Episode #272: When Accuracy Really Matters In The Short Run

Still one of my favorite Mamacita & Son doggo pics.

 I've always been a research fanatic, even back in my young adult years when I used to study reference books and encyclopedias for fun (seriously). That fanaticism carried me well into my working adult years.

That same dogged determination from my work life carried over to my writing life, where I began to research like a fiend for my novels and novellas. Because as you know, nothing screams NEWBIE! when you open a book from a first time novelist and find all kinds of continuity errors/common sense errors/general knowledge errors. All of which stemmed from a lack of basic research into whatever topic that particular story happens to be written about.

Today's post is not about the abnormal amount of research that I've done for my novels and novellas, because I'm pretty sure that you really do not want to hear even a smidgen about. Instead, I'm going to be writing about all of the fun research that I had to do for my latest short story project. 

Note: I actually got motivated to start writing short stories again, as I was 99% caught up my current novella, so I was basically treading water while I was getting my finances back in order (courtesy of USPS and their suddenly slip-shoddy delivery service) and while trying to think of a good hook for my novella.

I believe accuracy is important in whatever story length/genre you happen to be writing in, especially if you're creating short stories. I mean, no matter what the topic of choice is for your short story, you want to sound like you know what you're writing about, because ignorance is not bliss when it comes to writing.

So, in no particular order of importance, I want to highlight what I had to research for the nine completed short stories and the one that I had just started on. Enjoy!

1. Story #1: An original bizarre fantasy/horror story that was written during the early months of mandatory WFH, so no real research was performed beyond my state agency's basic WFH requirements.
2. Story #2: A re-written short story from my early blogging years, no real research was performed beyond digging deep into my memory banks about the area/landmarks in my local neighborhood.
3. Story #3: A re-written short story from my very early writing adventures. Again, no real research was performed beyond recycling a few fictitious business names.
4. Story #4: A re-written fantasy short story that was originally published in my now closed short story blog. Once again, no real research was performed.

I promise, this does get better. It's kind of hard to do research on re-written short stories that do not deviate much from the original premise.

1. Story #5: A re-written short story that was based on a biblical verse. I had to redo some basic research, as each section of the story was based on one sentence from the verse in question. A bit dark, but I think it blends quite nicely with the verse in question.
2. Story #6: A completely re-written short story that used the very bad original as a basic outline for the new and improved version. This is something of a dark fantasy story that featured hybrid humans of maybe the werewolf kind, as well as a tiny bit of religion (including a biblical verse or two), so the research was a little more than what I did for the previous stories.
3. Story #7: A re-written short story that is a black humor fantasy. Research on Aztec religious rites were key elements to the writing of this story.
4. Story #8: A re-written short story that mostly kept the dark theme of the original fantasy. No real research was done for the story beyond a shallow dive in the memory banks for certain concepts.
5. Story #9: An original story that explored, in a very roundabout way, the adult entertainment industry (much like my novel "The Inner Sibling" did). So we had to dig very deep into my memory banks for various articles about what goes into making an adult movie. A few elements from my recently completed five volume fantasy series were featured in this story: telepathy and intraspace transportation. I think the most challenging part of this story was writing the explicit sex scenes PG-13, which if you think about it, is not an easy task to accomplish.
6. Story #10: This will also be a completely re-written short story, with the badly written original serving as a very basic outline. Because of the way the main character was dispatched in the original story (beheading), we decided to take that particular ending and go to town with it. We have researched, so far: Japanese girl names and samurai swords (because the main character is a female samurai). So this story is going to be a blast to write and a blast to research.

I know it doesn't seem like I did a ton of research the second time around with the bulk of the short stories listed, but the second around I did make sure that what I was writing did make sense in the long run. Even though each story is fictional, I still needed to be accurate with my portrayals of the three noun groups of life (person, place, thing), and I think I did a very good job with each of the stories listed.

So my question to you the reader is: do you have fun researching the required information needed for your short stories, or do you perform the absolute bare minimum for your short stories?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #271: When Research Fails To Connect

Random picture from the mountain that makes one yearn for the sanity of Father Nature this Spring.

As most of you know, I enjoy supporting my local public library by shopping at their internal bookstore for gently used books/cd's/dvd's at three times a month.* I find it's an economical way to pump up my respective collections of media.

*my public library has two book fairs for all of the donated media they receive year round and what doesn't sell there, goes into the bookstore. They also cull the collection and sell those items in the store too. All monies raised goes towards various programs that are not covered under their general budget.

For example, my haul for the past month featured music by: Tower of Power; EmmyLou Harris; Jethro Tull; Annie Lenox; G.E. Smith; Barenaked Ladies;18th century popular music; Chevelle and early 19th century folk/ballad music. Books include a bio of a seafaring Victorian lady and a look at the London underworld from pre-medieval days to the present (late 90's/early 2000's).

Today's post is about the creator of the early 19th century folk/ballad music. The official title of the c.d. is "The Battle of Plattsbugh: Music from the war of 1812", and the artist in question was Connecticut native Stan Ransom aka The Connecticut Peddler.

Now as I'm want to do whenever I come across an old (in this case 24 years) c.d. is to see what kind of current info I can find on the artist/musician in question. So I went to his website listed on the back to see what I can see. Found a lot of stuff that was grossly out of date: the website was last updated some 13 years (it had Adobe flash player, so yeah...) ago, a defunct like button to a FB page and the last release listed was maybe in the early 2000's.

So off we went to go a-Googlin', and while we had some initial success by finding a newspaper article from the 2010's about the gentleman in question, any further dive would require spending money on a subscription to a paper that I neither wanted nor had any compunction to read. So off we went a-Googlin', this time for an obit.

Now you may think that searching for an obit is a bit strange, but in the bio link on his apparently defunct website, he was born in 1928, so a good assumption on anyone's part would be that he is no longer residing among the living. Alas, I found some obits, but not for the gentleman in question. In fact, the last thing I found for the gentlemen was a LinkedIn entry from 2020 thanking everyone for their birthday wishes.

Ultimately, this is where we decided to end our research. If I want to search out for any of his remaining c.d.'s, I would probably have to try my luck on Ebay. It's a rare occurrence for me when my research doesn't pan out in any meaningful way. In fact, I think this is the only time I wound up shooting a total cap gun with my research, as every other time I've done similar media research, I've always had a conclusion, good or bad, that I could live with.

I always want to be successful whenever I perform a personal research project, and this one felt like a complete failure to launch for me. 

So my question to you, my drive-by reader, is this: have you ever done a research project, personal or otherwise, that became a complete total bust/total zero when all was said and done?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #270: Censorship 2.025

This pic, while holiday themed, accurately describes my state of being right now. The implied caption will, we hope, become apparent by the end of this blog post.

Today's socialized media makes it very tough to be a centrist kind of person, as being a centrist often makes people assume that your personal beliefs are toxic. This viewpoint is often badly magnified when the cyberspace that you dabble in often espouses beliefs that you have serious issues with.

As the majority of you undoubtedly know, I keep my personal views tightly concealed from those that I do not know. Because of this, I often have to censor what I say in certain public forums, like socialized media. That's a fact of my life.

Digital self-censorship is often a triple edged sword for me. I've been blogging for over 16 years, and at first, I had no problem voicing my opinion on numerous hot button topics and I was of the mindset of, "no one is forcing you to read me, so you can leave if you want to."

But now, in 2025, I don't have the readership that I used to {blogging really isn't the be all to end all anymore}, and since I post my blog links on one of the other two socialized media platforms I partake in with regularity, I now have to be very careful on what I opine on in my blog because someone could take hysterical hostile offense on my viewpoint, which would be detrimental to my digital well being.

That doesn't mean that I will not opine on issues that I care about, but I keep those opinions strictly to commercial oriented forums {e.g. news, pop culture and sports} where I can get into (mostly) sane debates about topics. It also doesn't mean that I will simply ignore what other people might have an overly strong opinion about. I have, very recently, culled/lessened my interaction with certain individuals because their opinions about certain things have...drifted, for lack of a better word.

As I stated previously, nobody is forcing me to read/listen to anything that anyone else says that I disagree with. I simply ignore and continue with my day. Especially at my age {60} where I have more than average understanding of the world around me.

Now I'm pretty sure at this point, you're wondering why I'm talking about self-censorship yet again. In order for you, dear reader, to have a better understanding of this post and the picture up above, a short info dump is required. I live in one of six deep turquoise blue states that make up New England. In fact, my home state of Connecticut is battling with Massachusetts on who should become California 2.0.

With all what you know about Blue States, your educated guess about what topic I might want to opine about would be true. If I was to write about a certain topic, one definite outcome and two probable outcomes are likely.

1} I would not be able to post the blog link to my local writer's group, as I'm the direct cause of a rule change instituted in 2021. Thus, those random eyes would not be able to easily visit my blog post.

2} I'm trying to build some interactions with my author's page on FB. Posting it there might generate some unwarranted backlash because, to be fair, those who write tend to lean 180 degrees left on social issues, and aren't that open minded about opposing viewpoints. At all.

3} My own personal page, while centrist by nature, tends to stay in my very narrow bicycle lane and only ramble on topics that slices of life and/or topics I have personal working knowledge of {e.g. public sector employment/unions}. If I were to post a link to a hot-button blog post, I could very well get some unwanted static, and I really don't need that in my life anymore.

Ultimately, this is why you're getting a post about self-censorship instead of the topic I most dearly want to write about. Like I stated in an earlier post, sometimes we have to do things that we personally do not like, in order to keep and incrementally build on what we currently have.

And with that being said, please enjoy this best of SpongeBob's "I'm Ready!" manifesto.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #269: Random Writer-esque Musings

Spring is in the air, even in places where you didn't think anything could grow beyond wood chips, branches and leftover tree remnants.

How to write a swerve for a blog post: 1} start writing on a subject that you're extremely passionate about; 2} complete three complex paragraphs, including a disclaimer, before going off to run some errands; 3} realize that you've touched upon that topic a couple of months ago AND that in order to put a new twist on the topic you would have to go up to and straddle that line between keeping and blowing up your social circle; so 4} you need to come up with something that straddles the road between acceptance and offensiveness.

Which brings us to this particular post, which we hope will side-straddle that bridle path quite nicely. 

I recently put an upcoming novella on the back burner while I get my finances straightened out (thanks USPS for doing such a bang up job with delivering my mail :/s). The odd thing about this novella compared to the one that I had released last year, was that creating the title, the long blurb, the short blurb and a basic outline for a cover, took me an accumulative total of ninety minutes to complete.

So with an excessive amount of time on my hands, I started working on another short story collection. To date I have eight full stories written. The main challenge for me was not coming up with an original story to write (anyone can do that), but taking a story that had a born on date somewhere in the painful growing years my writing life and reworking it using the vastly improved skill set of 2025 to make it palatable to the masses. Not an easy exercise.

As we began work on story #9 that had a born on date going back to the mid 2000's (yes, I started writing during GWB II), my mind started wandering around to what I had already published and what I could do with them*. After studying the small piles of books that I had, I zeroed in on my two very short short story collections and my failed attempt at writing a series. 

*I should note that in mid-March I received an e-mail from Amazon about marketing my books and I was, and still am, giving it some serious thought. Hence the renewed focus of my published books.

The failed attempt at writing a series was easily solvable: unpublishing. I may get back to it someday, but I think at this point I've lost the basic plot of the entire series, and I just don't have the motivation to find it and continue (I do have a completed second volume that needs a ton of re-editing and a partially completed third).

The two short story collections, however, have presented me with another problem, but one with a potential solution. The main problem with the collections is that some of the added bonus stories/information contained within I'm no longer happy with, so the solution I came up with is to combine the two current e-books into one book carrying seven stories and tidy it up til it shines. Now I do want to keep the old print versions available, but I'm not sure if the Amazon overlords will allow it. I did post the question to the KDP Community forum, so I'm just waiting for it to be approved by the mods so that the community can offer me some sound advice. I should note that I have no problem in creating a new print version, but if I can avoid spending money unnecessarily, more power to me.

However, I am hedging my bets just the same, since with certain businesses (like a respectable self-publishing platform) I have a tendency to be overly-polite to the point of being a toady. So even if I get the answer I'm looking for, I may still start over from the beginning just to ease my conscience. It's funny, or ironic, that the amount of passiveness we display towards a digital company is often tied to how deeply we're enmeshed with that particular digital company (e.g. Apple & Google).

So this is where we stand with our writing: 1} came back to writing short stories like a man returning to a partner who has him wrapped around their dainty little finger with a silver bow; 2} decided to spruce up a couple of books by re-editing and re-releasing; 3} unpublishing a book that really should've never been published in the first place; and 4} getting all of my drakes bowing down to the ones who wear the pants so that I can drop a little under $500 to publish my novella.

I leave you with this very worthwhile link to the eternally optimistic Bob of Sponge whose Pants are Squared, to start off your Monday.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved