Episode #349: Shorten Our Stories Reduex

I found this random floral bouquet during my afternoon walk the other day (10/15). Not sure why it was left there, but seemed just enough out of place for me to take a picture of it. Because you know, curiosity makes Georgie's daily routine less routine.

I know I've mentioned on more than a few occasions that I've gotten back into writing short stories, and I've been basically writing short stories that were previously published in my now closed short story blog, with a few originals thrown in for fun.

Over the years I've been saying to myself and to you the reader that I've been (mostly) a pantster when it comes to writing because generally, I found planning a novel to be a lot more complicated than just writing on the fly.

However, the three plus years that I had spent writing my fantasy series basically blew that viewpoint completely out of the water to smithereenies. How, you may ask?

Well....when you incrementally expand your universe to include eighteen characters and fifteen plot/sub-plot points, you decided that plotting/outlining that universe isn't such a bad thing after all.

So we applied that learned lesson to our short stories, albeit in a modified form: we took that previously written short story and used it as a viable outline for the new version of that short story.

And it does come in handy, as it gives me a predetermined starting point and a predetermined ending. All I have to do, in general, is create the filling. And sometimes, we improvised the starting point, so that it blends with the filling and the ending.

For example: I had chosen a train story in my latest batch of rewrites. It wasn't anything particularly special about the story: a man was riding a train and encountered a woman who left a hairbrush behind.

Using that original story as an outline, we tweaked the beginning (riding a train to visit his late wife's parents), created a middle that elasorateds on how he came to be a widow, tweaked the original ending and we ultimately wounds up with a ghost story.

This was the process that I used for rewriting over a dozen short stories: use the original as an outline to plot out nearly 75% of the story (aka, the beefy middle), with the remaining 25% evenly split between the beginning and the end.

I've gotten so used to writing with an outline that I now often wonder why I hadn't tried it sooner. Then I remember after asking myself that question, I answer it by stating that going into that much detail prior to putting pen to paper makes Georgie a dull writer.

So today, or rather, this year I learned that you can teach a crusty old dog new tricks, but only after you heavily bridge them with treats and harsh persuasion of the crystal blue variety.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #345: Breaking The Fourth Wall Like "Crazy Eddie"

Flashback to the years of yore, when the local farm in the middle of suburbia had milk cows grazing in the fields. I believe they still run a fruit and vegetable stand in the summer.

Note about the title: Crazy Eddie's was a short-lived,  loud and brash electronics store from the 1980's in the tri-state area (NY, NJ & CT), who's gimmick was that the spokesman would go on epic 20-30 second rant about electronics and shout "Shop at Crazy Eddie's, his prices are insane!" 

~~~~~~~~

I was reorganizing/condensing a couple of half inch binders into what I thought was a suitable one inch binder for a short story collection to publish in the future, when I came across one of my rewritten short stories from a few years ago.

Glancing through the pages, I noticed that I had managed to write something quite odd in the story. This wasn't the first time that I had noticed this oddity, since I had previously come across a sticky note that said I should write a blog post about it

What this sticky note was alluding to, was the oddity that I had written into the story, which was having the narrator step out of the story, thus breaking the proverbial fourth wall, and talk directly to the reader. I've seen this particular trope done in movies and t.v. shows, but never seen it done in a story before.

Anyways, it was about three sentences in length where the narrator steps out of the story to address the reader directly about a pivotal event in the story, before stepping back into the story to continue his narration.

Now this was not something that was planned ahead of time. If I recall correctly, this just happened, rather sloppily, organically the first time around, so just cleaned it up on the rewrite.

But as a favorite former blogger would often say whenever he went on a slightly irrelevant tangent, I blogress. So, back to the topic at hand.

The story in question was written mostly in the 1st person/present tense p.o.v. I say mostly, because the narration would shift to 3rd person for events that the narrator wasn't there for. Once that particular arc was completed, it slipped back into the 1st person p.o.v.

I basically did this throughout the story, with the narrator doing his thing, then he would shift over to being a peripheral part of a particular scene (if it all), then shift back to narrating. I don't think you call it 'head hopping' in the traditional sense of the phrase, as he was the only persona presenting the entire story through his point of view. So I didn't have multiple 1st person p.o.v. throughout, just his.

For my short story collections, I wrote fourteen short stories, with may two original (that is, non-rewritten) and one essay, and that was the only story that was written in this weird 1st/3rd p.o.v. hybrid. All the others were written in the normal 3rd p.o.v. that we all know and have a love/hate relationship with.

I have a couple of other previously blog published short stories that I want to rewrite. And because you just know that I love to challenge myself, I decided to rewrite these stories from the inside out. In other words, I have a beginning and I have an ending. What I need is a new larger middle that will get me from the beginning to that ending as bumpy and as raucous as humanly possible.

I'm not quite sure if I had a purpose with this blog post, as it was more of general observations on how I did something radically different with my story completely by accident, and how it workout when the dust had settled.

I guess my question to everyone would be this: did you do something with a story that went completely against the rules for storytelling, yet somehow it worked out in the end?

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #344: And Your Archetype Is....?

I was taking a moderately long break during my morning walk, as my legs can no longer keep up with the stamina that I actually have these days, when I decided to take this pic. Even though it's early September, it's still summer in New England.

Many years ago I used to participate in a monthly blog hop sponsored by a writing group called The Insecure Writer's Support Group, and in their monthly newsletter, they would often have a question that you could use during the blog hop.

The suggested question for the month of September I found intriguing enough to actually use it for one of my blog posts. The question that everyone was given is this:

"Do you have a favorite character archetype that you tend to gravitate towards in your writing?"

Now this is something I actually had to look up, because I did not have a clue on what a 'character archetype' was. After a modicum of research, I now have a basic understanding of what one is.

I would have to say that the one I gravitate the most to, is one that Hollywood has been brutally  mutilating for the better part of two decades: the girl boss.

You've undoubtedly seen the Hollywood version: the woman who can do everything, solve everything, control everything, treat people, like men, as insignificant dolts who can't do anything without a woman to hold their hand and guide them along, etc.

Because virtually all of my stories are female-centric, I can say with complete confidence that my female main characters and even the secondary characters, are written in the true 'girl boss' archetype.

While they do ooze that 'girl boss' persona, they are quite confident in their ability to lead, to delegate, and to even ask for help. They are quite compassionate to friends and family, and can be merciless to their enemies. Most importantly, they know their limitations.

My actual 'girl boss' characters will never be mistaken for the Hollywood version of the Mary Sue 'girl bosses'. because we all know that imperfection makes a character resonate more deeply than the shallow that is seemingly forced upon us on a monthly basis.

I believe the 'girl boss' archetype will always be part and parcel of whatever type of story I choose to writer (this was epically showcased in my currently unpublished fantasy series). My stories have been female-centric from the very beginning of my career, and using this particular archetype correctly is something that I will always enjoy writing about.

Thank you for stopping by today and spending a couple of minutes out of your busy day to read my blog. And remember, "no," is the world's shortest sentence, no matter what language you speak. And quite often, the most difficult to understand.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #343: I Think, Therefore, I Continually Create Stories

A bobble-head that cost me about 20 Bazooka comics and $10 back in the early 2000's. I also have a half dozen Bazooka Joe t-shirts purchased the same way.  Obviously taken where I used to work back in the bad old days of being a wonky worker bee.

It's been a loooooong while since I did a writing updater. But a lot of things have been going on since my last update, so I thought now would be a good time to do just that.

Since 2021, I have periodically alluded to four different writing projects (originally five, but one was published shortly after retiring): three that involved either re-writing or polishing up and one that involved republishing a previously published novella.

As you already know, I have succeeded on the first three projects: this novella, followed by this novella, and completing a fantasy series under this tag. The fourth project, which was republishing a currently published novella, took me a few years to complete, as I would periodically work on it while working on other things.

During the second half of August, I was able to work with yet another graphic designer, who came highly recommended to me, on a fresh cover for my upcoming novella, entitled "Evil Has A Conscience."

For comparison, this was the original cover for the same novella, entitled "A Taste Of Pain".

~~~~~

I've also been busy on the short story front. For the past few years, I've been going through my over-sized pile of mediocre short stories that were previously published on my now closed short story blog, and cherry picking those that seem to hold the most promise for being revisited and rewritten.

To date, I've written fifteen short stories overall, with three being one hundred percent original. All of them range from G-rated to that R/NC-17 rating that would sometimes make people cock their eyebrows, and I would like to think that applying a skill set that has evolved over the nearly fifteen years since they were originally written, vastly improved the original content of the story.

My main goal with my short story writing is to finish with at least twenty, so that I can create two balanced short story collections. A small side quest to this particular goal, is to write more original short stories, because if I'm being perfectly honest, what I have left for short stories to pluck from is more than a little south of 'meh.'

However, on the bright side, I acquired the ability of writing from a basic outline, as I'm now treaty those originals as a jumping off point in which to create a better story from those original elements.

That's about it for a writing update: republishing a new and improved novella, and learning something new when it comes to re-writing short stories. I sincerely hope that your week is going in the direction that you're driving towards, and that moving at the speed of slow is always a good thing to explore.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #322: The Grooviest Groove That You'd Ever Groove To.

Just before sitting down at this now full screen, I was jamming to a song by Blues Traveler that was going through my head because of the title of the post. Thus, we have Winnie The Pooh chilling on the bench in the bright sunshine.

The writing groove.

Many have searched for that elusive state of being, where the words keep flowing and that you're churning out stories at a continuous pace. Some have found it and are quite happy with their lives. Others have not. They suffer through bouts of not being able to put the proverbial pen to paper on a consistent basis and become completely aggravated with the process.

And then there are people like me, who have extended peaks and valleys with their writing. In other words, Johnstown Flood and Arizona in the summertime. I know, odd analogy, but it's an apt descriptor. You have peaks where the worlds and stories pour out at a frenetic pace until you suffer from epic burnout and you're scrapping the bottom of a tapped out vein looking for sentences.

A good example would be my blogging. I started with two posts every other day; then dropped to one post every other day; then dropped to three posts per week; then dropped to two posts per week; then finally dropped to one post per week. Oh, and I've been blogging since 2008, so...yeah.

But, as a former blogger used to say, I blogress.

I was definitely going through a medium sized valley with my writing prior to my retirement in late 2020. But after digging out the previously mentioned (repeatedly I might add) manuscripts, I started working on them in 2021, and I slowly started digging myself out of the valley that was my current writing home.

By 2022, when I was hip deep in year one of writing my fantasy series, my writing groove was mostly back. Although I wasn't doing any original writing of stories, I was enjoying blogging once again, and I was a Happy Boy.

Later in 2022, I got bit by the short story bug, and for the next several months, I wrote there short stories. I didn't write anymore after those initial three because I didn't want to get too sidetracked while writing my fantasy series.

Fast forward to 2025. I had written the last sentence of my series in mid-February, and I eventually hit that small rut that everyone goes through after completing a novel. But I wasn't terribly worried, in that I was busy getting this novella published and that usually takes me four to five months to complete.

Oddly, or strangely enough, depending on your viewpoint, I got bitten by the short story bug again. This time, in addition to writing original stuff, I thought I would take a crack at rewriting old stuff. Now if you're like me, you never really toss old stories away into the circular file, you just stash them inside a three ring binder and pray you don't forget them.

Now I do want to point out the underlying reason why his short story bug came back to bite me after being dormant for three years: I had forced myself to take a one year sabbatical before I got back to the serious business of editing the final master draft of my series.

So I dug out several extra stories to rework and rewrite, which is what I spent all 2025 doing. With one of the stories, after I had reworked/rewrite to my satisfaction, I made four different attempts at turning it into a novella.

After that fourth attempt, I decided that I didn't want to spend months researching and writing a novella that would have taken time away from my fantasy series.

Fast forward a few months to 2026. I decided that I would document my journey to publication on Meta (aka Facebook), like I've been doing on my blog. I initially wrote about 15 posts from Dec '25 through Jan '26, then once I got in a good editing groove, kept stockpiling more posts (I publish twice a week on Meta), as well as writing updates.

Now we're here in mid-April and not only am I still stockpiling posts and writing updates to my editing (still slogging away on book #3), but now I've also started stockpiling posts for a novella that I wanted to re-publish this summer. So I can definitely say that once again, I've found my writing groove.

Or, as the Blues Travelers opines, "it's all in the groove!"

Happy Monday and may your week be a dream on your reality check.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #320: Yo! What's The Name Of Yer Book?

Beef in the summer time, it's what makes a family get together, a family get together.

Book titles have always been a hit or (mostly) miss for me.

Either I get it reasonably right: The Inner Sibling or A Trilogy of Love, or I get it painfully wrong: Line 21 or Red Stripe.

With my fantasy series, even though I got the overall title correct, Sister vs Sister, creating the individual titles has been a small pine cone in my work boot.

The first title was way beyond a no-brainer, since the first book started off the adventure with a kidnapping, it made sense to feature that particular word in the title. The second was just a shade more difficult, but knowing how everything was unfolding made it only a slightly bumpier ride to come up with a title that kissed the ceiling of the unwritten rule about title length.

The title for book $3 was the most difficult to come up with so far. One difficult part was reasonably matching the title up with the content of the book, which in this case features a key climatic point that sets the tone for the rest of the series.

The other difficult part was making sure that the title did not break that unwritten rule about title length. After performing about a half hours worth of brainstorming, I came up with a seven word title for the story. I felt it reasonably hinted at what the book was about, so I made a cover sheet for the binder and called it a day.

An hour later, I realized that it was too wordy, and if I felt it was too wordy, then other would too, so I spent about fifteen minutes deciding on where to chop it down and the end result became a three word title.

~~~~~

The apparent unwritten rule of thumb with the title, at least how I understand it, is that the title should be five words or less, because you have a few seconds to catch someone's attention and if they have to expand their short attention span longer than that. you're basically cooked.

If you know anything about publishing history, and I'm not talking about the modern 20th century, but going back to ye medieval times when the printing press came into vogue, book titles were both short and incredibly long at the same time.

Book jacket covers are a modern invention, where you can stuff everything that one needs to know about the book with impunity. Prior to the 20th century, you didn't have the jacket cover, you simply had the cover enhance with the title and the author's name, and maybe on the side. There were exceptions to that rule though, like dime novels.

Anyways, back then the title page inside often became the modern day equivalent of a brief synopsis: you would have a brief/succinct title of your book, say, "how to ice fish."

Underneath in parenthesis, you would have a fifteen to thirty word synopsis of the entire book as a subtitle. So instead of having a short title of your book, it would suddenly expand to a minimum of twenty words. And this was more the rule than the exception.

So when the modern publishing industry was created, I believe the unwritten rule of five words or less became the industry norm for fiction and some non-fiction. I think you would be hard pressed to find a fiction book with a title longer than five words in this day and age.

I'm almost certain that I will be revisiting this topic very soon once I start working on book #4 & #5, because I foresee having my usual difficulties in creating a title that connects in some way with the content.

Thank you for visiting this rare two-for post that is equal parts a writing update and a history lesson.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #314: Writing! It's Noiseless Matte Schtuff!

I'm looking at you because this blogger couldn't come up with anything witty to say, because my cuteness has simply rendered him speechless.

I haven't done a writing update in what seems like ages, so I thought I would give everyone an idea on what's been going on in the slightly unbalanced writing worlds of G.B. Miller.

1} Sister vs Sister: The Series.

I've been making slow and steady progress with my editing process. On the positive side, I've managed to come up with two viable titles that effectively replace the two place holder titles of "kidnapping" and "the campsite".

I'm currently working on book #2 and the only hiccup I've had so far involved having to deconstruct/reconstruct four chapters. To elaborate, I decided near the tail end of book #1 to change how I presented the multi-layer/multi-point of views so that head hopping wouldn't become an issue, and in order to make everything uniform it required me to fix four chapters, which took me about a week in total to accomplish.

2} Facebook.

About a month ago, I talked about what I could do with my stagnant Facebook page and I came up with the novel idea of blogging about the editing and publishing journey with my fantasy series. Suffice to say the early results have more than exceeded my expectations, in that I've had a good uptick in engagement with others and have gained a few new followers.

Naturally this has led me to the joyful concept of multi-tasking, which means having to create enough content to stay the course of posting twice a week on FB, and to a smaller degree, more content for my blog, all while keeping up with the current pace of my editing.

Sometimes, it can be very beneficial to have multiple projects going on at the same time.

3} Graphic designer (cover).

Facebook's algorithms will often populate a user's newsfeeds with page/people suggestions based on your current habits, and sometimes they will unwittingly make a suggestion that turns out to be a blessing in disguise.

I happened across a suggested person to follow (college professor/author from Vermont) who was talking about a bad customer service experience he had while helping someone obtain a refund from a graphic design company.

Long story short, the screenshotted e-mail correspondence featured the company that I'd used for my last two novellas: 100 Covers. Naturally I started reading through the comment section, and suffice to say it was quite the eye-opening experience (basic business rule #1: treat the customer like how you want to be treated, because a bad experience travels at the speed of light in the digital world).

After doing a bit of reading, I decided to ask the author of the post for his recommendations on who he would use. It took him about a day to respond, which was quite thoughtful and enlightening.

He suggest to me MiblArt and said he was highly impressed with their work. And you do know that within a day of receiving that recommendation, I started seeing ads popping up in my newsfeed for that company.

If they're good as they say they are, and judging by the ads that include fifteen to thirty seconds video shorts, I have no reason to doubt their word, I will be using my 3rd graphic designer in the past five years.

And depending on how they do on my next book (a re-write of a previously published book), I may have them redo the covers to my novellas. I do detest having to spend money needlessly, but sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, although it seems I'm getting the bad more often than the good.

So my friends, I hope you enjoyed this little writing update. If you want to re-experience a deeper dive into my fantasy series, please check out the tag Hot Mess; or, if you want to experience the condensed version in less than 220 words twice a week, feel free to follow my author's page on Facebook.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #313: Re-Visiting, Re-Reading and Re-Examining

Got a bit of those winter blahs, so here's a little something from last summer.

Back in the day I used to participate in a monthly writing related blog hop sponsored by the Insecure Writers Support Group, a writing community that supports new and established writers. They have their own blog and have a killer newsletter that is jam packed with all kinds of writing related info, both of which I highly recommend.

In the newsletter, they always offer a question that you can answer during the monthly blog hop (which is always the first Wednesday of the month). I thought that this month's question was so up my alley that I decided to give it a whirl for my weekly blog post.

"Have I ever re-read any of my early writing, and what was that experience like?"

The short answer is: I have and to quote an old song, "oh boy!"

The long answer, which is this post is: It has definitely been an eye opener. When I re-read the stuff that I wrote early on and compare it to what/how I write now, I cringe so hard that I sometimes pull a facial muscle.

While a lot of it has been all kinds of level of cringe, a good chunk of it has been salvageable to the point where I've been able to successfully rewrite and either publish/re-publish or have it soon to be published.

A few examples spring to mind:

1} Both of my recent novellas, The Mortality of Familial Love & To Live Is To Die Young, are re-imagined versions of previously poorly written stories of the kind that would forever languish in a slushy pile never to see the light of day.

2} My current fantasy series was re-imagined from the ashes of a (very) badly written novella that went  nowhere fast over a dozen years ago until I changed the way I write my stories and decided to revisit that cringey story.

3} I have a novella that I plan on republishing this year, because the original version that was published over a decade ago was not up to my current standards as a writer. I realize it shouldn't have been and I'm now trying to rectify that. I've already did this with a previous short story collection, because the mid-2020's me absolutely hated the late 2000's version me.

4} And finally, I was able to successfully re-write nearly a dozen short stories because again, this version of me was severely disappointed with that version of me's mediocre writing (and it was).

So yes, I have spent the past half dozen years pulling all kinds of Calvin & Hobbes faces when reading all of my early writing, but during those same half dozen years, I've also been channeling my inner Calvin & Hobbes can-do attitude when it comes to re-imagining those admittedly bad stories into something 20x better.

I think perseverance is a must have quality for a writer, especially when you're able to find a few good pebbles in the proverbial sandbox of badly written stories, no matter how old those stories happen to be.

Life as a writer is often good, but it's better when you can resurrect an early badly written story into something that you can be proud of.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #307: One Exception To Total Silence

This was not my view looking out my back door this past Christmas was the brownest brown that you can have in mid 30 degree weather. But one can still dream, right?

As most of you have been able to pick up on throughout the years, I need to have near total silence in which to write effectively and efficiently. I say 'near' because of where my den is located (under the living room), so if I get at least 97%, I'm good. If it drops below that, I'm not so good and I have to find someplace else to write, or blog for that matter.

There was only one time that I had made an exception to rule, and that was strictly due to a plumbing issue that ultimately deposited nearly two inches of water into the basement early summer 2021. So naturally, I had to relocate my computer and printer up to the dining room for the rest of the year.

In addition to those two pieces of equipment being relocated, I was able to save four manuscripts from permanent destruction, so that I would have material to work on.*

*manuscript #1; manuscript #2; rewrite of previously published novella; and my fantasy series.

So here's where the exception comes into play. Dining room is on the 1st floor, with the kitchen directly behind me and the living room directly to my left. Because I do not play well with others when it comes to my writing, we whipped out the headphones, opened up the endless world that is YouTube and went exploring.

Now we didn't just choose any old music to serve as my temporary white noise, we needed music that was completely lyric free. Like the only words I want to hear is someone introducing a song. Because I had an early childhood exposure to classical music (thank you Carl Stalling), classical is what I went for first.

Any possible woodwind or string instrument related to classical, I found every conceivable type of music for. Once I had reached my tolerance level for a particular instrument or composer for that instrument, I moved on to another type of music or instrument, or even obscure stuff like Medieval choral music.

I eventually finished my classical feed bag and moved on to the type fantasy music that one would create for RPGs (aka role playing games), followed by metal bands that would create that kind of music, which was then followed by fantasy music of the ASMR variety (trust me on this one), We soon pivoted to Americana and Bluegrass instrumentals.

I eventually finished my instrumental journey by listening to a few movie soundtracks (e.g. spaghetti westerns), which worked out perfectly for me, as within days of finishing I had to vacate the dining room, as the basement was reasonably cleaned, pipes were fixed and everything was put back in decent order.

I calculated that I listened to nearly two hundred hours of instrumental music of a variety of types stretched across at least a half dozen genres. I came to that educated guess by assuming that, on average, I listened to two hours of music per day, seven days a week, for about five months.

Not since that fateful summer, now going on 4 1/2 years, not one note of classical music (although I do play snippets while running my evening errands) or any fantasy music has knocked at my chamber door. I know it sounds odd, but think of it as having to consume something out of medical necessity for months on end, then when the medical crisis ends, you never touch that item ever again.

There are a myriad of sacrifices that we make when we're in the writing groove, but this was the only time that I had written original material to music for my entire fifteen (and counting) year writing career. Every other time I've listened to music while transcribing, which is another story for another blog post.

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

Episode #305: Trying To Ignore The Trees For The Forest

Year two of faking it, because reality is just too darn expensive and messy.

I had a post already in the can that covers this very topic, but after realizing that four page handwritten blog post would total nearly 800 words on the computer screen, thus putting people into a zombie-like trance, I spun on my heel to write a shorter version. A reverse twist on the popular T.L.; D.R. by calling it T(oo).S(hort).; D(id). R(ead).

Due to circumstance completely within my control, I was struck with a drive-by female canine slapping of the incredibly obvious: I couldn't delay working on the all import draft #2 of my fantasy series "Sister v Sister" until late Spring 2026. I needed to push up the start date January 2026.

Why? It's simple if you boil it done to a bone broth: the self imposed deadline I gave to myself shortly after writing the proverbial The End, has mostly imploded, leaving remnants of good intentions gone sour.

Out of three tasks that I had assigned to myself for the majority of 2025:

1. Let the entire series marinate until next year, which I mostly did save for some front-to-back-to-front editing;
2. Publishing another book;
3. Birth a new novel.

The reality was a bit sobering. The first item was partially accomplished, as I started developing a serious case of 'what in the tarnation am I dong' when it came to item number three; item number two was accomplished earlier this year; item number three....

Number three....involved at least four attempts spread out over three different stories, in which each attempt flamed out spectacular, spectacular. First I tried expanding on a short story, unsuccessfully I might add, on two separate occasions before giving up the ghost; 3rd attempt was dragging out a 1/2 to 1/3 completed novel that I had originally gave up the ghost because...GASP!...I literally lost the plot.

The fourth and final attempt drove me to my slushie pile, where I found the beginnings of two stories that were written sometime in the early 2010s. So I took a good look at them, saw they were fantasy stories, then sat down to write.

The first sticking point with them is that I had to remind myself that I was not writing a prequel for one my characters in my recently completed series. The other sticking point, which ultimately became victorious, was I started to really loathe what I had written, so as soon as I transcribed both chapters, it got pitched into my slushie box.

The one issue that all three of the stories had in common (besides fantasy) is that in order to them justice, they needed  the type of complex writing that I had to perform for my recently completed series (see this post for a deep dive that will hurt your head) that I was unwilling to devote one to three years of my life to.

The other issue that drove me to distraction and ultimately got me to focus on thee heavily packed forest and not the scorched earth in front of it, was the nagging cerebellum tap reminding me of the series that I had sitting in a giant milk crate next to my computer.

I did briefly silence that tap as I decided to finish up the multi-chapter synopsis before officially putting the series into hibernation. That involved writing up the last twenty-five chapters (and summarizing all the characters that appeared in the series) and it took me about a month of solid note taking, which was followed by a week of transcribing.

So for better or worse (the worse is not what you think), we have come to the decision to work on the second draft of my fantasy series. The scary thing, at least for me, is that the easiest part of this ginormous task was actually making the decision to do so. Because I had decided when I had first made the decision to create this series, I was going to a thorough job of acquiring everything that will be needed to properly write the 2nd (and others) draft.

As a former supervisor of mine would often state, it's never simple. But one way to make it simple, is to continue bringing everyone along on my journey to salvation by publication.

Have a fantastic week everyone!

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

Episode #303: A Plethora Of Plots, But Only One Destination

Flashback photo from when even the animals were chill, circa early 2000's.

A comment that I had made earlier in the month on a blog post about secondary characters got me to thinking about how I was able to successfully pull off the mammoth complexity on what seemed to be on the surface, a basic plot: husband is kidnapped. Wife and ex-wife go play fetch.

Simple, direct, home-grown and has the hallmarks of a pedestrian story. But what if I told you that out of that basic premise, I managed to weave over one dozen plots that involved more than an equal number of characters, all of whom had one singular target in play: the husband.

Granted, the most plot lines that I managed to write for a given novel/novella was three (my recent novella has three plot lines), and I certainly didn't plan on having to deal with so many plot lines within a given story. But after the dust had officially settled in 2025, I have to say that I am very pleased to say that pulling off such a mammoth complexity as this was a worthy feather in my cap (and a headache for a future post) that I would like to share with everyone.

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1} For starters, we have the original plot line that begat nearly one dozen other plot lines: husband is kidnapped and his wife and his ex play fetch. From here, we have our second plot: ex-wife is connected physically/mentally/spiritually with her ex, and now that connection is broken. So she wants to retrieve him in order to restore that connection and become healthy once again.

2} Our third plot line is as follows: the wife has a betrayal by those who she thought were family (non-blood) and that betrayal revolves around her husband.

3} Our fourth plot line that revolves around this husband involves the mercenary who was hired to perform the kidnapping, with the person who hired her being plot four point five, because both plot lines are tied at the hip.

4} Our fifth plot line plus the additional half, involves a powerful person from the ex-wife's past. He wants to help her achieve her goal, but knows he can't directly help her, but can indirectly. The additional part of this plot involves two others whose main objective is to help retrieve the husband so that they may achieve their goal of freedom.

Presently at this juncture, we have five main plot lines along with two sub-plot lines, all of which center around the husband. Let us now continue.

5} Our sixth plot line revolves around the half plot point from number four, as this person was the actual catalyst for the original plot point. Do not fear though, as this plot point has an additional plot point that involves a recently added member of her retinue.

6} Out of the next three plot points, two of them indirectly involve the husband, while the third involves catalyst from point four and point six and the added member of point six. Our seventh plot point involves the wife who indirectly caused the death of her sentient; our eighth plot point involves the ex-wife from point two, who kills the close family member from point four, with the half plot point involving the reincarnation of that particular member. our ninth plot point involves the added member from point six who takes a traitor in their midst.

7} Our tenth and final plot point involves two people who were caught on a camping trip and turned into edibles. However, they were given the opportunity to earn their lives back by performing a task for the mercenary, and if you'd guessed it was something to deal with the husband, you would be correct. The half plot point is that one of them becomes an involuntary host to a sentient who has a week to prove their worthiness or else.

In conclusion: out of ten official plot points, we have one sub plot point doubling as a full plot point, three sub plot points and one plot point that has no ties to the husband whatsoever. Fifteen plot/sub-plot points spread among eighteen characters, with only one plot point not connected to the husband in any way, shape or form.

I don't know about you, but I personally find it impressive that I had fourteen plot/sub-plot points tied to one person and managed to properly resolve every single one that was tied to the husband to everyone's satisfaction. Even though I don't think this is something that I'll be able to repeat anytime soon, I genuinely believe this has made me grow quite a bit as a writer, because it's showed me that with a little patience, I can handle up to triple the previous amount of plot points that revolve around one person.

I think I have a better understanding of what it takes to create a complex book series, especially one based in the fantasy genre, and why it can take multiple years to finish the series.

Here's to a happy Monday and stress free first week of the official Christmas shopping season.

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

Episode #298: A Smattering Of Ideas & A Plethora Of Verbiage

As the title of the blog post suggests, we have a smattering of ideas to play with. Why? Because our tired brain (allergies that morphed into a good old fashioned chest cold) couldn't quite come up with one solid idea in which to latch upon. A plethora of verbiage? Well...duh. I are a writer, are I not? Writers are known for pumping out all forms of grammar onto the digital page in the vain hopes that they will magically reassemble into semi-coherant sentences.

Caught this little birdie tripping across the hood of my car the other day.

So I thought that since I have multiple ideas for blog posts, today's post will lightly touch up on those ideas, which in turn, we hope, become a meaty post. So to quote John Cleese, let us begin at the beginning.

#1: I decided to start another novel. 

I'm pretty sure everyone is saying, "well, duh. that's what writers are supposed to do." And you would be correct in every sense of the word. However, at this particular juncture, I was/am quite happy churning out short stories, as I was taking a much needed break from novel writing (I had just finished my five volume fantasy series earlier this year, and I don't intend to seriously start diving into it until about this time next year). 

But one of the short stories I had written started calling out to me. Like, "I want to be a novel!" So I said, "why not?" And because I absolutely love a challenge, the story in question fits more like a chapter of a novel than an actual beginning of a novel. So the challenge for me has been to build a novel that comfortably surrounds that story, plus a few actual plot lines to make it gel. Oh and, need to rewrite the story to make it fit a particular time period. Oh and, decide how much fantasy it needs to be infused with. Fun, fun, fun!

#2: I joined another writer's group.

I did quite a bit of searching on Facebook this past summer for another writer's group (to refresh: I got suspended/blackballed/gaslighted from my previous writer's group for posting a link to a blog post that I had previously cleared with one of the admins), which required me to really study/parse out the group rules for each potential group. Suffice to say, there were a few who had rules that in good conscience I could not follow, so they were dropped from consideration.

The one that I did join had rules that I could comfortably live with, and I was able to get clarification on a few of the rules posted. I also found out that every single post made in the group had to be approved by the creator of the group (group has a five to six digit membership).

One of the curious aspects of this group was its complete loathing of anything associated with AI writing. Posting AI covers were verboten (except for show and tell when people were trying to explain a vision for a cover) as well as AI created snippets. Overall this group has been an eye-opener for me, with all the good information/writing tips that I've been able to acquire from other successful writers. I think this one is going to help me in the long run.

3#: My bookcase.

I have a warped sense of humor. I grew up in the 70's & 80's, where humor was raw, offensive and no one had zero f's to give if other people where offended. So naturally I would be on the lookout for books and audio that would cater to my particular taste in humor (e.g. Steve Martin & Cheech and Chong for audio, say Bloom County for the written word).

I found this fascinating book at my local B & N some 15 years ago, because bad humor has always been my thing. James Napoli is a well known writer, comedy performer and filmmaker who has eight other books in the same warped humor vein as this one.

Sarcasm is great to listen to, and even funnier to read about, and this book covers general sarcasm from Alpha to Zed. The cool thing about this book, is that the sarcasm for the topics involved still rings true 15 years later.

Examples: 

Canada-free healthcare, low crime, birthplace of William Shatner. two out three ain't bad.

Dress-something that does not, I said not, make you look fat.

Health-a type of insurance plan that covers everything but the rare condition you managed to come down with.

Haircut-something a man would notice his girlfriend had gotten only if she came home bald.

If you like the kind of humor that was popular in the 2010's, he can be found on Amazon, which seems to be still active and in print.

And that, is that, although that is not this, nor is this that or the other thing. Either way, was this trip really necessary and I don't think I'll be making that left turn at Albuquerque again anytime soon. I think my best bet would be to run to the hills, or yell, "Run Lola Run!"

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

Episode #286: July Was....Very Interesting

My best bud, Mr Squirrel (I call him "Mr" because he has, somewhat begrudgingly, earned my respect over the past several years) once again chillin' out underneath the bird feeder. He was kind enough to let me take a few photos while I was about to go on my daily walk.

July was a very interesting month for me as it pertained to writing. It was also interesting because I saw, albeit briefly, a well known social media influencer/businessman get absolutely wrecked/cancelled in real time for using a word that is now considered to be "racially insensitive".

In regards to my writing, as I mentioned a few posts ago, trying to release a book in July is an exercise in aggravation (aka the 5 P's.). But the good news is that all of the pieces are about 98% in place, as the only thing that I'm waiting on now is the print cover. Which means that the July release that I really wanted will realistically become an August release.

Now because of the abnormal length of time it took to get everything ready (again, the 5 P's come into play here) I need to stay occupied. Which I attempted to do by writing another novella. As I mentioned previously, I had written a short story that was a perfect ending to a novella/novel, so I decided to write a story that would finish at that short story, albeit in a slightly different form.

We performed a full body dive into the deep end of the pool with this story. Things started off exceptionally well, but soon, it became abundantly clear that my enthusiasm for this story was not going to carry the day like it did with the others. In fact, after that first chapter, my enthusiasm began vanishing until it got to the point where it took me nearly a week to write an eight page chapter.

Long story short, we gathered up all the components (binder with completed chapters and chapters waiting to be transcribed), made a tidy little pile on my writing tray and spent the rest of the evening and the next day giving serious contemplation to moving the entire mess to my "slushle" box.

Later in the evening of the next day, we came to a dual concrete conclusion: I need to restart the beginning and channel my inner sociopath in order to properly do this story justice, and that I needed to switch from being a "pantser" (aka no real conceptual plan for the story) to writing a good basic outline so that I have an above average idea of how I really want the story to unfold.

And finally, I'm on the search for another FB writing group that's a cut above the previous one that I was in. I have a couple via the suggestions of FB algorithms, so I'm going through each group's guidelines to see which one is the better fit for me. To be completely honest with everyone, I'm much too old to deal with various issues/nuances that my previous group seemed to have. Give me concrete guidelines on what I can and cannot do, don't carve out exceptions to the "cannot" guidelines, don't have a plethora of admins (too many admins means poor communication) and you'll have a very happy member who will not rock the boat inside the group.

Remember, the weekend is always the cure to whatever ails you during the week, so make that your ultimate goal.

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

Episode #281: Have You Ever Challenged Yourself?

When your brain is emptier than a plastic garden gnome, you know you be in some deep dark dank pit of creative nothingness...

Anywho, today's chop suey special is called "Challenging Yourself", or if you want to tweak a well known movie quote, you can say in the voice of the well known character actor Strother Martin, "Have you ever challenged yourself?"

Specifically, as a writer, did you ever go out of your comfort zone, just to see if you could produce a quality product?

I've gone out of my comfort zone quite a few times over the years. One of the very early instance of me going out of my comfort zone, was to write a clean story.

No, really.

When I first took my writing seriously, I knew right from the get-go that I was going to write adult fiction. While I enjoyed reading clean stories, my warped dark sense of humor and my exploration of adult....topics...in my younger days basically guaranteed that cleanliness in my writing was like men reading Playboy or Penthouse for just the articles: it wasn't going to happen.

But.....one day I decided that I was in a rut and needed to try something completely different to get out of the rut. So during the course of one day (maybe two), I wrote a G-rated short story called "Cedar Mountain". That short story became one of only two short stories that I managed to get published in my career, with this one being in a now defunct e-zine called "Beat To A Pulp". 

Another challenge that I decided to inflict upon myself, was to write a story in the first person/present tense. Now considering that we're all taught almost from day one that we should be writing our stories in 3rd person/past tense, with the occasional foray into 3rd person present tense, writing a complete story in the present tense is usually an exercise in frustration.

I've been known to do bits and pieces of an overall story in the present tense, but except for maybe a viable sliver here and there, I've usually reworked those passages to make them fit better with the overall story. But I had issued myself a challenge, and the challenge was accepted.

And I had just the perfect vehicle to implement my challenge with: a previously published novella that I wasn't too happy about (trust me, there were  A LOT of things not to be happy about). So back in the hey day of that nasty little thingy that made everyone's lives miserable for the first half of the 2020's (including my house), I took that previously written novella and re-wrote it to the present tense.

Definitely were not easy to do, changing everything from the proverbial "I used to be smart." to "I am smart." left it alone for a few years, then tidied it a bit this year, so when all is said and done it will come out as an e-book only. But, the challenge was successfully completed.

Another challenge that I had decided to do early on, and this one pre-dates the previous two listed, was to write a story in the 2nd person viewpoint, which is considered to be one of the hardest view points to write in. I can't really describe it well, but if you click on the link propagated by Google, all will be answered. But just the same, the challenge was accepted.

On the upside, I succeeded in writing two or three one page stories in that particular viewpoint. On the downside, I succeeded in writing, rather badly, two or three one page stories in that particular viewpoint. Also on the downside, there are no surviving paper copies, but one of my old XP or Win7 computers may have a copy or two. Maybe. 

And lastly, there was one final challenge that had multiple parts, of a personal nature, that I decided to accept: write a full blown novel. By full blown, I mean something along of the lines of being a supremely detailed, thoroughly researched, with completely fleshed out characters with just enough sub-plots to keep everyone cohesive without being too overwhelming.

I had actually tried this once before with another fantasy series that ultimately died an inglorious death (that is, I recently unpublished both the print and e-book versions), mostly because I was too much of a keyboard commando, for lack of a better term, to put in the work required to fix it/complete it. But that may change in the future....if I remember what the general plot is/was supposed to be.

Anyways, me accepting this challenge was the perfect nudge that I needed. I was waffling about whether or not I should switch to writing my stories via pen and paper then transcribing to the computer, but after writing about a half dozen chapters by hand for my latest novella and discovering the pros (no major digital distractions or chronic hand fatigue, to name just a few) more than outweighed the cons, I took the plunge.

The rest, as they say, is history, as I completed a five volume fantasy series totaling some 600k words over 122+ chapters, with every single page written by hand before transcribing to the computer, during the 1Q of 2025. Total time spent was almost three years, but it was well worth it. I want to note that I did chronicle this particular journey under the tag Hot Mess, so if you want to check out in greater detail about this fantasy series, by all means check out that tag.

And believe or not, I'm not flying on air, but I have decided to challenge myself once again: this time, taking a recently finished short story and turning it into a novella. And for an added bonus, the short story itself will be the actual ending of the novella. So unlike the fantasy series, in which I had the beginning and a nominal outline for an ending as a non-moving goal post, I have to create an entire beginning and middle to arrive at the completed ending.

I believe that you should always challenge yourself as a writer, because you just never know what you can actually accomplish if you don't actually give it a try.

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

Episode #277: Breaking Through That 4th...Wall?

Definitely a blast from the past. We have a well known local farm that (usually) has a produce stand every summer. I haven't seen cows out in the pasture in a very long time, but seriously, how often have you seen cows smack dab in the middle of surburbia?

Last week {May 19th-24th}, I was severely procrastinating working on my latest novella by performing some pen editing to almost a dozen short stories, when I happened upon a particular paragraph that basically broke, if not severely crack, the proverbial fourth wall.

To refresh everyone's foggy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday morning brain, breaking the fourth wall is when an actor breaks character and steps out of scene to talk to the audience about that particular scene. This is commonly done in movies and t.v. shows, usually with great success, but rarely has it been done in books (at least that I know of. I'm sure I'll be corrected on this point).

The story in question was one that I had to substantially rewrite as the original story was, to a major degree, quite blase. The re-write though, was something else though. As soon as I put fingers to keyboard (this was one of the last few stories that I wrote directly on the computer) something came over me. Whether it was due to the topic of choice, petty revenge, or something else, I suddenly channeled the smarmy/sassy/insufferable side of my personality and wrote like a man possessed.

To be honest, this was one of my better written short stories that featured a lot of tropes that usually populates my adult novels, but toned down to PG-13. But you didn't come here to listen to me brag about my writing. You came here to read about my opinion on breaking that fourth wall. Here is the paragraph in question.

What happens next has been pieced together from both first hand accounts and video that was taken by Dennis during the entire date, thus the narrative voice that is yours truly. What? Do you actually think I was there for all the behind the scenes stuff that’s been going on from the get go? Get real. This is a story that requires you to suspend your disbelief for a brief snippet in time, while yours truly the writer, weaves a fantastic tale of cosmetic karma for your enjoyment.

This stepping out actually takes place near the very end of the story, where the petty revenge is about to unfold in all of its exquisite glory. The entire story was written with a strong narrative voice along with the traditional p.o.v. Additionally, it does have a bit of the first person viewpoint sprinkled throughout.

Personally, I would consider this paragraph to be just the dipping of the toes in a small pond when it comes to something like this. I normally don't see something like this in a lot of the fiction that I read, so I am curious if this is something that is frequently done, or if it's something that is rarely done, simply because there are so many different ways to write/tell a story that breaking the fourth wall simply isn't a thing.

I do enjoy when actors break the fourth wall in movies and television, because I believe it makes the product that more enjoyable to watch.

So let me know of your honest opinion about breaking the fourth wall. Do you try to do it with your writing, or do you believe it's better suited for the stage, the big and little screen.

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

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

Still one of my favorite Mamacita & Son doggo pics.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode #266: I......Am Hooked On A Name!

Flashback to the early 2010's, when my Holly was the absolute chillest cat you ever laid eyes on.

Back in mid-October 2024, I wrote a post that touched upon naming throwaway characters. It was a fascinating read to be sure, as I tried to dig a little deeper into my reasoning behind using certain names for my throwaways.

Today I decided to revisit that particular post in order to make another attempt at understanding why I like to use certain names repeatedly.

I think this is something that all writers go through from time to time, in that they become overly attached to a particular name, male or female, and decide to use an ungodly amount of time. If you really think about it, repeatedly using a particular name can be considered trope-like behavior.

Let's use me as a good example of trope behavior without really recognizing that I was doing it until a number of years had passed.

Way early on, I became quite enamored with the name Nikia. I first heard it used in the movie "Kill Bill, Vol 1", and I thought it was quite the badass name, even if it was attached to a young tween. So I started using it for a lot of my early stories whenever my lead female character was a badass. Ultimately it took me until the mid 2010's to pull the plug on using the name, as by that point it was going to be part and parcel of five stories (two novellas and a failed trilogy), and I was becoming quite sick of using it.

That 'sickness' eventually worked itself away, as I started using other types of names for my badass female characters (some involving a twist to the dark original name, e.g. Machiavelli). But it didn't really work for my male characters, as you will soon see.

The only reason that I fell in love with the name Melvin, is because of its versatility. Not as a character that would make a great protagonist, but as a character that would make a great antagonist. What immediately springs to mind when you hear the name Melvin? Annoyance? Disdain? Loathing?

Melvin is one of those names that you can say with any type of emotion and chances are, a character will be born out of that emotion. Think I'm kidding? Let me show you a few examples.

1} In my currently unpublished five volume fantasy series "Sister vs Sister", Melvin is portrayed as a loathsome, misogynistic piece of human excrement who is looking to take over the world (no, really). So in this particular instance, when I'm speaking/reading the name Melvin, I'm instantly disgusted/turned off by the mere utterance of his name. In other words, his name leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

2} Let's take a modest step back to the novella that I'm looking to publish this year, "To Live Is To Die Young". In this particular instance, Melvin is written as one of those fringe members of a society that really doesn't care about him. He comes off as an intolerable nuisance with barely any redeeming qualities. This time, when I'm reading/speaking his name, I want to severely mock him for being such a useless member of society, so in my head, my pronunciation of his name is one octave lower on the first three letters and one octave higher on the last three.

3) Let's take one more step back to a short story that I'm editing/reformatting for another small novella that I decided to work on while putting the aforementioned novella on the back-burner for a small moment in time. In this particular instance, Melvin is the name of the narrator of the story. He is written as someone who is both respected and loathed in equal amounts in a given friend group. In other words, when I read/speak his name, I want to treat him as someone who is the necessary evil that you need to keep your disparate friend group coagulating on a daily/weekly basis. In other words, I say his name with a healthy mix of disdain and tolerance.

So as you can see from these examples, the name Melvin can be molded/manipulated to any kind of character that you want to create, simply by uttering his name with whatever type of emotion you want to inject the name with. To be honest, it's starting to look like the name Melvin is going to be the literary equivalent of a character actor who becomes part of a movie/t.v. star's acting crew (e.g. John Wayne had a set number of character actor friends who appeared in his movies from the 30's through the 60's).

If I need an antagonist of some kind, whether minor/mid-level/semi-major, Melvin is going to be my go-to character name to fulfill that particular role. So my question to you is this: do you have a particular name, male or female, that in your eyes is versatile enough to appear in a good percentage of your stories in some particular way?

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

Episode #256: How Do I Write Thee? It's A Complicated Process

To semi-quote Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again."

Even though this was taken two days after Christmas 2023, we were greeted by the same exact display two days after Christmas 2024. Makes me want to play this Valentine favorite from my high school days.

My writing process, for lack of a better word, is "complicated". It wasn't always this way though, as previous to 2021, I wrote like every other writer on the planet: with a computer (laptop/PC/any other computer related device). But unlike everyone else, my output could be calculated in weeks/months, instead of hours/days.

And the worse that my genetic malady affected my hands, the more that my output dried up. Until finally in late 2020, I decided to become like the writers prior to the creation of the computer and typewriter, and do everything with pen and paper. I had last done pen and paper with my blog between 2007-2009 before the motivation dried up, so resurrecting the pen and paper seemed like a no-brainer.

But, a funny thing happened along the way of doing my writing the old fashioned way (not completely as draft 1A was transcribed to the computer): I began to actually pay attention to what I was writing for characters and scenes. For those who constantly battle with variations of the old adage of "distractions often drain the creative juices dry", I managed to bring that battle to a well deserved stalemate.

Here's how I managed to accomplish this feat of daring-do.

1.  I do not have Meta Inc on my phone, nor do I play with any other of the popular socialized media platforms save YouTube (I am forever connected to Alphabet Inc). In fact, I have seven apps that get regular use: two music/podcast apps, two news apps, YouTube, a crossword puzzle app and a sports app.
2. I use Google for research purposes while I'm writing (e.g. grammar, culture, religion) at least 97% of the time with the remaining 3% used for crossword puzzle breaks to recover from hand fatigue.
3. Because of the previous two points, my actual total digital time spent while I am actually writing totals about one hour, out of a typical six hour blocked out day for writing (normally 2 hours in the morning, an hour in the afternoon and the remaining three in the evening), with the remaining non-sleep hours doing other non-computer things.
4. Finally, more writing by hand equals less total time spent on the computer per day. Add in the fact that I'm happily retired and enjoy doing other things than doom scrolling on my computer, and my total time on the computer per day is a generous 1.25, 1.5 if I'm struggling to properly start a new chapter.

So what is the cumulative result of this digital malnutrition? A vastly improved writer. Allow me to elaborate.

I've long ago, at least 15+ years, paid closer attention to the books/stories that I was reading, partially to see how the good reputable writers properly crafted their stories. While I did, and continue to do, pick up valuable writing tips, I was often at a loss on how to properly apply them. Only when I had consciously decided to make the switch to pen and paper in 2021 was I able to really apply those tips.

Unlike when I was exclusively using my computer to write, in which beefy characters/scenes were frustratingly inconsistent, using pen and paper forced me to slow down my thought process by a factor of twenty. This slowing down allowed me to properly use the various writing tips that I had acquired, e.g. judiciously drip-dropping background info so as to more fully flesh out the characters, which in turn made my stories to be (hopefully) more compelling.

As with every preferred writing style/routine that a person decides to use, there were a few minor inconveniences that took me a very long time to get used to.

1. Word count: this was the first major hurdle that I had to overcome. I believe I've explained this elsewhere in the past four years, but to refresh everyone's memory, I never lost the ability to cramp my printing yet maintain that legibility at the same time. In short, I've learned to estimate what my word count per chapter is based on the amount of handwritten pages I would generate. So roughly 20-22 pages of handwritten text would equal about 12 computer pages totaling 5,300 +/- words per chapter. Consistently I might add.
2. Mistakes: this was the second major hurdle that I had to overcome. In short, I learned to use great quantities of liquid paper/white-out and blank file folder labels if I'd made a mistake while writing. This has basically forced me to double/triple check to make sure that what I was writing was what I'd wanted to write. In extreme cases, this would lead me to doing the following laborious task.
3. The type of mistake that would send a story off in the wrong direction: There were times throughout my current project where, after taking a break to think about what I had written while doing other things, I would realize that a particular scene was going in a direction that did not jive with the a given plotline. This would necessitate, regardless how bad the error was, to rewrite from where it began to stray and make it right. The amount of aggravation I would have to go through to fix and get the story back on track would boggle your mind. 

To be fair, point three is where I would often envy normal writers, because for them it would be the simple matter of either wiping out the entire error and restarting, or printing out and restarting, both of which required a few clicks of the mouse to fix and only two to three minutes wasted. For me, to fix an error of that magnitude would require, depending on the severity, fifteen to twenty-five minutes to fix.

Still, the one main point that I had managed to accomplish by writing with pen/paper, is that I was able to forcibly slow down my thought process so that everything coagulated properly, and most importantly, made sense. I often had the problem, no matter what stage of life I was at, to miss things while writing so that the final product did not make sense, or worse, shoot from the lip (aka, speak/type without thinking, often with disastrous results).

In general, I am extremely happy with the way I now create my stories, both fresh and rewrites. My aggravation factor is almost nil since changing, which is directly due to being able to concentrate more fully on what I'm writing (especially when I finishing up for the day, more often than not, I don't stop in the middle of a thought, but carry it through to the natural conclusion), whether it's a particular character or a specific scene.

I will say one thing though, that I have carried on/carry forward one particular computer related process to my current process, and that's printing out every completed chapter written. T.L.; D.R., there is a serious issue of control freakiness/microscopic micro-managing attached to that last statement. Blog reader beware, as the fat writer has a closing aria for the intermission of Act III.

It's Monday of the official first week of January 2025, why aren't you still on holiday?

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