I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 5th

Girl howdy-do and howdy-do to the boy who wants to be manly but secretly loves making tight daisy chains with wet rawhide to better practice with, and welcome to the fashionable skewered literary word of G.b. Miller, where being out of step and out of tune is the be all to end all

First, the obligatory pic (I have soooooo many to chose from):

This is Bank's Corner Park, located only a hop, skip and a jump from where I live. Okay, if you were a 25 foot giant, then it would be a hop, skip and a jump. For everyone else, it's about a five minute walk. This is the header for my picture blog, Pictures for Smarties. From 2010 through 2016, it was my home for all my quaint pictures taken with my disposable camera. Please check out the archive when you get a free minute or two to spare.

Since this is the very last post of the year for me, I thought I would write a short recap for the year, covering my writing, blogging and my personal life. What follows is s simple numerical list, nothing more and nothing less.

1} I finally published my one required book for the year, The Friendship Has Begun, which is book #1 of The Friendship Trilogy and clicking on the pic in the upper right hand side will bring all the salacious details that you will need to purchase this fine specimen of a novel.

2} Blogging was pretty good for me as I managed to churn out about four dozen posts for my now defunct Tumblr blog (clicking on the link will give you all the gruesome details as to why it was terminated with extreme prejudice). And blogging stayed good for me as I was able to create Blogger blog the 7th(!) so as to better continue my writing/blogging thoughts.

3} Writing was still very good to me as in addition to publishing book #1, I finished the third round of edits on book #2 (there will be a post some time in January explaining on how writing the trilogy started with book #3 [dropped], switched to book #2 [completed first] and book #1 [completed second, but published first]), before finally went back to start book 3 from scratch after nuking four previously written chapters. Oi vey.

4} For those of who you who remember me from waaaay back, my current genetic screwup has not gotten better. In fact, it has gotten steadily worse as the hand fatigue has put a severe cramp in my writing. I use voice software at work to alleviate some of it, but this particular MS product doesn't work with Outlook, which is 85% of my job communication with the outside world. So I go through extreme bouts of fatigue, which in turn affects my writing at home (can only do 45 minutes per night because of it, except on the weekends).

5} My lovely daughter Jenelle will be graduating high school next year with honors. God do I feel old.

6} My son just announced his engagement and will be married next year. God do I feel really old.

7} Work is work, which is to say I still have the same old job but not quite doing the same old thing.

And that about sums up the year in the life of G.B. Miller. Tune in next week when we'll be back our usual non-maudlin self. Until then, have a very safe and sane New Year's Eve night.

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 4th

A boyish howdy and howdy to the girl who knocks 'em dead if they're alive and knocks 'em alive if they're dead, and welcome to the Abner Normal literary world of G.B. Miller, where being a moderate anything in today's world is strictly verboten, but being a craven coward running a university that bows down to the ones that they truly serve is a good thing.

Today's post will be a random mish-mosh of brain squeezin's coupled with writing topics. Let us begin at the beginning, because every post should have either one tired cliche or one semi-obscure pop culture quote {semi-obscure for those under the age of 40} contained within.

First, the prerequisite picture:

This is the skyline of Hartford, CT, taken from the office building of where I work. The buildings in the background are what passes for downtown, such as it is. The less said about that cesspool the better.

I did get some writing done this past week, but not as much as I'd originally planned to do. The original plan, hence the stay-ca that I took this week, was to knock out about 5k+ words and get through chapter six, thus finishing part the 1st of the book. However, life got very much in the way and thus I ultimately knocked out about one-third of that goal, which was roughly 1,650 words (plus or minus).

The main reason as to why the low output is that I really can't write anymore when I'm angry. Early on in my writing career, anger did indeed motivated me immeasurably. Cranked out quite a bit of slushiness in the process, so in one particular way, it was a good thing. However, nowadays, misplaced anger is a terrible thing, since the bulk of what I'm writing is not motivated or flavored with anger, and to inject that particular emotion into the mix would just be plain bad.

My ultimate goal with this particular WiP is to get to a point that, when I put it aside to get book #2 ready for publication Spring 2019, I'll be able to quickly figure out where the plot is after not working on it for several months. So I'm giving myself to the end of January to either complete it or have it at least 85% completed. Then I'll work on book #2.

Book #2 of the "Friendship Trilogy" will be entitled The Friendship Has Continued. What follows next is a short info dump followed by the particular pathway I will be following in order to get this to publication.

Book #2 takes place roughly two to three weeks after the end of The Friendship Has Begun, which is to say that we go through the wedding nuptials and the honeymoon. We do lightly touch upon a few items from book #1, mostly to refresh everyone's memory about that particular plot, since some remnants of that plot will be properly carried forward to book #3.

What I have left to do with book #2 is another one to two rounds of editing, especially since I've spent the past six months re-reading it from cover to cover and I'm finding more typos that need to be fixed as well as sentences/paragraphs that could use some tightening up.

Once I get everything to my liking as well as getting my c/c down to a reasonable level of outstanding debt, I will be contacting a freelance editor that came highly recommended to me early 2018 and that I highly recommend to anyone else who needs a good editor/proofreader, PinkProof. Based out of the U.K., not only did she do a fantastic job for me on book #1, but gave some great writing advice as well.

Once I get that completed, I will be using a graphic designer that has done my last two books for me, Book Cover By Design. She does fantastic work as well, and although I can't quite remember how I got referred to her to begin with, I do highly recommend her. She will be my go-to person as well for my books.

Of course, before getting the book cover and during the final editing process (this include the manuscript being with the editor) I will have to create that all important, all dreaded jacket blurb.

As Jack Palance would say in his version of "A Christmas Carol" (I have seen about two dozen versions in my lifetime and this one is in my top 5): Blah, blah, blah.

As always, you check me out on FB, as well as my writings either at the links on the said for Amazon and Smashwords, or @ the various cover pics on the sides.

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 3rd

Girl howdy and howdy to the boy who is so supremely confidant in his toxic masculinity that he has no qualms in being the secondary banana in this opening intro...so long as he gets to play "looking-extra-sharp-in-a-thigh-high-slit-form-fitting-evening-gown" later in the evening, and welcome to the shish-ka-bob literary world of G.B. Miller, who is masculine but not toxic and wouldn't be caught dead wearing a slit-high dress simply because he doesn't have the legs for it {100% pasty white don't you know}.

1st off, let me get the obligatory picture out of the way, simply because FaceSlapBook suggested I should liven up my post with one and who am I to disagree with a reputable organization such as them. Right?

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with me and my sense of humor, many years ago, I used to take pictures with a disposable camera and I would subsequently post them on a picture blog called Pictures For Smarties. This is one pic of a recurring character that I had created called Yello Bear. In this pic he is checking out my lunch at a local restaurant that I used to go to some years ago.

Anywho, we're off to do our writing update. For the next few weeks this will be a two-fer, in that I will try to get everyone up-to-dated with the back story of what I'm currently working on.

Back in late 2016/early 2017 I had decided to re-write a vanity published chapbook of mine called "Betrayed!" When I had gotten to about 3 completed chapters written, a blinding case of the obvious hit: I had a slushie prequel to this chapbook already completed and in the can! After rummaging through three large bins, said slushie was found.

Then, another blinding case of the really obvious hit: I could salvage two novels from this slushie and write a trilogy!

Novel #1 became The Friendship Has Begun: "From the friendly confines of a home to the noirish sulfuric wasteland of the late 19th century west, The Friendship Has Begun is the quintessential story of the redemption of a woman's spirit and the salvation of her lost soul."

Here is a little tidbit about book #1 that should impress the creativity genes that we all possess: because the slushie was badly written (originally written in the previous decade, so there you go), the only thing I was able salvage out of the main sub-plot of the slushie was a girl and a bar. Out of that tiny sliver of information, I was able to write a very solid book #1 for this trilogy

Novel #2 will be entitled The Friendship Has Continued, and it will pick up where book #1 ended, which is the wedding and subsequent honeymoon trip. I'm looking at a late Spring/early Summer 2019 release for this.

The other tidbit is that I was able to streamline and properly fill out the main plot of the slushie into a good book the 2nd, clocking in at 15 chapters/55k+ words.

Novel #3 is where I'm currently at. Entitled The Friendship Has Ended, I look to tie up the main plot threads of book #1 (there are at least three that need to be carry forward) and book #2 (two) into book #3.

I currently have roughly 4 1/2 chapters written for this one and even though this novel is the first one that I wrote an outline for (about 4 pages), I'm still finding it difficult to keep track of all plot points that need to be covered and completed. Because this is the actual rewrite of the chapbook, I've decided to make this a two-parter, in that part one will be the continuing fallout of the question at the very end of book #2, while part two will deal with the consequences of that question.

At the present, I'm writing the climax for part one. It's been a difficult piece of writing to say the least, in that I need to merge the two plot points w/o sound cliche and that I need to write the sex scenes so that isn't an adult movie scene (trust me, I can and have done very explicit adult movie scenes for The Inner Sibling).

Tune in next week when I'll have another two-fer writing up-to-date which should get everyone up to speed with my current writings.

As always, you can follow me on Facebook and check out my writings via the side cover pics.

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Where's This One At?

Boy howdy and howdy to the puny little girly girl that you're crushin' on and welcome to version 3.0 of the blog formerly called "I Are Writer!", now called "I Have Stories!"

Today's post will cover the basic nuts and bolts of this blog, along with the occasional bell & whistle.

Back in 2016, I was going through a mini-blog crisis, in that I was running out of things to write about (after 1500+ posts, this was the reality I was facing). I was also going through a mini-censorship crisis on FB with my book blog (note: never post more than one link per day to your own blog, no matter what you're celebrating), so I decided to create a book blog on Tumblr as a workaround. After doing that, I decided to create a regular blog that would exclusively be about my adventures in writing. I figured, new platform to rehash/redo my adventures in writing, and add in a few side tangents as well.

Fast forward to now.

This blog is basically a continuation of that Tumblr blog, only on the Blogger platform.

The posting pattern will still be the same, which is once a week on Sundays. The post titles may or may not be the same, which is to say that on Tumblr, they were called "I Are Writer!: insert Saturday date" and the content was a basic summary of my writing adventures for the week.

I would often pop in a picture at the top of the post that 99% of the time had absolutely nothing to do with the post and everything to do as a workaround for posting on FB. Sometimes when posting a Tumblr link to FB, FB wouldn't post a two line snippet preview but instead post the generic description of the Tumblr website.

The innuendo-style intros to the post, an example of which is presented to you at the beginning, may or may not stay. One of the (few) good things about Tumblr is that you could get away with saying almost anything provocative, so one of the ways I was able to show off my skewered/twisted sense of humor was to write a short paragraph intro that featured something about a person's sexuality (whatever that may be, 'cause we are very open-minded about things like that) before going off on a weird tangent introducing myself and taking a veiled pot shot at something stupid that I'd read about during the week.

Now, this blog won't solely concentrate on writing, because that would be a very dull blog indeed. I do plan on peppering each weekly post with at least one non-writing related topic. I say "at least" because there have been times, that you can definitely sympathize with, where life simply got in the way of accomplishing anything in the way of writing. So sometimes, my posts would have very little to do with writing and instead have heavy concentrations of everything else.

Now, to get everyone briefly up to speed with G.B. Miller, the writer.

Between 2016 and 2018 I published two more novels, What Is Life? {a thematic short story collection} and the 1st book {The Friendship Has Begun} of a trilogy entitled "The Friendship Trilogy". The majority of my writing related blog posts from that two+ year time period covered the twists, turns, trials and tribulations that I went, and continue to go through, to bring this book and the trilogy to fruition. Most of my recent blog posts have dealt with the current headache that is book #3 of this trilogy. I've already got book #2 in the can, so to speak, so I'm currently trying to get #3 completed for a 2020 publication date.

So to continue on a theme, the bulk of my writing related posts here will continue to focus on that particular trilogy, but at the same time, I will gently try to reintroduce the background dumps that are intricately connected with this trilogy. That way, you the reader won't be totally in the dark when I start giving status updates on my writing.

In a nutshell, this is where I stand with my writing: book #1 of a trilogy published; book #2 waiting for a fifth round of edits before I give it up to a fantastic freelance editor (more on that in later posts); and book #3 going through a very painful and difficult delivery.

I'll finish up this post by using my typical sign off (again, subject to change): As always, you can check out my Blogger archives (which in this case is simply clicking on the link to Father Nature's Corner to find page tabs to my other blogs), check me out on Facebook, or check out my writings on Amazon or Smashwords (again, if you go to Father Nature's Corner, you'll see links on the side).

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

My Friends, Welcome Back To My Blog!

Boy howdy and howdy to the boys and girls who have decided to grace my blog with their presence, and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past 12 years of blogging is simply a continuing learning curve to be explored and used.

After roughly a two year hiatus {mid 2016 thru 2018} from using the Blogger platform, I have decided to, albeit with some reluctance, come back to the platform where my blogging & writing career had begun. I know an explanation is in order (or perhaps a mea culpa) as to why I'm returning to Blogger, so this particular post is an explanation as to why, as well as the reasoning behind the why (we hope).

Earlier in the week (this would be around 12/3/18 or so), I found out that Tumblr (my previous home) was planning on doing a wholesale purge of their platform of any/all content that was above the rating of PG/PG-13 on 12/17/18. Now considering that Tumblr built itself into a platform of creative artistic expression of all types (yes, I do mean ALL TYPES), for them to take this step is a rather draconian action that is tantamount to killing a mosquito with with a blowtorch. In other words, they now want to make themselves as relevant as MySpace is today.

Suffice to say, a lot of users are very upset over the fact that they have less than two weeks to move/save their content before it's permanently purged from the 'net. This summation is the very short version, as having been a user of that platform for the past few years, I have learned a lot of stuff that I probably would have not learned had I not been a user of the platform.

Because I abhor censorship in all of its purulent forms, having dealt with it both in the cyber world and the real world, this crass decision by Tumblr to purge itself of the people who built it up to the point to where they sold themselves to Yahoo! (yes, that is a death knell, because we know what happened to Yahoo!, right?) forced me to choose between staying on a platform that will no longer be relevant, or going back to a platform that is still somewhat relevant while spending gobs of money to fix all my marketing materials.

By reading this blog, you know what the ultimate decision was.

Additionally, I also made the decision that I will permanently delete myself out of Tumblr, most likely on the Sunday before, 12/16/18. Yes, I do realize that I will lose about two+ years of blog content, but sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures. On the upside, because I discovered the hard way that Tumblr did not have the same kind of mechanisms in place that Blogger has when it comes to writing posts (i.e. saving your post as draft until you're ready to publish it, I pre-wrote all of my blog posts in Word, which I have safely tucked away on my computer. Made my life a lot more easier.

So I thank you from the bottom of my skewered heart for taking the time out your busy day to stop by and read this little post. I would also like to suggest that you stop by later in the week for another informative post that will explain in greater depth what this blog is all about and the like.

{c} 2018 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved