I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 48th: Hiatus

Boy howdy and howdy to the boy who takes no prisoner's and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B Miller, where it's been a little busy on the homestead this month.

As I mentioned at the outset of my previous post, things in my personal life have taken a turn for for the normal, in that the twin themes of annoyance and motivation (or complete lack thereof)  have now come into play,

Annoyance: things at work are starting to blow up big time. Not so much due to the day-to-day trivialities that encompass my work wee, but more due to the state/office politics of the day.

As Sherlock Holmes has often stated, "The game's afoot!" (I'm probably misquoting here), so the working word of the month is "marginalization", and although I would love to elaborate on this, the blowback received so far with me ranting about this on other socialized media says I should be a bit more stealthier about it, so....I shall for the time being.

Motivation: as you can probably tell, with the almost two week gap between posts, the motivation to blog isn't quite there. I've been concentrating on doing the writing thing during my down time these days, and between that, the upcoming holiday and getting child situated for the 2nd half of the 1st semester of college, the call to blog hasn't been there.

To be perfectly frank, I'm not sure if it'll come back with any kind gusto. After about 10 1/2 years doing this blogging thing, I don't think that there's anything else left to blog about. But, I'm hoping that this blogging break will do the trick and motivate me just enough to get into the blogging ritual again, even it it's on a bi-weekly basis.

So my friends, I wish a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I hope to see you again in 2020.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 11th: IWSG

IWSG

Welcome to that time of the month, where the entire writing community, such as it is, comes together to commiserate in a raucous gabfest called the IWSG blog hop.

This particular post for me, kicks of an upcoming month of work-related nonsense that will a} culminate in a brand new roll-out of a seriously expensive payroll system in mid January 2020, and b} require a major reassessment of how I use my limited down time.

With that being said, let's get on with the post, which for a change of pace, will actually use an original writing related prompt instead of the killer optional questions presented in the monthly newsletter.

Some time in early November, I finally got my act together with my writing and began work on one of my partial slushies. I dutifully applied the editing notes and carefully made the point of view jive with the main narrative thrust of the story. Once I got that done, I actually got some original writing down.

Score!

One of the tangible results of jump-starting my writing is that now I'm giving serious thought on where I need to go with this story. I know exactly how I want to end it (this has been the one constant for the past 5 1/2 years with this story), so what I need to do in order to get there from here is starting to be the constant reminder/tickler when I write.

For those of you who haven't probably figured it out, 98% of the time, I'm a pantser when it comes to writing. I only plot stuff out 2% of the time, and that's only when I need a basic bullet point outline to get me back on track in a story. I normally print everything out when I write and stick it inside a three ring binder, and 98% of the time it works quite well as a breathable outline. But there are times when I need a little bit of help to get back on track.

I'll probably write out another bullet point outline sometime in the next month, so at the very least, I'll have a basic idea on what I have for characters (3-4 MC's and very peripherals), overall plot and where that particular plot is heading in a particular chapter.

So consider this to be a three cheers and a Tigger for me, in that I managed to find a tiny little writing groove to use as an oasis from the total chaos that is presently the real world.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 47th: Challenges

Howdy ho-ho-ho-ho! Merry Thanksgiving to one and all, and welcome to another episode of Veterinarian Hospital, where the quacks have gone to the dogs...ummm...Welcome to It's A Man's Life in the Blogland...ummm....ummm....Welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where sometimes he really wonders why.

Today's post is about challenges, specifically, those that you inflict on yourself in the course of writing journey. And how you meet and conquer them.

Using me as an example, I like challenging myself when it comes to writing. Small, medium or large, I have no problem tackling most of my self-inflicted challenges (although the large ones are currently on the back burner, so to speak).

For example, I write adult fiction of the saucy kind. I like it and it fits my writing persona like a glove. Most other types do not, simply because trying to censor myself to fit other genres (i.e. YA) I find particular loathsome. But every so often, I would find myself twiddling with the idea of writing something super clean. A few years ago, I decided to act on that particular idea, and about a month later, I had a very nice clean short story that became the first story that I had traditionally published.

Another way that I like challenging myself is to write in non-traditional (for me) point of views/narratives. I have been told by a few editors that my current trilogy has a good narrative voice that is reminiscent of Douglas Adams, so that's something I can use as inspiration when I return to it.

Non-traditional for me is to not write in a 3rd person point of view, which is what most books are written in these days. I've increasingly finding myself wanting to write my stories in the first person, which is second most challenging way to write a story (first is writing in the 2nd person, which I have attempted. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy). So fare I've had moderate success in doing so (self-pubbed one book that was done in a mixture of 1st and 3rd), but this one (working title Time To Go) will be my very first written entirely in the 1st person point of view.

So far, editing has been a beast. I've had to edit every single page of the story so that everything is in 1st person. I've had extensive passages where I had a jumping of two and from of 1st and 3rd person. Two weeks of applying my editing notes got me up-to-speed, as well as 5 less pages to worry about.

I'm still taking notes as I go along, mostly to reconcile a few inconsistent plot points, but realistically it's gonna be a heavy slog to get this done. I originally started/left off in it back in 2014, so it's been a real adventure on trying to remember the plot points. On the plus side, I actually do know how I want to end it, and what the ending will be. The real adventure will be getting there w/o getting disgusted again.

Adventures in writing: when you really want to shake things up to the point of going so far against the grain that you get splinters just from looking at it.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 46th: The Writing

Hello darkness, my old friend....I'm come to talk to you again. Because a vision softly creeping, left its seed while I was sleeping...

S&G "The Sound of Silence".

We all have a dark side of some particular kind to our writing personality. A majority of the time we keep it very well hidden, only letting it out very briefly when we need to draw some kind of inspiration/bring some clarity to our writing, then afterwards tucking it back in all comfy cozy.

However, there can be that rare occasion where the dark side can reappear and instead of just stopping by for a chat, will make itself comfy cozy in your humble abode and become a short term/long term live-in companion.

Such is the case with my current project, with the working title of "Time To Go".

Some time ago, I watched a few minutes of a movie called "Animal Kingdom". One scene in particular left a lasting impact on me, although I did not know it at the time. Many years later, that particular scene would be inadvertently drawn upon while I was looking around for a new project to work on (with me, looking around would mean either a slushie to work on or something fresh and original).

Anyways, at that particular day in my life I was experiencing some particular kind of short term aggravation. This in turn sent me down the rabbit hold of "writing while angry", which was something that I used to do early on, but slowly kicked it to the curb as I became more controlled about the hate/anger that I needed to inject into my writing.

So down the rabbit hole I went, and after searching my vast memory banks of my past/present, I came up with two rather revolting scenarios that might have a chance of melding together. So after mulling about it for a few minutes, this was the opening line of the novel, which I decided to write from a first person point of view (yes, I know, the majority of the books out there are not written this way, but I like to challenge myself from time to time).

I take a couple of hard sniffs, and after chewing back the rising tide of vomit, I knew it was time to go. You would think that after experiencing twenty-three straight days of pure hell, I would be long used to the smell by now. But I wasn't. In fact, after twenty-three days, my sense of smell was so acute that I could tell whether a mosquito was draining blood from a human or an animal.

Surprising (or disturbingly as I'm want to say), the words simply came pouring out of me at a rather fast clip, and about a month or so later, I had 3 full chapters and a sliver of a 4th totaling 50 pages written. By the time I got to that 50 page point, I decided to cry uncle. Why? Because the further along I got, the more it bothered me to write it.

I don't know about you, but when words are pouring out of you at a decent clip for a story that is increasingly making you squeamish and disgusted at the same time, it's time to end it and put it somewhere where it will make you think thrice about restarting it once you open that three ring binder and read the first page.

So I did.

But, as you can see, some half dozen years later, I returned to it. Deep down, I probably shouldn't have, but sometimes, when it comes to writing projects, you want to take the easier of the two evils, and for me, the easier of the two evils was returning to this book.

Not sure if I'll publish it when it's completed, but right now, I simply need a mental break from my trilogy project, and this project will provide that for me, no matter how revolting it may turn out to be in the long run.

Sometimes, as a writer, you need to excise those demons once a decade, so that you can continue being you doing the you that people love you for.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 45th: Podcasting My Reading

Ever since I bought my first smartie-phone in 2018, I've been exploring the uniquely strange and wonderfully weird world of podcasts.

I've never been that much of an audiophile when it came to non-music entertainment. Sure, I used to listen to unabridged books on tape {yeah, I'm really dating myself here} back in the day, but I've always found it hard to actually sit still and listen to an audio book.

I've always been of the mindset that in order to listen to something {e.g. music or sports event} I have to be doing something that is just interesting enough so that I can pay attention to what I'm listening to, but not so interesting that I tune out what I'm listening to {which is why I don't listen to music while I'm writing}.

As you probably know, I do a lot of walking in my spare time. When I'd first got my smartie-phone, I naturally started listening to music while I did my walks. That quickly changed when I decided that, even though I had an unlimited data plan, I didn't really want to burn up my data willy-nilly {yes, I know that doesn't make sense, but this is how I roll}. So I quickly became enamored with podcasts, since I could download a crap ton at a clip, thus saving my data. Plus, podcasts were the perfect audio item to listen to while I do my walking {among other things}.

The purpose of this brief info dump is that I want to share with you the different types of podcasts that I listen to throughout the weeks, which in turn expands my horizons as a person and to a lesser degree, as a writer. Plus, aren't you just a little bit curious on what makes me me?

So without further ado, here are the 26 podcasts that currently makes me tick.

1} Aria Codes: I'm currently preparing for season two of this interesting podcast. Hosted by folk musician Rhiannon Giddens, this podcasts focuses on a particular aria from a well known opera and dissects it down to its various parts before it plays the entire aria. Yes, I don't like opera much, but this podcast has actually made me look at it in a different light.

2} Mobituaries with Mo Rocca: Season two is underway, and this podcasts covers people who you may remember from long ago or never heard about. Season one featured stories about Vaughan Meader, Audrey Hepburn and Eng & Chang, the Siamese Twins.

3} Business Wars: This podcast covers various wars/fueds between different companies in different industries. Previous subjects featured Facebook vs Snapchat, Harley and the Biker Wars, and Pepsi vs. Coke.

4} Which Game First: If you're into board games of all types, including RPGs (role playing games), then this podcast is for you. They do game reviews, interviews with game designers and so much more. I'm not that heavily into board games, but I find it a very interesting podcast to listen to.

5} Survival: This podcast covers  different well known events featuring people who actually survived the events, like The Donner Party, Great White Shark Attack, and Hurricane Camile.

6} Tides of History: If you're into early medieval, late medieval , as well as history up to the late 16th/early 17th century and everything connected with those time periods, then this podcast is for you.

7} American History Tellers: This podcast covers different events in American History. Previous topics included Tulsa Race Massacre, Civil Rights and Prohibition.

8} Unexplained Mysteries: The title says it all. Previous topics included Bog Bodies, ESP and the Bermuda Triangle.

9) Stuff You Missed in History Class: The title says it all. This one has been the toughest for me stay on top of {other podcasts I listen to two episodes at a clip} as it publishes about 4 times a week.

10) American Elections-Wicked Game: This is a long term limited run podcast series that will end with the 2020 election. It will cover every election, starting with George Washington and will finish with Trump v. Clinton. Pretty interesting so far and a must listen if you're into American Presidential History.

11) Digging Deep, The Robert Plant Podcast: This is basically Robert Plant going through his back catalog and discussing some of the various songs in it. Additionally, he is running a special on his website that ties in with season two.

12) Sports Criminals: The title explains it all. Previous subjects included Pete Rose and Lawrence Taylor.

13) Natural Disasters. The title explains it all. Previous topics include the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami and Mt. Everest Blizzard of 1996.

14) Bizarre Albums: This podcasts covers those odd one-off albums that were released unto an unsuspecting public. Previous subjects included Joe Pesci, Bruce Willis and Terry Bradshaw.

15) Kingpins: This podcast covers all sorts of true crime. Previous topics included Pablo Escobar, Bobby Tuna and the Cali Cartel.

16) Tales: Think the darker version of Grimm's Fairy Tales and this is what this podcast is all about.

17) Serial Killers: The title explains it all. Very dark and somewhat disturbing look at the underbelly of life around the world.

18) Mythology: The title explains it all. Covers myths from around the world.

19) Tyrus and Timpf: A humorous current events podcast hosting by two Fox News personalities (Kat Timpf also does stand-up and writes for the National Review). If your politics swing left, you probably aren't going to like it.

20) Shea Anything: A weekly podcast covering the New York Mets.

21) Parklandia: A podcast about a young married couple living the RV life and traveling/visiting all of the national parks. Currently in between seasons.

22) American Scandal: A podcast that covers all types of well known scandals. Previous topics included BALCO, Enron and Wounded Knee. Currently on hiatus as the host is doing a few other side projects (of which one is a limited run series about Jeffrey Epstein).

23 Spectacular Failures: A podcast that covers all types of well known business failures. Previous topics include U-Haul, Jim and Tammy Faye, and The Donald. In between seasons.

24) The Wild: One of the best nature podcasts I've come across. Currently in between seasons.

25) Dolly Parton's America: A nine part podcast series that covers the larger than life person that is Dolly Parton. I highly recommend this.

26) Finding Fred: If you guess Mr. Rogers, you get a gold star. A ten part series about Fred Rogers, his life and how he has influenced untold gerenaions of kids and adults. Highly recommend as well.

So my friends, I apologize for the length, but this is what makes me tick when comes to the audio word. While some of them may be bit odd, they all have one thing in common: they let me do me.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 10th: IWSG

IWSG

It's another glorious day here in New England! Additionally, it's that time of the month where all of our favorites writers gather 'round for one big rockin' sockin' party! So let us get the festivities rollin', eh?

Today's post will be based on the prompt provided in the monthly newsletter:

What's the strangest thing you've ever googled in researching a story?

I can truthfully say that the only thing that I actually googled for a story was how to properly drive a non-automatic motorcycle. My main character for this particular book drove a motorcycle as her choice of transportation, so it was imperative that I should write intelligently about it.

However, for the same story, I will tell you the strangest thing(s) that I researched which involved talking to my co-workers/friends of the opposite sex.

Cup sizes and breast sizes.

Yes, you read correctly. Because my MC was a mid twenty-something woman who was going through crisis of conscience (so to speak), I wanted to make sure that I was writing an accurate portrayal of said character. Because of business she was immersing herself into, the character had to be realistic as possible.

So....this required asking a friend about breast size. And you can just imagine how that conversation went. Like it was a seriously awkward (at least for me) ten minute phone conversation. But in the end, I got enough of an explanation on how to properly write my character w/o turning her into a caricature for the business she was going into.

Asking questions about cup sizes was just as delicate, since I really knew diddly/squat about the difference between A, B, C, & D sizes (although I know something about DD from back in the day when I would occasionally "read" through....lad magazines). So I had a few co-workers who were kind enough to give me a five minute crash course on cub sizes. Again, awkward as anything, but I got the answers that I needed.

I would not suggest asking questions of this kind to any female co-worker unless 1} it's someone that you absolutely trust not to complain to people above and 2} absolutely no-one is even remotely eavesdropping on your conversation.

And there you have, the strangest (and quite frankly, the most dangerous) thing that I've ever researched for a story.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 44th: Musings

A tall svelte young woman, with luxuriously thick waist length hair, confidently strolls down the dimly lit corridor. Carrying a small clipboard, she darts her eyes to the partially opened doors that populate the wall. As she walks by each door, she imperceptibly tilts her head towards each one, as if to zero in on whatever conversation happens to be going on.

Some thirty seconds later, she stops at door that says Research and Development, and peers in. She quickly scans the room and sees that it's completely devoid of human activity. Satisfied that everything is in order, for she notices the clock on the wall that says, "Staff Meeting", she starts to withdraw so as to continue on her inspection. Just then, she notices a piece of paper, colored electric pink, dangling from the clock.

Intrigued, she walks in and carefully removes the paper from the clock. Opening the paper, she begins to read it. When she's finished, she carefully refolds the paper and puts it back on the clock.

"My own cat is the exact same way," says the lady as she leaves the office to continue with her inspection.

Roughly two minutes later, as she's waiting at the elevator, she starts to make some notes on her clipboard. Seconds later, the elevator chimes its usual chime to announce its arrival. The young lady looks up and sees a piece of electric orange paper dangling in the center of the elevator. She walks in, pushed the button to her floor of choice and grabs the paper. Unfolding it, she begins to read it.

"Ewww, what a disgusting piece of prose," she exclaims.

The second the elevator announces its arrival, she crumples up the piece of paper and tosses out into the hallway. Shuddering for moment,  she quickly makes a right turn out of the elevator and speed walks down the corridor.

Some thirty seconds later, she stops at a door that says Cafe. She opens the door and is immediately met with a piece of electric blue paper. Sighing, she grabs the paper, opens it and begins to read it. When she finishes it, she sighs again and suddenly notices a heaping plate of finger food smothered in soy sauce. Smiling, she read the descriptive tag, and says, "Oh good, they have Asian style fingers for lunch today!"

Have a very enjoyable and frightful Halloween (for those of you who celebrate) this year!

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 43rd: Reading!

Boy howdy and howdy to all boys and girls that still know what a real childhood is all about and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past is no longer the prologue and reality is indeed stranger than fiction.

Reading.

It's something that we all do, either for necessity for enjoyment. For my family, it's often out of necessity (although my wife does subscribe to a mag that features flowers and birds that she actually reads). For me, up until last year it was for enjoyment and pleasure.

Now it's been mostly out of necessity.

This ugly trait/habit can be exactly traced to when I bought a smartphone in 2018. That particular smartphone was bought because I wanted a phone that I could listen to music and sports. Well, in addition to listen to music and sports, I discovered the wonderful world of podcasts.

BAM! My reading of books plummeted from 30 in the 1Q 2018 to 14 in 2Q 2018 to 4 in 3Q 2018 to zero in 4Q 2018. I became so enamored of podcasts (mostly for the various content matter and the fact that they ranged from 20 minutes to 1 hour in length) that I basically gave up reading books*.

On one hand, stopping the book reading resolved a few work related issues that came with dragging either a large book or my Nook (yes, you can shot me now) into work. It also stopped cutting into my writing time.

But on the other hand, I did miss having something concrete to absorb which would allow me to slip into a different world, if only for a little while.

So I'm slowly trying to reintroduce at least a monthly book into my life. I say "monthly", as right now the only free time that I have to utilize for reading is when I'm doing my weekly virus scan on my computer and when I'm doing personal hygiene (you can use your thesaurus for that one). And I'm making such good progress with that, that I'm seriously thinking about cutting into some other free time that I have to start reading then.

So what about you, has your reading been curtailed by other things, whether shiny and new or simply a unforeseen change in circumstances? If so, how have you gotten back to where you want it to be?

*The last book I read in 2018 was a non-fiction book called "Storm Lake", this was in 3Q (July thru September), while the last original book that I've read in 2019 was "Mustard Seeds and Mountains: Battling the Beast Within", a very fine memoir from the late Joy Redmond. 

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 42nd: Yes, I Am A Writer

Boy howdy and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where everyone lives in an alternative universe bereft of the inanities of the present.

In today's post, we broach the subject of writing.

As in, am I a writer? To which I can now safely answer, "Yes I am."

It has been a very long six months or so since I'd put virtual pen to virtual paper (aka typing words on a computer screen). From April through October, other issues cropped up that sort of prevented me from writing (one child getting married, other child going to college, work related issues and finally severe editing issues that I decided to ultimately kick down the road, to name just a few) anything of note.

This particular holiday weekend (October 11th thru the 14th), I finally decided to get my writing groove back on. The story of choice is a slushie that I started writing some five-six years ago. The genre I haven't quite figured out, but the story itself is in the same vein as "American Psycho", so the genre can be assumed from that.

I'll dive more into the story itself in the coming weeks/months, but suffice to say, when I was originally writing it, the plot actually scared me. Not only did the plot scared the crap out of me (a big thank you to Australian cinema), but so did the relative ease of the words that flowed out of my head to my fingers to the computer screen. That was (and still is) the most troubling aspect of this particular story.

Anyways, I decide to get a leg up on things by first tackling the most difficult part of the story, which is changing the name of the female lead. Before I'd put the story away, I had already changed one of the male MC's name from "Toi" to "Tomas" (matches up more closely with the darkness of the story, and it was inspired by this).

The female lead will be a bit more difficult. I'd originally gave her the name of "Trey", but somehow, it really doesn't go with the overall darkness of the story. So, I need to come up with a new name, something that will be better suited for the darkness of the story.

A question for my fellow writers: how difficult is it for you to come up with a suitable name for your character, male or female, after you'd determined that the current name simply isn't working for your story?

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 41st: Pop Culture!

Boy howdy and howdy to one and all and welcome to the wonderfully skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where crap is king and we like dirty laundry.

Recently, I made a comment on an FB page that I happen to follow, called Occupy Democrats Logic (yes, I am a moderate Republican and this page mocks Democrats/Liberals in all of its glorious hypocritical form).

Basically, they shared a post from Twitter that said the following:

Today, I slapped a man and he slapped me back.
People, this guy legit slapped me back.
How dare you slap a woman back?
How dare you?

And I wrote a comment that got about 140+ likes: And you expected what, a Kevin Bacon response, "Thank you ma'am, may I have another?"

Someone responded to my comment by saying that millenials would never understand the pop culture referent. I responded by saying, "Sad, but so very true."

For those of you who didn't get the reference, it was a tweaked quote from the movie "Animal House", where a very young Kevin Bacon is getting paddled in a fraternity hazing ritual.

That got me to thinking about the fact that anyone under the age of 35, for the most part, do not get any pop culture references that hearken back to the previous century. And thus, a topic for a blog post was born.

Case in point: I have a supervisor, who I love dearly, who falls under the category of being south of 35, which means that any pop culture reference from the 20th century she does not get. Anyways, for a while we had a staff member that earned the nickname of a particular movie character from the early 80's. Anyone who met this staff member immediately got the reference. Well, everyone except my co-worker.

Apparently, this was because the movie in question came out when she was but a toddler. So being the thoughtful individual that I am, bought the movie for her as an late Christmas/early B'day present.

But really, my overall point is that having to explain a pop culture reference after saying it can be quite exasperating sometimes (another example is that I had to explain "happy little clouds" to someone). But, as they say, knowledge is power, and a lot of minutia knowledge can make G. B. a very strange bedfellow.

So my question to you, my dear readers, is this: have you ever had to explain a pop culture reference to someone, simply because the reference was from the previous century?

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! IWSG Episode the 9th

IWSG

"What day is it?"
"I don't know, what day is it?"
"Why, it IWSG time!"

Yes, it's that time of the month (Good gravy, not that!) where all writers of all stripes bloviate/pontificate about all things writing relate.

Since originality has gone the way of common sense (see any guv'ment agency that you deal with in any way, shape or form), we shall use the alternate question, which is:

It's been said that the benefits of becoming a writer who does not read is that all your ideas are new and original. Everything you do is an extension of yourself, instead of a mixture of you and another author. On the other hand, how can you expect other people to want your writing, if you don't enjoy reading? What are your thoughts?

Up until last summer, when I discovered podcasts, I was a voracious reader. Both non-fiction and fiction, I read all kinds. Whatever piqued my curiosity, both good and bad. When I decided to get serious about my writing about ten years ago, I started reading with a more critical eye.

I focused on what I liked and what I didn't like about a particular book (intense dislike of anything that smacks of an MFA infected book), and I tried to work those attributes into my writing.

One thing I didn't work into my writing, were any writer's influences. I really didn't focus on one particular writer when I was reading, so no one particular writer influenced my writing. I simply used multiple sources as example when I would write a given story.

The one thing I definitely learned from listening to well over 630 hours worth of podcasts, was to make sure that everything that I wrote was somewhat pithy, concise and to the point. You really have to make your point/tell your story interestingly enough to have repeat customers when you have between 20 and 45 minutes of content to work with on a weekly basis.

I still try to read at least a book a month (about the only thing my current attention span can handle these days) and pull out what I can from that and still absorb what I can while listening to podcasts.

After all, isn't the basic idea of reading/listening is to absorb what you can, when you can, in order to write the best that you can?

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories to Tell!: Episode the 40th: Burnt Toasty Goodness

After roughly forty-five minutes of driving, Nikia felt another rap on her soul. Pulling down her bandanna, she asked, "What?"
'Fork roughly one mile ahead. Please choose which tine you wish to take.'
"Did you just ask me to choose a tine?"
'Problem?' answered the child in an annoyed tone.
"Wasn't sure if I'd heard you correctly and there's no need for you to get annoyed. When I ask a question, it's only to get clarification. Not to bust your chops."
'Bust my chops?'
"Slang for giving you a hard time. Now, I assume what unfolds for my immediate future will depend on the selection I make, correct?"
'Correct.'
"Well then, since my future is entirely up to a proverbial roll of the dice, I shall choose four lefts from center."
'That doesn't sound right.'
"Exactly," said Nikia, who dropped a gear and opened the throttle.
About one minute later, the literal fork in the road appeared. All four roads started parallel to each other, before branching off into different directions and quickly disappearing from view.
"Here's to the fickle finger of fate," yelled Nikia as she veered right and gunned it.

Taken from book #1 of The Friendship Trilogy, The Friendship Has Begun.

I decided to post that particular passage as I think perfectly sums up my current feelings about both my blogging and my writing. I've hit the proverbial salad fork in the road, in which I have no idea on where to go with my blogging and my writing.

I won't say that I'm suffering from the proverbial writer's burnt toasty goodness, but it has been a real struggle trying to put something together from a blogging standpoint as well as finding the motivation to pick up the proverbial pen and paper to string nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives in to coherent sentences and paragraphs.

Granted, all the proverbial major family stresses are now gone: child #1 is happily married, child #2 is happily entrenched at college, and work issues has been smoothed out/resolved (for now). So I should, in theory, be good to go. Right?

But it certainly doesn't feel right. It just feels, meh.

My writing life, as it presently stands, is at that proverbial fork in the road. Which tine do I take to find the satisfaction that I crave/need? I'm not quite sure at the moment. I do know that I have roughly 11 years (5/24.2008 to the present) invested into my blogging, as well as 9 years invested with my writing, and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at or ignore.

It's definitely something to think about in the coming weeks. Gotta see if I can find my mojo again for both aspects of my writing life.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a video that accurately describes my predicament.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 39th

Good Morning to one and all and I sincerely hope that you had a fantastic weekend! As for me, I'm just now recovering from my son's fantastic wedding this past Saturday (9/14). I will be giving further details about it next week, but I did want to make a drive-by post to give everyone a couple of random thoughts.

First up, my 11 year old nephew absolutely killed it on the dance floor. Apparently he's into one of the dancing games for Wii and he's gotten really good at it. To give you an idea on what kind of moves he did, here is a very cool version of Uptown Funk for your viewing pleasure.

They played quite a bit of quirky music, and I'll have to check with my son on what their walk-away song was when they went back up the aisle after being pronounced man and wife, but this one was played as they were waking to their sweetheart table.

This is all I have for you my friends. Have a fantastic Monday and will see you next Sunday with the 411 on my wedding adventures (trust me, they all went extremely well).

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 38th

This week is going to be all kinds of crazy, hence the song from The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Two minutes of certified chaos that is the absolute perfect start of my George Jetson work week (for those of you who are unfamiliar with The Jetsons, George Jetson often complained about working his "horrific" three day work week), so I can absolutely guarantee that I will have incredibly zero tolerance for stupid of any kind this coming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Since I have no real agenda for today's post, I thought I would do a little venting and what not.

1} Election season is upon us and for some of us, we are not overly amused about it. Yesterday (9/7), I received two robo-calls from a mayoral candidate, one in English and one in Espanol. No problem, right? Wrong. The mayoral candidate is for a town that I do not live in. Work in? Absolutely. But not live in whatsover.

For those of you who are thinking about running for a political office (although why anyone would want to cancel themselves out is beyond me), make damn sure that whatever phone list you decide to buy/acquire from your political party contains only numbers from people who actually live in the same town/district that you do.

2} I have come to a decision on what story to work on next once October rolls around, which will be announced then. It most definitely wasn't an easy decision to come to, but I think it was the best one for me.

3} Speaking of work, because of my son's upcoming nuptials this week, for the first time in about two years I will actually be taking time off during the work week. Previously, I would plan my vacations during my off weeks, that way no one would have the horror of covering my payrolls (yes, I have two payrolls that are virtual political minefields). But sometimes, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and you hope that your co-workers can properly pick up the slack.

4} Still speaking of work, because of my son's upcoming nuptials, there may not be a post for September 15th. This is due to the simple fact  that I will be working some Sunday overtime so that I can get some of my payroll done (I have one that I will not trust to anyone else to do). Thus, it's a very good probability that no post will be had. If I do do a post, it will probably something music related.

I think that's about all I gots to vent about this week. If you hear a very faint scream blowing in the wind this week, it's just me pulling out my hair follicles with a pair of tweezers.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! IWSG the 8th

IWSG

One down, one to go, child in college and another getting married in 10 days. So daddy dearest is slowly going nuts from the stress of seeing child now performing the ultimate adulting move.

Which brings us today, for your curiosity must be piqued enough to cure the tofu bacon, tofu sausage and tofu ham (daughter is a veggie). Today is the monthly blog post for the IWSG blog hop, where a plethora of writers suddenly tune into the same wavelength and get down and say how do you do (Mouth and MacNeal will knock your socks off) and blog about all kinds of writer stuff.

We are currently in a quandary with our writing. What quandary, you may ask?

Well, I have no real idea on what I want to work on next. I have three viable options, of which two are taking me to uncharted territory, while the 3rd is a continuation of a story that came from a really dark place in my head.

1} Work on book #2 of the "The Friendship Trilogy". I got this book back from my wonderful editor in mid June, and after reading the 20+ page overview and basically concurring what was written, and it needs a boatload of work (aka partial-to-complete rewrite of every chapter). This is 100% uncharted territory for me and is not something I'm looking forward to doing, but it must be done.

2} Work on book that I had edited in 2017, that was not really ready to be edited (expensive lesson learned), as it needs almost as much work as the previous book (aka partial-to-complete rewrite of the entire story). Whereas the previous editor mentioned did a phenomenal job of detailing what needs to be fixed, this one did not. So I have two pages of an overview that I have to properly interpret.

3} Work on a book that was lasted worked on in 2013. This is the book that came from a very dark place in my head, which was inspired by a particularly troubling scene from an Australian crime movie called Animal Kingdom. I managed to write about 4 complete chapters before I decided to put it away after coming to the conclusion that it was starting to severely creep me out every time I would work on it, which was a lot since the words started coming to me very easily.

So this is my dilemma for October and beyond. Not quite crippling procrastination, but it's pretty darn closer.

What kind of dilemmas are you facing with your writing these days?

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 37th

Boy howdy and howdy to my youngest who is now safe and secure at Qunnipiac University. The picture to the right is from the very first post of my picture blog Pictures for Smarties. Man how time flies and I'm definitely feeling old.

So to comeback that ye olden feeling, we have a recently acquired humor piece. This was given to me from a very good co-worker who is moving on to bigger and better things, and he received it from a very good co-worker who retired two years ago.

So now as keeper of the humor piece, I feel it's my sworn duty to share this piece, entitled Man Laws, with all of you. Enjoy!

MAN LAWS

1} Under no circumstances may two men share an umbrella.

2} If you've known a guy for more than 24 hours, his sister is off limits forever unless you actually marry her.

3} Moaning about the brand of free beer in a buddy's fridge is forbidden.

4} On a road trip, the strongest bladder determines pit stops, not the weakest.

5} Friends don't let friends wear Speedos--ever.

6} Never hesitate to reach for the last beer or the last slice of pizza, but not both; that's just uncouth.

7} If you compliment a guy on his six-pack, you'd better be talking about his choice of beer.

8} Never talk to a man in a bathroom unless absolutely necessary.

9} Never join your girlfriend or wife in discussing a friend of yours.

10} It's okay for a man to cry at the movies only under the following circumstances:

• If a heroic dog dies to say its master.
• If Angelina Jolie starts undressing.
• If you are watching the "The Crying Game."

And as always, you can find my books on Books by G.B. Miller, Amazon or Smashwords, just by clicking on the appropriate picture link.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 36th

Been doing a lot of thinking this month, mostly about my writing. Nothing really earth shattering, but it really speaks volumes to that I'm actually now thinking about my writing, as opposed to running away from it.

But we're not going to be talking about that just yet. Instead, we're going to talk about how I'm trying to be just a shade more social on FB with my friends. Normally I'm the king of being Uncle Social on FB, but with everything that has been going on in my life since the beginning of the summer, I desperately needed to find a small sliver of quiet somewhere so that I could re-calibrate and face the world again.

Granted, doing it on FB is not necessarily the most brilliant option to choose, but it was the only sensible one available. But over the past year, I made some  adjustments to my personal FB algorithms, which in turn has made me a happy camper. So I consider this to be just a simple continuation of those adjustments.

As most of you know, I'm a payroll clerk for a guv'ment agency with the state of Connecticut. And there are times during my work day where I have small chunks of unoccupied moments to actually listen to my radio (and my smart phone as well). I also have small chunks of unoccupied moments where I'm left alone with my thoughts, which in turn allows me to latch on to the music portion of my memory banks. More often than not, I will bring up a personal ear-wormy song that will keep me occupied for the day. You know, singing some bars/lyrics to myself and the like.

And more often than note, I have problems maintaining the memory of that song long enough to get home, search YouTube and post a link on FB. Yes, I know I should write it down, but ya know, we can get easily distracted when we're putting out dumpster fires throughout the day at work.

Anyways, when I do manage to remember the song, I search out the video and post it on FB. More often than not, I get nice compliments and nifty conversations about my choices. Why? Because I'm all over the music genre landscape with my tastes. You name it, I've probably listened to something in it and probably like something in it as well.

One example is jazz.

I actually like jazz, but I'm very particular about the kind of jazz I'll listen to. I don't like the heavy brassy/bold type jazz, nor do I like scat/be-bop. I lean towards smooth, muscular and guitar oriented. The reason why I bring up this particular genre is that the other day, a particular song managed to stick in head and it happened to be in that genre. The song was the theme to the Pink Panther cartoon. Very smooth late 60's jazz and it's one my earliest exposures to the jazz genre. Additionally, if you've watched enough of them, the incidental music is also somewhat jazz oriented.

So I posted the video and got some nice comments and a nifty discussion as well. While I responding to a comment, another interesting tidbit came to light. If you were a big fan of the Pink Panther cartoons, you've probably saw episodes of The Inspector (Clouseau) and The Ant & The Aardvark. The theme and incidental music are jazz oriented as well.

So in general, I like all kinds of music and as of late, FB allows me to share/give an intimate look into what I enjoy listening to with my friends. Growing up in the 70's as well as being the beginning of the MTV generation will set the groundwork for the skewered musical outlook, while adulting will give you exposure to other kinds of music (which is usually accomplished at first by listening to college radio, then moving on to Sirius/XM or Pandora or Spotify) that will shape and accentuate the kind of person that you are.

Have a great week everybody as I will be counting down the days to August 22nd, which is when my lovely and talented daughter Jenelle goes off to college. As Yes would say, "One down, one to go, another town and one more show."

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 35th

It has been already been a somewhat brutal/semi-nostalgic month of August, and as the month progresses, it's only going to get worse.

"But G.B., you're only 11 days into the month. How in the world can you already be thinking like this?"

Very easy, my good reader. Very, very easy.

I have two children: a daughter is about 18 1/2 and a son who is about a month short of being 27. And for the both of them, serious changes are indeed afoot. Before I continue, I should note that I'm already halfway through being an empty nester (well, as empty nester as you can be while sharing a roof with your one surviving parent), and by the end of the month, I'll be a complete empty nester.

I got to the halfway point of being a empty nester when my son moved out to live with his fiancee in the spring of 2018. His fiancee is a very lovely young lady who loves him dearly and his soon-to-be in-laws just love him to pieces (and then some). They've taken their relationship on the slow and steady (like a couple of turtles, so to speak) and will be getting married next month after an almost one year engagement.

This is the first part of the brutality/nostalgia that is August, as the wedding countdown officially began with a very lovely and entertaining Jack & Jill party held this past weekend (that would be August 9, 2019), where I got to meet said future in-laws and extended family. Note, both parents are very outgoing and gregarious and love my son to pieces.

Note: I suffer from a very light case of social anxiety, so for me to attend and stay to the very end is saying quite a bit. But, this is my son who is getting married, thus we do suck it up and assimilate the best we can.

The second part of the brutality/nostalgia that is August will culminate in roughly two weeks when my daughter goes off to college. She has decided to live on campus so as to 1} experience the whole academic life and 2} to save time/money on the two hour round trip commute to school. For those who are curious, she will be cramming a six year master's degree in social work into five very hectic years.

So moving day will be in roughly two weeks, and I'm sure that more than a few tears will be shed in the process. My daughter is a very resourceful girl as she's done all of the leg work required to get into the school of her choice (including hunting down the renewable scholarships that thankfully takes away some of the financial stress/load).

I, as only a loving parent can do, will help her get the student loans required on a as-needed basis throughout the school year (Fall 2019 semester is already paid for with scholarships and two CHET/529 educational accounts. Spring 2020 will be pretty much the same way, with about 25% paid for in advance), as well as finding her a very good job lead for next summer.

And thus is the reasoning why the month of August, and to a lesser degree the first half of September, will wax and wane for me. So while the work drama has effectively subsided, the 100% necessary family events won't subside until late September. Which ultimately means that October will be the earliest I'll be able to tackle my writing.

We leave with one of the most ear-wormy songs from my childhood to start your week with. Enjoy!

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode IWSG the 7th!

IWSG

Howdy do cowboys and cowgirl and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where nothing is as it seems and we're gosh darn proud of it.

For those of you who are simply driving by because your curiosity cured the bacon, sausage and ham, today is the monthly blog post for the IWSG blog hop, where a plethora of writers suddenly tune into the same wavelength and get down and get with it (Shaun Cassidy will knock your socks off) and blog about all kinds of writer stuff.

So.

This has been an absolutely brutal summer for me writing-wise. Writing has taken such a backseat to family obligations (daughter starting her freshman year of college in roughly 3 weeks and son getting married in about a month), that I may have to decloak with a few of my writing groups so as to figure out what I'm supposed do again once these obligations are completed.

But, since this is a writing related blog hop, we must offer up our 64 cents (inflation) to the masses. So I present to you, the topic for discussion: mistakes.

Somewhat big and somewhat costly, there are some mistakes that run parallel to the old adage, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

The costly mistake that I made twice was to send a manuscript off to be edited to a high glossy finish, instead of recruiting a few beta readers to offer up their valued opinion on what should be fixed in the book.  The 1st time, I sent it off to a ex-FB  friend who was a freelance writer to be edited. What I got back was as book that needed a boatload of extra work to make it readable. Chalk up the $350 spent to a very expensive lesson learned that I swore not to repeat.

Fast forward about 6 years or so, and we're finishing a fourth round of edits before sending another manuscript out to be edited to a high glossy finish. However, we ultimately wound up with the same end result: a nicely edited book that needs a ton of work in order to make a good stand-alone story while also being part of a trilogy. Only this time, we dropped twice the amount.

Unlike the first time, the second time was a well delivered and well deserved reality check on what I did wrong in writing this story (trust me, there were a lot of things done wrong by me with this story). So basically, we repeated the expensive mistake made 6 years ago, and got the same end result.

Definition of insanity, eh?

So my friends, think very long and hard before you finally decide to hire a very good professional editor (like I did)  to work on your book, because the last step that you should do is have a few people take a look at it, so that you can do one final round of edits and fix whatever glaring errors there may be.

Because the last thing that you want to do is to fix major holes after the fact that should've been fixed before sending it off to a professional.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 34th

Boy howdy and howdy to the nerdy girl who can kick my butt with little to no exertion and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where nothing is as it seems, and what it seems is highly unlikely to actually fit in the rectangular hole.

My week has improved from last week to the point of feeling like I'm looking at my reflection in the window of my mind and wondering just exactly what the H-E-double toothpicks am I dong here.

To whit:

It was officially confirmed, after hearing it from multiple reliable sources, that my particular department will not be moving next spring.  Instead, our department (Payroll), will be realigned with Fiscal. Thus, instead of contemplating an early retirement and looking for a job in the real world at the age of a double nickel, we will now be contemplating whether or not our digs will move from one floor to another.

Also, the headache that I mentioned last week about picking up another payroll is only a temporary thing, since we are interviewing next week for another payroll clerk, to replace a good one who went back into the private sector to work at a company that specializes in backroom functions for multimedia companies.

Thus, the stress for work has been largely tampered down.

Things with the family are slowing coming around. Daughter will be moving in late August to college, and I will have to confirm the wedding rehearsal sometime next week. Additionally, I got "invited" (read: told I really need to be there or else) to a Jack & Jill thingy next month. Yay me, for I get to meet all kinds of people that I will probably never meet again (much) after the wedding in September. The only blemish this month was the passing of this little guy:

He lived a very long 18(?) years and he had a very good summer to enjoy before he left us. On his very last night he was surrounded by family and gradually drifted off to that big old backyard in the sky so as to play with the previous members of the household: Carbon (poodle); Cinders (shelter dog part boxer, shepherd and beagle) and Bubbles (ferret).

In regards to writing, I haven't yet. Still have way too much stress to touch my book, but I've begun to take some baby steps, in that I've started to re-familiarize with the 45% of book #3 that I've already written. That way, when the time comes (and it will) I'll have a basic grasp of what I need to do.

The main reason why I have so much work to do on book #2 is this: I wrote everything ass-backwards.

Normally, the iron-clad rule of thumb when writing a series (of any kind) is that you write it in proper chronological order. Ya know, book #1 (the beginning), book #2 (the middle) and book #3 (the end). You do not, repeat, do not write book #3 (ending) twice, followed by book #2 (the middle), then book #1 (the beginning).

What you accomplish is this: instead of trying to make book #2 bridge everything from book #1 into book #3, you have a bad bridge to book #3 while making book #1 look like it was written to fit book #2, instead of vice versa, with book #2 written to fit book #1 while bridging/transitioning to book #3.

This, my friends, is the monumental mountain that I need to climb and conquer so that I can continue on with my writing life. I actually do have a self-imposed deadline to start this thing, so come hell or high-water, I will get this thing completed by next year.

I tell ya, it ain't easy being a writer these days, especially when you're trying to work around the other aspects of your life in order to accomplish something.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 33rd

The song up above pretty much not only sums up my week, but my year as well. 

Every once in a great while in the literary world of G.B. Miller, stress in all of its hideous forms comes crashing down all at once. When that happens, it usually makes him quite non-competent in his writing, which usually lasts for an incredibly long time. This is one of those times.

All facets of my life have conspired to make me pretty much non-competent with my current writing project, which is volume #2 of "The Friendship Trilogy". For this particular writer, background distractions need to be very minimal at the very least. I have monster issues that need to be corrected with this book (when you have to fix every chapter, yeah, it's just that bad. some day I will elaborate on this self-inflicted shot in the foot) and unfortunately, every facet of my life has a serious stress issue that has taken precedence.

1} Family. Lets start off with the easy part. Daughter has graduated high school and this weekend we finally had her graduation party. No real stress there, but she is going to a local college here in CT to earn a masters in Social Work. Thus the beginning of stress. The plan is for her to live on campus, so all kinds of stress involved with moving, meal plans, living money, textbooks, etc. More stress is involved when it comes to tuition. Fortunately, the Fall 2019 semester is fully paid for ($34k), so we have about a fourth month gap before we have to worry about the Spring 2020 semester. So, hooray for college stress.

2} Family II. Continuing on a theme, Son is getting marred in mid September (about two months from now), so we have a copious amount of stress involved there. My particulars stress revolves around two things: wedding rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself. The rehearsal dinner is mostly a monetary stress, in that I have to pay for this particularly fascinating endeavor (looking at between $650 and $700}, while the wedding itself will be majorly stressful. Note, the last time I work a tux when about a decade ago when my brother got married. So, hooray for wedding stress.

3} Work. Ah yes, the 1200lb/kg elephant in the room. Where to begin...well, for starters, my employer (the state of CT) is looking to consolidate its backroom functions (i.e HR, Payroll, WC, FMLA) into one antiseptic-morale-crushing location, where you're not allowed to have anything personal adorning your cubicle and you become one with your new agency. A lot of people, including myself, are extremely unhappy about this move. On a personal level, I've started job hunting within, looking for something that will prevent me from transferring out to that other agency. Barring that, I am giving strong consideration to early retirement, of which I will qualify for after my b'day in May 2020, taking a crappy pension and looking for a new job in the real world.

Also, I just picked up another large payroll, so there's a lot of stress involved with that. And this not a completely unexpected move, because a wonderful co-worker of mine is going on a six month maternity leave in roughly two weeks, so her payrolls have to be covered and other job duties will have to be covered. On the upside, I will be losing a payroll once a new clerk gets hired (yup, more stress). So, hooray for work stress.

So all of these absolutely lovely background distractions are the concrete reasons as to why I haven't given thought one to tackling the behemoth that is volume #2. There are a lot issues involved with this novel that have to be fixed, and next week, I will post a very cautionary tale on how writing out of order can create an epic blowback that can take months to recover from

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 32nd

Boy howdy and howdy to the boy who ain't a founding member of your clique but still likes you just the same and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where the past is a prologue to a very confusing future.

Before I get into the swing of things today, I would like to give a very brief writing update as it applies to my 2nd novel.

There isn't any.

While you may be asking yourself, "What?!", the truth of the matter is this: work, in all of its hideous forms, is now the driving force that is sucking up my free time, while college (daughter) and matrimony (son) are dragging up the rear. Sadly, because of the issues at work, which will likely take the rest of the year to resolve (unless by some slim chance a miracle occurs), I have not been able to carve out the desperately needed tranquility-of-the-mind-time so that I can properly fix/edit/save the 2nd novel. I don't know about the rest of you, but I need minimal interference from the outside world in order to write anything beyond a blog post.

With that downer of a paragraph written and out of the way, let's move on to the topic at hand: movies.

I like strange movies. Or, to be more specific, I like movies heavily flavored with religion, either directly or indirectly. I can take clean G-to-PG rated movies that aren't too preachy or condescending, but for the most part, my speed is roughly R-rated. Definitely not into the over-the-top schizoid religious horror movies that seem to be all the rage these days, but more into those who inject the right amount of religious references that make can make a movie both dark and thought provoking.

Let's take the vampire genre for example.

I've moved completely away from the traditional vampire flicks of the past 70+ years and now lean more towards those that take a non-traditional approach. A good example would be the movie "Only Lovers Left Alive", featuring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. This movie goes the very non-traditional route of taking two lovers whose relationship has spanned several centuries and following them to an unlikely conclusion. While the usual tropes (i.e. attacking people for blood bank withdrawals, drinking blood) are featured in the movie, they are presented more as a character trait/minor annoyance than anything else.

So using that film as an example (it's a movie well worth watching), the following movies are what I want to purchase with my next Amazon gift card.

1} Drive Angry. This features Nicholas Cage as an escapee from Hell who is on a mission to rescue his granddaughter from a cult of Satan worshipers.The usual tropes are to be had throughout this underappreciated movie (average rating is 5.4/10 on IMDb),  but I do like the few twists thrown into the mix: a character called The Accountant is dispatched to bring him back. I believe his job is to keep track of the total number of souls that are residing in Hell. He does have one incredibly dry line in which after he steps out of a nasty car crash (to to the disco tune of "That's The Way"), sees two teens doing drugs and says to the first, "I'll see you in three months," and the to the other says, "I'll see you when you're seventy".; also, Nicholas Cage's character is called John Milton, which if you know a smattering of literary history, he wrote the seminal novel "Paradise Lost".

2} Byzantium. This features Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton (two very fine actresses) who play two vamipir-ish women who are perpetually on the run from those who keep the secret of eternal life. It doesn't have the usual tropes, but it is one of the very few horror movies that I don't mind watching. It's a very interesting and unique twist on the vampire genre, with multiple seamless flashbacks to the 19th century. A bit dark but overall a very good story.

So these are my two goals for my 2nd Amazon gift cards. I rarely buy movies to begin with, but I'm more than willing to take the plunge on these, although the 2nd one might be a little tougher to purchase since I don't have Amazon Prime. Will have to give the Prime membership a lot of thought though.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 31st

Girl howdy and howdy to the Yello bear who might be surfin' in the lobby of a nondescript office building and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where crippling thoughts of self-flagellation battle with the free-wheelin' thoughts of "yes I can" to a serious stalemate.

In the first six months of this year, I gained quite a few Amazon gift cards (along with one Visa and one Wendy's) for b'day presents. Father day's presents and wedding anniversary presents. This is directly due to me being a very difficult person to shop for.

So as I'm want to do lately, I start surfing my smart phone, college radio and the news for artists to do that initial dip into their back catalog for. My criteria is exceptionally simple: One song from the artist has to pique my curiosity just enough to take a deeper look at their catalog.

So this is what I did for the 1st Amazon on my hit parade. I remembered three songs that piqued my curiosity, one of which was basically the one and only hit for the band. In no particular order of importance, they are as follows:

1} EMF-Schubert's Dip: I basically bought this c.d. as a replacement for the cassette that I bought some 20 years ago. That one hit was "Unbelievable",which got monster airplay back in the early 90's. it has a semi-earworm quality that usually isn't irritating when you do listen to it.

2} Sturgill Simpson-A Sailor's Guide To Earth. I actually discovered this artist via a college morning radio show on WWUH 91.3 (CT). They played a rather dark version of Nirvana's "In Bloom", and since I'm always a fan of darker/slower versions of popular rock songs, this c.d. became the next on my purchase list. Here is his version of In Bloom.

3} Alabama 3-Exile on Coldharbour Lane. I actually got this one via the news. I had read a story about the founder and lead signer Jake Black passing away at the age of 54 (?). Also read in the same article that their song "Woke Up This Morning" was used as the theme song for The Sopranos, which became a minor hit for them. Wasn't familiar with them until I watched a few YouTube videos, which in turn piqued my curiosity.

Next on my agenda for the 2nd card is to purchase two movies: Drive Angry and Byzantium. But the 3rd one is where I'll be needing help.

I want to purchase three more c.d.'s, so I'm looking for song suggestions from some artists that you like. Only caveat is that they can't be from a current release. Has to be something older so that if it does piques my curiosity, I'll have fun going though their back catalog.

Have a spiffy week my friends!

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode IWSG the 6th

IWSG

Boy howdy and how you all doing these days, and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, who likes to talk the talk, walk the walk and ruin the rune

As ya'll know what day it is, and it certainly ain't Joe Camel day, we'll dispense with the usual intro and move on to the very post in question. Or the nub of my gist.

The topic of conversation today is: procrastination.

Yes, that bane of every writer's existence and the cause of everyone's collective brain cramp.

One case in point is this blog post. I procrastinated in writing this blog post so badly that I literally started writing this thing around 8:15 last night (EST/EDT, I can't keep track any more). Nothing like the fear of being invited to leave to get yourself off your buttocks and get the job done.

Another case in point is getting back to the item that you shelled out serious wampum for someone to edit the living daylights out of, and of which still needs serious work on to make it extraordinarily presentable to the masses.

I got my wonderful little novel back (complete with a solid 10 page chapter summary, a very solid 38 page editorial overview, the edited copy and the super clean final copy) in very early June. Now, I actually didn't look at it for about two weeks, since I had an extreme amount of family stuff (not drama) going on in those two weeks that prevented me from giving it my fully undivided attention. But I did read the editorial overview, just to give myself a basic understanding of what I was looking at.

Then, nothing.

I didn't look at it, didn't think about, didn't even crack open the edited copy on my computer. Why? I don't rightly know. Maybe it was because I had to face the reality of having to major add-ons/clarifications for each and every chapter. I've done this before with the previous book, but that took me about one hour total to work all the suggestions in. This, was something that was (and to a certain degree) way out of my league.

Finally, during the last weekend of June, I made the decision that come the July 4th holiday weekend, I would return to my novel, crack open the edited version, whip out that chapter summary and get to work on making it something truly unique yet a 100% perfect bridge novel for this trilogy.

Procrastination. It's a horrible thing to have and an even more horrible thing to go through. But sometimes, you just gotta give yourself a good swift kick in the ass to get you moving.

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

I Have Stories To Tell! Episode the 30th

Boy howdy and howdy to the girl wearing the oversized flannel shirt and nothing else and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where nothing is as it seems but everything is int its place.

I love to walk, which is unusual since I love to bicycle as well. However, due to my permanently perpetual medical malady, bicycling has been eliminated from exercising repertoire to issues of remaining upright for a consistent period of time. Therefore, walking has been my default choice of exercise for both losing weight and maintaining the status quo with my legs.

You might be wondering why I'm talking about walking. Well, about this time last year, I finally broke down and bought a smartphone. Long story short, it opened up a fascinating world of all kinds of audio for me partake in, in which the audio world of podcasts became my main companion on my daily walks, morning and evening commute and everything else in between.

By late summer 2018, I starting getting curious about the amount of mileage/distance I was walking, so in the last week of September 2018, I downloaded a pedometer/step-counter app. Among the modest goals/achievements I could meet was distance. Ya know, walk "x" amount of miles, accomplish the equivalent of this.

So in the span of about 9 months, I managed to accomplish the following goals:

1} 3 miles, which is the equivalent of a short hike;
2} 6 miles, which is the equivalent of a Roman Holiday (whatever that may be);
3} 12 miles, which is the equivalent of hike up Mt. Olympus;
4} 26 miles, which is the equivalent of a marathon;
5} 60 miles, which is the equivalent of 100 kilometers;
6} 135 miles, which is the equivalent of going to Paris from London.
7) 280 miles, which is the equivalent of going to Philadelphia from Boston.

This is what I've been able to accomplish with 9 months of walking on average 31 1/2 miles per month. Consistency has been the key for me in accomplishing this particular goal. Basically, with the issue was/is being overweight and having severe muscle weakness/neuropathy in my legs, there was an urgent need of my part to do something about it.

I actually have three remaining walking goals left with this particular app, of which two will be achievable. 8} 500 miles; 9}1200 miles, which is the equivalent of the Sahara desert; and 10} 3,950 miles, which is the distance to the Earth's core.

This my friends, is how I relax while I'm out and about on the weekends as well as during my lunch break at work. I walk and listen to podcasts. For those who are wondering if I know how many hours that I've spent listening to podcasts, I do to a certain degree. I switched over to the Stitcher podcast app from the crappy TuneIn radio app on 10/5/2018. Since then, I've logged in 460 hours and 1 minute of listening time.

So yeah, I do love listening to audio equivalent of wandering the library stacks looking for interesting genres to peruse. Don't you?

{c} 2019 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved