Episode #133: Dad Thinks Reading Should Fill The Emptiness Of One's Mind

In a bit of a floral mood these past few weeks, since the bulk of my photos have been procured via pounding the pavement and not the mountain. The heat of late has been absolutely BRUTAL, thus the need to simply pound payment in the early morning when it's cooler and shadier, and either the mall or the upper end of my favorite closed off street in the afternoon.

Back in those bad old pre-pre pandemic days, where only a small percentage of the population, including MSM, was suffering very badly from Trump Derangement Syndrome, I was doing my usual schtick of going full immersion into the tsunami that was my book reading.

In fact, my immersion was so complete that in 2018 I decided to keep a quarterly track of what I was reading in my down time. At this point I was reading both fiction and non-fiction, so I was going to the library about once every two weeks or so. For non-fiction, I was reading whatever struck my fancy at that given moment at the library.

For example, the various books included such "scintillating" topics as: a baseball front office, the t.v. show In Living Colour, a serial killer and a memoir about a ye olden tennis player, among others.

For fiction, it was a completely different animal, as instead of reading stand alone volumes, which was never really my thing then or even now, I decided to jump into reading book series. Specifically, murder mysteries.l

So I dove into three different murder mystery series, of which one I do plan on picking up again this year. My public library only had two partials to work with, much to my disappointment as I made my way through. Partial series #1 was a series called Gil Cunningham Murder Mysteries, all which were set in the late Middle Ages, specifically at the very end of the 15th century. Partial series #2 was called Jack Haldean Murder Mysteries, which took place directly after WWI in the UK.

The only long series that I started and want to pick back up and finish to the almost end, is Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries. I got as far as the letter "R" before giving up on my reading experiment. So I only have 7 more volumes to read through. For those of you who think my addition is wrong, Sue Grafton passed away in 2017, and because she was adamant in not using a ghost writer (like Robert Jordan's estate did for his Wheel of Time series), the series ends at the letter "Y".

Like I hinted at, by the time I got out of the summer of 2018, I was becoming a little burned out with my reading. Which is really nothing new with me as I go through cycles with my reading. I don't really remember how much reading I did for 2019, if at all. Anyways, after reading 30 books in the 1Q of 2018, I dropped down to about half in the 2Q 2018, then dropped down to 1/3 in 3Q 2018. And then, nothing.

I do remember the last book read from the public library was in February 2020, and the topic was the entire Last Crusades, so between then and the 2Q 2022, I only cracked open like three books. One was a non-fiction about a 40 year period in the late Middle Ages, and the other two were a few paranormal romance novellas/novels, which I may return to later this year.

I started back up in earnest this year when my public library finally reopened to the general public, and so far the books in question that I had cracked open were on: Nicholas Cage, Dave Grohl's memoir (highly recommend), The Original Sheik (pro wrestling), Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), lawyer/YouTuber Steve Lehto (true crime), and currently reading the forensic sciences of Agatha Christie. No fiction yet, but I hope to fix that once I stop finding good non-fiction to read.

And now, a short update on the Hot Mess manuscript. I have 16 chapters completely transcribed and totaling almost 62k words, with chapter 17 waiting to be transcribed. Plot-wise, I'm closer to halfway than one-third completed, and fast approaching the first of three plateaus/climaxes, so I'm pretty happy about that. And like normal, I've written everything out pen and paper, which helps me to better concentrate on the story with fewer distractions and even fewer chances to just phone it in.

And thus, having completed yet another blog post on time, our anti-hero exits through the side door, stage right.

 

{c} 2022 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #132: Dad Is Drawing A Blank, But Is A Blank Drawing Him?

Sometimes for me, writing a story is pretty much like the picture to your right: a frustrated parent trying to keep their kiddies under control. Or, in my case, trying to keep all of my brilliant plot points under control and on track.

The other day I wrote for an FB post, this following tidbit:

The beauty of a story expertly planned completely out from beginning to end is ugly upped in a mud bath of peat moss by the reality of actually having to write it.

In other words, going from point A to points B, C, D, etc. etc. etc. should be a linear concept, but sometimes it just ain't.

With my latest story, dubbed the Hot Mess, once I was able to get beyond the point of rewriting the previous 90+ pages and creating 13 chapters out of it, I was able to do two things right off the bat. One, I was able to come up with a very coherent plan of attack for the rest of the story. All the components were at my disposal to use, so creating the next three to four remaining scenes would be a piece of sugar-free cake.

Two, once I had finished the rewrites, I was able to really free myself with my writing. From years of observing writers I respected worked magic with their craft along with the smattering (overall, I'm usually a non-fiction ind of guy) of fiction read, I knew that what I needed to create was some old fashioned meaty goodness to add to my story, and not just some cheap low quality filler for padding purposes.

So, this is where the planned linear points started going slightly askew, like a shopping cart/trolley with a wheel bent just enough to annoy you for the entire time you're doing your shopping. In order to not make my stuff sound like the proverbial Mary Sue/Gary Stu, I needed to add some "oomph" to the mix. You know, realistic quirks/issues that cannot be easily solved, if at all. So we did.

A semi-language barrier here, a possible reappearance under another guise there, maybe a slow poisoning for thrills, chills and spills (note: Google is the wunderkind when it comes to researching random nouns to use in nefarious ways).

Oh but wait, we have a battle scene to write, which is key pivotal point number one in the story. Should I make a tension filled angst ridden battle, complete with a travel to, the arrival, and the withdrawal? Or, should I just muck it about and just cover the entire concept in one chapter?

Oh, but wait, there's more (to paraphrase the late great Billy Mays)!

We still have to write the chase after the tactical withdrawal. But will that run off the rails too? Or will we be namby-pamby about it that too? And then, while Jones didn't come along (pop music lyric from the 50's), but the final confrontation at the end needs to be written. Will we write that completely scattershot with enough twists and turns to make it like you're jumping a crooked river, only to land on the side you've started from?

A multitude of sub-plots that simply were not there originally, but cropped up when we started getting a bit deeper into the story. Finally, the very, very final non-eco friendly straw is this: will this entire story be contained to one novel, or will we split it into two smaller pieces?

Right now, we have 15 chapters totaling 53k+ words written, which is roughly somewhere between one-third and one-half of the book. I was always of the mind that my word cap shouldn't go any higher than 70k words for a novel, but I'm 110% sure I will blow by that word cap, hence the dilemma.

Do I write just one book, or do I write two? I don't know. I just don't know. I really just don't know. While inquiring minds don'r really want to know, except maybe mine, I do have to make a decision about that. Which, if I was a normal person instead of Abie Normal, I would choose to make it now. But as Abie Normal, I will choose at the very end, because like most Abie Normals, I need to have the proper info, aka final word count, at my disposal.

So with all of that being said, I think I'm gonna take a lovely peat moss mud bath to cleanse my palate, and leave you with a challenge for your Monday: how many pop culture snippets can you pick out of this blog post? Depending on your age, you might get a lot, you might get a few, but either way, it'll be a fun way to start your week.

{c} 2022 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #131: Dad Likes Reading, But Doesn't Like Bad Books

As many of you are aware, unlike Mr. Cuddles there, I am a semi-voracious reader. Have been for the better part of five decades, and I've dipped my toes in quite a few genres during that time. So that dipping of the toes, has allowed me to furmulate very solid opinions on what I like and don't like for books/genres.

Some of you may also know that I uniformly detest one entire genre and all of its little offspring, called Literary Fiction. The definition is basically the non T.L.;D.R. version of why I don't like that genre.

Because I so thoroughly detest that genre, as well as its very annoying offspring Literary Non-Fiction, I will not dwell on why I have been unable to finish even one-quarter of a book written in that genre, but suffice to say, I'll leave the dreck to the higher educations schools that demand their students to read it.

Leaving that particular genre and all the associated problems behind will make this a difficult blog post to write, only because that genre has so many things that annoy the you-know-what out of me. But, we shall give it the old collage try. 

One of the main reasons that I will not complete a book, no matter how promising the book jacket reads, is if the story itself is drier than my mother's cooking. If I'm falling asleep, or if my mind wanders to the point I'm reading the same page repeatedly, or I'm skipping large sections to see if there's anything to pique my interest, chances are, that book will be banished to the far side of my public library. Yes, I get the bulk of my reading material these days from the public library, but I do purchase a small amount of books from people that I know will not disappoint me.

A good example of this theory is the book "Battlefield Earth." I was dipping my toes into the sci-fi genre back when was a teen, saw this on the shelf, saw it was a monstrosity for a tome (if you've ever seen the paperback version of "Shogun", then you got the basic idea of the size), so I figured I would give it a shot.

No. Just. No. Made it through two chapters(?) before giving up and biting the bullet. I returned the book and I think my next read was a 10 volume series set in post nuclear America. Anyways, that book was such a snoozer that I vowed then and there to never, ever get anything written by the man. Even if it was on sale, and a lot of his stuff was in the discount book department of our regional outlet store called Ocean State Job Lot, I would not strain my eyes.

Another writer that I absolutely loathe, and in fact turned me off to the fantasy genre for the better part of the decade was Robert Jordan's "Wheel Of Time" series. I gave up after volume 8, when it seemed like there was no end to the series. Each book was 800+ pages, had about 6 different major plot lines going on, and I had to go back to the previous volume to refresh my memory because he would pick up/advance some plots a book or two later. It just annoyed the hell out of me so much that I just gave up. I believe his estate hired another writer to finish the book series, which went 15(?) volumes I think.

I found a lot of fantasy novel series to be like this: they got on and one with no end in sight, and when you somehow do reach the end, you're like, "WTF did I just waste my time on?"

So now that you have a basic idea on what drives me nuts, let me tell you about the one memoir that I read back in 2014 that in my opinion is the worst one ever penned by the person in question.

Neil Patrick Harris, he of "Doogie Howser M.D." and "How I Met Your Mother" wrote a memoir that he published as an "Select Your Adventure" style book. To refresh your memory, this type of book was popular with the tween generation back in the day. Basically, you started reading a story and when you got to a certain point, it gave you two page choices on how you wanted to continue. You select your page, go to the page and continue with the story. Wash. Rinse and Repeat.

Well, he wrote his memoir using that exact same method. I understand he is/was a fascinating person who is also a magician of sorts, so I kind get why he would want to write a book like this. But the print version of his book was just so...inane, loopy, irritating and ultimately, a snooze fest. I mean, the concept probably would've worked if he was writing a fictional novella or something, but not a memoir.

Suffice to say, I never did finish this book. I got so incredibly frustrated trying to read this book that after about an hour or so I gave up and returned the book back to the library the next day. Completely soured me on reading anything else written by him going forward. Which is kind of sad if you think about it. I mean, if you're trying to grow your readership, no matter who you are, do you really want to sabotage it by writing a book that only your hardcore readership would maybe get into?

So overall, while I'm not so picky when it comes to reading books, I do like it when a book does at least two things for me: keeps my interest and doesn't make me want to permanently swear off on a particular author.

So, is there an author that you don't read anymore because of what they wrote/how they wrote it?

{c} 2022 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #130: Dad Is Willing To Elaborate On His Life

Happy 4th of July to everyone and hopefully you're having a fantastic holiday weekend this year just like I am.

Today's topic will be very much on the lighter side than last week's, since this time I will be talking about some newer aspects of my life, which pulls inspiration from a calendar quote for the month of July.

Do More Things That Make You Forget About Your Phone.

Now this has been pretty much a no-brainer for me. Unlike the rest of the world, I had to be kicking and screaming into the modern phone era, specifically a peppy letter from ye carrier of old, Sprint, saying that the first of the new year (2019), your old flipped-phone would become obsolete.

While I ultimately get a new primary phone by the end of 2018, in mid 2018 I got a smartie phone as a secondary play phone. 

Currently, the extent of my usage is comparatively microscopic to everybody else. I simply use my phone for the following: reading news on two apps, sports on two apps, music on two apps (including Chrome) and podcasts on two apps. That's it. No hardcore social media beyond YT as a commenter on the phone, non-existent friend circle, so I'm really not tied to my phone like the average person is.

So really, I do do things that 97% of the time makes me forget about my phone. Obviously, 3% comes in when I do my twice daily M-F, Sun walks/one daily on Sat, and I need to listen to podcasts/music/baseball to keep my brain engaged. It really is the only time that I enjoy multi-tasking. What I listen to sometimes becomes my background noise in that I can tune in and out at will if the topic that I'm listening to is dryer than dirt. Otherwise, as an REM song says, "Your feet are going to be on the ground, your head is there to move you around."

Another thing that makes me forget about my phone is writing. Or blogging. Or reading. Either way, the written word turns me on and helps me disconnect.

As most of you know, I've gotten back on what has been an almost 1 1/2 year non stop writing spree. Part of the reason, at least initially, was to tidy up a previously published book. But by this point last year, I managed to find two previously completed manuscripts that needed a copious amount of re-work to make them viable, of which one needed to be completely gutted and re-written.

Those I managed to finish late 2021, and after moving my den back into my den, organized my slush pile and started working on a half completed manuscript that once again, needed that left turn to Albuquerque in order to make it somewhat viable. Which, by the time you read this post, we'll be executing actual original writing and no re-writing whatsoever.

So if you think about it, it has also made me consider my phone, beyond using it to follow the text version of the various games of the NY Mets, as an afterthought.

So there are a lot of things that I do that make me forget about my phone, which, after giving a lot of thought, I decided that the primary reason as to why I forget about my phone a great deal, is that I'm not firmly and unequivocally, attached to my phone like a bad feeding tube. As I stated earlier, I had to be pulled kicking and screaming into the modern era of technology. I'm still not overly thrilled about it, but like other things in my life that I'm not thrilled about, I've learned to accept and move on to something else.

And that is why I can actually not hyperventilate if I don't use my phone for longer than forty-five seconds.

{c} 2022 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved