it's Sam. Sam...what? Sam... I look him up. Sam Elliott. For some reason, I neve… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…5 days ago
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 