The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – CHROMARIA by Clayton Demera

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

CHROMARIA by Clayton Demera https://www.amazon.com/CHROMARIA-Clayton-Demera-ebook/dp/B0DJDK1CK1/ In the land of Chromaria, seven tribes once lived in harmony under the Creator’s covenant, their existence marked by balance, tradition, and the ever-present rainbow in the sky. But when faith fades and power-hungry hearts emerge, a great conflict shatters the peace, birthing a war fueled by betrayal, vengeance, and the mysterious power of the swords. As young Manu is thrust into the chaos, he embarks on a perilous journey to rediscover the Creator’s true purpose and restore the covenant before darkness consumes the land. With fate hanging in the balance, will the tribs find their way back to unity, or will the thirst for power doom them all? gripping tale of faith, destiny, and redemption, The Story of Chromaria explores the struggle between light and darkness—and the choices that define us.

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Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roll. a roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks, Ms. Vox here from the Chris Vos Show.com. Ladies, Joe, in there, ladies things that makes a picture, welcome to 16 years and 28 of the episodes of the Chris Vos show.

And we just keep bringing the most smartest, wonderful guests with the greatest stories in the world on the show. Please refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Voss. YouTube.com, Fortess Christchristos, and what is the Facebook.com for it says Chris Foss. Today, we're an amazing young man on the show. His first book is killing it. And it is out now. You can take and pick it up wherever fine books are sold.

It's called Cromeria by Clayton de Merra. And we're going to get into with him, find out what this book is about. And some of the things that he has bending that sound really cool. Clayton is a father of two, always had a passion for storytelling while attempting to create a digital asset. He rekindled his creative fire and embarked on writing his greatest creation yet. This book marks the beginning of an exciting series with seven more installments to follow. Balancing Family on Life and His Love for Writing, he crafts compelling narratives that capture readers of all ages.

Welcome to the show, Clayton. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. Give us any dot com's websites, social media, where we want people to find you on the internet, please. Pretty much if you just search Cromaria, the laundry list will show up all through Google, you know, for you to order the first installment of the book.

That's the place to go to begin the journey. Begin the journey, folks, with seven more installments to follow. So it's an eight installment series, book series? Yeah. So the story, when you begin the first story, it kind of encapsulates the whole world. And then from there,

it branches off into each. Inside the book, there's seven different tribes. there would be a book explaining each tribe into more detail. Ah. And you, so what was the, you know, you said you were maybe doing some different technology stuff? What was the component that made you finally want to write this book? And what was the, like, the origin of the story, maybe?

It's really funny. So I have somewhat of a finance background. And a couple of years ago, if everybody, if you remember, like, what NFTs were, they came out on the Ethereum and they were like pictures, people could buy. Well, they came out. around 23 for like the Bitcoin blockchain and I found them and I was like wow so you can just make a picture and it can be worth something and so assuming it was that simple I do it and nothing happened and so I sat there and said well I wonder if you have to actually have a narrative you have to create a

story and so from there I was like well I could have this this creation have a story with it and so I started to think of like the hero's journey you know three act plays like how those work and it ended up just becoming so much bigger than where it originally came from that it just became into this book, but its origin story is kind of like a hilarious place it came from. You know, and we've got like a whole, there's probably, I don't know, 100 books and it's on the Chris Voss show, guess lists that we did back then on NFTs and how great they are there. They're in the future. Right.

And what's funny is I was thinking before this interview that if I had you get, guess. You can guess a thousand ways and you would never guess that that's where the idea would have been spawned from. That's true. And, but it, but it really helped my dynamic of like going back to a creative past in my childhood and really opening up this idea. And then it just expanded. It just grew to a point where some more, more things came from it. So it's really been a cool ride. And, and when did you write the book and get it published? It was published in 2025, I'll say around April. and I used American publishing.

They've been fantastic holding my hand, you know, throughout the whole process, whereas my background had never really been about writing. And so that was a whole new endeavor to experience what that world really looked like. And so I was kind of new to it. But it's been a fantastic, it's been fantastic so far. So I really enjoyed it. Did you write when you were young? Was there any time in your life where you kind of had an inkling that, well, maybe I'm a writer?

That's a funny question. And so when I was younger, I did. They used to actually publish your books in elementary school. Oh, really? You could write like a story and they could hit the stamp of approval. It was super cool. And I remember I had a friend asked me, gosh, about a decade ago, like, hey, do you still write stories? And I like, it always kind of stuck with me.

And I was like, no, I don't. You know, and so when this kind of came about, that's where the rekindling came from. It was like, oh, I can actually create a whole story. And I think one of the cool parts of it is for me when I was working on it, like I didn't know where I was going to get at to the end. I was kind of working through it on like walks with my dog. I'd kind of think about it. And the thought came to me that I'm the only one in the world that knows the end. You know, there's no computer system that can figure it out. There's no one. So I hold this gate to this world and it just made it so much more realistic and so much more cool to experience.

So tell us more about the characters in the book, who are the protagonists and stuff like that. Yeah. So the book is based on a world that's created by a creator that creates the world. and he creates seven different tribes. The seven different tribes are given specific covenants to follow, to work together. And as long as they work together, the harmony is established. Everything's okay. Through time, though, some of the covenants are broken and are disregarded. And what ends up happening is there's a rainbow covenant that allows all the seven tribes to know that the creator gave this to them and it's his gift.

But they end up worshipping the rainbow itself because that's where when you die, you actually return to. So they worship the rainbow and not the creator, kind of like worshiping the gift and not the giver scenario. And through the book, there's an act of conflict that's introduced. And the point of conflict is given to the tribes to select whether or not they'll be righteous or rebellious through this choice. And the characters, there's a two dynamic character where there's a dad, there's two dads, two sons. And a part of the conflict is one of the son's fathers, he loses his life. and the other one, that father loses his son.

And they both take a separate role in the book. And you get to follow their paths of how they end up to where they end up, depending on the decisions they make based off of the alteration the creator gave to the world, based on how things went as far as creation and the change when it went from what they were actually supposed to be focusing on and lost their way. Oh, wow. Worshiping in the rainbow. Isn't that just Skittles?

I don't get that joke in there. So what sort of genre would you call this like fantasy or, you know, kind of Tolkien sort of stuff? I think, you know, a lot of people take it more of, they lean more fantasy. And then there's also this lean to more of like a Christian kind of focus because it's the world's created by a creator. There's a rainbow covenant. So there are aspects of righteousness and rebellion, good and evil. But I really wanted to like dig into that feeling of when when someone passed, is away in a book. It kind of reminded me of like the never-ending story when a tray who loses

his horse. And I'm like, you know, I've told my sons, like, when they've both watched it, they're like, it's a really traumatic scene for kids to see. But it was like, it really moved you when you were a kid that like, wow, you can like lose things you love. And it like, the hero had to continue on. And so I think that's really important with my book is that you, it's a focus on which way direction does the hero take and which direction does the villain take. And what is based on that. What is fueling their directional path in the book? And eight, seeing in the future for eight different books and stuff, that's quite a lot of work to see the future of some authors when we interview them, you know, they're just going

book by book. What gives you that vision and confidence in your storyline and everything else? And I'm kind of asking that because we, you know, a lot of writers or want to be writers are listening to the show. Yeah, no, no problem. So, How I look at the additional books are based on further development of characters that are in the first books. So you have a, there's a, there's a girl from the blue tribe. Her name's Udo. She plays a key role with Manu and the, with the son that loses the father. And exploring more about where her tribe originated, how the creator created her tribe.

We get it. We dial it down. How the creator created her tribe. You know, what type of covenants did that certain tribe follow? and then where does it get to her? So how does she find Manu? Like, how does it end up getting there? And each interaction in the book with a different tribe has a specific main character.

And so, like, how my writing looked at it was we can base the next book. I say we, I just like mean me, but how I look at it is like, okay, the next book can be based on this character. And we can take a dynamic of their tribe and what they do well. And we can build a story based on that. And so I just kind of, the one of the things I follow, I really like to follow, like I said, is like a three-act play and a, like a hero's journey. Like, how does the, how does the walk go and how do you get to where you want to get to? So that's how they're all based. Well, and that should be awesome.

They can, and they probably develop there from all the characters, maybe. Maybe you have a whole eight series, maybe or something, huh? Yeah. I mean, it's more, it's, to me, it's just how amazing one's imagination can be. You can create a world that you own in your mind and you can continue to create it and create this universe that you can have others interact with. Yeah, yeah. And how do your characters come to you? Like some people, some authors will say that they, you know, their characters stalk them and drive them crazy and demand that they write stuff down for them.

Some people, you know, they've got to do maybe some work in putting the characters together and keeping them active. That's a good question. And I think my characters are more or less based on probably a combination of like things I've grown up to experience where, you know, not just throwing my age out there, but coming from like the analog world to the digital world, you know, watching movies playing the growth of video games. You get a lot of stories that were given to you throughout your life. And there are places that you can kind of like, you kind of compartmentalize those, those character roles and those ideas. Because, you know, there are great stories you can pinpoint and take things from and say, hey, this character plays. he reminds me of this person. This villain reminds me of this person. What would a creator look like? And I just kind of just sit there and just really just sit there and think about it. A lot of it had to do with what their tribe was to.

So like for example, like the blue tribe was based off it controls the waters. You know, it helps to develop the land through that. Green tribe, you know, develops the vegetation. Red works with animals. And so they all kind of work together. And that's where the harmonies established. And so you could just kind of for me, it was like it was more. of a foundational thing of where does everything get created from like what is their purpose is their tribe and then what would that character look like that i'd want to develop uh the it's it's quite interesting how how how folks develop their characters their plots their subplots and all that sort of good stuff and did it come fairly easy to you when you developed all this or did it take quite a time to kind of learn the ropes and develop these things and get feedback maybe from other people

I think to be honest, how I was going to bring it all together was probably the most difficult thing writing the book. I was really good at establishing everything, bringing it to a climatic moment and writing it through kind of being the rebirth and reborn feeling. But it actually came to me walking my dog one morning and I just got so excited. I was like, I got it. I got to have to go write it down. And I recommend anybody who writes books to write down your ideas because you will forget them. And there's been things I've forgotten where I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't remember that. But I like ran home and said, oh, this would be great.

And I wrote it down. And like, I just kind of was, that's when I said. I was like, I have the end. You know, I own this like magical thing. And it was just really a great moment for me on that. Well, now I can finally tell my tech friends. There was something good that came out of NFTs, the whole NFTs. Right. Right.

I mean, I knew it was going to fail. I mean, I'm just like, wait, we're owning things again? I thought we were always, you know, we disassembled the society where instead of owning things, we just like, you know, rent it. Like I used to have a huge record CD, you know, four or five thousand CDs collection, right? And then eventually I had to just go, well, yeah, I guess owning things is stupid now. So, yeah, I guess I'll just, it's on Spotify or Cobus or Apple. So I just saw all this crap and why keep it around? No, I wish I hadn't.

Yeah. It's interesting. And again, like, it was just a weird rabbit hole of like, oh, I have this. What's this? Oh, it had so much. It was a craze for this. Oh, dude, it has so much juice. We have people, we have people that writing books who had the NFT craze.

And I remember the last one guy that we had on, and these are wonderful folks. But it was, it was clear by the time his book got published because it was with the big publishers. And they take about a year from the final edit to get it published. And by the time we got it published, I hear, I, I did the interview and I was just sitting there thinking my head. I'm like, this is, this is the worst that you got this book.

This is coming out right at the tail end of everyone's seen. It's a fail at this point. And you guys saw that as a financial background. You saw that with like watching Bitcoin like it had cycles. Oh, yeah. Like Coinbase, I think IPO like at the top.

And so it's always was a joke in banking like, you know, everybody bought that at like $400 a share, you know. And so. And that's what was full. funny about me writing the book, too, is that I had this interesting background where it's like, yeah, I'm a random banker and I wrote this fantasy book. But no, it's really been a great experience

to write it. And it's just such a, I just think it's funny where it comes from, you know, so it's like, and I just like, but it's always a quirky convo because I think people think I'm endorsing NFTs and I'm not. It was just more of like, can you actually make one? That was my, could I actually make one? That was kind of my thing. Like, is it hard to make it? Like, could you? you make it? And the fact that it was, I taught it myself within a day, let me know how probably not valuable they were. Right. So the more difficult to create that that was kind of code for a value. Well, lots of good stuff came out of the COVID years. Did you get a lot of time to write it during COVID? Or what's your writing schedule that you keep for authors out there

that want to write? It's definitely tough because you are going to need some, some alone time to write with my note about my kids. You know, I do a lot with them with sports, things like that with my dog. And it's really difficult to get alone because you want to be alone and have your own thoughts when you're right. You kind of can get lost into your book. So you just got to find a solid place to write, whether you got a quiet spot in your house and just some time. My way of doing it always work for me is getting up earlier than everybody else because everybody else sleeps in, You know, you get up around 8, 39 o'clock, got an hour or two to kind of put together some ideas. Also, like, putting a board together.

That really helped me kind of having something up with Post-it notes of ideas and kind of like, how do I get to that idea? That helped a lot, too. The mornings are good because the kids are still struck down in the duct tape. Can't quite speak or run around the house yet. I can't mind in those crates with the dogs. So, yeah, the kids get to sleep past, you know, 10, 11 o'clock, it must be nice.

I mean, I remember those days too, but now you feel like you wasted the whole day. That or just put the kids up for adoption, get, you know, Ted Kaczynski seemed to do pretty good, right, in the cabin in the middle of woods. Right, right, right. Now, that's an example of someone who had a ton of time on their hands, right? You know, Ransom Notes. Wasn't there a movie about to joke about the most profitable writing is Ransom Notes or something? I think that was from the big John Travolta and stuff, but it's kind of a movie joking about Hollywood.

So what's the future? Is there a pending second book that's on the docket yet with the release date? Yeah, so I don't have a release date yet, but there's the first chapters at the end of the first books. You kind of get a taste of walking where it's going. That is in process now. Man, I'd hate to give a date and miss it. But I'd like to have it by the end of the year.

I'll just say that on my goal. Yeah, 2026. And any future book signings or any consulting, coaching, anything you do maybe on your website, the services you help other people? The book will actually be displayed at the London Book Fair on March 11th through the 12th. So if you're there, you can go in and get a peek at it, kind of the, you know, take a look and learn more about it. There'll be someone there representing it to tell you about it.

As far as like a website, I can, there's some other things we're creating with that right now. There's a whole universe we're creating an interactive game that we're working on as well. My goal is to actually have that live prior to the next book just because it actually opens the door up to a whole new, to a whole new like audience for the book. And they can interact. They can actually interact with the world and get a get more of a feeling of what Cromeria really is. And it looks kind of the, on the cover of the book, it looks kind of elfish looking. I don't want to you know, lock in your character there. So would you kind of say maybe a token sort of fantasy world or maybe, uh, what's that? Who's that guy who did the movie Titanic? He's got that one group of people

that are the avatars or whatever they call. Oh, oh yeah, like avatar. Yeah, I'd say there is a fantasy aspect of it because there is some things in the book that you would need some sort of magical advantages to conduct. Yeah, I, I do like that it's, It's somewhat complex to answer, but I would say it leans more on the fantasy side, definitely. More on like the hero, hero, villain, fantasy. Oh, hero, villain, fantasy, and lots of different variations. Now, are these tribal people, are they all the same sort of race like elves or whatever race you've set up for them? Or are they kind of different, like they may have different shapes and forms?

They're the same, but they actually just have different attributes about them. So with the light tribe, they're the ones that, you know, deal with seasons and changing and being able to help other tribes and throughout their creation since they're selected first, for example, their philosophy is they're selected first, but they aren't first. So they always help everybody else first. It's like the catch of being the first is to try to control the, I guess what I'd say is more of like the arrogance of being first. That'll be a challenge we'll have to control, right?

As far as like water, there's a dynamic where there's, that's the, the blue tribe is the second book. So we'll go into that about how the water tribe works together, how there's, you know, there's kind of another separate path that I'd like to take in that book as far as personalities wise. And it just in that specific tribe. So it just, the, the orange tribe works with building the castles. There were, they deal with the earth. I think the funniest one to me that I like and I really enjoy when people read about.

one as the indigo tribe is they're the musical and entertainment group and they don't you can't actually talk to them they don't you can only sing to them so it's the only way they communicate with them and so i just think that's i just like that idea of i just would want to see that that's why i'm so excited about the the interactive game to make to to to see who actually would select to be in there and then see what they would do with their character what no the game is is it going to be a video game or is it going to be an app like for the on the phones there It's a video game. And personally, that is even more difficult to gauge a launch because you, and again,

that's a new area that I, that I've entered working with where you open a new door that you think is going to be quick. You're like, oh, we just got to make music. And then the music takes like two weeks. And you're like, that took two weeks just to make the music. And it's like, and you create something that impacts this code and you got to go back. And hats off to all the people who've made all these. these video games, it's really given me a huge respect for what it takes to put together masterpieces that I've seen in my life for video games.

I can't believe how much these games have to do to get everything right. Oh, it's crazy. And like you say, yeah, you change one line of code and you break everything. Right. You end up messing something up that you did eight steps ago and then you got to go back through everything to find it. So, but it's really cool watching that kind of creative. itself. But again, it's difficult to pick a launch date. I actually thought it'd be done. That's how

kind of new to the game I was. I was like, this should just be pretty easy to put together. But the further you go down and developing and adding dynamics to a game, it's, it's a lot longer than you think. Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Even like Bungy, I remember I was a big destiny player back in the day. And Bungy has this tower that you land into to interact with different and PC characters. And for like six months, it broke them. You couldn't fly into the front position. You had to go to the back.

It was like really stupid. You'd log in and just go black screen on you. And you'd hear stuff, but you couldn't do anything. And it turns out somebody you coded, added a code for a pot, like a little pot or plate, you know, just for decorations. And they broke the game. It took them six months to find it and fix it. Exactly.

And they're a huge company. You know, they got like, you know, thousands. of coders and employees. So, you know, if they're having troubles, you know, it's a challenging space. It's interesting. Yeah, you look at a game like Akrona of Time. It came out in the 90s for like Zelda. And I read that they put the music together in like a week or two.

And like literally every TikTok or it's like there's that song playing in it. It's funny. These guys just whip through and make the music and it's timeless for 30 years. And then like I go into it. I'm like, well, it needs music for this, this and this. And it's like, it's this huge. endeavor. So yeah, you can go down some rabbit holes when it comes to video games for sure. Some money pit rabbit holes. So what do you hope people come away with when they read the book?

You kind of mentioned that they're kind of designed or have a thing to try and work together. You know, I think what I'd like, what I'd like people to see most is when faced with diversity, you're brave enough to make the right decision. And I think that's something to learn as far as when it comes to coming of age, group reading a book, going through a traumatic event, which direction do you take? And when you've reached a climatic moment of facing whether it's your greatest fear, what do you do? Do you take the side of, you know, of like selfishness and, you know, how does it benefit me? Or do you do a selfless act for everybody, for your tribe, for the world? And I just think that deeply thinking about it from that perspective is actually a breath of

fresh air when it comes to reading and storytelling today. So I'd love to get back to that. It's the stuff I look back and have my past as things I've read when I was younger or watched when I was younger that really moved me. Yeah. I was a big Tolkien fan when I was a kid. I love that stuff when I was like 11. And what was it, Shinar?

The sort of Shinar? Yeah. And, you know, those sort of books, the fantasy books. And it was just so great for your magic. because it you know you create another world you know because this one's not so great these days yeah 100% and I think the I think the thing that about imagination is we I joke about being able to just sit just sit somewhere can you go into a dentist appointment without your phone and just sit there it's kind of my superpower I joke with my kids I can just sit there and you had to kind

of stare out the window in a car you couldn't just stare at your phone and so by re going back into your imagination, it just really gives me hope to say anybody could go into their own imagination and we could have more compelling stories, you know, that actually kind of indirectly teach us what would be the right decision or how you would look at how you would make a decision when faced with diversity. Yeah, yeah. And the reading is so great for young people, folks. Read to people and parents should read to people too. We advocate for that a lot on the show. You know, don't just give them the little computer screens and let that babysit them. You know, The reading and imagination, like you talked about, is so important for childhood development.

And it makes for great entrepreneurs, too, being able to imagine what the world could be as opposed to what it is. You know, people like Steve Jobs and people saw certain things and went, ah, there's a better way to do this, maybe. And that's the great thing about being an entrepreneur, too, as well. So I'm glad you found your voice. I'm glad you found your authorship. And, you know, it's interesting.

So many of the guests that we have on the show, I mean, 200 shows now. We have these authors that, you know, they go through sometimes cathartic moments, lose a job, COVID, you know, they do, you know, all things throughout their life. And then kind of they reach a point where I like, what do I really like to do? Or, you know, I love to write, you know, let's get, let's write a book. And it's just so great that there's the opportunities out there that people can take and do that. So thank you very much for coming to show. Give people your final pitch out and dot com where people can find you on the interwhips. Thanks so much for having me.

If you just Google Cromaria, you'll source the book. You can order it on Amazon. If you happen to be in the UK, definitely take a look at the book fair. It's a hidden gem with a great message. There's additional books to come and keep an eye out for the video game. I'd love for you to come join me in the game. Folks, pick up the books where refined books are sold. Cromeria.

It's out on wherever you can find stuff like Amazon. And there'll be a link on the Chris Fosha. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortresschus, Christfoss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, 1. on the TikTok and all those crazy places in the internet, be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast

ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Wall Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain lead. All right, Clayton, we're out, great show.