Episode #352: Outing My Comfort Zone

Flashback to my now closed blog Father Nature's Corner, only this was actually taken in real time during the month of October. T'was a warm day when the photo was taken.

Ever try writing a story that is way out of your comfort zone?

As an example, I write adult fiction. I enjoy writing adult fiction and I really can't picture myself writing anything else but adult fiction. However, a number of years ago (the late 2000s I believe), I decided to challenge myself by writing a story out of my comfort zone.

It was a pure wholesome G-rated story that was ultimately published in a now defunct e-zine called "Beat To A Pulp", before being republished in this small short story collection. This story is called "Cedar Mountain," and it remains my one and only G-rated story.

I bring up this topic because once again I decided to challenge myself by writing a story that is very far out of my comfort zone. Yes, believe it or not, I still have a comfort zone for other types of stories, besides G-rated stories.

Small info dump: back when I had started my writing adventures in the mid 2000s, I was a very angry person. "A very angry person indeed," to quote Marvin the Martian. So I wrote very angry stories, with angry over-the-top violence and mayhem.

Smarter and more discerning people than myself rightfully pointed out that I should rein in the amount of anger and vitriol pouring out of my pen before I turn others off to my writing. Which, after a number of years, I was finally able to rein in and tighten its focus.

With that info dump out of the way, we now pivot back to the topic at hand: challenging myself, this time writing a very angry story.

As most of, if not all of, you know that I've been busy as a soldier ant rewriting a select group of my two to four page (and beyond) short stories for yet another short story collection of two volumes in length. The story that I chose to work on was originally titled "Syringe." The plot wasn't much: you have a junkie looking to score another hit of heroin (I think), and his sister rides to the rescue to give him an overdose and he dies.

Brief, simple, straight to a point that still escapes me. Even after I spent several minutes trying to make sense of a story that had almost no plot. But during that eighth minute, I found a plot in which turns this story upside down.

"What if I rewrote the story from the classic 'golden child syndrome,' which is quite popular on YouTube and Reddit these days?" asked my brain.

"Absolutely!" answers I.

In the span of two calendar weeks (one for writing, one for transcribing), I had a very plausible nuclear revenge story that went something like this:

A woman involved in illicit activity finds out that her parents, who she was a caretaker for the past few years, left their estate to the golden child older brother, who was a junkie. After going over the will with a fine tooth comb with the estate lawyer, they find a proviso that states she gets it all if he ceases to be.

You can probably fill in the remaining points w/o any help from me.

Like I said previously, this story was not only way out of my comfort zone (think going from a gated community to the inner city), but it became easier to write the further I went along. Why, you may ask?

Because I had all three parts to easily rewrite a story available to me.

I had a beginning and a middle, even though they were presented in a different order originally, and most importantly, I had an ending. With all three components available to me, it really wasn't that hard to come up with a decently constructed story that stretched the boundaries that I had to work within.

Even though I managed to construct a nearly eight thousand word story out of a two page short, I'm not quite sure if I want to revisit that part of my imagination anytime soon.

It's one thing to add certain components to a given story (say like an epic fantasy of some kind), but to construct an entire story around a particular component that you already use judiciously is a whole level of daring do.

So my friends, what about you? Have you ever written anything out of your normal comfort zone, just to see if you can?

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #351: But Wait, Is There More? {2}

Tree! Autumn! Southern New England! Good Times For All!

Last week  mentioned that I have two genres that I've become stuck in a rut with: True Crime and Military History (US Civil War). Part one covered my adventures with True Crime and its various sub-genres. Part two will cover my adventures with the US Civil War.

My passion, if you cal call it that, for the US Civil War goes a little further back, like to middle school. My dad used to lecture at my school during the Civil War segment in my American History class from middle school to a couple of years into my high school I believe. Since then, I always had a keen interest about the Civil War.

This naturally led me to reading all kinds of books and watching all kinds of videos/movies/documentaries about the Civil War. Thing is, there's only so many books that you can read and an equal amount of videos that you can watch before you cry Auntie Social. Sadly, this is what happened toi me, and it was long lasting.

I got so tired of trying to find books to read that didn't cover the same old same old on a consistent basis (and by consistent, I'm talking at least two per quarter), that I decided to take a brief detour by actually spending money on books about the US Civil War.

Thus I built two collections, one that I did not read and one that I did. Both of these collections were published in the 1980s, so this should give you a basic idea on how fed up I was trying to find quality reading material.

Both of these collections were purchased through Time-Life books. Back then, Time-Life's book division was a powerhouse division that published high quality book collections on nearly four dozen topics of interest.

The series that I did not read was called, "The Collectores Library of the Civil War". These were high quality reproductions, leather bound with gilded pages of originals that came out in the latter part of the 19th century, nearly all of which were first hand accounts from people who were direct participants in the War, either on the front line, behind the front line or on the home front.

Each one came with a nice two page biography of the writer, along with a nice synopsis of the book. Like I stated previously, I did not read them as I did not want to ruin the book in any way, shape or form. Sadly, one volume had disappeared over the years, whether by oversight on their end or theft on this end.

The original series was 30 volumes. Each volume, in 1980s dollars, with S&H cost me around $22 (not certain as this was nearly 40 years ago), so the total dollar amount was $660. In 2026 dollars, the total cost would be $1,940.10.

As you can see, this was a mighty expensive collection to have and basically show and not read. But as the title of this blog post states, there is more.

The other Civil War collection that I had acquired and actually read from first volume to lat, was a 28 volume set called, naturally enough, "The US Civil War". These too was also leather bound and each volume had logos that stated "US & "CS" on the cover.

This set was basically a well written encyclopedia thatr covered the many different parts of the Civil War: campaigns, front lines, behind the lines, both home fronts and everything in between. Much like what y ou would see if your were reading about WWI & II, and everything connected to it on the American side, be it military or civilan.

This was also purchased at roughly the same time as the other, so there was significant overlap money-wise. At the time, I was working full time in the middle to late 80s, but my rate of pay back then was maybe near $7/hr, which was well above minimum wage. So purchasing these books (plus other things from Time-Life that in hindsight I should've done differently) put a hefty dent in my wallet.

The total cost of this series was a shade higher, in that it cracked the $2k level of 2026 dollars. Back then quality mattered, so when you purchased a collection, you were getting your money's worth. In today's world, this kind of quality is something that is only seen on a Kickstarter* campaign that an author would do to reward longtime fans for supporting them.

*I am being 100% serious here. I follow a very talented writer who has a passionate fan base (Romance Fantasy) and frequently does this for hardcover versions of her books. She produces quality stuff.

Oh and the main reason I was able to read this entire series:L by the time I had fully acquired this series, I was working full time on the overnights, so on my days off, I needed something to occupy my time.

After acquiring those two massive collections, I basically took a powder from reading or watching anything Civil War related. I think the last book that I read connected to the Civil War was about Sherman's March To The Sea (his scorched earth campaign to Atlanta).

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this medium sized peek into what I like to read. Have a fantastic week.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #350: But Wait, Is There More? {1}

Apparently I'm so oblivious to my surroundings, that I did not see this for quite a few days, in spite of walking by that exact spot on a very consistent basis.

Ever find yourself at that turning point when your favorite genre simply isn't doing it for you anymore? That somehow the chosen themes that you enjoy so much somehow becomes stale, and you find yourself looking for other themes to peruse within your chosen genre to satiate that hunger?

Well I've been experiencing a multi-decade long rut with a couple of my favorite genres of choice: True Crime and US Civil War.

Today's post will cover the myriad of ways that I've tried to satiate the hunger for True Crime, while next week's post will cover the ways that I've tried with the US Civil War.

With True Crime, I started off like a lot of other young people do, by reading about serial killers and the Mafia. However, once we had exhausted those particular niches, we had to find other sub-genres to explore, and up to about ten years ago, I was quite successful.

We started our next exploration by reading about well known events, then gradually switched to lesser known events. We then pivoted to the other side of True Crime: namely, the less publicized, but equally important related tangents.

For example, I started reading about crime scenes, such as ones that I had purchased a few years back that death with the LAPD archives (plus one that an LAPD dectective produced for himself) and one that dealt with the NYPD. The stories behind them were both incredibly eye-opening and depressing. Then we dabbled a little further in the nitty gritty by purchasing a book about the death penalty in Texas, specifically when they had switched over from electric to pharmaceutical.

Eventually, even dabbling in those interesting topics grew stale, so we made yet another pivot, albeit quiet briefly, back to well known historical events. I read about one that is a well known haunted house in Kansas, where an entire family involuntarily departed this world, yet it wasn't an isolated incident.

Then we pirouted one final time to killer objects. For example, I read a book about axes and how they were used to relieve people of their capacity to breath, and the history behind them.

Finally, the one book that we had talked about previously on this blog, which was about a woman who was childhood/high school friend with Gacy's final victims and was instrumental in bringing him to justice.

By this point of this particular book, which was in 2025, I was exhausted in trying to find something that one, I hadn't read about before, whether a person or event; and two, wasn't slanted to make the criminal the victim.

Fortunately for me, even though I had given up the reading portion of True Crime (was never really interested in the video portion), I tripled down on the audio portion of True Crime podcasts.

Being quite late to the podcast world (2018 when I had bought my first smart phone), it took me quite awhile to find some podcasts that piqued my curiosity long term. So let me tell you about five that have become permanent podcasts of my playlist, and all five I highly recommend.

1} Small Town Dicks: hosted by Yeardley Smith (aka Lisa Simpson), this focus on crime in the proverbial small town USA, and each episode features the person who actually worked the case. They have done special episode arcs like the first case in the UK to feature rudimentary forensic science (1920s if I recall); a mini story arc about the OKC bombing and this summer featured a ten episode arc about the Golden State Killer that one of the co-hosts was directly involved with. Has been around for sixteen seasons (about 8 years, give or take).

2} Park Predators: this one has a specialized focus on true crime that takes place in our great national park system. Highly informative and expertly researched, it originally started off as a summer only podcast but eventually switched to year round. I think it's been around since pre-pandemic.

3} Dark Down East: its true crime focus is exclusively New England and covers the occasional case from the 19th century, in addition to the 20th & 21st century. Expertly researched and written, and if you enjoy true crime with a regional focus, this podcast is for you.

4} The Casual Criminalist: this one dabbles in True Crime from around the world, from the 19th thru the 21st. Expertly written, with a twist that the narrator didn't set eyes on the script until he sat down to record it, it also doubles as a YouTube channel. Been listening for several years.

5} Blood Trails: this was a recent discovery via another podcast from the same media company (Meat eater). This one is also a seasonal, although it looks like it's going to be two seasons per year (about 16+ episodes per calendar year). This one covers the great outdoors (hunting, trapping, fishing, etc.) in the US.

This next one doesn't quite fit the category that was being used by the aforementioned podcasts, but this media company's output is more historical than true crime outright.

6} Black Barrel Media: they have two podcasts that fall under the historical true crime categories: Infamous America and Legends of the Old West. The former focuses mostly on true crime, while the latter has a mixed focus on true crime and history. They can also be found on YouTube.

So even though I don't read books in the True Crime genre that much anymore, I can satiate my need by listening to podcasts that cover true crime outside the norm: small town, New England, the outdoors, the national parks, worldwide and historical.

And that to me, means that I can still stay well read and well informed, even it it's now down in audio form.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #349: Shorten Our Stories Reduex

I found this random floral bouquet during my afternoon walk the other day (10/15). Not sure why it was left there, but seemed just enough out of place for me to take a picture of it. Because you know, curiosity makes Georgie's daily routine less routine.

I know I've mentioned on more than a few occasions that I've gotten back into writing short stories, and I've been basically writing short stories that were previously published in my now closed short story blog, with a few originals thrown in for fun.

Over the years I've been saying to myself and to you the reader that I've been (mostly) a pantster when it comes to writing because generally, I found planning a novel to be a lot more complicated than just writing on the fly.

However, the three plus years that I had spent writing my fantasy series basically blew that viewpoint completely out of the water to smithereenies. How, you may ask?

Well....when you incrementally expand your universe to include eighteen characters and fifteen plot/sub-plot points, you decided that plotting/outlining that universe isn't such a bad thing after all.

So we applied that learned lesson to our short stories, albeit in a modified form: we took that previously written short story and used it as a viable outline for the new version of that short story.

And it does come in handy, as it gives me a predetermined starting point and a predetermined ending. All I have to do, in general, is create the filling. And sometimes, we improvised the starting point, so that it blends with the filling and the ending.

For example: I had chosen a train story in my latest batch of rewrites. It wasn't anything particularly special about the story: a man was riding a train and encountered a woman who left a hairbrush behind.

Using that original story as an outline, we tweaked the beginning (riding a train to visit his late wife's parents), created a middle that elasorateds on how he came to be a widow, tweaked the original ending and we ultimately wounds up with a ghost story.

This was the process that I used for rewriting over a dozen short stories: use the original as an outline to plot out nearly 75% of the story (aka, the beefy middle), with the remaining 25% evenly split between the beginning and the end.

I've gotten so used to writing with an outline that I now often wonder why I hadn't tried it sooner. Then I remember after asking myself that question, I answer it by stating that going into that much detail prior to putting pen to paper makes Georgie a dull writer.

So today, or rather, this year I learned that you can teach a crusty old dog new tricks, but only after you heavily bridge them with treats and harsh persuasion of the crystal blue variety.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved