tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44692559168537308362024-03-28T23:30:14.188-04:00I Have Stories!The wickedly offbeat journey of a skewered indie writer, who at times will create a mountain of mirth out of a myriad of topics.G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.comBlogger235125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-66237392341602972212024-03-25T10:52:00.001-04:002024-03-25T10:52:00.252-04:00Episode #215: Writing Is Diagonal When You Want Linear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFL4xqLfJwIQVHqbGSxeifI1bECD8PLUmZBLaa9IiIu0q6Ta7h_SzkYMhoLTXRuffwe59dyH7m-YTh6Du4GghMog4Uj56ai-N2LreZUNELHChaei5qZo3gDwJfAAdRlpHrDDo1UFujJnIt8LcpIpVL2I5-zHJTD8mqRlIOVjlqYXLDc2mS6CYh182dkAI/s4000/IMG_20240225_105736988.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFL4xqLfJwIQVHqbGSxeifI1bECD8PLUmZBLaa9IiIu0q6Ta7h_SzkYMhoLTXRuffwe59dyH7m-YTh6Du4GghMog4Uj56ai-N2LreZUNELHChaei5qZo3gDwJfAAdRlpHrDDo1UFujJnIt8LcpIpVL2I5-zHJTD8mqRlIOVjlqYXLDc2mS6CYh182dkAI/s320/IMG_20240225_105736988.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Caught a squirrel eating al dente during a moderately warm morning walk. Them acorns and brown grass blades are certainly good eats indeed.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">I are, once again, back in the blogging saddle. Took a month and a half blogging hiatus to catch up on my writing before switching gears to release this <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/03/episode-214a-mortality-of-familial-love.html" target="_blank">new novella</a> of mine. I should clarify that it wasn't so much as a hiatus, as it was creating a series of posts from one particular seed of an idea, which led to the hiatus.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So, during my blogging hiatus I experienced a few writing related annoyances that I would like to share with ya'll. Some ya'll may find amusing, others not so much. But all were things that I have experienced just so that you don't have to. In no particular order of importance, they are as follows:</p><p style="text-align: left;">1} <b><span style="color: #ffa400;">US Copyright Office</span></b>: Since I was coming out with a new published work (novella), it would make sense for me to go through the laborious prospect of recovering my account on that website, which I had last logged into back in 2021. After coming to a standstill by locking myself out trying to reset my password, I contacted their IT support, who surprisingly enough got back to me in one-tenth of the way through the maximum ten day deadline.</p><p style="text-align: left;">One of the petty annoyances that they reminded me of was that in order to get the most out of the website, a Win PC was "required", along with either Firefox or Edge for a browser. No other OS or browser would give you the "best experience ever". The other was their version of a password meme: sixteen characters, minimum; at least three UPPER and three lower case; at least three numbers; at least two special characters; you can't use the previous eleven passwords; and you must change every 30-60 days. Oh and, you can't use words that contain all three of the same letter (e.g. eerie). </p><p style="text-align: left;">I had a ton o' fun performing that task. Reminded of the non-user friendly websites that my home state currently maintain.</p><p style="text-align: left;">2} <b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Being forced to spend more money than I really wanted to on a cover</span></b>: Okay, this sounds whiny, but hear me out. I actually wanted to bring out my upcoming novella in early January '24, and to achieve that goal, I contacted my go-to book designer to get the ball rolling in late November '23. Long story short, she basically went AWOL for what I'm guessing to be, three and a half months. From mid-November '23 to about late Jan/early Feb '24, she basically ghosted her own website. No reason was given for her disappearance, as far as I was able to tell. She did manage to update it to a degree, but lost me as a customer.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So this thrown lug wrench forced me to solicit writer friends in my FB writer's group for suggestions. Fortunately for me, I received some excellent recommendations and selected one that was the most economically viable for me: <a href="https://100covers.com/" target="_blank">100 Covers/Book Cover Design</a>. I say economically viable, in that they offered three different price points based on what you need, plus ways to add more later, also based on what you need later as opposed to now.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Now even though I am thoroughly happy with my current graphic designer, I am annoyed that I was ghosted by my previous designer. I mean, the very least that she could do would've been to change her auto-reply to something that stated something along the line of going on hiatus and a short explanation for said hiatus. If she had done that, I could've saved myself about two months worth of aggravation, not only with the cover, but with everything else associated with the process.</p><p style="text-align: left;">3} <b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Finish up book #3 of my four part series</span></b>: When is a final chapter not a final chapter? Well, to quote the Fire Marshall Bill character from MadTV, "Let me show you something!" </p><p style="text-align: left;">I spent the better part of three weeks of actually writing a four page synopsis of what characters I have and what plot points are associated with them, along with possible scenarios of how the book is going to end and who will be moving forward, among other things; then we switched gears and performed one final edit of all five binders (added another 10% in notes); then we spent that final week of mentally plotting out how to write that final chapter.</p><p style="text-align: left;">And as the old saying goes, the meticulously crafted outline consumed itself with a side of fava beans and a fine Chianti to wash it down.</p><p style="text-align: left;">By the time I finished writing the required lead up to the battle, I was struck smart by the revelation that I needed to add a "final" final chapter, because there was no way I was going to write a 40 +/- page chapter to finish out this book.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So......yah. Writing a final chapter is just as easy as putting your hand inside the garbage can to throw something away...and missing the garbage can. 😖</p><p style="text-align: left;">Have a Happy Monday, and remember, if you need to have a good laugh, just think about all the bad grammar being tossed around by people who aren't smarter than a fifth grader, but are 4 times older than a 5th grader.</p><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-58665342983590757352024-03-18T10:09:00.095-04:002024-03-19T11:51:45.953-04:00Episode #214{a}: The Mortality of Familial Love Is Now Live...Mostly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnPaf7jZtyxLULDdqcRpda_VXB1Fbqow9Yr0md4kqdC6Vn9d0C4_UkDKolDzIYRYCN5b8zqVaJrYbQ3ASK8fTuIN76h2jbnLBlCXKP_iv12Ps8ZpvhC4nRYCLljvPfapKPSURIVH0X2Rn18Hs7WyKUVxyd4OZ37ziYqaCaxhmZwMWS_9x6N34yR-w2A0/s2560/Final%20eBook.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnPaf7jZtyxLULDdqcRpda_VXB1Fbqow9Yr0md4kqdC6Vn9d0C4_UkDKolDzIYRYCN5b8zqVaJrYbQ3ASK8fTuIN76h2jbnLBlCXKP_iv12Ps8ZpvhC4nRYCLljvPfapKPSURIVH0X2Rn18Hs7WyKUVxyd4OZ37ziYqaCaxhmZwMWS_9x6N34yR-w2A0/s320/Final%20eBook.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-6a807f21-7fff-ac20-ea12-f1f395b2be5d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Soul collecting is both a dangerous and lucrative business, and no one knows better than the netherworld’s premier soul collector, Dmitri. Creating enemies is part of the job, but when a simple favor for a friend turns out to be a set-up, Dmitri finds himself in the crosshairs of a contract hit. Tangled in a web of sex, lies and violence, the collector must do whatever it takes to survive.</span></b></span></p><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Survival is a brutal game, but Dmitri is playing for his life in this fast paced dark fantasy.</span></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></p></blockquote><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: EB Garamond, serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">My latest novella, <i><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Mortality Of Familial Love</span></i>, is now available as an e-book from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXW6WCZJ" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1535779" target="_blank">Smashwords</a> for the very reasonable price of $2.59. Get your copy today!</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: EB Garamond, serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: EB Garamond, serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Details on the print version TBA at a later date (possibly the day of this post as I've submitted it for publication the day prior to this post), but will be available at Amazon and Books By G.B. Miller</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: EB Garamond, serif;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "EB Garamond", serif; text-indent: 36pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But seriously though, my latest book was well over ten years in the making, going through at least one editor, a multitude of changes as we grew/matured into an slightly above average writer, and finally, a title that was at least four months in the making as well. I am very proud of this novella and I hope you feel the same way about it as I do.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></p></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-81216140291758121822024-03-11T09:58:00.090-04:002024-03-11T09:58:00.138-04:00Episode #214: The Waiting Is Always The Hardest Part<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uMyCa35_mOg" width="320" youtube-src-id="uMyCa35_mOg"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;">So today's post, as suggested by ye olden music video of a song that originally came out when I was still in high school, is about waiting. Specifically, waiting to publish my upcoming novella, <i><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Mortality Of Familial Love</span></b></i>. Last week, while I was going through the very informative {no sarcasm here} KDP process of publishing my book, I encountered a small....snag. A snag that KDP/Amazon politely pointed out to me.</p><p style="text-align: left;">In a very professional way, they stated that I had six spelling errors that needed to be fixed before I could continue with the process. Two were words that I had made up/heard elsewhere while the other was a non-capitalized version of the word, so those were easily fixable by me choosing the "ignore" option.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The others I had to contact my lovely formatter, <a href="https://www.gopublished.com/" target="_blank">Go Published</a>, and asked if they could correct the errors that somehow slipped by me at least six times {seriously, I used spell check that many times}. She said that it wouldn't be a problem, sent me the correction form, told me how much it would cost, which in this case it fell under under 5 errors {thus no out of pocket cost for me} and afterwards, told me that I should have all of the corrected files some time next {this} week.</p><p style="text-align: left;">So, here we stand, patiently waiting for my manuscripts to be fixed so I can continue with my uploading. In the meantime, I started working on the final chapter of book #3 of my <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i> series, and I'm happy to say that as of the day of this post, I have finished book #3, and even written a very short bullet point of what characters aren't going forward.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Also, I would like to mention that KDP/Amazon is now asking authors who use their platform how much, if any, AI was involved with the creation of your book. It looks like they're simply tracking, but considering they're now limiting people to uploading three books per day (or per week, I'm not exactly sure), perhaps this is part of that crackdown as well.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Oh and, for those who also use Smashwords as a platform, they started migrating everyone to Draft2Digital. They're moving all of the easy ones and leaving the complicated ones, like myself, for later.</p><p style="text-align: left;">A very happy Monday to all and I hope to have good news by this time next week.</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-86798456420961174982024-03-04T09:52:00.000-05:002024-03-04T09:52:00.133-05:00Episode #213: We Chillin' With Our Communication<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvR_ncw7HCx_He2FrYxONna9bMldM5zTtPGEqPBGJB_M-Hj5CW0aVjV-Con_a_crcqvoQsWtfdE5MWhCvVt1sYkhFlkyGUwCdOIDM6CqVNlcHaUautbmrrCBnMFKdiKzJme9iAfohQL9NznvbLaLHrFPmrX91HrzReN5HFNDHhnQmglEhWK55fN0MZVic/s4000/IMG_20240121_205932823_HDR.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvR_ncw7HCx_He2FrYxONna9bMldM5zTtPGEqPBGJB_M-Hj5CW0aVjV-Con_a_crcqvoQsWtfdE5MWhCvVt1sYkhFlkyGUwCdOIDM6CqVNlcHaUautbmrrCBnMFKdiKzJme9iAfohQL9NznvbLaLHrFPmrX91HrzReN5HFNDHhnQmglEhWK55fN0MZVic/s320/IMG_20240121_205932823_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>An art piece that my lovely daughter created for my brother as a late Christmas present. I do not recall what type of material was used, but it took her many months to finish.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Going back, once again, to my four volume series colloquially titled <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i>, for this particular topic. In addition to creating unusual characters (mostly) based in the real world, I used all kinds of communication methods for the series as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most obvious was the plethora of languages, both real and imaginary, that were used throughout the story. </div><div><br /></div><div>First and foremost, I applied the advice that a good editor friend, as well as examples used in various historical fiction novels, which was to state early on in a given conversation/scene/chapter what the actually language being used was. So at various points we had the following real (verbal) languages in use: <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">English</span></b>; <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Spanish</span></b>; <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Portuguese</span></b>; <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greek</span></b> (modern & ancient); <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Quechua</span></b> (Incan); <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Nahuatl</span></b> (Aztec) and just teeny-tiny bit of <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Biblical</span></b> (e.g. thou, hast, etc) and <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Medieval/Renaissance English</span></b>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also added in, because I believe in fantasy, the sky's the limit when it comes to communication, we also used the following real non-verbals, with great gusto and realism: <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Sign</span></b> and <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Morse</span></b> code. And we also used the following non-real types: <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Telepathy</span></b> and <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Pod Planet</span></b>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the first paragraph is mostly self-explanatory, in that a person who spent, at the very least, centuries roaming the Big Blue Marble, would pick up the ability to communicate in a variety of languages, with varying degrees of efficiency. The second paragraph is where we'll have some fun explaining my thought process.</div><div><br /></div><div>With <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Sign</span></b>, this choice was a no-brainer, simply because I had created nine humanoids who had no real communication skills beyond telepathy, a very basic concept of grammar and no vocal cords, so I wanted them to use a language that could be considered a universal language. I originally used the moniker ASL until I found that there's another predominant version called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language" target="_blank">BSL</a>, thus the general moniker of "sign language" was employed. The one twist that I had decided to add, was to make it universal across different human species. That way, if telepathy wasn't available, various human species still had a rudimentary common language to use.</div><div><br /></div><div>I chose <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Morse</span></b> code simply because I love niche/obscure methods of communication, and what is more niche than Morse code? For at least a hundred years or so, it was the predominant mode of non-direct communication between people in the real world. In my series, I made it obsolete when I decided to treat telepathy as a real language that anyone could use, including animals. But I also made it a universal language that anyone or anything could use in a pinch, especially those who needed to keep their communications on the down low.</div><div><br /></div><div>I turned <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Telepathy</span></b> into basically a normal every day language that anyone or anything with a functioning brain cell could use reasonably well. So in my series, I have humans, sentient beings and animals using it with a very high degree of efficiency, and I gave humans the ability to put blocks in, so as to keep certain private convos private.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the last, <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Pod Planet</span></b>, this was a bit tricky to implement. I wanted to give the denizens of the planet an official language that everyone was required to have a working knowledge of (speaking and listening), even if they don't use it, but I also wanted it to be the kind of language that people generally loath when they hear it or use it. So with that being said, the language itself consists of clicks, whistles and grunts. Which I believe, is just about the ugliest combination of sounds you can put together and call it a "language".</div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, I really do enjoy employing different styles of communication in this particular series. It gives it a lot of real world flavor that would otherwise be missing if I kept everyone to speaking just American English. </div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-39441944663708738372024-02-29T09:47:00.085-05:002024-02-29T09:47:00.148-05:00Episode #212: Housecleaning!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTT_6G-ARHd7vHYmgjUu_K7fuETgVyGUnhrcJyvKk0_VTeQk9llSLPBbmNMusdiTnGfx1K6rYLGaZhTMoqK3Sx_EUJTZkMP_i8oCVZrWkSbryDGtlUo4ez9hFiXK5gcTxEXHYVQhMu6WGTYlhpXRq4tCfIMOoXpf6bBZF8reu0-JVF9iL2I5TEoQmvco/s1272/youtube_profile.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1272" data-original-width="1272" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTT_6G-ARHd7vHYmgjUu_K7fuETgVyGUnhrcJyvKk0_VTeQk9llSLPBbmNMusdiTnGfx1K6rYLGaZhTMoqK3Sx_EUJTZkMP_i8oCVZrWkSbryDGtlUo4ez9hFiXK5gcTxEXHYVQhMu6WGTYlhpXRq4tCfIMOoXpf6bBZF8reu0-JVF9iL2I5TEoQmvco/s320/youtube_profile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>My late cat Holly, who was truly one of a kind, and has a place of honor in being my avatar for all things Google (blog, computer, YouTube, and Google Accounts for my Motorola smartie-phone).</b></span><div><br /></div><div>And I bet you're wondering good old G.B. is posting twice in one week, and on Leap Day to boot. Well, as the title of this post blithely states, I have performed a bit of housecleaning.</div><div><br /></div><div>Specifically, <a href="https://booksbygbmjrofct.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">my book blog</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I have a new book coming out this spring, it would make sense to some much needed updating to the book blog, which hasn't been touched since 2021.</div><div><br /></div><div>In short, we created new pages for most of the books that I have out, along with one simple blog post to greet all visitors. As things slowly progress with my writing, more pages will be added. </div><div><br /></div><div>So please let me know what you think about the new and improved book blog/store. I did keep the same blog theme, so the only changes made were: the nuking of all previous posts (aka reverting to draft) and the addition/subtraction of pages.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-76454122240930846712024-02-26T09:45:00.030-05:002024-02-26T09:45:00.131-05:00Episode #211: How We Got Here From There {6th}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihm8MApVLPUgvyIOwNbfKPyR0EfIOZPxBTGf-lkIXUA0G0GvQgj4R6ihyFB_uFQDU4M9phIA83RwkXEwV7u5wCsefQ6jtZ6i5rven2lql9Y0h7Z5oegR2DhSsCA_HdLm_zC4WO59pQtxXRmvus4tlxzPKmJwPzDU-tBAZ6TGsVKtpxeXinH1D9S25RaO4/s1600/14_14A.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihm8MApVLPUgvyIOwNbfKPyR0EfIOZPxBTGf-lkIXUA0G0GvQgj4R6ihyFB_uFQDU4M9phIA83RwkXEwV7u5wCsefQ6jtZ6i5rven2lql9Y0h7Z5oegR2DhSsCA_HdLm_zC4WO59pQtxXRmvus4tlxzPKmJwPzDU-tBAZ6TGsVKtpxeXinH1D9S25RaO4/s320/14_14A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>You would think that a town that preaches/teaches all of the properly "progressive" ideas about life would still have something like this hanging around the local elementary school. You would be incorrect in that assumption. It's now just a patch of....something...surrounded by a white picket fence.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Please find part the <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-206-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">1st here</a>, who is desperately trying to fend off the attacks of <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-207-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the 2nd</a> and his <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-208-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">loyal peon the 3rd</a>, who is dragging <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/02/episode-209-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the rebel 4th</a> kicking and screaming, while <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/02/episode-210-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the 5th</a> is mocking his cowardice.</div><div>~~~~~~</div><div>And now, I present to you the final post in this limited edition series. Enjoy.</div><div>~~~~~~</div><div>This particular letter "G", has been a bit trickier to deal with. On one hand, it kind of makes it nice to have one appear from time to time in my stories, but on the other hand, having one appear from time to time begs the question of how to tastefully and realistically write the character. Personally, I've been annoyed about the stereotypes that seem to populate most media these days, so I decided that if/when I would venture into the realm of that particular letter, I would do it realistically.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have a male character called Silencioso, who one could call in the traditional sense of the word <i>bisexual</i>: likes both men and women. However, I decided to throw a few intriguing twists into the mix, in that I wanted to apply both modern and historical angles into the mix.</div><div><br /></div><div>For starters, I decided not to make my character a traditional bisexual in the sense of the word, where he would decided which way to flow based on a variety of factors (yes, I am being general here, as I have not done any kind of delicate research into the mind of someone who is bisexual). Instead, I made it so that it would happen organically and it would be something that he would have no control over. His mind would decide that they wanted to go a particular way for a while, and they would drag him along for the ride.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for both modern and historical aspects, it was, for me, a no-brainer. I wrote our Silencioso as a young man who worked in the palace livery stable, was in his mid-twenties, toned but not buff, like a typical stable hand. However, because the Pod Planet exists in a cultural and historical mish-mosh: modern tech yet has late medieval/early renaissance cultural mores, we've also hinted that he was very discrete with his encounters with the ruling class, which in turn made him a natural choice for this assignment. Because if you know anything about world history, discretion for anything out of the norm, no matter what class of people, was highly valued.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now for my remaining female MCs, as it applies for this segment. One I haven't done much yet with, beyond having her be hetero, telepathic and the ability to create other beings such as animals. And maybe connect with the spirit world, but I haven't really decided on that yet. But for her daughter (yes, please enjoy this almighty swerve), I have made her to be quite the interesting individual.</div><div><br /></div><div>For starters, I turned her into a genetically modified denizen of the Pod Planet, although that wasn't the original plan for her. About a dozen years ago, back when I had originally written this story, I gave my character a particular trait that was so far out of the realm of normalcy then (and now if applied in the way that is stated in the book) that I actually had second thoughts about continuing this extremely odd trait. In fact, I actually wrote a blog post about it to solicit my reader's opinion about it. Most had no problem.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fast forward to now. Like I stated earlier, I made my character <b>Nyx</b>, a genetically modified denizen of the Pod Planet. The reason is pretty simple, in that our Ms Nyx is quite the buxom lady, and long story short, a decision was made to turn her into a feeder for the masses. I am quite confident that you can pretty much figure out what this very non-sexual trait is (I am being 100% legit serious here).</div><div><br /></div><div>That is pretty much the entire back story I'm willing to put out here in this blog post for this particular character. I would also like to mention that she is the aforementioned host of the sentient siblings mentioned in an earlier blog post and that she also has a lover/slave under her nominal control as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe we have gone as far as I can comfortably go, exploring the complexities of what I decided to have for female characters, at least in this particular series. My male characters will always be the same mixture of toxic masculinity and Walter Mitty, with the occasional deviation whenever a particular scene/plot/story calls for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>😎</div><div><br /></div><div>I sincerely thank you for sticking around to the very end of this series exploring my world viewpoint and how it shapes my writing. So I sincerely wish you a Manic Monday, my Tuesday's Gone With The Wind, have a lovely conversation with Wednesday while pursuing a Throwback Thursday during a viewing of the original Freaky Friday.*</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-small;">*we have a song from the 90's, a song from the 70's, a beloved cartoon/t.v character, a meme that everyone can enjoy and a Disney classic.</span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #ffd966; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-57139263813116820662024-02-19T09:08:00.001-05:002024-02-19T09:08:00.132-05:00Episode #210: How We Got Here From There {5th}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9Z8aJjRn0U5O7WVNNPRoyzVDhhJCHkqS3l5QQFOtoS1WFfOPh3qoJp7btrrloH2K0tsugwMuioZNZ1zZQ4njTCuZCX55E0w7ZPrVrZPpddQp8A-8h_5ROZEsCdS27Et7jgm62pSdRCDCoSZ83zjHvzp2xDkbXYMXCh66GBI8Lq3bhfFUK-pzwCCT78o/s4000/IMG_20231228_185128815.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB9Z8aJjRn0U5O7WVNNPRoyzVDhhJCHkqS3l5QQFOtoS1WFfOPh3qoJp7btrrloH2K0tsugwMuioZNZ1zZQ4njTCuZCX55E0w7ZPrVrZPpddQp8A-8h_5ROZEsCdS27Et7jgm62pSdRCDCoSZ83zjHvzp2xDkbXYMXCh66GBI8Lq3bhfFUK-pzwCCT78o/s320/IMG_20231228_185128815.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>This photo was actually taken on December 28, 2023. Four aisles down on an endcap was/is a display for St. Patrick's Day. Feel free to either facepalm yourself to your knees or scrape the bottom of your jaw off the floor with a spatula. You're welcome.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Part the <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-206-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">1st is here</a>, waiting for <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-207-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the 2nd</a>, <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-208-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the 3rd</a> and <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/02/episode-209-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">the 4th</a>.</div><div>~~~~~</div><div>While for the most part, I have diligently worked on showing the (mostly) tolerant side of homosexuality, I still needed to have a balanced and more nuanced perspective showing how cruel the world can be to the gay community. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Adeola</b>, who is Jhon's ex-wife, is even more of a complex character than Myla. So let's get that T.L.;D.R. out of the way. Adeola is a lesbian with almost zero (physical) interest in men. Was forced to marry and divorce Jhon and yet still pines for him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously, there is a cargo ship more to unpack here, and I will do my best to move beyond the preceding 24 word T.L.;D.R.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I've mentioned elsewhere, I do like creating ruthless corporate entities out of historically corrupt entities, e.g. Hell and Purgatory, or in this particular case, the Aztec Empire. For the purpose of this story, I have turned the Aztec Empire into a criminal corporation on the scale of a well oiled drug cartel, in that they have their fingers in all kinds of illegalities. And yes, I have brought along their more unsavory practices into the mix.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, just like with most criminal organizations, the Aztecs have the strange standards when it comes to certain things, like homosexuality.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Note: I know that this isn't historically accurate. It's called "artistic license".</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>With the Aztecs, I have made their legal system based on the old nineties policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". In a nutshell, there were certain military rules and regulations on the books regarding homosexual behaviors, but so long as you didn't tell them, they didn't ask about it nor did they prosecute. But if someone does tell, they are legally bound to investigate. For an added bonus, I made it so that the person making the accusation suffered the exact same punishment as the guilty party.</div><div><br /></div><div>Enter our mercurial heroine Adeola.</div><div><br /></div><div>I decided from the beginning to make Adeola a truly unique individual, which was directly inspired by the original version of this story. So, I made Adeola a solidly strong lesbian. Now I know you're saying to yourself, "Whaaaaaaaat?", but there is a method to my madness.</div><div><br /></div><div>To begin at the end, with the end being Adeola summoned out of her ex-husband's collar. Why was she there to begin with?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, here is how it unfolds, which is based on info that comes out in dribs and drabs throughout the series. As I'd mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, I created a judicial system that has an official "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. If you know anything about US history from the mid-90's, the military had a policy of not inquiring about a soldier's sexuality, nor did they expect you to tell them (please see the preceding paragraph for a longer explanation, then Google the above phrase for an in-depth explanation).</div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike the real world policy, this fantasy version would investigate if someone made a complaint. Someone did and Adeola was convicted for being a lesbian. Her two-part sentence was carried out, think Middle East/Inquisition style punishment for the first part, with the second part being an arranged marriage to Jhon.</div><div><br /></div><div>Another concept I decided to introduce was that the Aztecs don't believe in divorce, only forced annulments performed by the judicial system. This was done to her because Jhon fulfilled his onerous contract with the Aztecs, but she was able to negotiate a parole, in which she would still be able to keep in contact with Jhon, thus taking up residence in his dog collar.</div><div><br /></div><div>I should also mention that in addition to being on parole, she's still deeply in love with her ex-husband, even though their marriage was more like a friends w/o the benefits of them being husband and wife.</div><div><br /></div><div>So this is where we stand with Adeola: a woman who acknowledges her sexuality, but because she has chosen to play by the rules she truly abhors and has done so with grace, has been allowed a greater degree of freedom within that society that probably would not be allowed to someone else in a similar situation. A woman who still cares deeply for her ex-husband, but is also willing to tentatively and discreetly accept feelers of all kinds from the women that she is involved with within this rescue mission.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Exit ramp #6: So far we have covered the letter "B" and the letter "L". Now it's time to cover the letter "G".</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Doing the bossa nova back to the highway.</b></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Tune in next Monday some time in the early a.m. for the 6th and final post in this nifty little series. Here's to you having a Blue Plate Special Monday, a Taco Tuesday, followed by a Wayback Burger Wednesday, Tortellini Thursday and a Fried Plantain Friday.* </div><div><br /></div><div>😎</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-small;"><b>*note: local radio station in the 80's had a program called "Blue Plate Special", not sure what kind of music was played; we all know Taco Tuesday; Wayback Burger is a regional chain located mostly in New England and the East Coast; I like different kinds of pasta; and my daughter turned me onto plantain chips.<br /></b></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #ffd966; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-12006021408943535782024-02-12T10:39:00.060-05:002024-02-12T10:39:00.144-05:00Episode #209{a}: The Mortality Of Familial Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQ4bH1w6q8Gq9TXjxBpX2y25vjhd6DOad-nFZliNVwGmUgIGLUZ67QhR7NiS5nvscRYfigm5QWty163VJrZwYjTTOi-_jY4Yx_l-x4ifMAG7Fdp0GMGnmWO4xAlGRtt0GazbXBhs-NAqZjdn_C4AaA59r4iQTo2sWN7RHbd7oqjfP2W9ZYYb3RqlygGI/s2560/Final%20eBook.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQ4bH1w6q8Gq9TXjxBpX2y25vjhd6DOad-nFZliNVwGmUgIGLUZ67QhR7NiS5nvscRYfigm5QWty163VJrZwYjTTOi-_jY4Yx_l-x4ifMAG7Fdp0GMGnmWO4xAlGRtt0GazbXBhs-NAqZjdn_C4AaA59r4iQTo2sWN7RHbd7oqjfP2W9ZYYb3RqlygGI/w200-h320/Final%20eBook.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Slowly the pieces of the puzzle have been properly assimilated. After 8+ years of work, from inception through multiple re-writes (like over a dozen), I now can show you the cover, which was expertly designed by <a href="https://100covers.com/" target="_blank">100 Covers/Book Cover Design</a>, to this long gestated novella. I just sent this cover off to my formatter of choice, so I am looking to do a March 2024 release.<div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"><b>Blurbs</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Revenge is a brutal game, but Dmitri is playing for keeps.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Soul collecting is both a dangerous and lucrative business, and no one knows better than the netherworld’s premier soul collector, Dmitri. Creating enemies is part of the job, but when a simple favor for a friend turns out to be a set-up, Dmitri finds himself in the crosshairs of a contract hit. Tangled in a web of sex, lies and violence, the collector must do whatever it takes to survive.</span></div><div><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Survival is a brutal game, but Dmitri is playing for his life in this fast paced dark fantasy.</span></div></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thank you to one and all for hopping onto the freight train that is my writing, and I sincerely hope that this book will be the fast paced/adventure story that will leave you craving for more.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-7808203624803196872024-02-05T10:48:00.136-05:002024-02-05T10:48:00.139-05:00Episode #209: How We Got Here From There {4th}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59fXQw8BlVyCrxmAuJWbTKIuBvkhLrKRVY17suS1N5zhUU-Rgz6tS3PJuXyLg_0QgIpg-sbg4SwPdrkBEv6CTZXoEXUwgg4Q93RrnQTtlSvWrjZE8kXlpPq_hYqM-XhGy39yNb2oLMPRy5XisNUHalZZNC4oFMVGeVHxlc6htQenVDciGEmNk37nVhNQ/s4000/IMG_20231117_145623779.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59fXQw8BlVyCrxmAuJWbTKIuBvkhLrKRVY17suS1N5zhUU-Rgz6tS3PJuXyLg_0QgIpg-sbg4SwPdrkBEv6CTZXoEXUwgg4Q93RrnQTtlSvWrjZE8kXlpPq_hYqM-XhGy39yNb2oLMPRy5XisNUHalZZNC4oFMVGeVHxlc6htQenVDciGEmNk37nVhNQ/s320/IMG_20231117_145623779.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Your tax dollars hard at work feeding the elite.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Find part the <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-206-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">1st here</a>, part the 2nd to the <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-207-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">right of here </a>and part the 3rd to the <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-208-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">left of here</a>.</div><div>~~~~~</div><div></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Exit ramp #4: I really decided to up the ante and complexity with my other queen, Myla, by applying everything that I was able to wring from my observations of the real world and other various audio and verbal actions.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Thugging my way back to the highway.</span></b></div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div>So with another one of MCs, <b>Myla Ventura</b> (strangely enough she and her husband are the only ones with last names), we decided to infuse her with all kinds of personality traits and character flaws. The main reason she was made a "Queen" is a bit convoluted, but the T.L.;D.R. version is that she's a sister to the Pod Queen. Now while I did create her to be a smokin' hot beauty, she is very much the physically flawed smokin' hot beauty, with serious physical and psychological wounds.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even though she is married, it's very much a complicated marriage, but while she does her husband wholeheartedly, there's quite the volatility to their marriage (think Walter Mitty except that his daydreams comes to life), as she found out that's not his first wife but his second. Obviously she was angry at first, but after hearing the (almost) complete story as to why, she became more accepting.</div><div><br /></div><div>As time marches on, to use ye olden cliche, her friendship with wife #1 <b>Adeola</b>, deepens and gradually moves beyond the realm of besties into something possibly more fulfilling on a personal and spiritual level. there's now a higher level of intimacy with her words, her gestures and her feelings. While it's not quite reciprocated by Adeola, due to some legitimate concerns about family, it has moved on to that level of a pseudo-sibling relationship.</div><div><br /></div><div>Myla does have an inkling that Adeola might care about her in the same way, but is very careful and very discreet about moving their relationship into a deeper co-existence, because she too is very concerned about familial ramifications.</div><div><br /></div><div>Things do come to a head for her during one of her dream adventures, where she wakes up to find herself au natural, with two others "keeping her company", so to speak. After a bit of discussion with her minders, she surprisingly finds herself on trial for being a bisexual woman. She defends herself very well about the various accusations made, handles the delicate subject about coming out with aplomb, and has the charges ultimately dismissed. She then gradually comes back to the present, none the worse for wear, and continues on her incrementally slow process of exploring the other side of her life with her bestie Adeola and others.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Exit ramp #5: I decided early on to bring in some real world realities while exploring this sensitive topic. Things like one country's laws are not applicable in another country's, or in this case, planet's realm. For example, for the sake of open-mindedness, I made being homosexual completely legal and acceptable on Earth, while on another planet or even within a small private entity on Earth, may state otherwise (I'll elaborate on this point later).</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Tip-toeing my way back onto the highway.</b></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div>😎</div><div><br /></div><div>Tune in next Monday for part the 5th of our series. I do hope you like Happy Mondays, listened to 'til Tuesday, rocked to Wednesday 13, slammed to Thursday and grooved to Fridayy.*</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">*every single day of the week is an actual music artist</span></span></b></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #ffd966; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-4583354428729917452024-01-29T09:32:00.241-05:002024-01-29T09:32:00.133-05:00Episode #208: How We Got Here From There {3rd}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-NebXpGmQsB8F5ldl7gdaKJIrg113ec9xNSlvMzRywdrX6J7bsF7ArS0nZfCk5GyKZ9XbKpSarWx4BAJbXpd6anAOcYMHM7N7e68R5a9ndMAZv2bNZOdb5KUYwRSp0ZozJHUPC8EBrFNRKW3CvCO7hlFmykas7HOlGpDMPrAWPPwwDyq1GBqsoMf90w/s4000/IMG_20231202_100136525_HDR.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-NebXpGmQsB8F5ldl7gdaKJIrg113ec9xNSlvMzRywdrX6J7bsF7ArS0nZfCk5GyKZ9XbKpSarWx4BAJbXpd6anAOcYMHM7N7e68R5a9ndMAZv2bNZOdb5KUYwRSp0ZozJHUPC8EBrFNRKW3CvCO7hlFmykas7HOlGpDMPrAWPPwwDyq1GBqsoMf90w/s320/IMG_20231202_100136525_HDR.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Sadly, the Michelin Man's younger brother Frosty disappeared before the Christmas season ended. No puddles to be found, but perhaps he was taken away by the wind, for he was lighter than air.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Part the 1st can be <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-206-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">found here</a>, while part the 2nd can be not <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-207-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">lost here.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>And I apologize for the length of this upcoming post, as I got a little carried away with this particular part of my creative process.</div><div>~~~~~~</div><div>I have a lot of different relationships at play in my current project and each has their own separate complexities that are involved.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let's start with siblings. I did start out with three sets of siblings, but somehow along the way, one set of siblings, sisters, got changed to cousins. Of the two remaining, one pair are sisters, with the other being brother and sister, and each has their own unique set of characteristics.</div><div><br /></div><div>The brother and sister pair are sentient beings with a host (as I mentioned in the story, this is what happens when you make decisions while being highly intoxicated). They have that special connection that siblings often have, and they are analytical as well. And like their host, are one hundred percent hetero.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the other set of siblings, while on the surface it seems to be very straight forward as it applies to that special sibling connection, everything else is heavily implied. While one of the sisters is hetero, she is very understanding and accepting of her sister, who is not. This is very heavily implied early on, based on the emotions and physicality that the sister shows to her artist friend until at one point it comes plainly stated by virtue of the actions performed by her sister.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the cousins, I haven't written them in a way that implies one way or the other. This is directly due to them not really becoming a force of any kind until very late in book #3 of the series. Presently I have them acting like bff's who have to depend on each other in order to live their lives to the best of their ability.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moving on to three of the six remaining female MCs. These three have hair spirit/sentient beings, which each having a specially unique relationship with their host. Let's start with the character with the least amount of baggage with her hair spirit: she goes by the name <b><i>Melissa</i></b>, while her hair spirit goes by the name Emilia.</div><div><br /></div><div>Emilia came to Melissa via judicial decree and has a week in which to convince Melissa to accept her wholeheartedly. Emilia is very much a newbie with her interactions with Melissa and is also very much an orphan, as per her background. So subsequent interactions with Melissa are more on the level of mentor to student than anything else.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Macha</i></b> the Pod Queen is a complex case. Even though she's the actual catalyst for this entire series, she is quite the multi-faceted individual, with conflicting morals based on her job duties and privileged upbringing.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Exit ramp #3: Even though it has been determined from the very beginning that she is hetero, her relationship with hair spirit was one that I was able to explore more in depth with some degree of intimacy.</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Muscling my way back onto the highway.</b></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Like I stated in an earlier blog post, Macha is the latest in a long line of rulers in a strictly matriarchal hierarchy, albeit one that still has men calling some of the shots as members of the ruling class. As I also stated earlier, Macha often has to weaponize her natural attributes to the best of her ability (which is required by law) in order to get what she wants and needs for herself and her people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now her hair spirit is a sentient being that goes by the name of Eleanor, and she has quite the special relationship with their host. This is because Eleanor is actually the half-sister to Macha, and she became her hair spirit in a most peculiar and heartbreaking way. </div><div><br /></div><div>Early on Eleanor knew that Macha was destined for a life of privilege and power, even if Macha herself did realize it. So in their late teens an incident occurred in which Eleanor was forced to throw herself the proverbial bus in order to protect her half-sister. Eternally grateful, she made her half-sister a permanent part of her life.</div><div><br /></div><div>So they remained sisters in all aspects of her life, which allowed them a deeper familial intimacy and tolerance that is rarely shown to the outside world. Comforting words and phrases that one would use with a partner. Very intimate gestures with intense displays of affection and tenderness. All of which are hallmarks of a warm sibling relationship, but in her case goes both ways, in that Eleanor has unfettered access to her sister's most personal memories, thus allowing her to return the gesture with a deeper level of familiarity and affection.</div><div><br /></div><div>😎</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, barring any pleasant surprises that might nudge this train to a temporary detour, tune in next week on this same day for part the 4th. Have a Fantastick Monday, a Tony! Toni! Tone'! Tuesday, with an R.J. Reynolds Wednesday, Thundercat Thursday and Felix the Cat Friday following close behind.*</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-small;"><b>*For those of you who are too young to remember, in successive order we have: a musical play/movie, a music group, a tobacco company, a mid 80's cartoon and a classic cartoon strip/cartoon short.</b></span><br /><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-67889129286326546582024-01-22T09:09:00.190-05:002024-01-22T09:09:00.134-05:00Episode #207: How We Got Here From There {2nd}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3pAbqh2LVPxFT-2vIex1f0xCn40CIsQxEu7i4db799RhRu28J-XfKP4AHC-R3_MPgKvg0-wr-mjO_MtPlVfCcLz8uJSrVexzAL883nVc6by_A9iJKBPOxRygqs9ASFQVWnGBKl0bTTv4j41kQ5DgotkibkKCjp_VaSdtgfD_bdqueSjx0wVYzA3QQAgA/s2048/July4th_14.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3pAbqh2LVPxFT-2vIex1f0xCn40CIsQxEu7i4db799RhRu28J-XfKP4AHC-R3_MPgKvg0-wr-mjO_MtPlVfCcLz8uJSrVexzAL883nVc6by_A9iJKBPOxRygqs9ASFQVWnGBKl0bTTv4j41kQ5DgotkibkKCjp_VaSdtgfD_bdqueSjx0wVYzA3QQAgA/s320/July4th_14.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alas this flower is no more either. Bereft of life, it has joined the avian choir invisible. This is an ex-flower now residing in an herbal tea bag.</span></b><div><br /></div><div>You can find part the 1st <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2024/01/episode-206-how-we-got-here-from-there.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div>~~~~~~</div><div><div>I started putting the process in motion when I had started writing, or rather, rewriting a few short stories. Nothing really hardcore, but did apply what I had learned previously and started trying to really flesh out one of the characters, with a concerted effort made towards female MC's as opposed to male MC's.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Exit ramp #1: Way early on, like at the very very beginning of my writing journey, I had developed strict guidelines for myself on how I should write both sexes. I would like to note that I have judiciously deviated from these rules from time to time, but overall I have stayed true to those guidelines.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Guideline #1: Males are to be written with both toxic masculinity traits as well as Walter Mitty-esque traits. </span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Guideline #2: Females should be written always as strong independent woman (i.e. girl boss) with just a hint of vulnerability.</span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;">Reentering the highway.</span></b></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Now what I mean by a concerted effort to make my female MC's more fully fleshed out is a bit convoluted, but I will try to explain the best I can.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've always admired strong independent women, no matter the ethnicity, which for me translated to having better platonic work relationships with women, as opposed to men. So this has basically bled quite heavily into my stories, creating composite characters based on real world observations, etc. Because of this, I have been more comfortable in fleshing out my female characters.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Exit ramp #2: Way later in my writing life, I came to appreciate and understand certain aspects of the real world, so I decided to incorporate them into my storylines. You are forewarned.</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><b>Reentering the highway once again.</b></span></div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>Now that comfort level of writing female MC's has spilled over into the way I write about relationships. Not so much M&F, which can be complex if the situation calls for it, but very much when it came to F&F, no matter where the pairing might be on the relationship spectrum.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now truth be told is that over the preceding years, I have become quite accepting of what is common place behaviors or PDA among all segments of society (I'm 58 1/2, so it's taking me a bit of time to tweak my views), and because of this I have started to make a concentrated effort to work all of these emotional and physical complexities into my stories. While I have written some characters to have either lesbian or bisexual tendencies in my stories and novellas (one of my novellas has a gay secondary character that is featured throughout the story), it has become completely fleshed out in the four part series that I am currently working on.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now that's not to say that every single character in the story leans that way, either blatantly or subtly. On the contrary, I used very normal and very intimate gestures and words to lend some ambiguity to the story, which also depends heavily on where and what the situation may be.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can comfortably state with confidence that a little suggestive ambiguity can go a very long way towards implying how a certain scene should be interpreted. It has taken me quite a bit of time to learn how to show more by writing less. For years I thought sledgehammering to get a point across was the way to go. Turns out that using a hammer that is more suited for decorative or detailed work will often get the point across in ways that sledgehammering won't.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I can use intimate gestures and words to get my point across about a particular character in ways that sledgehammering could never accomplish. And if I take those same words and enhance them with judiciously dropped background info, it can show these characters in a brand new light.</div><div><br /></div><div>😎</div><div><br /></div><div>Barring any pleasant surprises that may force a minor change in posting, you can tune in next Monday for part the 3rd of my series. Have a Spaceman Spiff Monday, a Transmogrification Tuesday, Dromedary Hump Wednesday, Turbo Tax Thursday and mourn the fact that TGIF has closed almost three dozen under-performing restaurants this month nationwide.*</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-small;"><b>*For those of you who might not get certain pop culture references, in successive order we have: A Calvin & Hobbes subplot x2, a type of camel, a tax software program and a restaurant chain that has taken the first step towards a possible chapter 11 bankruptcy.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-10277608740556355582024-01-15T10:21:00.233-05:002024-01-15T10:21:00.146-05:00Episode #206: How We Got Here From There {1st}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8rohSXt3Mzps6uXB893cHeS7pRNPLDE1Vx1qtiplin6AB2tc06XfdIGvp1KGJrrEQsVgeSO0r2l5Y1qEQPnblcxULKtjSG35-UQ7iM4O_zWYY6WkOyYMq71_gnI5qzkJ3bfDlJKKA_WtQG3R6PO6krGP7I2h9p5XoUDqN9BVFnADT23HSPxej_a8znUI/s1600/July%204th%20Weekend_2%20028.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8rohSXt3Mzps6uXB893cHeS7pRNPLDE1Vx1qtiplin6AB2tc06XfdIGvp1KGJrrEQsVgeSO0r2l5Y1qEQPnblcxULKtjSG35-UQ7iM4O_zWYY6WkOyYMq71_gnI5qzkJ3bfDlJKKA_WtQG3R6PO6krGP7I2h9p5XoUDqN9BVFnADT23HSPxej_a8znUI/s320/July%204th%20Weekend_2%20028.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">To reminisce of days gone by. Sadly, this particular bucolic scene no longer exists, as the flowers were turned over when the pond was filled in, while the statue was moved over to a side garden to stare out to the mountain.</span></b><div><br /></div><div>Note: This post kicks off a series that specifically focuses on the deceptively complex question of, "Why do you write your male and female characters the way you do?"</div><div><br /></div><div>I was originally inspired by one upcoming event that will split off into two intertwined pathways, which in turn brought me face-to-face with the fact that to give this event my complete attention, I needed to make sure that the blog would be set for posts until mid February. The event in question, is of course, publishing my novella, with the two intertwined pathways being the cover and formatting the manuscript. After all, when you're dropping quality cash for a quality product, you best be paying attention to all aspects thereof.</div><div><br /></div><div>So with that being said, onwards and upwards. One other thing I must mention, is that this series does delve rather deeply into issues that may be offensive to the eyes of some people. Reader discretion is strongly advised.</div><div>~~~~~~~</div><div>From time to time, I would often wonder how I had arrived at this particular junction in my writing life. I mean, back in the day, back when I still had remnants of hair follicles growing out of my scalp, when I had made the conscious decision to start writing, I always thought that my genre of choice would be romance, or something along those lines.</div><div><br /></div><div>I mean, how difficult could it be, right? I mean, have two people meet up, have a series of misadventures, throw some intimacy in, some conflict, mix it all up and viola! A romance novel.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #674ea7;">BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It took me about a year to reach that conclusion and about five more to extricate myself from that mindset. However, during that extrication process, I did try other kinds of themes/genres, in a genuine attempt at finding one that I felt very comfortable writing in.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As I searched, I obviously grew as a writer. I gradually figured out what I could and could not write if I wanted to stay within my own personal boundaries (strangely, one was writing a G-rated story). But we preserved and eventually found a consistent level of sorts on what direction I wanted to go and what kinds of themes I wanted to explore. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I eventually got the hang of writing sex and violence that contained varying degrees of explicitness for each type, taking great care and finesse in not going "Hustler" on the former and gratuitously disgusting on the latter unless it was very germane to the plot/scene.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the former, the only time we reached "Hustler" territory was with my one and only traditionally published novel <a href="https://booksbygbmjrofct.blogspot.com/2014/09/coming-soon-inner-sibling.html" target="_blank"><i>Line 21/The Inner Sibling,</i></a> which was directly due to the fact that the MC had to jump feet first into the waters of the adult entertainment industry. In regards to the latter, we have not crossed that line, but we have tip-toed right to it (my upcoming novella pretty much pulverizes that boundary in a barely non-gratuitous fashion).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Eventually we settled on exploring various relationships as an overall theme to apply and nurture my writing mindset. With one of my short story anthologies, <a href="https://booksbygbmjrofct.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-is-life-four-act-play.html" target="_blank"><i>What Is Life?</i></a>, I was, to a certain degree, all over the relationship platform, which was due to the twin themes of the four seasons of the year and the four stages of life.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The relationships explored were pretty generic: Story #1 featured a mountain's relationship with the outside world, like a year in the life; Story #2 featured the relationship between man and nature; Story #3 featured the trials and tribulations between a writer, his work and his spouse; and Story #4 was a musician's relationship with their music and their manager.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">With our other short story anthology entitled <a href="https://booksbygbmjrofct.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-trilogy-of-love.html" target="_blank"><i>A Trilogy of Love</i></a>, we started concentrating a bit deeper on human relationships. Story #1 featured a young man going through the heartache of being dumped by his girlfriend and being pursued by a secret admirer afterwards; Story #2 is about a strangely platonic relationship between two besties (M&F); Story #3 is also a story about two besties who do a "friends with benefits" scenario.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Story #3 is important to me, as it marked what I believe to be a very key turning point with my writing in multiple ways. First and foremost, because the scene unfolded between two female friends, I wanted to make sure that I didn't divebomb into an adult entertainment area of descriptive prose. Because to be perfectly honest, I didn't think at the time I had the ability to do that kind of deep exploration of a relationship in this particular story. So we kept it to a happy medium between softcore and hardcore.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After finishing that particular story, I went off on and odd exploration of relationships, in which we covered a few particular types: platonic with a deeper bond, besties on different levels and FWB on deeper levels too. And because I enjoy challenging myself, I throw in siblings as well.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now sufficiently armed with a travel bag filled with endless possibilities for writing, we set off to have a little creativity in overdrive.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">😎</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So ends part the 1st of our multi-part series. Barring any pleasant surprises, stay tuned for part the 2nd on this must read blog series. Here's to your spiffy Monday, as well as your Tubular Tuesday, Hump Day Wednesday, Ticonderoga Thursday and Feline Friday.*</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-small;"><b>*four of the five day adjectives are self-explanatory, while the fifth, Ticonderoga, can be interpreted in a number of ways, from being a village in New York, to a Revolutionary War battle and military foot, to even a comedy bit for the Three Stooges and others from that era.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-7792686494657284282024-01-08T09:13:00.328-05:002024-01-08T09:13:00.126-05:00Episode #205: I Done Cut The Cord 5 Years Ago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmBcaiP3rRIEgbBFghQA8sVdMsMuQXnipIPvnyioBYukFrhZm02IP4Pk5462JOj-6tIO6O9UnMQlQ1_5ppwAYZ_dkTa3UnQlp1srlvzlOmWG8BQoVoB8navite4W3KTiZSnlY1-SpND6HS3WEYG-O8fR9XsgN1ajHZ8u8CYT0atzEojhQNJB_LWJksc8/s1600/A%20Day%20In%20The%20Lile%20001.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmBcaiP3rRIEgbBFghQA8sVdMsMuQXnipIPvnyioBYukFrhZm02IP4Pk5462JOj-6tIO6O9UnMQlQ1_5ppwAYZ_dkTa3UnQlp1srlvzlOmWG8BQoVoB8navite4W3KTiZSnlY1-SpND6HS3WEYG-O8fR9XsgN1ajHZ8u8CYT0atzEojhQNJB_LWJksc8/s320/A%20Day%20In%20The%20Lile%20001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-small;">I are wishing for some snow in the Winter of '23/'24, but since the season is a randy beige, this lovely photo must do.</span></b><div><br /></div><div>So, as the title implies for a refreshing change of pace, I cut the cord to my t.v. viewing. It really wasn't that hard to do, since by the Spring of 2019, the quality of programming had gone so far downhill, in my eyes, that the old days of watching candlepin bowling on the telly was really a step up to the glop being produced now.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Note: Seriously, back in the day, late 70's/early 80's, there used to be televised candlepin bowling from Massachusetts (channel was either WWLP 22 or WGGB 40). I think it came on either before or after "As Schools Match Wits", a high school quiz show, also from Massachusetts. Yes, I really am dating myself.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, the quality of programming was so unbelievably bad that I had stopped watching the two remaining reality shows that kept my interest, gator fishing in Louisiana and fishing in Alaska, stopped watching baseball (that required adding a channel that in my opinion, wasn't worth the money for the little time spent watching it), and just concentrated on watching two Showtime programs: Ray Donovan and Billions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, even those two shows failed to keep my interest: gave up on Ray Donovan next to the last season when he moved to New York, and gave up on Billions part way through season four. So by Easter, I was pretty much trying to figure how to occupy the enormous quantities of even more free time on my hands.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Note: I had to go wandering back to both my Google and my USB drives, as well as my book blog, to jog my tired 58 1/2 year old memory, in order to write this next part</b></span>.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I started working a little more on the second and third volume of my "Friendship Trilogy", but after getting the bad news on volume two from a very well respected editor friend, I couldn't stiffen my spaghetti spine to fix the problems associated with #2. Thus, I made the painful decision to shelf the rest of the trilogy until I could once again find the shiny spine to do what needed to be done. Some day I will go back to it. We hope.</div><div><br /></div><div>In any event, as 2019 turned itself into 2020, we found ourselves lurching about with our writing, trying to find something that I could stick with long enough to make it interesting. I still stayed very far away from the brain drain video box, because in the intervening year, what the media companies were churning out for the generic "Must See TV", was for me, "Must Miss TV". </div><div><br /></div><div>I should note that my t.v. viewing didn't really poop the toilet in the Spring of 2019, but it was certainly heading there. In 2018, I was watching maybe a few reality shows and some baseball games, but the bulk of my t.v. viewing were the dozen and a half movie channels that were occupying my time. This was when Frontier was still doing the cable t.v. thing (presently, they have basically moved into fiber optics for the internet, and forcibly shoved all of their cable subscribers to <a href="https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/?utm_source=youtube_web&utm_medium=ep&utm_campaign=home&ve=34273&utm_servlet=prod&rd_rsn=asi" target="_blank">this</a>), so this was how I was passing the free time in during that time period.</div><div><br /></div><div>The real catalyst to me cutting the cord, which is what my family did years later by switching to Netflix, Roku, maaaybe Hulu and that aforementioned link, was my mother switching to.....DirectTV. I won't bore you with the gory details or the Gothic horror stories, but suffice to say, we're still following the sane bit of advice given to us by not turning in the satellite dish, just in the very faint hope that we would want to switch again (installation would require multiple Benjamins to complete)</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, back to this thing called <b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><i>writing</i>.</span></b> sometime in 2020, I don't remember precisely, I made the decision to rewrite a previously published short story trilogy called "Broken Promise". That was published back in '13, and while my writing was okay-ish back then, seven years later it was a very much improved product, so it was pretty much a no-brainer that it needed a major overhaul to bring up to my high standards: tighter stories, new formatting and a better cover. For those of you who are curious, here is the link to the current version of the book (which I republished in 2021), <i><a href="https://booksbygbmjrofct.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-trilogy-of-love.html" target="_blank">A Trilogy of Love</a></i>, and here is a picture of what the old cover was.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmipDI46ZDWm7h-5y4mbcwmlxSpV39GQ1RG2YNeEVjVh0NC0-jE58dkSMcbLupptOKmoKD_3bYkEtt1dmuM_twmxx9j7V5Dv4KPfk5H15Ot67rEnTdphSiV4gK-v-5n8QQrsY22jrGHSOWVDk0rw0JKGzGkHxz6GrtU7Bfype4R21GUdJOHeRcn3ue4W0/s1600/Broken%20Promises_10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmipDI46ZDWm7h-5y4mbcwmlxSpV39GQ1RG2YNeEVjVh0NC0-jE58dkSMcbLupptOKmoKD_3bYkEtt1dmuM_twmxx9j7V5Dv4KPfk5H15Ot67rEnTdphSiV4gK-v-5n8QQrsY22jrGHSOWVDk0rw0JKGzGkHxz6GrtU7Bfype4R21GUdJOHeRcn3ue4W0/s320/Broken%20Promises_10.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div>At the time, I had a member of a now defunct FB writing group to do the cover for me free. I was very grateful and I learned a valuable lesson, which was to not be a "choosing beggar" when it came to free help. Haven't been one since.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, I spent all of 2020 rewriting this bad boy. Eventually got it formatted, got a good cover from a graphic designer who has now seemed to have gone on hiatus without any explanation whatsoever, and by the Spring of 2021, had it republished. And during all of that time, my eyeballs were not polluted by watching any television whatsoever. Listen to it most definitely, since my den is underneath the living room and spent the latter part of 2021 in the dining room due to basement flooding, so I had no escape from the audio portion at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of flooded/water damaged basement, a funny thing happened to me while waiting out the entire repair process of the basement: I got motivated to work on some very old (like 7 to 10 years old) manuscripts, two completed and one roughly, in hindsight, about 7% completed. Short story long, re-wrote those two manuscripts, which you can find under the tags <i><span style="color: #e06666;"><b>Average American Novel</b></span></i> and <span style="color: #f6b26b; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Average American Novella, </span><span>with the latter being the one that I've been talking about publishing this Spring.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Now both of those two manuscripts were a major pain in the buttocks to rewrite, simply because I had to find ways to tune out the dreck that the family was watching in the other room. I ultimately found a way by rediscovering my medium-to-high tolerance of classical music. 'Nuff said on that point. Eventually though, even a moderately intolerable situation must happily go away, and by the Spring of 2022, I was comfortably entombed back in my den, working on what has turned out to be, to use a very tired cliche, my magnum opus with the blog tag of <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i>. In all likelihood, this will probably be my very last novel series that I will write. I much prefer the novella and anthology formats, as I find them to be both less aggravating and wickedly fun to write.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>And as always, we are still television free (the medium and not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_(band)" target="_blank">the group</a>), and more often than not, what little television viewing I do partake in is done in five to fifteen second increments whenever I need to enter the living room. Sometimes, being blissfully ignorant of an entire medium can lead to unexpected fulfillment elsewhere.</span></div><div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-40909344046879279452024-01-01T10:48:00.203-05:002024-01-01T10:48:00.139-05:00Episode #204: Language Makes The Mundane Intriguing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9f7H1JmwAidiyDHFtpBUvVYlfiM52bX4yx6axwkNqOoZxLu-3zaadu97TyQGH_4o73n6Tx1yDJOUwVekcGUG79IqiYA4wvUgM3GWEMk8sBHIPrYRWAQsNAW_6ai28jc07mOkmkUjEHb9UFL6-azAKtikoq_QBB1mxllm3EsFbq5dKuLdNvWJoyGD_jVA/s1600/05_3A.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9f7H1JmwAidiyDHFtpBUvVYlfiM52bX4yx6axwkNqOoZxLu-3zaadu97TyQGH_4o73n6Tx1yDJOUwVekcGUG79IqiYA4wvUgM3GWEMk8sBHIPrYRWAQsNAW_6ai28jc07mOkmkUjEHb9UFL6-azAKtikoq_QBB1mxllm3EsFbq5dKuLdNvWJoyGD_jVA/s320/05_3A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>This city view of Hartford CT was taken over a decade ago and is for illustrative purposes only, but man, this was the peak of cleanliness for this part of the city.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>I love different languages, or rather, I love listening to different languages. When I was residing at my last state agency {2006-20}, I truly enjoyed the white noise that was predominately Spanish in my humble office (Payroll/HR}, and in fact actively moaned whenever my "white noise" wasn't there.</div><div><br /></div><div>So fast forward to now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because of that fondness for foreign languages, I tried to incorporate as much as I possibly could into my current 4 volume series with the blogger tag of <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i>. So this fondness has morphed in the following ways:</div><div><br /></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li> I started off everyone speaking English, but when I had female MC #1 Myla's ladies-in-waiting make an appearance, I had her speaking Spanish to them. </li><li>Eventually down the road I had her ladies-in-waiting switch to understanding Portuguese, because why not.</li><li>With female MC #2, I need a language that could be used for certain private conversations, so I introduced Greek to the mix.</li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Note: I did not use the actual Spanish/Portuguese/Greek language for the conversations. Using a tip that an editor of mine nicely informed me of and of which I saw being used elsewhere, I simply stated at the beginning of the conversation what language was actually being used.</b></span></li><li>Here's where it gets quite interesting. As I needed to do background research for a few characters, I had to perform a shallow dive to find out what kind of language was used and a deeper dive to find, if any, a Google translate for that language.</li><li>For my male MC, because I had him working for the Aztecs {note, for kicks and giggles, I love turning cold, impersonal historical entities into ruthless business conglomos} prior to getting married a second time, I decided to have as his second language, Nahuatl, which is what the Aztecs spoke.</li><li>Not to leave any of the other female MC's out, I had #2 & #3 speak Quechua, which was and still is, the native language of the Incans. This is in addition to the Spanish/Portuguese/Greek/English. As for #4, in addition to her speaking English & Portuguese, I also have her speaking Nahuatl as well.</li><li>Now just for other ha-ha's, because I had to create a whole other planet, I had to create a whole new language, which was spoken by female #1, as well as the denizens of the planet itself.</li><li>And all of this isn't even adding in the fact that telepathy is being used as a base of communication, no matter the species. Or the fact that a couple of the MC's understand avian and jaguar. And can't forget the legendary hounds of Hell, Cerberus. Two minor characters know Morse code, while three other semi-minor characters speak in sign language {I decided not to differentiate between ASL & <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language" target="_blank">BSL</a>}.</li></ol><div>So as you can see, I have run the whole gamut with the languages being used in this series. And for an added bonus, I have made a concentrated effort to add the necessary background info for everyone involved, which breaks down to: Central and South America {Aztec and Inca}, North America {US}, Europe {possibly late medieval/early modern U.K. and the mainland for a time period} and of course, the Pod Planet. So that way, I'm not using the languages for the sake of using them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next week will be a lighter post about this and that, before I start a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mariana-Trench" target="_blank">Mariana Trench</a> dive into the characters that make up this series. I think this will be something that will make you go, "I did not know that about G.B."</div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-41009209718138847002023-12-25T08:06:00.024-05:002023-12-25T08:06:00.133-05:00Episode #203: A Holiday Break<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiop8ZdOyTIB9ZjnR9zLZaAO9tbGje3dFh9QgO_BzSt8PZq3wJPr1oJhesaRdQ_6MLOStD_14OwUmvJBICfUAwBhf4PF2fGOJqbv9hzAeywHyrR6tMwgX1AIH7XQW-C4JbaoR5YorH4aRypeZ5TajclHPJa1zOZTPxibyhWfaZP1VYVvhrVty4q91qsgso/s4000/IMG_20231204_150008079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiop8ZdOyTIB9ZjnR9zLZaAO9tbGje3dFh9QgO_BzSt8PZq3wJPr1oJhesaRdQ_6MLOStD_14OwUmvJBICfUAwBhf4PF2fGOJqbv9hzAeywHyrR6tMwgX1AIH7XQW-C4JbaoR5YorH4aRypeZ5TajclHPJa1zOZTPxibyhWfaZP1VYVvhrVty4q91qsgso/w400-h300/IMG_20231204_150008079.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #04ff00;"><i>I is exhausted and I think that shot of Tequila is doing wonders for my state of being.</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="color: #fcff01;">Merry Christmas to one and all, and will see you on New Year's Eve.</span></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="color: #01ffff;">Now, if only that pile of wet leaves weren't so wet.....</span></i></b></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-18775317286292011322023-12-18T10:58:00.137-05:002023-12-18T10:58:00.136-05:00Episode #202: Playing The Long Game Of '23/'24<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKziDfGKi_vG0ve_1viNQO5GSywcecXGSW35IBPTPEHlmNH4XpNQfYOy59Pn4r1Q6aQLAiOcg-X8nMR4eUtKdwe_9maJ8gmY-_lyggrgRR4MgYKY929Oi7fsEM312MWjb7i-JrYx0bGAKqU8Z32UZWlwW-p-TZKvEuMI0dn4y-f_HY_q1N3cAVscjENw4/s1522/10_6A.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1272" data-original-width="1522" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKziDfGKi_vG0ve_1viNQO5GSywcecXGSW35IBPTPEHlmNH4XpNQfYOy59Pn4r1Q6aQLAiOcg-X8nMR4eUtKdwe_9maJ8gmY-_lyggrgRR4MgYKY929Oi7fsEM312MWjb7i-JrYx0bGAKqU8Z32UZWlwW-p-TZKvEuMI0dn4y-f_HY_q1N3cAVscjENw4/s320/10_6A.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">A little summer to warm the frozen memories of today.</span></b><div><br /></div><div>It's funny how playing the long game can monumentally affect your short game, no matter what your vibe is. I'll give you a couple of examples.</div><div><br /></div><div>Example #1: Losing weight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Back in mid October I decided, after seeing a photo of myself looking rather portly (now there's an archaic word you don't often hear), that I needed to lose weight. so I chose to pursue a non-Noom Noom diet (basically, not spending any money) diet, which basically meant that I needed to cut my caloric intake.</div><div><br /></div><div>T.L.; D.R.: I dropped from 2300+ calories per day to roughly 1200+ per day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the long game here was to lose weight, which I did, so far about 9lbs +/-, but there were some side effects to a very brutal short game. The most serious side effect in the short term was major sugar crashes.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a nutshell, when you are reducing your caloric intake, you also have to reduce your (in my case) insulin intake. Thus, the brutal short game was about a month and a half of consistently tweaking my day time and night time insulin until I was able to find a happy melding of the tow that wouldn't make me sick.</div><div><br /></div><div>Added bonus: Changing my diet also started giving me enough energy to tackle the distance I cover in my daily walks. Less calories equals more burning the excess weight. So while the short game was unusually brutal (e.g. bad lows and the side effects thereof, along with consuming certain edibles for the first time in more than three decades.), the long game has been sunshine and a wildflower valley. </div><div><br /></div><div>Example #2: Publishing a novella.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a little trickier to separate into the short and the long game, but I will give it the old technical school try.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, obviously enough, the long game is to publish this novella. But the short game has been just as maddening as the previous example. To whit:</div><div><br /></div><div>I've had to, albeit reluctantly, pivot to another graphic designer for my cover, because the one that I normally use has been seriously m.i.a since early November. Their socials seem to be kaput with no activity whatsoever (and that includes advertising being sent out via e-mail).</div><div><br /></div><div>Now this pivot to another graphic designer has created a cascade effect for everything else: I can't use my current formatter because I don't have a cover, so they're now on the back-burner; I had to solicit a few suggestions from the writer's group that I belong to, and having found a potential new one has brought a small litany of other issues, none of which are the potential new designer's fault whatsoever.</div><div><br /></div><div>For example, while I was deciding on which package to purchase, I was pre-answering a question to their form (as in, getting my answers prepped prior to the purchase). While I was doing that, I discovered that I actually don't like the current title, so I had to come up with a brand new one (title #3). And, oh wait a minute, I found a few errors in the final draft that I now have to fix.</div><div><br /></div><div>Plus, there are a myriad of other tiny issues that need to be addressed once I purchase the book cover, but before I actually publish. So while the short game for publishing this novella isn't fraught with drastic health issues as the first example, there's still a tone of short term aggravation that has to be addressed before we cross the long game finish line of self-publishing.</div><div><br /></div><div>In summary, playing the long game often involves a plethora of short term headaches with minuscule rewards, but when you do finally succeed at the very end, it does truly seem that all of the short term aggravation really was worth it in the long run.</div><div><br /></div><div>And in the end, that is all that rally matters.</div><div><br /></div><div>Have a happy Monday and splendorous week!<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-2571817789484799442023-12-11T09:50:00.176-05:002023-12-11T09:50:00.247-05:00Episode #201: Do You Critique The Book Or The Writer?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHVOPuH1hKGFAFw8uVyhXiaBBFqijVtPlsxZlPn8xHTC7urOeoLtiGzBQwc5QvdbTlBR4JyfnWTWCkVufssm-dNVWRctywClKw1yrTLB4OjXbUrruHK_0cqcir01tO7NVXL2LfVbDmH08q0oLrtaih6vw_iMbVOFIuIlIs_C0RzVeoI1KKkk_bs9i08E/s4000/IMG_20231204_150008079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfHVOPuH1hKGFAFw8uVyhXiaBBFqijVtPlsxZlPn8xHTC7urOeoLtiGzBQwc5QvdbTlBR4JyfnWTWCkVufssm-dNVWRctywClKw1yrTLB4OjXbUrruHK_0cqcir01tO7NVXL2LfVbDmH08q0oLrtaih6vw_iMbVOFIuIlIs_C0RzVeoI1KKkk_bs9i08E/s320/IMG_20231204_150008079.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Apparently Santa's soy milk and gluten-free vegan cookies didn't agree with him that day.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>I subscribe to a nifty monthly newsletter put out by the Insecure Writer's Support Group, which contains great advice and links for writers of all abilities, among other things. It also sponsors a monthly blog hop, which I haven't participated in quite some time, and in conjunction with that blog hop, the newsletter will have a question prompt for that blog hop in case you're lacking a topic of choice for your monthly participation.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the month of December the question had to do with book reviews, specifically, when you write a book review, are you critiquing the book or the author of said book?</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, back in the day when I was able to write book reviews on Amazon for books that I had borrowed from my public library (current Amazon policy is that you have to spend at least $50 with a credit or debit card before you can leave a review), the majority of the time I would review the book and not the author.</div><div><br /></div><div>Being a semi-professional writer, I was quite sensitive to sledgehammering an author over a particular book, since I had quite a few people do it to me, so I would try my best to critique a particular book. Very rarely did I critique the writer, as I would always try to give them the benefit of the doubt, especially if it was for a book that I didn't like or understand (example, I don't understand most poetry nor traditional prose). I always try to find something positive about a book, which is why I usually go no lower 2 1/2 stars on my public reviews.</div><div><br /></div><div>On at least three occasions though, I did critique the author of a particular book. The first time was a book that started out decent but quickly nosedived into a master's thesis: very analytical and devoid of emotion. The second time was a memoir written by someone who was a civil rights lawyer, but it too nosedived, only this time it was the equivalent of a novel length apology from a White Liberal Savior. The third time was a well known indie musician turned writer who wrote a bio on a well known early R&B singer, but the bio basically read like a bio of the group they were in and not of them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Beyond those three, all my reviews have concentrated on the book. I do try to point out in the reviews of books I don't quite understand why I would give them just a three or three and a half star rating, and I always try give props to those writers who write in genres that I don't understand.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know it may sound like I'm being wishy-washy or waffling with those 3 star reviews, but I simply can't see myself hammering a book simply because I don't understand it. I find there's a huge distinction between reading a book and not liking it, and reading a book and not understanding it, so I always wrote my reviews with that philosophy in mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh and, in case you're wondering about the reviews of books that I'd enjoyed, almost without exception I do 4 or 4 1/2 star reviews. I have problems giving 5 star reviews, but that's a me problem more than anything else.</div><div><br /></div><div>So my friends, this concludes my semi-shallow dive into my little slice of the topic called "Book Reviews". Hope you liked it and were able to learn something from it. Have a great week.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-52533586068840817652023-12-04T09:08:00.231-05:002023-12-04T09:08:00.246-05:00Episode #200: Did I Actually Listen To That?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPuiIz_LODvllBCNm-PCZ-I6rhZv_DIkLJIga2WuNsf98tNdML1kAj1YEgEmzPq85drtxqCXXD4GJMudDETw4kCsKGUqmjxX3dPbtPTBWpeag_18_yQkOJ4hVBDGxEAQLUx0SqehLluBim1Iw1ENgC_uJ1gUW2QzvD3wg788LSIlwaSMfS7wv-YVLpWc/s1600/002.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPuiIz_LODvllBCNm-PCZ-I6rhZv_DIkLJIga2WuNsf98tNdML1kAj1YEgEmzPq85drtxqCXXD4GJMudDETw4kCsKGUqmjxX3dPbtPTBWpeag_18_yQkOJ4hVBDGxEAQLUx0SqehLluBim1Iw1ENgC_uJ1gUW2QzvD3wg788LSIlwaSMfS7wv-YVLpWc/s320/002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Yes, this is the legendary late kitty of mine, Holly, who tripped across the rainbow bridge during the pandemic year of 2020.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>The other day, I was perusing my socialized media platform of choice, YouTube, when I noticed in the comment section of a cover band that I follow {<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TheBrokenPeach" target="_blank">Broken Peach</a>} that someone mentioned that the band was in their 2023 YT music recap. I didn't think much of it until a FB friend happened to mention/post her top ten Spotify list, then presto, blog post topic.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been commenting on YouTube for the past five years, simply because out of all the socialized media platforms that I'm familiar with, this one seems to be the most stable of the bunch. In short, because of the variety of the channels that I subscribe to {57 and counting}, 99% of the commenters I come across are the type that don't engage in flame wars or any of the kind of trolling that permeates those other platforms.</div><div><br /></div><div>Normally I do not bother with the yearly music recap, because I really don't care to review what I listen to. I listen to what intrigues me the most. However, because I needed something to blog about and because Little Brother is a trade-off when your digital life is controlled by the Alphabet Company, it was a match made in Purgatory.</div><div>~~~~~~~</div><div>So to start things off, according to YouTube, I listened to 1,456 minutes of music, contained in 297 different songs that were performed by 129 different artists. For genres, this breaks down to 23% Rock; 16% Indie; 9% Heavy Metal; 7% Pop and 4% Country, with the remaining 41% classified as Other. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm like, "Okay....", like, apparently listening to Classical or any other now predominately niche genres like RPG/Fantasy didn't register on the YT Algorithm Scale? Whatever. How about we look at what the top 5 songs where that piqued my interest that were played?</div><div><br /></div><div>1} <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXKg0sNTKXE" target="_blank"><i>South Side</i></a> by Moby;</div><div>2} <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kh-AP4OCU" target="_blank">Life Is A Rock</a></i> by Reunion;</div><div>3} <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN4yxR27rfI&list=RDFN4yxR27rfI&start_radio=1" target="_blank"><i>Bad</i></a> by Royal Deluxe;</div><div>4} <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRRmQ1Tz-Ao" target="_blank">What Would You Do With A Bernie Sanders</a></i> by The Cog Is Dead;</div><div>5} <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9ZbuIRPwFg" target="_blank">Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)</a></i> by Big & Rich.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ummm....Okay? Like, I really can't believe that those were my top 5 tracks listened to for 2023. Granted, they were good, but "South Side"? Really? I'm sure there were a lot of other tracks that got heavy play that should've made this list.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, how 'bout my top five artists? That should be a good one, right? Right?</div><div><br /></div><div>1} <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@leolego" target="_blank">Leo Moracchioli</a> aka Frog Leap Studios;</div><div>2} Broken Peach;</div><div>3} <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@VioletOrlandi" target="_blank">Violet Orlandi</a>;</div><div>4} <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Amikim" target="_blank">Ami Kim</a>;</div><div>5} Moby.</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, I get the first four listed, as they are prolific cover artists whose videos are a must watch, and who are now branching out into original music, but Moby? Moby? Really? There are so many other artists that I have watched on YouTube that are so much more worthy, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@sina-drums" target="_blank">Sina</a>, whose drum covers are spot on and who is branching out into original music as well.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><span style="color: red;">Sigh</span></i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, let's try to see what my particular music mood was. Uplifting was 25%; Upbeat was 24%; Energizing was 22%; Dramatic was 15% and Happy was 11%. Who knows what the remaining 3% was. And I have no idea on how to even remotely interpret this particular glob of info. Does it mean that all the music that I had decided to listen to was just one big fat Venn Diagram for positivity? I find that very odd indeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>It looks like that overall, the stats that YouTube came up with were woefully short of meatiness, but overflowing on vapid empty calories. If anything, it just solidifies my belief that ignoring my yearly YouTube music recap was a very good move on my part, and that paying attention to it this time was an exercise in bewilderment. Like the commercial where the waiter brings out prawn for a customer who clearly states that he has a shellfish allergy.</div><div><br /></div><div>To sum it up, for 2023 I listened to, allegedly, 24 1/4 hours of music that was collectively produced by 129 different artists who created 297 different songs. To be honest, I have to disagree with the total amount of time spent listening to music, because I'm almost certain that I'd listened to more than 24 1/4 hours of YouTube music. But what do I know, I'm only the actual user of the product, so my opinion means as much to YouTube as a politician who swings right or centrist with their opinions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little weird breakdown of my YouTube music listening endeavors, because this is what you have to look forward to if you spent even a scintilla doing the exact same thing. And please check out those artists links, they really have put out some outstanding quality music videos on their channels throughout 2023.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-54483709065956761912023-11-27T10:38:00.166-05:002023-11-27T10:38:00.131-05:00Episode #199: Please Wait, Your Call Is Very (Non)Important To Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAxmnBtyiP3gZlNylmLljz_ITBUguUoriqGiRZxW7lJBXtD6r8LzpCtH7TYsMceGMovE2ktlP-Lr_X88E_SpcMcn3JebDAsJ56-D_aDhbqKpGYK3rH9gk4NteOHQjxX-j8o6F24vToWwECNe1XtO80j2rxaamF9XBMU0tLbdG4F2v0qIGig6KVHjd-wo/s1024/IMG_9610.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAxmnBtyiP3gZlNylmLljz_ITBUguUoriqGiRZxW7lJBXtD6r8LzpCtH7TYsMceGMovE2ktlP-Lr_X88E_SpcMcn3JebDAsJ56-D_aDhbqKpGYK3rH9gk4NteOHQjxX-j8o6F24vToWwECNe1XtO80j2rxaamF9XBMU0tLbdG4F2v0qIGig6KVHjd-wo/s320/IMG_9610.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">For those of you who may not have seen a pic of my daughter in quite some time, this is her, a soon-to-be Summer 2024 University graduate with an undergraduate degree in neuro-science. Very, very proud of her and her accomplishments in the medical field.</span></b><div><br /></div><div>With the parental bragging now out of the way, on to the topic at hand: waiting.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know this doesn't sound like much of a topic to expound and expand on, but have you ever had a week that was basically spent just....waiting. Waiting for someone to get back to you. Waiting for inspiration. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEK329i6YY4" target="_blank">Waiting for a train</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yjGPgs0_S0" target="_blank">Waiting for Calgon to take you away</a>. You know, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg" target="_blank">waiting is the hardest part </a>of life.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had such a week like that. Just spent it...waiting. Normally I'm not a very patient man (having grown up in a household that does not value punctuality has made me become OCD when it comes to time as an adult), but I have mellowed out over the years. Nowadays, I simply try to play the long game with my patience. If I need something really bad, and it's from a person/business that normally is very good about getting it done in a timely manner, I'll be an adult and wait. It's not like I actually have somewhere to be. I'm retired, where am I gonna go?</div><div><br /></div><div>So, we spent a week being a redundant clock-watcher: sleep, eat, walk, write, walk, eat, write, run errands, computer, sleep. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I mean, not even doing a deep rabbit hole dive down YouTube was enough to keep me occupied (and if you know what kind of legitimately odd YT content that I sometimes watch, that statement would make you say, "d@mn!") during the week. Nor changing up how I answer the phone was doing it for me.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: I now answer the phone like Sherman from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-QM00ABzfk" target="_blank">Mr. Peabody's Improbable History</a> and tell the people on the other end I'm a tween. If I can get them to stay longer, I'll ask them innocent questions about what they're trying to sell.</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>I don't believe I've had a week like this before, where the excitement of doing a digital crossword puzzle is an actual highlight of the week. Actually, I should correct myself, as it's a co-highlight. The other co-highlight is mentally working out the 3rd ending to the 3rd volume of my <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i> series (no, not a trilogy anymore), which truth be told, ain't easy. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, as they say, patience is a virtue that no one seems to have anymore, in any kind of quantity. A droll dry week is just....meh. I should add that Thanksgiving wasn't the misadventure that it usually turns out to be. I got to meet a few relatives that I haven't seen since 2018/19; got a depressing update on another; had a pleasant drive to the gold coast to have that Thanksgiving ("gold coast' here in CT is lower Fairfield County, where a large percentage of those who work in NYC enjoy living and spending their hard earned money); and pleasant return trip, in which I started in sunshine and arrived home at night.</div><div><br /></div><div>But yeah, waiting in the real world is not like Heinz Catsup. It's more like molasses on a cold autumn day. Just. Slooooow. Hope your Monday doesn't continue a previous mediocre week.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-45009127783019707532023-11-20T09:21:00.168-05:002023-11-20T09:21:00.148-05:00Episode #198: I Are Smarter Than Two Scammers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVtSy3kA9Cg88QXG7wpzuTLwAIvv9b2Sz29Irhkle5iPtpb_Zf2V0YdVAfuZYQyhuYEiwkxJFlFPPiLVUinbPlMeOBp3Cj1A7QsuAfaVj1qzRF3sZKF_NjSrJaZqBN1MMvi7ECr4aPNosn3yhqmQ7QnbtvYFWrjWbrgd1DCPo4i-HOgHX6I3PgMXJVpQE/s4000/IMG_20231115_112423899.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVtSy3kA9Cg88QXG7wpzuTLwAIvv9b2Sz29Irhkle5iPtpb_Zf2V0YdVAfuZYQyhuYEiwkxJFlFPPiLVUinbPlMeOBp3Cj1A7QsuAfaVj1qzRF3sZKF_NjSrJaZqBN1MMvi7ECr4aPNosn3yhqmQ7QnbtvYFWrjWbrgd1DCPo4i-HOgHX6I3PgMXJVpQE/s320/IMG_20231115_112423899.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Autumn in the mountain, or after reading this post, the interior of a none-too-bright call center employee.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Last Thursday (11/16/23) against the Las Vegas oddsmakers, I managed to keep two call center employees on the phone for ten solid minutes. I know, sounds impossible, especially when the person they're talking to is purposely being stupid, but it's true and I have witnesses to boot.</div><div><br /></div><div>The scam in question was free Internet and phone, for the low, low fee of my SS#. It took me about fifteen seconds to figure that out, since the guy started rapid firing all kinds of legit govt programs that would allow you to actually get these items for little-to-no cost. So, once I had the required info, off I went to the greyhound races. Now in order to make this seem funny for you, please picture me speaking in an ambiguous voice that could pass for either a drunk old lady or drunk old man.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also keep in mind that I was expecting this call to be terminated with extreme prejudice by them because I was expecting them to have some basic computer smarts to go with the fact that they had my phone # in front of them, but thankfully for me, they didn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>Them: asking for all kinds of personal info, starting with my home address.</div><div>Me: 231 Capitol Avenue Hartford CT, 06106 (CT State Library and CT State Supreme Court).</div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Now I should note that the guy stepped away from the phone to check with somebody after I had given the street address, the city/state and the zip.</b></span></div><div>Then: asking for my name.</div><div>Me: Ned Lamont (governor of CT)</div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Now at this point, I figured that the guy would immediately understand that I was giving a fake name, but no. Thus the call continued.</span></b></div><div>Them: asking for a date of birth.</div><div>Me: March 3, 1955 (I had picked this date because I took a wild shot about our governor's age. Turns out I had the correct year, but not the month, as our governor is 68).</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's where things went incredibly diagonal and impossibly stupid.</div><div><br /></div><div>Them: asks for the last four digits of my social.</div><div>Me: "Why?" and "Why do you need it?"</div><div>Them: spends the next couple of minutes trying to explain to me why they need it and me sounding like a broken record. Eventually, steps away from the phone and because I hear actual silence instead of other people talking in the background, I say, "Gotcha!"</div><div><br /></div><div>But no, the guy returns with his supervisor, who patiently tries to explain, multiple times, the reasoning why he needed my social and me acting like douchebag. Finally I come down an octave and start talking in my normal voice.</div><div>Me: Do you have Google on your computer? (I figure everyone, no matter the OS, has access to Google)</div><div>Them: Yes.</div><div>Me: Google my name (Ned Lamont) and tell me what you find.</div><div>I spent the next minute trying to get him to Google my name and him either not doing it or saying he did but it didn't have required info (aka social) on the page in question.</div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, I'm done browbeating this yokel, so I cheerfully state the following: Tell you what, I'll Google my own name and I'll tell you what I've found. I say each letter of the governor's name and when it lands on the appropriate page, I say, "Ned Lamont, Governor of Connecticut."</div><div><br /></div><div>Only then does he get the point and finally hangs up on me. The entire call lasted almost ten minutes and they succeeded in acquiring absolutely no useful information from me whatsoever.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I finally came upstairs to run a few afternoon errands, the family asked me why I was on the phone for son long (my den is directly below the living room, so you can hear almost everything), so I patiently explained the entire phone call to them. They couldn't believe how dense the call center employees were.</div><div><br /></div><div>Suffice to say, the phone calls were very few and far between for the rest of the day, which was a welcome respite, as they started back up bright and early the next day. </div><div><br /></div><div>Believe it or not, I really do enjoy my interactions with those pesky call centers, but topics of choice are getting so stale that it's becoming not worth my time and effort to go through the robo intro in order to talk to a human being. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for spending a couple of minutes reading my tale of improvisation. I will try to do better with my next one, which is what I often tell those who try to waste my time with their pitches.👀</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-27671160993355170142023-11-13T14:30:00.001-05:002023-11-13T14:30:00.150-05:00Episode #197: I Is Your Space Cadet!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1oAWqzqIj1ZcwLTKt7vNI3elOtP5GvfCmlqgB9vwpAB1r1xnggWFisK-VnkZ5k_HxLXMQvNgbRIew0s2b4C-n4OGq8E-IAI78RXzy_oGqyiYzplF9FkJaP34K7fOxYMhajF4NWl0Eu_mDuMhI48FU1TJEGiQQuGdbiyeo5JHyIMt1qhuqu8uwuk4SKnY/s4000/IMG_20231023_145350524.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1oAWqzqIj1ZcwLTKt7vNI3elOtP5GvfCmlqgB9vwpAB1r1xnggWFisK-VnkZ5k_HxLXMQvNgbRIew0s2b4C-n4OGq8E-IAI78RXzy_oGqyiYzplF9FkJaP34K7fOxYMhajF4NWl0Eu_mDuMhI48FU1TJEGiQQuGdbiyeo5JHyIMt1qhuqu8uwuk4SKnY/s320/IMG_20231023_145350524.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>This was me this past weekend {11/11-12}, just lazing about enjoying the crisp cool weather. Ahhh....</b></span><div><br /></div><div>"Wait..wut?! I forgot to write a blog post?! Holy Slip Of The Brain Batman! What do I do?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"How should I know Boy Blunder? You're the one that got yourself into wearing a full diaper, it's up to you to get yourself changed. What kind of guardian would I be if I helped you out?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"A helicopter guardian?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Batman throws a fractured look at the Boy Blunder, before saying, "You better have that diaper changed and this blog smelling like a field of wildflowers by the time I return, or you will be punished."</div><div><br /></div><div>Boy Blunder goes wide-eyed in fear, for he knows that if he doesn't clean himself up, he'll be forced to listen to speeches from the bad side of the House and Senate for an entire twenty-four hours. Resigned to his fate, he morosely sits down in front of his facsimile of the old Smith-Corona Electric Typewriter and starts pecking away on his blog post. Seriously, with two fingers and both thumbs.</div><div>~~~~~~</div><div>The weekend started like any other weekend for me, for I was full of vim, vigor and energy busting at the seams. Not even the fact that a holiday not the 4th, Memorial Day or Christmas actually caused the banks to close on a Saturday could make me deviate from my plan: walking to break my personal record.</div><div><br /></div><div>By the time 1:30p rolled around, I had my personal errands done, had my stuffed rabbit all cleaned and dusted off, and finished my thirty minute Gregorian chant/ode to my miniature garden gnome. I was ready to rock and waddle down the road to my own private Ohio. Got properly dressed like a typical teenager would on a cold blustery day, and off I went on my walk.</div><div><br /></div><div>I traveled hither. I traveled yither. I traveled yon. Yon go me to the charming neighborhoods where the normal people don't visit, because who wants to visit MLMs with any kind of regularity? But, I soldiered on and dodged all those MLM and Amway representatives, because I are not smart. Anywho, we made it back to a main road, one that I delightfully walked last summer when I didn't have so much vim, vigor and energy for, and after looking both ways thrice, crossed it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Immediately I found myself in a land where time stayed stuck in the 90's, where people actually cared about their manicured lawns, did spiffy landscaping and walked their tiny little yippers. I managed to dodge those little yippers by dropping to the ground cowering in fear until they walked by. When I'd received the odd puzzled look from random passers-by, I said, "What? I love dogs! It's their owners I'm afraid of!"</div><div><br /></div><div>So after cleaning myself off, I soldiered on. I soon found myself in a wooded area with a gravel path that eventually changed into a paved path. A paved path that used recycled sound bites from people who have for the past 8 (that's right, 8) years allowed #44 to employ squatter's rights inside their feeble, tired minds. And before you ask, yes I did hear some faint screaming when the blustery wind blew through the bare trees. But I didn't explore the screams any further and continued onwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some twenty minutes later, I found myself in a lovely senior citizens housing complex. Complete with actual breathing senior citizens. I think. Maybe. I did see three...and the sign did say Senior Citizen Housing....so there. Anyways, I stood in the parking lot trying to ascertain what way I wanted to go, because it really is hard to see through paneled fence. But with my keen x-ray vision, I chose the road that legitimately is less traveled, cause you know, a cul-de-sac.</div><div><br /></div><div>Off I went again, fondly remembering the nifty bicycle accidents I had while cutting across the greenery in my younger days. I wandered up the cul-de-sac and eventually found my way to the other cul-de-sac, then to the actual main drive, with wasn't being driven manually. After making an executive decisions, we made that RIGHT turn at Albuquerque and waddled my way to the shopping place, cause we wanted to check out a brand new store that catered to those on limited income and/or enjoyed quality cheap stuff.</div><div><br /></div><div>So we checked out the store and lo and behold, this bad boy was actually CLEANER THAN A POOP DECK. I mean, holy altar of Arnold, this place was absolutely tidy and spotless. It just blew my tiny mind away that a business could actually care about their customers...well, after picking up my jaw from the concrete floor, I searched and found my favorite item for writing (dry liner), checked out and continued on my walk.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because we still had that original goal in mind, we decided that we were going to "circle back" and try to beat that personal record of mine. So after completing take #7A, we restarted our walk. We meandered through the plaza briefly to see if the local Bucks with 10 point Stars was open again after receiving a tummy tuck and a face-lift (it was), before continuing down the local drag-strip. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the corner of the drag strip, a decision had to be made on what direction I wanted to take: go straight and wander some of the back roads, thus prolonging the amount of sunshine that I didn't steal, or commit gluttony. Obviously I chose gluttony, because ya know.... So continuing down the other speedway (not to be confused with chain of the same), we eventually came across Paul Bunyon's infamous toothpick. </div><div><br /></div><div>No jiving, this thing was humongous. Biggest toothpick I done seen and I was amazed that this thing hadn't blown over yet. Scratching my head, I ignored the sniveling sneers that the houses were throwing at me, which I was easily, with a calorie or two burned, to bat away. So I continued my hop, step and the world's tiniest jump down the street until I came to the new and actually improved crosswalk. Overjoyed, I waited anxiously for the light to change because I was rapidly losing sunlight, even though the clock said 3:15ish. But it rings and I wipe the sleep from my eyes and cross the street.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now it was a race against time to see I would get home before the sun vanished. But I had no fear because the Robin Hood investment app would soon come to my rescue. Or maybe not, because as soon as the sun started sinking low, that gosh darn fiddle of Johnny's made an appearance. Shocked, just schlocked, I said," adios" to the horse it rode in on and left.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some twenty-five minutes later, after bathing in the glory of an afternoon delight, I found myself at the crossroads of Here Avenue and Now Boulevard. Strange as though it may sound, I was actually jumping for you, because even though I didn't have five hundred miles to walk, I did have two, which required me to put one foot in front of the other.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which I accomplished with great gusto and presence of mind. We waddled and staggered and walked a little diagonal as we inched our way around our alma mater (elementary that is) to hit the back end of my walk, which turned out not to be so much of back end but simply the front end of another back end.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Note: for those who are curious, I, the Boy Blunder was listening to my podcasts all while on my not-so-arduous journey of unsound mind, so I was becoming educated while burning calories.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Once again, we sucked it up and pursued our mind-numbingly tedious zig-zag through the side streets until I hit the second to last main drag that I needed to cross. Fortunately for me, because I wasn't in funky town or on the boulevard of broken dreams but merely on the road to nowhere, traffic was sparse and crossing the road to the other side was safe, simple and stress free.</div><div><br /></div><div>Into the homestretch, we started picking up the pace and actually started mapping out extra road to walk on, just in case if we fell short. Which we temporarily did when we crossed that inviting threshold. But, not to worry, we managed to bet our record.....once we went to the supermarket to pick up a few things, because I, The Boy Blunder, not to be confused with the Blue Beetle, can actually complete my assigned task, no matter how much kicking and screaming I do, for I am a wild and crazy guy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sunday was spent goofing off to the point of not remembering to do anything worthwhile besides reading, crossword puzzles and pondering the meaning of Brian's life. So kids, don't spend your day pondering the meaning of Brian's life when you can do something even better, like trying to decide if the world does indeed revolve around you.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-44787453381872896932023-11-06T10:10:00.200-05:002023-11-06T10:10:00.141-05:00Episode #196: Adventures on a Saturday<div>With nothing really gelling or coagulation for a meaty topic today, I thought I would share my (mis)adventures this past Saturday {11/5/23}. The day started relatively okay-ish, with my normal visit to my local branch of one of the biggest banks in CT. I say "okay-ish" is that as of the latter, the vibe has been so terrible there (new staff and a town that has a mighty Karen/Kevin vibe to it) for me that I have gone to the branch next town over for quality customer service and no aggravation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, the T.L.:D.R. version of this visit was this: ask the same question three times before getting an answer, which was quickly followed up by a question so moronically stupid that it went beyond <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jaffee" target="_blank">Al Jaffee</a> territory and into me simply palming my face so hard that I fell to the ground unconscious, which afterwards I said, "I'm not going to answer that."</div><div><br /></div><div>Fast forward to the early afternoon. I had already planned out a potential route for my Saturday walk, which was very adventurous to say the least....{to be continued after the break}</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: x-small;"><i>break: the reason why it was so adventurous is due to the fact that after seeing a recent pic of myself looking rather portly, I decided to do Noom without actually spending money to do Noom. This basic concept, coupled with some new meds from my new doctor, has so far allowed me to lose about 9lbs, and has allowed me to reduce my maintenance meds while giving me energy that I haven't seen in decades.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div>{continuing from the previous point}...as I'd decided to take the long way to the local middle school before taking longish roads back home. But as I crested the first hill and came across the first dead end street, I made an executive decision to take the pleasant detour to Someplace Else. So off we went, traversing the dead end road to a local town path that cut through behind the church and through the senior citizen's/disable living housing village.</div><div><br /></div><div>Along the way, I came across a monument dedicated to a couple of fallen local police officers (long story as to why this memorial was such an out of the way place instead of the center of town).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4bFNsH3Ty4o879TZLNKI44nk3IaBjoD5JRmUD5o1X7iMMINRQMaqhp-AK6gUaoYk_gIGHxP9AI7abb7fZylWm9iJvtfpvOkhESc0ZZfy2DopTncQWcqQM_wlOIc7nRHEDsOYjYuE8jQV22TudSQBszsKFWB-Ay8XxKQskh2jkTIWHbZTZzbQ3YgFsTc/s4000/IMG_20231104_143755542_HDR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji4bFNsH3Ty4o879TZLNKI44nk3IaBjoD5JRmUD5o1X7iMMINRQMaqhp-AK6gUaoYk_gIGHxP9AI7abb7fZylWm9iJvtfpvOkhESc0ZZfy2DopTncQWcqQM_wlOIc7nRHEDsOYjYuE8jQV22TudSQBszsKFWB-Ay8XxKQskh2jkTIWHbZTZzbQ3YgFsTc/w200-h150/IMG_20231104_143755542_HDR.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div><br /></div>It was kind of buried in the leaves and really nothing much going for it besides the simple engraving. A little annoyed this was the only memorial to these police officers besides an annual motorcycle run for the male and nothing for the female, I finished cleaning off the leaves before continuing on my walk.<div><br /></div><div>About ten minutes later, for I am a fast walker, I decided to stop at the library to buy some used c.d.s. Sadly, all they had on sale were those in the New Age Pop/Country genre that really wasn't for me, so against my better judgment I decided to check out the used books. I say "against" because at this point in the year, it was just me/myself/I walking, with no backpack to speak of. But.....I found a couple of books that the library was culling from their shelves that were selling for roughly 7% of their cover price ($2 each).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrjR4a_t5CNN1bHqV08Im2CbSqtd-nVcpUFF30KDnRqkWrNf9dBEDL1fKwvGdZ4fb7XzhcfRY2meZgn9Z7FQsLzG2hG2efaN4yurpOk27qDkW1LIsbBg8V4yofnbQUe21zypsF2ElWP6NuEzlRyue276QX5I0Z9kKwSczEJH3OCtqkXOz0WNqx_e_jeg/s4000/IMG_20231104_163542514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrjR4a_t5CNN1bHqV08Im2CbSqtd-nVcpUFF30KDnRqkWrNf9dBEDL1fKwvGdZ4fb7XzhcfRY2meZgn9Z7FQsLzG2hG2efaN4yurpOk27qDkW1LIsbBg8V4yofnbQUe21zypsF2ElWP6NuEzlRyue276QX5I0Z9kKwSczEJH3OCtqkXOz0WNqx_e_jeg/w200-h150/IMG_20231104_163542514.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWW76FMf2FvV_XdQ4vwVHbQIojmtQQnEzHJXkNppKe1PzpqypyaoNCHMFMr0gfAj_TBBBnwyVjUt2_FLRarEedD-U195qJ3n0iyTfTNDoT6xEdfcsB6TL4JoCYo2Gv_Qb3mPsiQlE1bccdG4h08ja5Kh0eFSVj3UZFTN11YSprGm4BF3lj_am-DIgAasM/s4000/IMG_20231104_163301766.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWW76FMf2FvV_XdQ4vwVHbQIojmtQQnEzHJXkNppKe1PzpqypyaoNCHMFMr0gfAj_TBBBnwyVjUt2_FLRarEedD-U195qJ3n0iyTfTNDoT6xEdfcsB6TL4JoCYo2Gv_Qb3mPsiQlE1bccdG4h08ja5Kh0eFSVj3UZFTN11YSprGm4BF3lj_am-DIgAasM/w150-h200/IMG_20231104_163301766.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><div>Granted, the title of the first one hooked me, I mean, let's be real, someone inviting me on shore to be killed and eaten is definitely a book worth checking out. In this particular case, it seems to be, according to the inner jacket, a lovely memoir/history about visiting/living in New Zealand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now the second one grabbed me simply because it's about a part of Hollywood that I actually never really heard/read about. Which for me, is the equivalent of a Harry Potter devotee saying, "What? There's actually something new that I haven't heard of before?"</div><div><br /></div><div>The book, from a casual thumb through, showcases all the bars/clubs that were frequented by a who-who's of Hollywood celebs from the 30s thru the 60s, along with all the juicy stories. So this will be an interesting read.</div><div><br /></div><div>In any event, the problem we now faced with our walk, was carrying both medium sized tomes in a plastic bag for the rest of my walk. Which kind of sucked, because it forced me to change my homeward bound route quite a bit. So instead of really going back home via quite the circuitous route of the local elementary school, which ultimately would have allowed me to beat my personal best of 13k+ steps/5.5+ miles, we had to settle for a shorter and less meandering route through some main drag/residential streets that got me home about an hour earlier than I had expected.</div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, it was a most refreshing walk. No near misses or even far misses by distracted motorists, either walking on the road or in the crosswalk, so that's a plus. I think I will put this route on my walking agenda again before we get a good old New England snowfall that would make walking in the woods, somewhat dangerous.</div><div><br /></div><div>That was basically the highlight of my Saturday, as the annoying part of my Saturday was trying to figure what I had left for completed manuscripts or potential manuscripts (found 40+ short stories that I think I can make super meaty and filling), which might be a post for another time. Have a fun filled Monday and remember, you can always pretend the world does indeed revolve around you...as long as you play nice.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: black;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-70800574953545756242023-10-30T10:58:00.231-04:002023-10-30T10:58:00.147-04:00Episode #195: Everything Is Cyclical These Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1yy-Z8Vguu3j0YxV6rb_icQRDYGdtu6h5lqgBIGE1QEfcj_MR-OAdNoh685Wkf8S7ozJdNP-ghnEBmoqC6_Y67FOotqpEZ8Y6u6-X10emEuHAfwPQNEvB7giThl1yvSqGRrEe2VypLP8YwQ7LHS4iv-B_VCT8hqpF5g0KQt7caXEv-g59tS-_jDMrVD8/s4000/IMG_20231018_151755267.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1yy-Z8Vguu3j0YxV6rb_icQRDYGdtu6h5lqgBIGE1QEfcj_MR-OAdNoh685Wkf8S7ozJdNP-ghnEBmoqC6_Y67FOotqpEZ8Y6u6-X10emEuHAfwPQNEvB7giThl1yvSqGRrEe2VypLP8YwQ7LHS4iv-B_VCT8hqpF5g0KQt7caXEv-g59tS-_jDMrVD8/s320/IMG_20231018_151755267.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="color: #ffa400; font-size: x-small;"><b>Use your imagination for a caption, because mine certainly would offend most normal people.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Everything is cyclical these days, no matter whether you're writing or dealing with something that can be mildly annoying. Like telephone scammers.</div><div><br /></div><div>This post was actually inspired by a Facebook memory from three years ago {10/28/2020}, when I was counting down the final two days to retirement {note: three years ago, October 31st fell on a Sunday so I had to retire on the last day of the work week, which was Friday October 30, 2020}, which being my humorous self broke it down by days/hours/minutes/seconds.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, it got me thinking about where life is often cyclical in nature, which led me to thinking about scammers from India. We still have a landline that often serves as 4th number backup when people can't be reached on their cell number. I'll zip right to the T.L.;D.R. of sending money to charities gets your personal info sold.</div><div><br /></div><div>Early on in my retirement, I used to have all kinds of long(ish) phone calls with scammers trying to sell all kinds of useless stuff {e.g. Spectrum/Comcast/DirectTV/AT&T, Micro$oft, Amazon}. I first started by pretending to be gay and making passes at all of the male callers {they're <b><i>extremely</i></b> homophobic in India}. After a while, I switched off to giving all kinds of semi-fake information to the callers, but even that got kind of boring. So I would go into a "cyclical" phase of simply trying to make the phone call as brief as humanly possible WITHOUT hanging up on them, average length being about one minute.</div><div><br /></div><div>Side note: My mother ultimately wasted a bit of money in having call blocking on the phone, simply because all scammers employ <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/spoofing" target="_blank">spoofing phone numbers</a>, which makes it virtually impossible to block the number.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, I eventually got bored being that brief on the phone {yes, I know, I need a life. I'm retired, so sue me} and started to once again, get creative with the calls. Over the past three years, I have done the following:</div><div><br /></div><div>1} Used different voices, like a bad version of Mrs Doubtfire, Tim Conway's "Old Man" or a redneck/hillbilly/trailer park denizen. Even when I would talk in my normal voice, I was always called, "ma'am" or "miss". Sometimes I would pretend to be offended.</div><div><br /></div><div>2} Because I would get two different types of callers: Indians and everyone else. For everyone else, I would concoct creative, if moderately plausible, stories when they ask if I was in an accident a few years ago. Of course, the stories got darker every time they called. With the Indian callers, I would do things like ask about the weather in India, compliment their voice, ask about their personal life, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div>3} For certain types of Indian calls, the stories would get a little realistic. For example, for the Spectrum/Comcast calls, I would either tell them an outrageous amount of boxes or joyously greet them as a long lost co-worker. Twice I shocked them so bad that I managed to get a real customer service number out of them. If it was from one of those fake utilities, like for solar power, I would pose as a hapless businessman who paid all of his bills in cash, had no credit or debit cards and begged to get his rebate as a gift card. Once, I had a scammer explain to me what a WalMart card was.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since everything is cyclical in nature for me, we are currently back on the downhill slope to dullness. Because it's so easy to tell where the call is actually coming from (pro-tip: there is about a one second connection delay in which you will hear a distinct "boop" sound, which means the call is from India) and what kind of call it is: no "boop" sound means you'll get an AI voice that needs to be dealt with before you go to the actual call, and more often than not, it's for the accident payment scam; a "boop" sound means, at least for me, a Medicare scam.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the former, it usually takes me no more than twenty-five seconds to get through the AI, then I simply say, "Thank you for calling GEICO/State Farms/Liberty Mutual Insurance, how may I direct your call?", which in turn makes them hang up. For the Medicare scam, once they start asking if I have part A & B, I say, "Thank you for calling the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. How may I direct your call?", which again makes them hang up.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #ffa400; font-size: x-small;"><i>Note: the latter business stated is the actual federal agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, I'm having lots of fun doing this, and as always, I'm always shooting for the Golden Sombrero of making the caller deviate from their script. Haven't had any luck, but it's not for the lack of trying. If you're really interested in seeing scammers being made to look like fools, there is a channel on YouTube called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@irlrosie/featured" target="_blank">IRLRosie</a>, who specializes in doing this, both solo and in a group effort. She is a very talented voice over artist and musician.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hope you have a very happy Halloween this year!<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #ffd966; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-59333719380051764182023-10-23T10:17:00.178-04:002023-10-23T10:17:00.145-04:00Episode #194: You're Acknowledging...Who?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinh7r6s5bckXSNaMAjiTluH6ex4MUXMWnaDibg9cvK0xk_m43_q-xwZfe7PcS0P-Io1TbT8j4PaADEYNGIGQJRKsY-w9rmn8Fa2QMdBxF-V-9AsRhrcOelhHR-3ximVw0pCuIKzeSBjdh5sq8szfV-L8DqKdEMdmIyRnP638SGisGd4mpOmNmihtC3bCs/s165/Knight_Dog.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="165" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinh7r6s5bckXSNaMAjiTluH6ex4MUXMWnaDibg9cvK0xk_m43_q-xwZfe7PcS0P-Io1TbT8j4PaADEYNGIGQJRKsY-w9rmn8Fa2QMdBxF-V-9AsRhrcOelhHR-3ximVw0pCuIKzeSBjdh5sq8szfV-L8DqKdEMdmIyRnP638SGisGd4mpOmNmihtC3bCs/w200-h200/Knight_Dog.bmp" width="200" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Don Quixote to the rescue of that windmill!</span></b><div><br /></div><div>As most of you are undoubtedly aware of, I have a very odd sense of humor, which often will slide in my blog writings, FB postings, YT postings and just my plain writing. Today's post is about my oddball humor appearing in an often overlooked part of a published book: the acknowledgment page.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I have done this before previously with my trad/indie book called "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/G.B.-Miller/author/B00B3XMZ2O?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true" target="_blank">Line 21/The Inner Sibling</a>", where I responded to a trollish insult to my writing abilities by saying, "guess what, I can string more than two words together."</div><div><br /></div><div>In my upcoming book entitled "The Lie Reveals The Truth", with a tentative release date Spring 2024, I decided to get very cheeky with the acknowledgement page. The kind of cheekiness that will have you scratching your head and saying, "What the?" to your computer screen. So here, in order of how I wrote about them on the acknowledgement page, are the entities/people that deserve my recognition.</div><div><br /></div><div>1} <b>My house</b>. No joke. One typical Saturday morning in the early summer of 2021, I woke up, got out of bed and walked down to my basement to find a couple of inches of man-made water in the basement (including the laundry room). This was courtesy of a burst kitchen pipe, so as a matter course after the water was drained out (note, do not pick up a live computer plug that is submerged in water) and before I moved some of my stuff out, I dug out a bunch of manuscripts from my ginormous slushie pile, which ultimately were two "completed" novellas, another novella that is turning out to be a four volume series and two short stories. Long story short, pretty sure if my basement didn't flood, I probably wouldn't be sitting here two years later typing out this blog post.</div><div><br /></div><div>2} <b>My dining room and YouTube</b>. Seriously. I mean, seriously. My dining room, because that's where I had to relocate my manly man-cave for the second half of 2021 to do all of my writing and what not. You Tube, because I was on the main floor of the house, and since I'm a manly man who needs peace and quiet to write, and there was no way it was gonna be found with a noisy living room and equally noisy kitchen, I had to break my personal rule of not listening to music while writing. Thus YouTube, which consisted mostly of all kinds of classical/Medieval music from almost every single string instrument played (no, really), to all kinds of RPG music (aka role playing games like D&D or Magic: The Gathering) and all kinds of fantasy music and movie soundtracks. For this book alone, I listened to at least 25+ hours of music. Overall, I theorize that roughly 60+ hours of music streaming from YouTube passed in and out of my head that summer.</div><div><br /></div><div>3} <b>My family</b>. This goes without saying that my family put up with my long hours spent writing, knowing that a happy, slightly off-kiltered father inching ever so closer to 60!, is a more malleable father indeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>4} <b>Facebook</b>. Mostly due to the writing group that I am a member of, who has given me very sound and practical advice over the years, to which I am gratefully indebted. Also, a solitary shout out to a particular member of that writer's group whose nom-de-plume is Ramona Mainstrom (specializes in romance) who was able to create a <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2023/09/episode-189-once-again-hardest-part-of.html" target="_blank">viable tag line/short blurb/long blurb</a> from the initial blurb that I had posted in our group. I did some tiny tweaking to get a couple more salient points in, but 98% of it was her, thus the need to give credit where credit is due.</div><div><br /></div><div>5} <b>My Muse and my Conscience</b>. And finally, where would I be if I didn’t give thanks to the always lovely and perpetually effervescent Muse and my rancorous Conscience, who decided that pushing me into the abyss of unfulfilled ‘what-ifs’ was exactly what I needed to manually jump-start this very fulfilling, if not yet financially rewarding, side hustle.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I finish it up by giving links to my Amazon page and my Book Blog page, of which the later I think needs to be radically tweaked in the coming months, but that's another post for another time.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, there you have it. A simple, yet slightly skewered acknowledgment page for my upcoming novella. I think the only credits left to add will be the formatter's d/b/a and the graphic designer's d/b/a. Beyond that, the next headache left will be accessing my US Copyright account after three years of non-use, as well starting the KDP process (nooooooooooo!), and maybe one or two other platforms as well.</div><div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #ffd966; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4469255916853730836.post-17408780016976661702023-10-16T09:32:00.450-04:002023-10-16T09:32:00.147-04:00Episode #193: Thinking. Is. Good!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58l3yWWUqPASyyvmNav0gmRBy2pr7u8_aEGz49uYPIxiqE5-jOM7WLIHpOFNfIXytrdLn3TKjC4ypdMglcUH76lahTU-8XEmaKk5FRzS4KeQhEL0I4UPl8O1kFcufohXzcDTy8xpcnEHVd3aI2qO7pJkyDYqsBjBmArwwQAqzAbMI5OGrxs1WiUTrJjE/s4000/IMG_20231001_151612656_HDR.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj58l3yWWUqPASyyvmNav0gmRBy2pr7u8_aEGz49uYPIxiqE5-jOM7WLIHpOFNfIXytrdLn3TKjC4ypdMglcUH76lahTU-8XEmaKk5FRzS4KeQhEL0I4UPl8O1kFcufohXzcDTy8xpcnEHVd3aI2qO7pJkyDYqsBjBmArwwQAqzAbMI5OGrxs1WiUTrJjE/s320/IMG_20231001_151612656_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Cake we had for my grandson's baptism on 10/1/2023. And it was actually good as we took one for the team.</b></span><div><br /></div><div>This post is another fine outstanding example of creating something out of a few hundred words that were nuked to <a href="https://www.space.com/28072-orions-belt.html" target="_blank">Orion's Belt</a>. Or...or....or....realizing that the previous post was gobbledy-gook a nano-second after pressing the "publish" button, then come back an hour later and nuking said post to the previously mentioned star cluster.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anywho, we decided to give a few writing updates, instead of a dull post about podcasts (what I listen to and how etc), because what I listen to isn't as exciting as what I'm writing.</div><div><br /></div><div>So things are starting to settle down at the villa, as all the familial obligations and the medical obligations, save for lab work, are basically completed and we can concentrate on getting our <i><span style="color: #ffa400;">Average American Novella</span></i> published. A few weeks ago, I'd written a post containing the tag line, short blurb and long blurb for my novella, as well as trying to decide what the title should be {<a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2023/09/episode-189-once-again-hardest-part-of.html" target="_blank">see here</a>}. Suffice to say, we've come up with a title: "The Lie Reveals The Truth". So yay to everyone who had contributed their suggestions/votes for the title, and I will have a special shout-out contained in the acknowledgements for a fellow writer who did a great job in turning my original blurb, with a tiny bit of help on my part, to what you see in that previous post.</div><div><br /></div><div>So really, the only things left on my checklist to complete are: a short acknowledgment section, a short interior blurb section about me and the infamous copyright page, which will fortunately be much, much shorter than the one for one of my short story collections {that one took up about a half page as every previous appearance had to be properly credited}. I also took the liberty of compiling a list on what I want the cover to potentially look like. I figured that being prepared this time will be less of a headache than simply saying, "Well....maybe."</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm still shooting for an end-of-year release, but this hinges on what the schedules of the graphic designer and formatter look like. Worst case scenario, we get this bad boy released in the spring.</div><div><br /></div><div>And now, the world famous <i><span style="color: red;">Hot Mess</span></i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I'd mentioned in a <a href="https://ctsgbmjr2019.blogspot.com/2023/09/episode-190-when-trilogy-becomes-series.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, my planned trilogy has blown up into a four volume series. This really wasn't originally planned to be a four volume series, but the way everything was unfolding {#1 is the kidnapping, #2 is the chase to recapture the hostage, #3 is the chase 2.0}, the realization that there was no intelligent way to keep it at three volumes. With the two previous volumes clicking it at 26 chapters +/-, it would be sacrilegious to saddle volume three with 35+/- chapters and two plot climaxes: the aforementioned chase 2.0 and the final encounter.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since I'm a weird stats nut {I've actually mellowed out over the years. honestly}, I figure I would throw a few strange factoids at everyone.</div><div><br /></div><div>Total word count as 10/16/23 sits at 290,195, which expands out to 65 chapters/640 pages. Originally, the amount I was handwriting versus what I was transcribing was a ratio of 1 1/2 pages written to 1 page typed. In the past sixteen months {yes, you read correctly. I started this bad boy June '22}, the ratio has climbed steadily upwards. Presently I'm transcribing chapter 66 and I'm currently on handwritten pg 16, which now equals 10 1/2 pages typed. I'm kind of at a loss to adequately explain why the differential is so much, except <i>maybe</i> that I write somewhat large {probably the computer equivalent of 14-15 pt}, very clear and concise. The large text part is directly due to me getting rid of 30 years worth of cramping my handwriting in order to fill out forms/reports concisely.</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, the chapter count seems to be on track, in that #3 starts at chapter 50, so I should be finishing this volume at chapter 75 +/-. To extrapolate this nonsense even further, my prediction for a final three volume word count is 350k, and for ha-ha's, an overall four volume word count of 500k. And trust me, I will revisit this prediction when all is said and done.</div><div><br /></div><div>So this is where I currently sit with my two major writing projects, and I actually have at least two other novellas and another short story collection waiting for me in the pipeline. The road to written word salvation is fraught with headaches {need caffeine}, hair pulling {zircon encrusted tweezers and electric razor please} and hangry-ness {we started a diet this past week. a photo was the catalyst that helpfully pointed out just exactly how I presently look}. But the old local {CT} business slogan always applies at the end: <b>P</b>eace <b>O</b>f <b>M</b>ind, <b>G</b>uaranteed.</div><div><br /></div><div>Have a splendorous week!</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><b style="background-color: #444444;">{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved</b></span></div>G. B. Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09783331838434598963noreply@blogger.com4