Episode #258: I Always Enjoy The Music Around Me

No matter how crappy your week might get, it's the little things that keep you chugging along.

I've mentioned over the years that I have a very modest (compared to others) music collection that is mostly vinyl and c.d.s, with the vinyl split between LP and 45 then further split between new and used.

I rarely buy new vinyl because it's a prohibitively expensive 100% money grab (average price for a single LP is about the cost of one half to one third of tank of gas depending on where you live), and I rarely buy used vinyl, because there's no used record stores near me or the what GoodWill/Salvation Army/Savers carries is not conducive for listening if you're under the age of 60 and your music tastes have not been permanently stunted.

Over the years, my little brother (four years younger than moi) has always been on the lookout for vinyl for me. He often collects it from clients (he's a handyman/super), garage sales and even once found some by the curbside, and I often receive them as b'day gifts or Christmas presents. 

Because I'm not one to turn down free vinyl of any sort, I now possess music in all kinds of genres: 30's-70's pop, 80's rock, 90's indie rock, soul, jazz, comedy and everything else in between. I should mention that what my brother gifts me is nearly all original issues, with almost zero being reissues. Trust me, it's pretty easy to tell if you got an original, especially if you know the basic history of a particular artist. With that being said, I would like to share some examples, split between LP and 45, of what my brother has gifted me over the years. Please note that these examples are all original releases and some of the 45s come with the original sleeve.

1. Steve Lawrence- "In Time/My Claire De Lune": Most people know Steve Lawrence from his various comedic appearances on shows like The Carol Burnett Show or Johnny Carson, but he was a very accomplished singer in his own right. A United Artists release from the 60's.
2. Inez Foxx- "Mockingbird/Jaybirds: If you've listened to the golden oldies radio format, you're very familiar with the A side. What's interesting about 45, is that the previous owner had put little yellow dots noting the year (1963) and the length of the end fade (:04). A Symbol Records release.
3. Don McLean- "American Pie"- promo radio version in mono: I have both the reissue long version and I believe the original long version on 45. A United Artists release.
4. Wilton Place Street Band- "I Love Lucy Theme/You Don't Even Know Who We Are": Not familiar with this band, although a lot of minimally known bands/artists often became one hit wonders for their theme songs. This was released on an Island Records subsidiary called Disco Lucy in 1978. Make of that what you will.
5. Journey- "Open Arms" promo 45: We all know of Journey, that late 70's/early 80's arena rock band that is currently being ossified on classic rock radio. This particular release is strictly a radio station copy, as both A & B sides are the same song. A Columbia Records release.
6. Billy Stewart- "I Do Love You/Keep Loving": If you're not familiar with Billy Stewart, he had that monster hit called "Summertime", a cover version from a featured song in the play "Porgy and Bess". This was also a radio promo copy with the first song listed being the plug. A Chess Record release.

As I've stated earlier, these are all original releases, with the majority of them being promo records given to radio stations. Now let's move on to a sampling of LPs, most of which are original releases.

1. John Lennon- "Mind Games": A great musician but a mediocre human being, he put out some fantastic music during his solo career. This is a Capitol Records reissue that I'm guessing came out after his untimely passing.
2. Bruce Springsteen- "Born In The U.S.A.": I was a fan of Bruce Springsteen once, until he turned into one of those money grubbing people that he used to rail about. Now he just rails about the people who dare not to vote his way, who used to make up the majority of his fan base. Have to give him props for producing an album that featured at least six top 25 hits. A Columbia Records original release.
3. Andy Gibbs- "After Dark": An often overlooked artist who sadly flamed out after his massive hit "Shadow Dancing", which this album does not contain. An original RSO Records release.
4. The Mamas & Papas- "If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears": An excellent folk rock band from the late 60's. I already have an original version (#2 I believe) of this release. The reason why I say 'number two', is if you remember how puritanical the entertainment industry was in the 60's, the original cover photo of this album made everyone clutch their pearls, as it originally showed the group, fully clothed in a bathtub with a toilet in full view. The cover was quickly redone and in some versions, the toilet was mostly blocked out, leaving only the handle showing and in other versions, I believe everything was blacked out save for the band members. An original ABC/Dunhill Records release.
   
5. The Rolling Stones- "Aftermath": What can I say about the Rolling Stones other than in my personal opinion they jumped the shark in the mid 90's and been on a fast downhill slide to money-grubbing irrelevance. Still, this early original album features such dinosaur classics as "Paint It; Black", "Lady Jane", and "Under My Thumb". Original stereo London Records release.

This is just a very tiny sampling of the type of music that my brother has graciously gifted to me over the years (I was also gifted such interesting items like full orchestral 45 e.p.s), to which I am forever grateful. I have just recently acquired a portable record player and I'm slowly starting to get back into the swing of listening to my vinyl once again (for example, I recently listened to an original Simon & Garfunkel album that featured "I Am A Rock" and "Richard Corey").

I truly enjoy exploring the vast Mariana Trench that is music, and that exploration has led me to a diverse group of artists like Samantha Fish (blues), The Pretty Reckless (hard rock), Band Maid (Japanese hard rock), and Sammy Kershaw (country-pop) and genres like country-pop, easy listening, rock, jazz and even 18th century classical/ballads. 

Explore your horizons today, you just might find something that is so out of the ordinary that it will tickle your fancy enough to dig that deep rabbit hole.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #257: How Do I Edit Thee? It's A Seriously Zen Level Of Nerdvana

The tranquility of a waterfall is the perfect outlet to bathe your brain in the zenith of the moment before you wash it with the tonal sounds of the wind meandering through the tentacles of the universe.

At the close of the last post, I stated that the fat man (moi) had a final aria to perform prior to the intermission of Act III. Suffice to say, to semi-quote a well known lyricist, I can't dance and I certainly can't sing. But what I can do is channel my inner microscopic micro-manager and present to you a blog post on how not to edit like normal folks. 

For the past umpteen years (translation: a number between the high end of a tween and mid-nadir of young adulthood), no matter what length of story I had decided to write, a printed copy I did create for editing purposes. I was one those seriously short attention span people who could not stay glued to a computer screen to read a story for longer than ninety seconds (which is why I do not own an e-reader). So editing my work straight up on my computer screen was not a viable option for me employ.

However, what was a viable option for me was to print out a story, use a pen to write copious amounts of notes/make copious amounts of corrections, and then add those edits onto the original computer copy. Simple enough for a short story. But....would that same philosophy apply to something longer than a short story, like a novella or a novel? Well, as you're probably no doubt aware of, the answer to the question is a resounding YES.

Let's use two projects as good examples of this philosophy: an upcoming novella for 2025 and my current five volume (I pinky promise) project that should be finished (I triple dog dare myself) by the end of this month.

Novella: This upcoming 2025 novella has a boatload in common with my 2024 novella: long gestation period (10+ years); no current title after multiple tries (7 I think); no real blurb or synopsis going for it either; lots of R-rated violence, just to name a few. It also has the very odd editing philosophy applied it as well.

So when we were writing draft #4 (I think, maybe it was #5?) we would simply print out each completed chapter, three hole punch that bad boy, pulled out a 1" three ring binder (note, if it says 220pg capacity, they are lying like a sleeping chow-chow), a bunch of dividers, and shmashed it all together into a cohesive pile numbering 126 pages containing just a kiss under 56k words.

In the course of one day, with my handy-dandy generic version of a Bic pen, we took copious amount of notes, circled incorrect words and typos, and generously added blue and black ink to those formerly unblemished pages of a intelligently written story. Those copious notes were actually written on the pages themselves, because you know, short attention span theater here.

Anyways, we washed/rinsed/repeated a few more times before putting this lovely story back into the Comfy Chair's estranged sibling, the Comfy Bed. In total, it took me about three weeks of manual editing before deciding it was (at that time) good enough to move onto the next phase, which were creating a title and synopsis (long and short). Novellas are easy enough to handle without getting a professional involved until you got to the nitty-gritty portion of it.

Now if you thought this was a time consuming and perhaps that time would be better spent editing on the computer, then you're very welcome to your own opinion on performing your editing chores. I, however, found editing on the computer actually hindered my ability to make any kind of writing progress, which was one of the main reasons of editing this way. The other reason was that it was a great meditation tool.

With my current project, with the odd blog tag of Hot Mess, I settled down into a routine of writing two chapters (later expanded to three until constricting back to two), transcribing those chapters, and doing all of the stuff mentioned earlier with the novella before editing. The way it became a meditation tool for me was that until I had finished editing those chapters, I simply did not produce any new writing. 

This had produced a few pleasant side effects: 1) it allowed me to concentrate on how each particular plot line needs to move in that particular direction; 2) it allowed me to mentally plot out how best to continue each plot line; and 3) it became my bi-weekly sojourn into non-stressful me time, which was something that I've been able to continue on for the past 2 1/2 years.

So my friends, this is how I edit my work: write it, transcribe it, print it, then manual edit. I should note that I have yet to apply ANY of the editing notes/corrections that I have made so far, as I want to wait until I type in the proverbial, "The End", which marks the completion of this five volume journey. And let me tell you, that's when the genuine milkshake is going to consume the inside of your lungs as you try to inhale that goodness through the straw, because the edits I have to apply will, at the very end, make me want to pluck out my mustache follicles with my fingernails.

Happy Monday to one and all.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #256: How Do I Write Thee? It's A Complicated Process

To semi-quote Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again."

Even though this was taken two days after Christmas 2023, we were greeted by the same exact display two days after Christmas 2024. Makes me want to play this Valentine favorite from my high school days.

My writing process, for lack of a better word, is "complicated". It wasn't always this way though, as previous to 2021, I wrote like every other writer on the planet: with a computer (laptop/PC/any other computer related device). But unlike everyone else, my output could be calculated in weeks/months, instead of hours/days.

And the worse that my genetic malady affected my hands, the more that my output dried up. Until finally in late 2020, I decided to become like the writers prior to the creation of the computer and typewriter, and do everything with pen and paper. I had last done pen and paper with my blog between 2007-2009 before the motivation dried up, so resurrecting the pen and paper seemed like a no-brainer.

But, a funny thing happened along the way of doing my writing the old fashioned way (not completely as draft 1A was transcribed to the computer): I began to actually pay attention to what I was writing for characters and scenes. For those who constantly battle with variations of the old adage of "distractions often drain the creative juices dry", I managed to bring that battle to a well deserved stalemate.

Here's how I managed to accomplish this feat of daring-do.

1.  I do not have Meta Inc on my phone, nor do I play with any other of the popular socialized media platforms save YouTube (I am forever connected to Alphabet Inc). In fact, I have seven apps that get regular use: two music/podcast apps, two news apps, YouTube, a crossword puzzle app and a sports app.
2. I use Google for research purposes while I'm writing (e.g. grammar, culture, religion) at least 97% of the time with the remaining 3% used for crossword puzzle breaks to recover from hand fatigue.
3. Because of the previous two points, my actual total digital time spent while I am actually writing totals about one hour, out of a typical six hour blocked out day for writing (normally 2 hours in the morning, an hour in the afternoon and the remaining three in the evening), with the remaining non-sleep hours doing other non-computer things.
4. Finally, more writing by hand equals less total time spent on the computer per day. Add in the fact that I'm happily retired and enjoy doing other things than doom scrolling on my computer, and my total time on the computer per day is a generous 1.25, 1.5 if I'm struggling to properly start a new chapter.

So what is the cumulative result of this digital malnutrition? A vastly improved writer. Allow me to elaborate.

I've long ago, at least 15+ years, paid closer attention to the books/stories that I was reading, partially to see how the good reputable writers properly crafted their stories. While I did, and continue to do, pick up valuable writing tips, I was often at a loss on how to properly apply them. Only when I had consciously decided to make the switch to pen and paper in 2021 was I able to really apply those tips.

Unlike when I was exclusively using my computer to write, in which beefy characters/scenes were frustratingly inconsistent, using pen and paper forced me to slow down my thought process by a factor of twenty. This slowing down allowed me to properly use the various writing tips that I had acquired, e.g. judiciously drip-dropping background info so as to more fully flesh out the characters, which in turn made my stories to be (hopefully) more compelling.

As with every preferred writing style/routine that a person decides to use, there were a few minor inconveniences that took me a very long time to get used to.

1. Word count: this was the first major hurdle that I had to overcome. I believe I've explained this elsewhere in the past four years, but to refresh everyone's memory, I never lost the ability to cramp my printing yet maintain that legibility at the same time. In short, I've learned to estimate what my word count per chapter is based on the amount of handwritten pages I would generate. So roughly 20-22 pages of handwritten text would equal about 12 computer pages totaling 5,300 +/- words per chapter. Consistently I might add.
2. Mistakes: this was the second major hurdle that I had to overcome. In short, I learned to use great quantities of liquid paper/white-out and blank file folder labels if I'd made a mistake while writing. This has basically forced me to double/triple check to make sure that what I was writing was what I'd wanted to write. In extreme cases, this would lead me to doing the following laborious task.
3. The type of mistake that would send a story off in the wrong direction: There were times throughout my current project where, after taking a break to think about what I had written while doing other things, I would realize that a particular scene was going in a direction that did not jive with the a given plotline. This would necessitate, regardless how bad the error was, to rewrite from where it began to stray and make it right. The amount of aggravation I would have to go through to fix and get the story back on track would boggle your mind. 

To be fair, point three is where I would often envy normal writers, because for them it would be the simple matter of either wiping out the entire error and restarting, or printing out and restarting, both of which required a few clicks of the mouse to fix and only two to three minutes wasted. For me, to fix an error of that magnitude would require, depending on the severity, fifteen to twenty-five minutes to fix.

Still, the one main point that I had managed to accomplish by writing with pen/paper, is that I was able to forcibly slow down my thought process so that everything coagulated properly, and most importantly, made sense. I often had the problem, no matter what stage of life I was at, to miss things while writing so that the final product did not make sense, or worse, shoot from the lip (aka, speak/type without thinking, often with disastrous results).

In general, I am extremely happy with the way I now create my stories, both fresh and rewrites. My aggravation factor is almost nil since changing, which is directly due to being able to concentrate more fully on what I'm writing (especially when I finishing up for the day, more often than not, I don't stop in the middle of a thought, but carry it through to the natural conclusion), whether it's a particular character or a specific scene.

I will say one thing though, that I have carried on/carry forward one particular computer related process to my current process, and that's printing out every completed chapter written. T.L.; D.R., there is a serious issue of control freakiness/microscopic micro-managing attached to that last statement. Blog reader beware, as the fat writer has a closing aria for the intermission of Act III.

It's Monday of the official first week of January 2025, why aren't you still on holiday?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #255: Research Is The Essence Of Good Writing

Our doggo Oreo chilling out in preparation for a very busy and fulfilling Christmas day.

As any good writer will often tell you, on the point of poking you very hard in the chest, thoroughly researching the main topic of your book, along with the other various tangents that make up the meat and potatoes {or the bean burger and organic fries if you're a veggie} of your story is essential to creating a fantastic product.*

*sorry, but old work habits like using three dozen words instead of an eighteen pack to explain something never really goes away, they just stay dormant.

Since I write fiction, today's post will be about doing the required research in order to make your story as realistic as possible, no matter the genre.

I've always been a bit of a macadamia when it came to researching a particular topic, whether it was work related or personal amusement, and I took that macadamia-ness to a whole new level of neurotic clarity when I started writing. For example, with my first published novel, some items of note included motorcycles, the adult entertainment industry and the feminine form.

The more that I grew as a writer, the more widespread my research efforts became for the stories I was creating. Even though at this point I was writing mostly fantasy based stuff, I still wanted certain elements of the story to have some basis in reality. So my current project became the ultimate test of my research skills.

Different cultures: I became enamored of different cultures a few decades ago with all the books/documentaries/videos that I was consuming, so it became a no-brainer to introduce those elements into my current project.

So I performed what I considered to be a deeper than normal research dive for the cultures that I chose to have a larger than normal focus on in the story: Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. And when I say a deep dive, that included things like family life, language, certain culture norms and deities. In regards to the cultural norms, I made a conscious decision to err on the side of being conservative, since I had no real way of knowing how those cultures felt about certain elements that were woven throughout the story (except maybe the Incas). And can't forget that I created a whole other culture from scratch that had all kinds of other historical elements woven into their fabric.

Different time periods: This probably could go hand in hand with the previous point, since I decided to have different time periods intermingle. For example, I had various characters that were part of the aforementioned cultures, directly or indirectly. A few other characters were part of the modern civilization (mostly North America), while another was part of the late medieval time period. 

Modern/old-fashioned technology/norms: This particular aspect of the story is where I had the most fun playing with. From a modern perspective, both major areas of action (Earth and Pod Planet), were heavily peppered with references to the use of modern technology: drones, cctv, computers, weaponry and digital media; old fashioned technology like having the horse as a main mode of transportation.

Odds and Ends: This particular category is for mostly all of the various bits of research that I had to do for various subjects like grammar (description mostly), certain concepts that I wanted to make sure I was using properly (e.g. slavery & sexual orientation), animal/personal traits (e.g. can horses sleep while walking and certain human characteristics), and other assorted items that would randomly pop into my head while writing a particular scene and I would want to know if it would fit or not.

Names and languages: This one was an ongoing issue throughout the entire series. First, I wanted to make sure that the names made logical sense for the adventure I was writing about AND that they emanated a powerful aura; Secondly, except for one made up language, I wanted the languages to be universally known and used. Which is why I chose English and Spanish as the two dominant languages that were used throughout. I also threw in the languages of the Aztecs (Nahuatl), Incas (Quechua) and Mayans (Yucatec Maya), as those cultures are moderately featured throughout the story. And I threw in ASL, as I have one character who uses sign in addition to telepathy.

One should also note that I didn't use any of the actual languages involved beyond English. A very good editor told me years ago that one should state what foreign language is actually being used in a given conversation, as opposed to actually using the language itself. Less aggravation and definitely less verbiage.

So overall, I enjoy most aspects of research, whether for personal curiosity (e.g. a used c.d. of a band that I've never heard of before) or for writing (clothing was in the top three of the biggest non-culture items that required heavy research). I find it's always better, at least in writing, to sound like you know what you're talking about, as opposed to actually knowing what you're talking about.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved