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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

09/16/2022 • 1:54 PM 1

12 Tips to Write More

I’ve written, co-written, and worked as a book doctor for a long time. People have asked, how do you keep your ass in the chair long enough to be that productive? I do have a robot in my watch that tells me to get up and move around once an hour so I don’t become pudding. I set alarms to get me to bed and get me to work, too. Setting alarms is not just for nagging you to get out of bed.

Here are my simple suggestions for increasing your word count:

Clear your workspace of distractions. (I have a blanket fort because I like to hide.)
Clear your calendar so you have dedicated time to write. Be specific about when and where.
Get excited about the current scene you’re writing. If it’s not exciting for you, it’s not exciting for the reader. If that’s the case, maybe it’s good you’re dragging your feet on writing it.
Set a timer and, especially for that first draft, get the words down as fast as you can while you race the clock. You can accomplish a lot in short bursts.
Shut off the internet so you focus on the job rather than checking out the latest on Huffington Post and Twitter news. The world’s ending. There, saved you some time.
Do not wait for inspiration. Inspiration strikes at the keyboard, not while you’re playing Call of Duty.
Since the hardest part is starting, tell yourself you’ll just write for ten minutes. Once you start swinging that hammer, you’ll get caught up in doing more damage.
Take notes between writing sessions so you’ll have prompts when you’re back in the saddle.
Drop your writing session on a note that’s easy to pick up again.
Accountability is helpful. That could be just you counting your streaks in an app or on a spreadsheet, getting a writing partner, or finding a writing group. Tracking and reporting keeps you writing. My mastermind group has a writing room in Slack which tends to get me going.
Visualize your success and how good it will feel to publish a book. You can’t get there without the homework part of being a writer, so do the thing.
Picture the sad faces of all your haters when you hit it big. Cackle about it as you type. Motivation comes and goes, but fear of failure, terror of poverty, and ambition born of spite are strong emotions.

What keeps you at the keyboard in this ridiculous, capricious business?

~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute. I write apocalyptic epics with heart and killer crime thrillers with muscle. Find links to all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: writing, writing advice, writing tips, books, books by Robert Chazz Chute, do the thing, how to write faster, how to write more, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, writing

01/03/2022 • 11:27 AM 2

Your Plan for 2022

As I write this, it’s the morning of January 3. According to discoverhappyhabits.com, a 2019 survey found “7% of survey participants stuck to all their resolutions in 2019, while 19% kept some but not all of their resolutions (and) 8% of participants failed to keep any resolution.” It’s also instructive that 57% of those surveyed rejected making any New Year’s resolutions. I’m with the 57%.

Here’s what I do instead:

Resolutions come from resolve and that often fades. Motivation is temporary. Focus on forming habits instead. Writing goals down and putting them in a prominent place can help to keep you focused.
To get the changes you want, make it fun. Gamify your changes the way NaNoWriMo makes writing friendly competition. Hate running? Me, too. But maybe volleyball or tennis is for you. Training can be grueling and lifting heavy things repeatedly can be boring. A sport can get you to exercise without noticing.
Suffering is overrated. Your “diet” food still has to taste good if your new lifestyle is to be sustainable. Muscling through the whole way is performative gym bro bullshit. Ignore anyone who is posturing. Even bootcamp doesn’t go on forever.
Reject perfection. Perfectionism is a form of self-loathing that only leads to procrastination.
Environment and supports trump motivation. For instance, you can’t binge on chips if you don’t bring them home from the grocery store. A chaotic environment burdens you with extra stress you don’t need.
That which is not measured does not change. Metrics can be helpful as long as they aren’t a chore. (I use MyFitnessPal, for instance, to keep my meals on track. I also check my blood sugar.)
Tracking when I’m consistent encourages me to form streaks. A streak is the seed of a habit. The FitOn app encourages me to keep going with my workouts by earning badges. Meaningless badges? Sure, theoretically. Those badges have no monetary value, but Iin practice, they work for me.
Accountability can be a gym partner or reporting your hits and misses to a trusted friend. People make fun of posting pictures of meals on Instagram, but many use social media as an accountability tool. It’s not for the audience. It’s for the intrepid poster.
Reject punishment and judgmental paradigms. Being mean to yourself (or others) is added stress you don’t need, and it’s counterproductive. Assuming you’re not striving for world domination, your goals are in alignment with love of self and others.
The toughest part is right before you start. Making plans is exciting. Establishing systems helps you succeed. Many people don’t get that far because they don’t begin.

My suggestion is to start by doing a little. Say, “I’ll write 500 words today,” and go do that ASAP. Once you get into it, you’ll often find you’re on a roll and will write more. Same with going for a walk or a jog. “I’ll just go for a short walk” might turn into a longer walk. Even if it doesn’t, you got out and did something for you.

Martyrdom is overrated. Do things for you. You deserve love, too.

For more tips and tricks, try Do The Thing by some guy:

~ Robert Chazz Chute mostly writes apocalyptic epics with heart and crime thrillers with muscle. Do The Thing is his only non-fiction book. For all this books, check out his author site, AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: mindset, 2022, do the thing, do the thing book, habit forming, how to build habits, how to form habits, how to win, how to write more, new year's resolutions, plans for 2022, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, writing

08/11/2020 • 3:46 PM 0

How to sleep more and get more reading done

I’ve written plenty here about how to get more writing done (See the previous post: Do You Believe in Writer’s Block?). But what if you could read more books and sleep better, too? No longer an empty wish, this feat is achievable for many people who aren’t currently managing it.

Caveat #1: If you’ve got young kids, don’t come at me. I’ve been there, I get it, and sorry, this post probably isn’t for you. As the parent of a young child, you will read more, but it’ll be a lot of Cat in the Hat and Goodnight Moon. Unless…see Caveat #2 below.

The first mindset shift is that you must prioritize you.

I have a sleep disorder. After consulting my sleep specialist, my doctor didn’t have much for me except sleep hygiene protocols. If you’ve ever had insomnia, you probably know them already. Make your bedroom dark and cool and free of distractions, limit caffeine, blah, blah, blah. Every insomniac knows this stuff. Losing sleep was killing my productivity so I had to finally get serious about acting on those tactics. One thing I didn’t anticipate was being liberated to read more books more often.

Second mindset shift: Nobody gets more time. You don’t make more time. You have to take it.

There are a thousand things to do each day and we’re all out here treating ourselves like overscheduled and underpowered robots. One of my most cherished chapters from Do the Thing is the to-don’t list. To-do lists are plentiful, unrealistic, and way too long. I’ve got things engineered so I do one adult chore a day. My wife does the same. Your Dad (like mine) might call you a lazy shit, but what does he know? He’s miserable and exhausted. The positive effects are cumulative so ignore the naysayers. What needs to get done, will get done. What wants to get done may have to wait. Minimalism is healthy. You’ll learn to deal with gearing down to what’s realistic. Be real, you weren’t getting it all done, anyway. My way, you don’t drive yourself mad. For your mental health, please don’t try to do everything that needs to be done all in one day.

Wherever possible, don’t multi-task, either. In the 1970s, some moron proclaimed that a human being can do seven things at once. Western culture has suffered for that idiot ever since. Other countries and cultures have siestas and sex in the afternoon. We got the gig economy and the all-the-hours-you’re-awake work week. Multi-tasking is bullshit. Split your attention and you end up doing everything poorly.

Mindfulness is peacefulness. To do anything well, do one thing at a time.

To sleep, perchance to dream, wind down with a book.

We’ve all fallen into the Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram rabbit holes, but in the search for more sleep, I stumbled on the way out of social media’s electro-warren. To get a good night’s sleep, I had to stop looking at screens after 8 pm (aiming for an 11 pm bedtime).

Switching out of work mode and into relaxation mode, I can’t watch TV or cruise social media obsessively until bedtime. After I’ve washed the dishes, I’ve got two or three hours of empty time. I don’t want to be bored, but I can’t get overstimulated, either. It can’t be a glowing screen, so I choose paperbacks.

Yes, I could wear sunglasses and there are apps to alter screen glow, but at night, my mind races. I have to exercise the discipline to consciously slow down and a good paperback serves that purpose. A chapter or three is a logical stopping point. If you can scroll forever, chances are you will. The internet has no logical stopping point, so it’s never done.

I tested my hypothesis this morning. I joined my wife in bed as she woke up and we scrolled through an Instagram thread of cute babies doing sweet baby things with no thought to the time. That’s a quick way to burn 45 minutes or so. Babies and dogs, man. I could scroll videos of babies and dogs forever.

I used to wake up at 3 a.m. and stay awake until dawn, tossing, turning, plotting books, and plotting against my many, many enemies. Since changing things up, four of five nights, I’m getting seven or eight hours of sleep. I’m reading more and sleeping more. I feel less like something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, too.

It only took a global killer pandemic for me to reevaluate how I work and relax. Things are getting better. I hope this helps you, too.

Caveat #2: To distraught parents, if you’re still in baby days, you will find reading for pleasure is a challenge. However, depending on the age of your kid, you can still get away with reading anything you want as long as you read to them aloud and they don’t understand you. Go ahead. Read that gory horror story in a soft, soothing voice. It’s possible you might scar them for life, sure, but that’s how short people with skulls full of mush grow up to be interesting adults, right?

~ Looking for something to read tonight? Check out the links to all my grand and fabu offerings of science fiction and crime thrillers on my author site, AllThatChazz.com.

Filed under: getting it done, reading, adulting, do the thing, how to read more, how to read more with young children, how to sleep more, insomnia, reading, Robert Chazz Chute, sleeping

03/29/2017 • 11:32 PM 6

Multiple Streams of Income for Writers

I just watched The Martian again. Loved the book by Andy Weir, too. It’s still the best audiobook I’ve ever heard. The message at the end of the movie (minor spoiler alert) is that things are going to go wrong. Paraphrasing: You can accept that this is your end or you can do the math and get to work.

So it is with author careers. Shit will go south. Then what? Then you have to solve the problem, and the next and the next and so on. Even better, see upcoming problems and plan so a glitch doesn’t graduate to a disaster as soon as it strikes.

What resources do we need to solve most problems?

To solve problems on Earth, we usually need money, support, information or time. You can buy time by outsourcing and/or sharpen discipline and management skills. You can hire support to leverage time. You can purchase someone’s expertise so you focus on the skills you’re best at. (Don’t major in your minor if you can help it.)

If you don’t have the money but you do have time, digging for information costs nothing extra except for your internet connection. However, the most common denominator here is money. We generally need more of it, especially if time is limited (and, let’s be real, when isn’t it?) Life is short when you’ve got big things to do like write books.

The answer used to be simpler: write more books. I gave that advice myself and once upon a time not long ago that was enough. Now we need more margin for error as we find our way to readers. We all need time to write and ways to find traction in the marketplace. Sure, you can find lots of advice about marketing your books, but how do we get more money to help us with all those variables? How do we pay for a Bookbub to sell more books when the books aren’t selling much in the first place? Advertising and investing in your writing career takes capital (not much, but if you’ve got nothing, not much is a lot.)

Ideally, it’s great to find multiple streams of income that are complementary to your writing career. These might include: podcasting, Patreon, selling t-shirts, selling at conferences, providing complementary services (editing, proofing, book design, formatting), advertising, educational products, ghostwriting, copywriting, publicity, virtual assistance for authors, webinars, speaking engagements, book signings, co-op ventures, organizing book promotions, co-authoring, participating in anthologies, teaching, screenplays, teaching how to write screenplays and Thor only knows what else. Cross-promotion and cross-propagation of ventures makes your other job or jobs a good fit.

What about repurposing material you’ve already created for different venues and audiences? Abel James, author of The Wild Diet, repackaged his offerings in smaller books as well as providing material (and new supplementary info) to nutritional templates he serves up in different ways on the web. For fiction authors, consider publishing prequels, sequels, box sets or an omnibus of your series. (This may not qualify as a reliable stream in your multiple incomes if it doesn’t sell or takes too long to get to market.)

But maybe none of the above appeals to you or you just can’t see a puzzle piece that fits with your writing career. Okay, work the problem. What can you do? How much do you need? What debt can you eliminate? What lifestyles choices can you do without to free up resources? What can you sell or trade? Are you willing to move? What are you willing to do to protect yourself from starvation and insecurity? How will you earn the capital you need to buy writing time, book promotion, marketing and investment in yourself as a writer? (And feed the baby?)

My solution was to take on four jobs. Two of the businesses are mine and I worked it out so I control my time juggling all my projects. Entrepreneurship suits me better than working for a boss. (Me and a boss? That couldn’t end well.) I write more books, yes, but with kids going off to university I need a cushion between me and homelessness as I help them on their way.

Until we can reliably meet our responsibilities with one source of income (preferably by selling tons of great books, entertaining the multitudes and earning fans!) we all have some financial problems to solve. If all you’ve got is a lottery ticket in your hip pocket, please give it some more thought, just in case that doesn’t pan out.

What are your multiple streams of income? Suggestions welcome.

~ Check out my author site at AllThatChazz.com. You’ll find a helpful podcast and oodles of SF, crime thrillers, apocalyptic epics and a self-help book called Do the Thing! So do the things. It’s sexy to do things.

Filed under: publishing, writing, backup plans, do the thing, money, Robert Chazz Chute, writing, writing for money

03/10/2017 • 11:03 AM 1

Changing my life: Writer Self-care

Since coming down with a wicked flu before Christmas, I was on a roller coaster ride regarding my health. Truth be told, a lot of last year sucked regarding my health (on top of all those dead celebrities I liked!) Life got worse before it started to get better.

At the turn of the year, my problems came to a head. As my plane descended into Cuba, my left eardrum burst. That sucked a little joy from the vacation but Cuba was my first step in a new direction. Stepping back from working so hard gave me perspective, some time to read and time on the beach to think. It took me a month to fully recover from the ear issue and complications ensued from the medications I was on. Aside from a few headaches, all that seems to be behind me. How is this relevant to writers? Because our sedentary lifestyles and the constant push to write more books faster is killing us.

Killing us. No, that’s not hyperbole. Sitting is the new smoking.

There are plenty of solutions to the sedentary lifestyle and I’ve discussed them in this space before (e.g. cycles under the desk, tread desks, standing desks, Fitbits, Garmin watches, get out and move your ass, etc.,….) It’s not just about motion. It’s also about diet. As Tim Ferriss says, “Ounces are lost in the gym, pounds are lost in the kitchen.”

Getting better and feeling better takes effort, but I needed a new groove so I was motivated to finally make deep changes.

As writers under stress (like anyone under stress) we often self-medicate. Self-medication can take many forms. Increased alcohol consumption is the classic writer cliche. Overdoing caffeine (that’s me) or spacing out too much with Facebook and video games might qualify as injurious, too. None of those distractions is bad, it’s just a question of how much we do them and what healthy, productive pursuits those activities replace.

I’ve been very careful about my diet for the last month. I’ll spare you the details except to say I dumped sugar, wheat and anything that comes out of a box. The larger point is, I didn’t realize how sick I was until I cleaned up my act. Sick was normal. Feeling shitty was the daily and the regular. I was eating bad food as a stress reaction. Now that I’m not doing that anymore, I feel the difference between sick and well again. I haven’t felt this good in years. I’ve lost weight, my blood pressure is normalizing and I have more energy for everything, including writing.

Will I write as many books this year as I have in past years? Maybe not but now I think I’ll be writing for more years. (I had an inkling I’d be dead by 54. Now I’m less concerned my life will be cut so short.) My books are suddenly more popular than they have been so I’m very motivated to keep going. I have so many more stories to tell and series to finish. I won’t kill myself doing it, though. I’ve achieved balance and I worry less.

Sure, sure, Chazz, but how?

Everyone will find their own way, but I can give you a few ideas about how I’m doing this:

Write a book about stress management. I did and it changed my life because, after preaching this stuff for years I committed to living up to my book. (The book is called Do The Thing!) In the final chapter, I made my readers my accountability partners. I promised I’d rise to my own ideals. (Accountability partners are key. I needed someone to report to so I recruited someone as well as blabbing about it weekly on the All That Chazz Stress Relief Podcast.)
If you can’t write a book about stress, read one, obviously. Please pardon the shameless plug.
Do the healthy things that work for you. What’s the best exercise? The one you’ll do and enjoy. Which is the best gym? The closest one or the gym on the right hand side of the road on the way home. Can’t face a hot yoga class? YouTube and phone apps have yoga. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the doable. Whatever. Just do the thing!
Seek help if you need it. Help someone else if you don’t need it. Social connection and support is an important indicator of health and mortality, too.
Do not worry about what you can’t control.
Find your solutions with people who get you. One of the things that attracted me to trying The Wild Diet was that the approach was achievable, I could enjoy the food and the rationale made sense to me. However, the factor that really got me going with that book was that the author, Fat-burning Man Abel James, had been overweight and suffered health problems. He isn’t a personal trainer who had always been skinny and didn’t know the struggle. He isn’t the kind of guy who hates fat people and screams 1-2-3-4! (Looking at you, Jillian Michaels!)
Make you a priority. This the the plea to enact the lesson of the cliche: When the airplane is crashing, put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others. Since changing my lifestyle, I have more energy for my kids. They don’t care about my books, but they do want to hang out with Dad more now that he’s happy.

I could go on, but hey, find out more on my podcast or pick up the book or do whatever else you already know you need to do. Life can be better and longer. I know that for sure now.

All the best,

Chazz

Find out more at AllThatChazz.com.