Episode #316: A Typical Day In The Life Of Your Gen X Writer

This...is about as much as I'm willing to show of myself on social media in 2026. Photo was taken some time after 2006 and before 2015.

Yes my friends, you're reading the blog post title correctly. Gen X is defined as someone being born between 1965 (me) and 1980. You're welcome for the sticker shock. Oh and one more thing, Gen X invented the modern curse called the Internet. Again, you're welcome.

Anywho, I don't think I've done a post like this in quite some time, if at all, on this blog. I know I've done on my other now inactive blogs (thanks Internet AI!) periodically, because, you know, easy blog filler.

And this one will probably be the same, as in easy blog filler. Maybe. But we'll have some fun just the same. So to over use a tired cliche, "are you ready?", and a classic British humor line, "let's begin from  the beginning.", we shall indeed, start at the start.

Note: since we're in the early throes of using tweezers on our hair follicles due to editing, our routine will be focusing on that.

7:30-ish in the a.m., we turn around to face our $660+ ASUS Chromebook, because if your love for M$ stopped at Win7, this OS is for you, and continue where left off editing, which in this case is our fantasy series "Sister vs Sister". After we get our morning dose of procrastination out of the way, it's now 9-ish in the morning and it's time to close up shop....I'm just kidding. In all seriousness, we spend a maximum of 1 1/2 hours either to continue editing the chapter we left off at the previous night (for the purpose of this post, we're editing chapter 21 of book #2); or finishing the chapter, printing a fresh copy, download a Word doc of the completed chapter for backup, putting away the old chapter and pulling out a fresh one to edit.

9-ish in the morning to about 1-ish in the afternoon, we live the relaxing life of someone who took an early retirement now going on five and half years, which mainly consists of getting our morning calisthenics, followed by our extremely self-regulated socialized media fix (about fifteen to twenty minutes on Meta, longer if I'm performing my M-W-F posting on my author's page with about one hour watching/commenting on YouTube). Oh and, can't forget our very regimented, calorie-wise, lunch. Regimented as everything is properly weighed per the serving instructions on the packaging.

1p-ish in the afternoon to about 2:30p-ish in the afternoon, we perform a repeat of the aforementioned 7:30a-ish phase of our day, unless I have a pressing errand(s) to run that cannot be done in the evening (e.g. banking). Then we do maaaaaybe a half hour of editing before running our important errand(s).

If no errands are to be had for the afternoon, then we get our afternoon calisthenics in, which lasts from 2:45p-ish to 4p-ish. I should note that Sunday thru Friday I break up my modest goal of 6k steps into two easily digestible parts, hence the twice a day calisthenics. I should also note that this year's winter's cold has been extremely nasty to me, to the point where anyone over the age of two can move faster than I can.

So with that bout of whininess out of the way, we're now, for the sake of the post, back home nestled in the warm comfort of our den, sipping a cup of hot chai and dreaming of monetary goodness and being recognized by others for the excellent books that we've written. 

Doesn't that just give you the warm fuzzies?

At that very second, the sound of a t.v. with the volume jacked to eleven hits you with the force of a five gallon bucket of ice water suddenly brings you back to the reality of the present (my reality is being a political elephant in a large extended family of political donkeys, although there may be hope for a 2nd cousin). You turn your heater back on, move the mouse to activate the computer from sleep mode, and spend from 4p-ish to 6:30p-ish doing absolutely nothing related to your current project, but you are posting snarky comments to Meta posts and YouTube videos, all while devouring the evening meal of pizza and fries, with a veggie and sugar free pudding for dessert.

However, you do feel motivated enough to spend perhaps fifteen minutes writing a future Meta post for your author's page, because you taught yourself how to write sixteen lines totaling 220 words or less for each post, so fifteen minutes is all you need. And you pat yourself on the back because you're able to apply what you've learned from others.

It's now 6:30p, and you're sitting there, in your chair wondering just exactly where the day went and most importantly, why you're still sitting in the chair. So you get your (allegedly) tired butt out of the chair and force yourself to make....yeeck...contact with....people, yet again. You don't really want to, but you still have your evening errands to run (like clockwork, because, schedules baby). So you spend anywhere from one half to one hour running your evening errands, before you go back home and call it a day. You change into your jammies, pour yourself a hot cup of chai and settle down in The Comfy Chair to dream about those huge paychecks coming from your writing.

{cue very long record scratch}

Reality: You go back down to your semi-cold den and after brewing yourself a cup of instant coffee of the Walter Martin variety, you turn on your computer and proceed to spend from 7:45p-ish to 10:00p-ish performing the following writing projects: editing your series as per the opening paragraph of this post. This overall project is interrupted by two infomercials called 'handwriting upcoming posts for Meta' and 'upcoming blog posts like this one', both of which require you to get off your butt and do research.

At 10p-ish, you tidy up your work area, turn off the power to your computer and printer, fix the settings on your computer so that 95% of your computer programming is throttled to conserve power (seriously, my computer has settings that allow you to drastically throttle most of the background programming, etc when you're using battery power. It stops when you turn the DC back on), and either spend that last half hour-ish of time working on the aforementioned projects or doom-scroll YouTube, because you like to fry what few remaining brain cells that have been untainted by the written word. Then you finally go to bed, get your five hours of sleep and experience the rapturous joy of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day.

And yes, we ran the gamut for your p.o.v. pleasure in this post, because, you know, practice makes perfection. I hope you enjoyed this snapshot of a typical day in my writing life, and remember, being a good writer is about rising above your redundancies and turning slop into an above average fast food meal. 

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

Episode #315: Let's Talk Celebrity Books!

"Here he comes to save the day...maybe!"

I like books that are either writing about celebrities or are written by them. In regards to the former, I enjoy reading those that are created with at least the tacit approval of the subject in question. Those tend to be the most interesting because the biographer can often perform a deeper dive into the subject when they know they have unfettered access to them.

Example: I recently read a very good bio of R.E.M. Even though the band declined to be interviewed directly/participate, they made it known that they had no qualms with any member of their families or extended friendship circles actually participating.

Now I have read or almost read biographies of those who did not want to participate and made it known that they were not nor would they going to give their approval, so the finished product had a tendency to be wanting. Robert DeNiro, Paul Simon, Ringo Starr and John Prine fall into this particular book category.

In regards to the latter statement, books written by 'celebrities' have a tendency to fall into two distinct categories: memoirs and topics that they have an in-depth knowledge of. While I enjoy both, I should let everyone know that my definition of 'celebrity' is probably a complete 180 from yours. To me, a celebrity is someone who is well known from any and all walks of life, and not from the usual fields of sports and entertainment.

For example: over the decades I've reads memoirs from a diverse group of people such as Eric Roberts, Sissy Spacek, Mike Campbell (founding member of The Heartbreakers), Dave Grohl, Steve Boone (The Lovin' Spoonful) and John Lyndon (aka Johnny Rotten). 

However, I have also read memoirs from people who are well known in their chosen field, however niche it may be, but not known to the general public.

For example: I have read a memoir from an internet personality with the nome de plume of The Bitchy Waiter (who also has a movie out); a very strange bio about one half of a duo that makes up the popular YouTube channel Jolly (the book was ultimately written as fundraiser for a theme park in Australia; and a memoir from a popular TikTok/YouTube personality, Hayley Morris.

Now if we switch over to the other type of 'celebrity' book that I have enjoyed, you'll find that my reading list is just as eclectic. I have read memoirs that doubled as history books.

For example: professional wrestling. I've read memoirs from Bob Backlund and Pat Patterson, both of which also cover the golden age of what is now the WWE prior to Hulkamania. I've also read (and have a copy) a memoir from Lynn Denton, who was a professional wrestler under the name "The Grappler" and worked primarily in the Northwest part of the US. His memoir doubled as a history of territory wrestling prior to the massive national expansion of the WWF/WWE

If we switch one more time, we move on to books that have been written by people who are very well known in their chosen niche field. A well known Michigan attorney, Steve Lehto, has written a slew of books covering true crime and the automotive industry. The only title that I have is "American Murder Houses: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide". It's actually a really good & fascinating book and I highly recommend it and his other books.

Another book that I have is written by podcaster Patrick Wyman. He's a former MMA sportswriter turned legitimate historian who specializes in Medieval, Roman and early World history. His 1st book is called "The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years That Shook The World 1496-1530", and he examines that forty year period through the eyes of ten real people. Highly recommend this book as well.

In general, I enjoy reading books written by people who are well known in their particular field of work and have become 'celebrities' in their own particular way to the media platform they choose to use. I enjoy  memoirs written by people who may not be what we sarcastically call "A, B, C, & D" list celebrities, but are still celebrities in their own right.

One more thing: I often find those quirky memoirs and biographies at my local public library, from FB, from YouTube and from podcasts. These platforms have a tendency to weed out the fluffy ghostwriter money grubbers from those who actually know what they're talking about and are willing to show the good, the band and the fugly about themselves.

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

Episode #314: Writing! It's Noiseless Matte Schtuff!

I'm looking at you because this blogger couldn't come up with anything witty to say, because my cuteness has simply rendered him speechless.

I haven't done a writing update in what seems like ages, so I thought I would give everyone an idea on what's been going on in the slightly unbalanced writing worlds of G.B. Miller.

1} Sister vs Sister: The Series.

I've been making slow and steady progress with my editing process. On the positive side, I've managed to come up with two viable titles that effectively replace the two place holder titles of "kidnapping" and "the campsite".

I'm currently working on book #2 and the only hiccup I've had so far involved having to deconstruct/reconstruct four chapters. To elaborate, I decided near the tail end of book #1 to change how I presented the multi-layer/multi-point of views so that head hopping wouldn't become an issue, and in order to make everything uniform it required me to fix four chapters, which took me about a week in total to accomplish.

2} Facebook.

About a month ago, I talked about what I could do with my stagnant Facebook page and I came up with the novel idea of blogging about the editing and publishing journey with my fantasy series. Suffice to say the early results have more than exceeded my expectations, in that I've had a good uptick in engagement with others and have gained a few new followers.

Naturally this has led me to the joyful concept of multi-tasking, which means having to create enough content to stay the course of posting twice a week on FB, and to a smaller degree, more content for my blog, all while keeping up with the current pace of my editing.

Sometimes, it can be very beneficial to have multiple projects going on at the same time.

3} Graphic designer (cover).

Facebook's algorithms will often populate a user's newsfeeds with page/people suggestions based on your current habits, and sometimes they will unwittingly make a suggestion that turns out to be a blessing in disguise.

I happened across a suggested person to follow (college professor/author from Vermont) who was talking about a bad customer service experience he had while helping someone obtain a refund from a graphic design company.

Long story short, the screenshotted e-mail correspondence featured the company that I'd used for my last two novellas: 100 Covers. Naturally I started reading through the comment section, and suffice to say it was quite the eye-opening experience (basic business rule #1: treat the customer like how you want to be treated, because a bad experience travels at the speed of light in the digital world).

After doing a bit of reading, I decided to ask the author of the post for his recommendations on who he would use. It took him about a day to respond, which was quite thoughtful and enlightening.

He suggest to me MiblArt and said he was highly impressed with their work. And you do know that within a day of receiving that recommendation, I started seeing ads popping up in my newsfeed for that company.

If they're good as they say they are, and judging by the ads that include fifteen to thirty seconds video shorts, I have no reason to doubt their word, I will be using my 3rd graphic designer in the past five years.

And depending on how they do on my next book (a re-write of a previously published book), I may have them redo the covers to my novellas. I do detest having to spend money needlessly, but sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, although it seems I'm getting the bad more often than the good.

So my friends, I hope you enjoyed this little writing update. If you want to re-experience a deeper dive into my fantasy series, please check out the tag Hot Mess; or, if you want to experience the condensed version in less than 220 words twice a week, feel free to follow my author's page on Facebook.

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

Episode #313: Re-Visiting, Re-Reading and Re-Examining

Got a bit of those winter blahs, so here's a little something from last summer.

Back in the day I used to participate in a monthly writing related blog hop sponsored by the Insecure Writers Support Group, a writing community that supports new and established writers. They have their own blog and have a killer newsletter that is jam packed with all kinds of writing related info, both of which I highly recommend.

In the newsletter, they always offer a question that you can answer during the monthly blog hop (which is always the first Wednesday of the month). I thought that this month's question was so up my alley that I decided to give it a whirl for my weekly blog post.

"Have I ever re-read any of my early writing, and what was that experience like?"

The short answer is: I have and to quote an old song, "oh boy!"

The long answer, which is this post is: It has definitely been an eye opener. When I re-read the stuff that I wrote early on and compare it to what/how I write now, I cringe so hard that I sometimes pull a facial muscle.

While a lot of it has been all kinds of level of cringe, a good chunk of it has been salvageable to the point where I've been able to successfully rewrite and either publish/re-publish or have it soon to be published.

A few examples spring to mind:

1} Both of my recent novellas, The Mortality of Familial Love & To Live Is To Die Young, are re-imagined versions of previously poorly written stories of the kind that would forever languish in a slushy pile never to see the light of day.

2} My current fantasy series was re-imagined from the ashes of a (very) badly written novella that went  nowhere fast over a dozen years ago until I changed the way I write my stories and decided to revisit that cringey story.

3} I have a novella that I plan on republishing this year, because the original version that was published over a decade ago was not up to my current standards as a writer. I realize it shouldn't have been and I'm now trying to rectify that. I've already did this with a previous short story collection, because the mid-2020's me absolutely hated the late 2000's version me.

4} And finally, I was able to successfully re-write nearly a dozen short stories because again, this version of me was severely disappointed with that version of me's mediocre writing (and it was).

So yes, I have spent the past half dozen years pulling all kinds of Calvin & Hobbes faces when reading all of my early writing, but during those same half dozen years, I've also been channeling my inner Calvin & Hobbes can-do attitude when it comes to re-imagining those admittedly bad stories into something 20x better.

I think perseverance is a must have quality for a writer, especially when you're able to find a few good pebbles in the proverbial sandbox of badly written stories, no matter how old those stories happen to be.

Life as a writer is often good, but it's better when you can resurrect an early badly written story into something that you can be proud of.

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