Episode #290: It's Been Traveling Like A Car With Four Square Wheels

This is pretty much how last week went: crashing hard after surfing through the dullness of reality.

The picture pretty much sums up the past week that was, in that there wasn't much of newness to it, just a leveling off from the plateau of freshness into the mesa of staleness.

The only thing of note that I was consistently working on, besides finally getting to the last stage of publishing the print version of my novella, which was fraught with serious examples of self-inflicted obtuseness that created extra work that didn't need to happen, was my post fantasy chapter outline/bullet points for my recently completed series.

One of my little quirks that will sometimes raise its fugly head is that I can be extremely....focused on certain peripheral items that are related to the original project that I would be working on. This chapter outline/synopsis is one such item.

This soon to be 150+ page monstrosity allowed me to go into further detail with my note taking, in that allowed me to properly plan out how certain chapters should be rewritten and/or revitalized. For example, some time during the second volume of the series, I decided to refocus on how I wrote chapters. Instead of writing a chapter with competing plotlines between two main characters (that ultimately became three) that would occasionally meet up throughout the series, I decided it would be easier to alternate chapters between each of the main characters.

This made things so much easier for me to handle, as each character would have their own chapter devoted to their particular plot line, plus all of the various tangents within that plotline, with the occasional crossover to the other plotlines, until the final three chapters.

So this is how I've been keeping myself occupied in the morning/afternoon/evening: churning out what I will predict to be 105+ pages of pure, unadulterated, board certified doctor scribble. And I do mean doctor scribble. My printing is bad to begin with, and my note taking has ramped up the scribble to the point of being undecipherable, like a court reporter's note taking.

Like it's now turned into a hybrid mix of printing/cursive handwriting, complete with words that are supposed to be, say seven letters long for example, being chopped down to maybe four, with no vowels and letters that could masquerade for six others (yes, my scribble is just. that. bad.). My scribble is what doctors should aspire to and what pharmacy techs should loudly curse to the bowels of hell over.

So....that's been my basic to-do list for the past couple of months, but up until last week, I was able to do other things around it so that I would break up the monotony of a dreaded, but highly necessary addition to the laborious proper editing of this series.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Absolutely....in 2026, after I publish one final re-re-re-write of a previously published novella that I was severely disappointed with mere days after it went live.

Have a fantastic start to your month of September!

{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 #279: Sometimes Life Feels Like A Venn Diagram

Believe me, this blast from the very distant past (like early 2000s) kind of matches up with my state of being for this past week.

My life currently feels like a Venn Diagram. For those who need a tiny refreshment of minutia on what it is, please click on the offered link. Everyone else, I apologize in advance for bringing up something that horrified normal people in 2024.

To elaborate just a tad, I had a lot of things going on in the past few weeks in which the only common denominator was me. So, with that being said, let's explore this human equivalent of a Venn Diagram with me being the central connecting point to all four circles.

Circle #1: let's say this one features my recently completed fantasy series "Sister vs Sister". Because of the general state of blue funkiness that I was in, I decided to do one last round of pen edits before I really put it away for the next year or so. Going through that five volume monstrosity didn't really do anything to negate the blue funkiness, because afterwards, I really felt just a little bit...lost. Like an actual hardcore empty nest syndrome.

Circle #2: let's say this one features book reading. Normally I try to keep up with my reading by consuming at least two books per month, but lately, my heart really isn't into consuming books, new or used. As I've mentioned previously, I really had to push myself to finish the book, because even though the topic intrigued me, the content was just...meh. Because it was meh, this 240+ page tome really did a number on me, as I was torn between DNF'ing this bad boy and pursuing the sunken cost fallacy to the bitter end. Suffice to say, the latter was chosen.

Circle #3: this one is a toss-up between two writing related options, so.....Jeopardy? And my answer is, writing fresh stuff. I spent the better part of two months writing nearly one dozen short stories as a distraction to actually doing the item in the final circle. Out of those nearly one dozen stories, one of them had ultimately planted the seed of writing yet another novella, featuring the two main characters from that story. So here I sit, mulling over that particular idea. Or rather, that idea gently nudging me saying, "write me, write me...you know you wanna."

And finally, circle #4: my novella, "To Live Is To Die Young". After completing all of the necessary tangents that are required for this novella {e.g. title and blurbs}, I finally pressed the proverbial Pay Now buttons and did just that, to the tune of $450. Yay me!

So we have four properly labeled Venn slightly illogical circles, none of which actually touch/intersect with each other, but do intersect with yours truly. Which if you really think about it, is quite odd. In theory, all four circles should have at least one thing in common with each other besides the main point, which in this particular case, is me.

But...they do not. Unless you count that they were all vehicles for my procrastination, which really doesn't work for me. Absolutely none of them have a common.....wait a minute.....wait a minute....okay, let me stare at the screen for thirty seconds.....

at this point, G.B.'s legendary muse walks up to him and slaps him upside the head like Moe does with Larry, Curly and Shemp. He promptly slides out of his chair, but is immediately caught by his muse and placed back in his chair. She sternly shakes her finger at him before silently walking away with a swagger in her stride.

Dumbfounded, which is a normal state of being at least once a month for him, G.B. suddenly picks back up where he had left off at previously.

Well, I'll be a McDonald's ice cream cone. They do have at least one thing in common with each other: reading! No, really. Think about it for second: circle #1 requires a boatload of reading since editing is being done; circle #2, no-brainer since a book is being consumed; circle #3, needed to do reading because one has to proof their stories to makes sure there's no typos etc.; and finally circle #4, reading was definitely needed while putting together one monster manuscript for the formatter to begin work on (my formatter of choice requires the entire novel/novella to be one entire manuscript, no matter how many pages/chapters it has in order to create the necessary files for KDP/Print/Non-KDP platforms).

Huh...so we had a come to your deity of choice moment while writing this heartfelt lament featuring the almighty (to some) Venn diagram. Which, if you really give it some thought, is about a bogey over on the golf course of life for me. More often than not, I will arrive at a conclusion a few minutes after the train left the platform, only to belatedly realize that making that stop at my local mom & pop coffee house allowed to arrive at that wrong conclusion, thus missing the train.

So now what this post boils down to is to pay closer attention to your surroundings, because while you're focused on the beauty of the blossom in your hand, you're completely ignoring the vulture standing on the arm of the cacti who is counting down the minutes to when his dinner will be served al dente.

Having good eats is not the same as being good eats. Paying attention to finding a common denominator to the multi-tasking that you're performing can only breed success in the long run. But definitely pursue finding that common denominator early, otherwise the end result will be something like this:

"A blog post that started with good intentions, but stumbled so badly out of the starting gate that it has no choice but to flail its arms in a cartoonist manner while running like Woodstock flies."

Happy Monday to one and all, and to those who are parents, whether dual or single, I sincerely hope you had a very good Father's Day.

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

Episode #278: Procrastination....

Tina, our lovely Chihuahua, who suffers from partial blindness, deafness and dementia, is still living the good life as an elderly doggo.

I've always had issues in doing what was required in order to have an appropriate outcome for a particular task/goal I had set for myself. There were a myriad of reasons for allowing this kind of drama in my life. Sometimes, it was the fear of failure. Other times it was the over-analyzing/over-thinking of a particular action that ultimately caused a serious INaction to occur.

Like self-publishing.

The self-doubt/second guessing that I had when it came to self-publishing was, at times, nearly crippling. But I managed to persevere, mostly by taking seriously small baby steps through every step of the process until I was able to, with confidence, press that shiny yellow button that said BUY NOW! that would activate the final step in the process of self-publishing.

Up until now, that was the process that I had followed, without fail, with my previous self-published books: incremental baby steps until my confidence level was at the acme of my existence, which in turn allowed me to press that shiny yellow button that said BUY NOW!

Now is where the issue of procrastination (to be fair, every time I type in that word, this nifty Rod Stewart song immediately comes to mind) has recently come into play.

I had written a Facebook post a few weeks prior to this blog post on how ridiculously easy, compared to my novella from 2024, it was to create (short blurb, long blurb, teaser, title and ideas for a cover) the ephemera needed for my next novella*. I ended up asking the rhetorical question of, "is it really this simple?"

*note: it took me a total of three hours, spread out over three weeks, to complete the aforementioned items.

Well, the answer is, sadly enough, no it is not that simple. 

I knew complications were being fast tracked when I began researching what other packages I wanted to purchase this time around for a book cover, which was soon followed by what kind of price increase/new content my formatter of choice had listed on her website. At this point, we decided to super-size our value meal and simply embrace the procrastination that was rapping at my chamber door.

How, you might ask? By choosing to finish a book about the Frankish Empire in the time of Charlamagne and perform another round of pen edits to my five volume fantasy series that I had recently completed earlier this year. At the same time.

I was already beginning to stress out financially over self-publishing my novella, even though my finances were in fantastic shape, so I decided that a distraction was needed to take my mind of things (you see where this is going, right?) by reading the aforementioned book. Then when I was really struggling to finish this book, I had the bright idea to perform yet another round of pen edits, because you know, I needed yet another distraction in order to publish my novella.

And PRESTO!, we pulled a rabbit called "Procrastination" out of the hat. It's not cuddly, nor cute, it smokes a celery stick and it's trying to corner the market on main character syndrome.

Being surrounded by procrastination crutches has done wonders for my well being. I mean, what else can I do but lean on them in my times of uncertainty? Right? If I don't, then that can only mean one thing: I actually have to complete the goal that I had set for myself in early June, which was to publish this novella. And I'm not sure if I want to face that faux fear head on just yet.

So here I sit, with three options in front of me to choose from: A} finish reading the book; B} finish the latest round of pen edits; C} publish that novella. But, is there a fourth option for me to pursue? I mean, if you really think about it, the letter D} would be something like this: do all three at the same time. In other words, perform the catchphrase of Larry the Cable Guy and just "git-r-dun."

Pursuing option D would certainly get me moving in the right direction with my novella, since my novella should take precedence over finishing a book that, in a best case scenario, would be automatically renewed by my local public library. And it should take precedence over finishing my latest round of pen edits, since that book series has at least another eighteen months of gestation before I can actually publish it.

Procrastination is a fugly concept to personally experience, because only means that your confidence level isn't what you thought it was, and that simply isn't true. You need to kick it to the curbside, because if you don't, then you'll be perpetually playing the very tiring game called "What If?", and is that a game you really want to play in today's world of "Do It! Now!"?

Definitely something to think about, and it's something that I too will definitely think about as well.

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

Episode #268: To Use What You Were Given Sometimes Takes Guts

"My dude has fallen over in shock and he can't sit up!"

Reality is that I have very bad balance and I happened to bump into my c.d. rack, thus the new resting position. But, after reading my post, you may agree with his response.

Today's post is probably going to be a bit of a sticky wicket, so to speak, so I'm going to do my very best to keep it sensible. I would like to also note that I will also try not to deviate too much by covering certain facets that have already been discussed in greater detail elsewhere.

Personally, this particular topic has been a steady part of my writing for the past dozen years or so, which is directly due to me creating super strong female characters that would use everything in their arsenal to accomplish their goals.

The topic in question is weaponizing sex, or as Pat Benatar eloquently stated in a song that was ahead of its time: "Sex As A Weapon". Even though this topic is geared to both sexes, this post will concentrate more on women than on men.

What prompted me to write this post was a particular YouTube music channel that I subscribe to that features a very talented female Japanese guitarist based out of South Korea. It seems like from day one, she initially attracted subscribers using what God had graced her with (with some very creative cosplay costuming that always (barely) stayed within YouTube's ToS) and kept them with her exceptional musical talent. 

So I got to thinking about how this particular issue often plays out in other venues/avenues, sometimes voluntarily: e.g. concerts, cosplaying (of all types, including what's mentioned above) and involuntarily: e.g. pro wrestling, track & field and other sporting events. And fiction, which is a separate category of its own.

note: I am not touching on the topic of adult entertainment, simply because that's an extremely volatile issue that I do not wish to engage in.

Now I'm old enough (reluctantly knocking on the front door of 60) to remember the before of the involuntary weaponization of sex, where the athletic uniforms for track & field weren't so blatantly provocative as they are now. Ditto goes for professional wrestling, where the clothing attire for women was in the vein of one piece leotards (similar to what gymnasts wear). I'm pretty sure that the after of the involuntary is something that most everyone reading this has seen the aftereffects: exceptionally tiny uniforms for track & field, and booty-shorts and tinier than normal sports-bras, along with some....enhancements for female wrestlers (if you think I'm kidding, check out any video/t.v. program/facebook page that involves ladies professional wrestling for confirmation).

For those of you who have partaken of today's music scene, or even going back at least a decade, you have seen performers dress in ways that emphasizes what they got, sometimes modestly, sometimes not. Even though they may draw you in with their talent, sometimes it's that weaponization that keeps you hooked, like a double edge sword.

Whether it's voluntary or not, it still involves making a highly personal decision about how each performer wants to use what they got in order to make money. Some people are very comfortable in their own skin, and thus have no problem in using what they got to get what they want. Others may be comfortable in their own skin, but simply do not want to cross that particular line in the sand.

Now I mentioned that fiction is its own separate category. The reason why I believe this is that every writer often injects their own morals/mores into their stories, because more often than not, a given character in a given story is an extension of some type of the writer.

In my particular case, using sex as a weapon in my stories was always thing, no matter what level of weaponization was being applied to a given story. This was basically showcased in my fantasy series "Sister v Sister" where, for example, the Queen of the Pod Planet was forced to weaponize what the deities had graced her with in order to get what she needed to effectively rule the planet. It wasn't pretty and it was quite humiliating at times, but I tried to make it so that everyone in the Queen's inner circle knew how bad it was, so they tried to help mitigate the degradation she was forced to endure as much as possible.

I think what it boils down to, at least in the real world, on how much is a woman willing to compromise their personal beliefs in order to have the career that they'd decided to pursue. The fictional world is far more nuanced, in my personal opinion, since no matter what the medium may be, it's the writer that builds that character and decides how much of themselves do they want to be injected into their characters.

For me personally, I do not question how a person, male or female, wants to use what the deities of their religion had graced them with in order to have a fulfilling life. As my very opinionated/well-informed daughter is often fond of saying, "my body, my choice.", and that is a mantra that I try to abide by (which is why, for example, tattoos do not bother me whatsoever, and even if some did, my opinion does not matter).

So my friends, what's your opinion about women using sex as a weapon, either voluntarily or involuntarily? Please keep in mind, I'm not touching upon the industry that is exclusively for adults whatsoever. I'm only touching upon what the general public, ages 15 and up, sees on a daily/weekly basis.

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

Episode #262: Casually Moving From That To This

No hidden meaning behind the pic. Just pining for the warmer weather of Spring after battling the nasty cold of Winter.

I have officially put my five volume fantasy series "Sister vs Sister" to bed, as the final seven chapters {113-120} was properly transcribed, printed, three hole punched, stashed in a three ring binder, and had the requisite editorial notes written on their formerly pristine pages before it was lovingly tucked away in a plastic milk crate so that it could rest up for the next few months, because as you all know, editing is where the wannabes are brutally separated from those who are.

Of course, the issue now facing me is...what do I do next? I mean, I just spent 2 1/2 years working on a project that theoretically took over every waking moment of my life, and now I'm just supposed to find something else that would also take over every waking moment of my life?

The obvious answer to that question is supposed to be a resounding YES. But to be perfectly frank with everyone, the well has run temporarily dry when it comes to churning out fresh new product.

But, even though the well has run temporarily dry, I still got something up my proverbial sleeve that I can work on. Something that I actually finished work on around 2 1/2 years ago, when I had finished up a second round of edits, and just before starting my fantasy series: a re-re-re-re-worked novella that actually has the working title/blog tag of Average American Novella.

Funny thing about this novella, which is a fast-paced fantasy crime drama of the R rated variety, is that throughout the entire time I was writing it, it felt like I was possessed by it. No, seriously, I think I was possessed by the story itself. I mean, once I was finally able to find a good plot line to work with, {on the fourth try, hence the re-re-re-re-work} it just...took on a life of its own.

I mean, the time that I had spent on this novella just seemed to fly on by, especially when I did the switch to handwriting the final nine chapters. Now that I had some time to reflect on it, I made the switch from straight computer writing to pen and paper midway through because the hand fatigue that I was suffering for the past several years was getting progressively worse, so I figured it was time to try something new. And, as the tired cliche goes, the rest is history.

My goal with this novella is to have it published in 2025, so to that end, we're starting off the process by applying another round of edits and printing out a fresh copy to play with. Once that's been done, the next trio of issues that I will need to tackle, which are the usual bane of any writer's existence: a title; a medium length blurb; and a short length blurb.

There are few other issues that I will need to spend some time on, but those three are the main ones that will require my immediate attention once I get everything printed out again. While not completely taking over my life like my fantasy series did, it will demand just enough of my attention to keep my writer's brain from atrophying through non-use.

Tune in next week when I should have a better idea on what I need to blog about in regards to this novella, since the last time I had blogged about it was nearly 3 years ago. But hey, redundancy can be a good thing, right?

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

Episode #259: My "Hot Mess" Is Now "Sister vs Sister"

This pic from the late '00's represents the fire that was first lit in June 2022 was finally extinguished on January 23, 2025.

June 2022. The sentence, "Jhon staggered into the bathroom, flipped the light switch and screamed in pain as the soft white light shot a dual laser beam directly into his eyeballs.", was the opening salvo to a story that immediately took hold of me much like my only trad published novel.

January 23, 2025: The sentence, "Fifteen seconds later Blanco and Akhal took off in the same cloud of dust towards home.", was the closing salvo to a truly epic fantasy story.

In between those two sentences, we wrote an estimated 600k words, totaling an estimated 1,320 pages, contained in 120 chapters, spread across five glorious volumes, with the overall series title being "Sister vs Sister". This particular project was not only an obsessive labor of love, but it was the first to be written completely by hand before transcribing it to the computer.*#

*t.l.;d.r.: less digital distractions, more meatiness to the story.

#longer t.l.;d.r.: basement flooded in 2021, recovered four writing projects in various stages of completion, this project was the third of four to be worked on to completion.

The interesting thing about this particular series, is that when it came time to finally tidy up all the loose ends once we arrived at the original conclusion, it became remarkably easy to actually write those conclusions. Over the years I've always had major problems in writing personally satisfying endings to my stories, which I think had a lot to do with trying to reconcile what I wanted to see as a reader versus what I actually wanted to write. Writing by hand helped me tremendously to properly resolve the nearly one dozen story lines that I had woven throughout the series.

A few random observations to give you the reader a better understanding of what it took to write this series.

1. The page count given equates to the minimum amount of notebook paper used as 660 sheets: two pages of transcribed text per sheet. However, the reality was more like this: 1 1/2 pages of printed text equates to one page (give or take a paragraph) of transcribed text. So this in turn, bumps up the amount of notebook paper used to nearly 1,000 sheets (1,320 transcribed pages at 1 1/2 handwritten pages per one page of text equals to roughly 1,980 handwritten pages, or about 990 sheets). To put this in perspective, I probably wrote out the equivalent of nearly three Harry Potter novels in order to write this series. I think I was a medieval scribe in a previous life.
2. The amount of pens and assorted items to fix corrections was mind boggling. For starters, I employed a rotation of 4 pens, two black & two blue, to write this series. Using a rotation like this helped me limit the overall total of pens used to about 25-30 for the entire 2 1/2 years spent writing this series. This total includes the two cheap ten packs bought, but also several others that were simply gathering dust in my pen box. As for the fixing of mistakes, I employed a two prong attack: liquid paper and address/file folder labels. In regards to the former, I did not have the hand strength to use the standard stuff, so we switched to the liquid stuff, of which roughly 10 bottles were used. As for the labels, a pair of scissors allowed me to squeeze out two to three strips per label in order to fix large errors. I won't even tell you what I used to do to fix seriously egregious errors like making a character go into a direction not of their choice and having to bring them back.
3. There really is no number three to speak. I mean everything else that was associated with this project was just part and parcel of my editing routine: reams of paper (currently finishing #4 and will be purchasing #5-8 shortly) and toner to print everything out; three ring binders (8) along with the requisite dividers (20 packs in total as they ranged from 5-10 per); and bullet point chapter synopsis so that I could easily find a particular point in the story (stopped after chapter 96).

Like I stated earlier, this project was very much an obsessive labor of love, and unlike the previous stories written where I had stressed about how to get from point A to point Z while making sure that I touched on the remaining letters of the alphabet, my stress level was significantly lower this time around. I'm pretty sure that the new writing routine was a large contributor to reducing my stress level (if you go slower, you can see further ahead) thus allowing me to pursue the statement in parenthesis to its ultimate conclusion.

Thank you for joining me on this Don Quixote-esque journey exploring just how far I can stretch my imagination while staying strongly tethered to the reality of today.

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

Episode #257: How Do I Edit Thee? It's A Seriously Zen Level Of Nerdvana

The tranquility of a waterfall is the perfect outlet to bathe your brain in the zenith of the moment before you wash it with the tonal sounds of the wind meandering through the tentacles of the universe.

At the close of the last post, I stated that the fat man (moi) had a final aria to perform prior to the intermission of Act III. Suffice to say, to semi-quote a well known lyricist, I can't dance and I certainly can't sing. But what I can do is channel my inner microscopic micro-manager and present to you a blog post on how not to edit like normal folks. 

For the past umpteen years (translation: a number between the high end of a tween and mid-nadir of young adulthood), no matter what length of story I had decided to write, a printed copy I did create for editing purposes. I was one those seriously short attention span people who could not stay glued to a computer screen to read a story for longer than ninety seconds (which is why I do not own an e-reader). So editing my work straight up on my computer screen was not a viable option for me employ.

However, what was a viable option for me was to print out a story, use a pen to write copious amounts of notes/make copious amounts of corrections, and then add those edits onto the original computer copy. Simple enough for a short story. But....would that same philosophy apply to something longer than a short story, like a novella or a novel? Well, as you're probably no doubt aware of, the answer to the question is a resounding YES.

Let's use two projects as good examples of this philosophy: an upcoming novella for 2025 and my current five volume (I pinky promise) project that should be finished (I triple dog dare myself) by the end of this month.

Novella: This upcoming 2025 novella has a boatload in common with my 2024 novella: long gestation period (10+ years); no current title after multiple tries (7 I think); no real blurb or synopsis going for it either; lots of R-rated violence, just to name a few. It also has the very odd editing philosophy applied it as well.

So when we were writing draft #4 (I think, maybe it was #5?) we would simply print out each completed chapter, three hole punch that bad boy, pulled out a 1" three ring binder (note, if it says 220pg capacity, they are lying like a sleeping chow-chow), a bunch of dividers, and shmashed it all together into a cohesive pile numbering 126 pages containing just a kiss under 56k words.

In the course of one day, with my handy-dandy generic version of a Bic pen, we took copious amount of notes, circled incorrect words and typos, and generously added blue and black ink to those formerly unblemished pages of a intelligently written story. Those copious notes were actually written on the pages themselves, because you know, short attention span theater here.

Anyways, we washed/rinsed/repeated a few more times before putting this lovely story back into the Comfy Chair's estranged sibling, the Comfy Bed. In total, it took me about three weeks of manual editing before deciding it was (at that time) good enough to move onto the next phase, which were creating a title and synopsis (long and short). Novellas are easy enough to handle without getting a professional involved until you got to the nitty-gritty portion of it.

Now if you thought this was a time consuming and perhaps that time would be better spent editing on the computer, then you're very welcome to your own opinion on performing your editing chores. I, however, found editing on the computer actually hindered my ability to make any kind of writing progress, which was one of the main reasons of editing this way. The other reason was that it was a great meditation tool.

With my current project, with the odd blog tag of Hot Mess, I settled down into a routine of writing two chapters (later expanded to three until constricting back to two), transcribing those chapters, and doing all of the stuff mentioned earlier with the novella before editing. The way it became a meditation tool for me was that until I had finished editing those chapters, I simply did not produce any new writing. 

This had produced a few pleasant side effects: 1) it allowed me to concentrate on how each particular plot line needs to move in that particular direction; 2) it allowed me to mentally plot out how best to continue each plot line; and 3) it became my bi-weekly sojourn into non-stressful me time, which was something that I've been able to continue on for the past 2 1/2 years.

So my friends, this is how I edit my work: write it, transcribe it, print it, then manual edit. I should note that I have yet to apply ANY of the editing notes/corrections that I have made so far, as I want to wait until I type in the proverbial, "The End", which marks the completion of this five volume journey. And let me tell you, that's when the genuine milkshake is going to consume the inside of your lungs as you try to inhale that goodness through the straw, because the edits I have to apply will, at the very end, make me want to pluck out my mustache follicles with my fingernails.

Happy Monday to one and all.

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

Episode #255: Research Is The Essence Of Good Writing

Our doggo Oreo chilling out in preparation for a very busy and fulfilling Christmas day.

As any good writer will often tell you, on the point of poking you very hard in the chest, thoroughly researching the main topic of your book, along with the other various tangents that make up the meat and potatoes {or the bean burger and organic fries if you're a veggie} of your story is essential to creating a fantastic product.*

*sorry, but old work habits like using three dozen words instead of an eighteen pack to explain something never really goes away, they just stay dormant.

Since I write fiction, today's post will be about doing the required research in order to make your story as realistic as possible, no matter the genre.

I've always been a bit of a macadamia when it came to researching a particular topic, whether it was work related or personal amusement, and I took that macadamia-ness to a whole new level of neurotic clarity when I started writing. For example, with my first published novel, some items of note included motorcycles, the adult entertainment industry and the feminine form.

The more that I grew as a writer, the more widespread my research efforts became for the stories I was creating. Even though at this point I was writing mostly fantasy based stuff, I still wanted certain elements of the story to have some basis in reality. So my current project became the ultimate test of my research skills.

Different cultures: I became enamored of different cultures a few decades ago with all the books/documentaries/videos that I was consuming, so it became a no-brainer to introduce those elements into my current project.

So I performed what I considered to be a deeper than normal research dive for the cultures that I chose to have a larger than normal focus on in the story: Aztecs, Incas and Mayans. And when I say a deep dive, that included things like family life, language, certain culture norms and deities. In regards to the cultural norms, I made a conscious decision to err on the side of being conservative, since I had no real way of knowing how those cultures felt about certain elements that were woven throughout the story (except maybe the Incas). And can't forget that I created a whole other culture from scratch that had all kinds of other historical elements woven into their fabric.

Different time periods: This probably could go hand in hand with the previous point, since I decided to have different time periods intermingle. For example, I had various characters that were part of the aforementioned cultures, directly or indirectly. A few other characters were part of the modern civilization (mostly North America), while another was part of the late medieval time period. 

Modern/old-fashioned technology/norms: This particular aspect of the story is where I had the most fun playing with. From a modern perspective, both major areas of action (Earth and Pod Planet), were heavily peppered with references to the use of modern technology: drones, cctv, computers, weaponry and digital media; old fashioned technology like having the horse as a main mode of transportation.

Odds and Ends: This particular category is for mostly all of the various bits of research that I had to do for various subjects like grammar (description mostly), certain concepts that I wanted to make sure I was using properly (e.g. slavery & sexual orientation), animal/personal traits (e.g. can horses sleep while walking and certain human characteristics), and other assorted items that would randomly pop into my head while writing a particular scene and I would want to know if it would fit or not.

Names and languages: This one was an ongoing issue throughout the entire series. First, I wanted to make sure that the names made logical sense for the adventure I was writing about AND that they emanated a powerful aura; Secondly, except for one made up language, I wanted the languages to be universally known and used. Which is why I chose English and Spanish as the two dominant languages that were used throughout. I also threw in the languages of the Aztecs (Nahuatl), Incas (Quechua) and Mayans (Yucatec Maya), as those cultures are moderately featured throughout the story. And I threw in ASL, as I have one character who uses sign in addition to telepathy.

One should also note that I didn't use any of the actual languages involved beyond English. A very good editor told me years ago that one should state what foreign language is actually being used in a given conversation, as opposed to actually using the language itself. Less aggravation and definitely less verbiage.

So overall, I enjoy most aspects of research, whether for personal curiosity (e.g. a used c.d. of a band that I've never heard of before) or for writing (clothing was in the top three of the biggest non-culture items that required heavy research). I find it's always better, at least in writing, to sound like you know what you're talking about, as opposed to actually knowing what you're talking about.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #254: Is The End Really In Sight, Or Is It Just A New Beginning?

Another candidate in my continuing quest of finding books about any kind of topic under the sun: the Oxford English Dictionary. Acquired from my public library's perpetual gently used book store (also features c.d.s, DVDs, puzzles and children's books).

In case anyone was thinking the worst about my blog, have no fear, as this is a writing update on my now five volume series that has a working title of "Sister v Sister".

As the post title hints at, the end is really within sight with this series. Over two years of hard work, totaling (as of the day of this post) 1,200+ pages/112 chapters and a shade over 550k+ words. Oh, least I forget, this is also (currently) spread out to 8 three ring binders.

In the time spent writing this weighty tome, I have developed what I believe is a solid theory that can be applied to all books, consisting of two good points and one incredibly fugly point.

Good point #1: The basic idea for the story. This, in my opinion, is the easiest goal to accomplish. If you consistently carry a small pocket notebook and a pen, you can easily jot down ideas for stories as you go about your day. In my particular case, the story idea was a kidnapping. We fleshed it out afterwards, but the premise was very simple and very basic.

Good point #2: A starting and ending point. Again, in my opinion, it's another easy goal to accomplish. You decide on how you want it to start and how you want it to finish. In my case, it was a home invasion that was the actual starting point to the story. As for the ending point, it was to be the two sisters and the husband of one to become co-rulers of an unknown planet.

Fugly point #1: It has to be the journey itself from the beginning of the story to the perceived ending of the story. It truly does become something with all of the meaty entrees, appetizers, salads and desserts. A true smorgasbord of delightful pieces that make your story complete, but man, it can drive you to pull out a pair of Zircon encrusted tweezers so you can remove all those hair follicles from your body just to kill the mental pain.

With all of the various side plots, side tangents and the solid growth of all the characters involved (e.g. dribbling in almost one dozen highly necessary backstories for all of the characters involved, no matter how long they hang around for), and if you're like me, a pantster, you have to find a way to keep track of all of those various story parts.

For me personally, it was the chapter-by-chapter print out, which was soon followed by a bullet point synopsis that made it up to chapter 96 before petering out. Still, it has been a nightmarish process, as it seems that the closer I get to the actual ending, the harder it's becoming to write each chapter that takes me to that actual ending. Especially since it's taking me a bit of time to wrap up the various plot lines as I progress to the ending.

And even when I finally do write the intended ending, which is still in flux as we speak (think of it as a movie anecdote where the scriptwriter is furious pounding out enough re-writes in order to film the movie for the next few days, only to wash/rinse/repeat), I still have to write a bunch of epilogues. Why, you might ask?

Well, wouldn't you like to know what the immediate aftermath for all of the characters once the final ending is written? I certainly do, because even though I'm toying with the idea of writing a few adventures for those characters, I still want to know what the final outcome will be for them. For example, I would like to know what the final fallout will be with the kingdom after the coup d'etat is enacted.

So the T.L.;D.R. of this post would probably read something like this: our blog host is finally heading down the home stretch of a typical writing marathon and desperately trying not to be the very last runner to cross the finish line, but kept getting sidetracked as he learned and applied new (to him) writing techniques in order to create a thoroughly enjoyable tome.

So my question to you is this: does my proposed theory sound off the mark, spot on, or somewhere in between?

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #252: Where Oh Where, Are My Blog Words?

We all need a little flashback to warmer times right now, and Happy little flowers can often bring the warm fuzzies to lighten the mood.

About once about every five months, I open up a blank blog screen, only to find myself staring at said screen and thinking to myself, "And I am here because....why?"

Which as a person who dabbles with the various parts of grammar is not a good question to ask myself. So when I sat down in front of the computer, and asked myself that very exact question, I knew a micro-second later that this was going to be ONE OF THOSE POSTS. The kind of post that starts off with good intentions but immediately pivots to being exactly like a t.v. series that jumps the shark when it comes up with a dream sequence that immediately wipes out the previous season's plots.

So the first thing I did (unnaturally for me) was to stare at my vast record collection to see anything popped out to me for a topic. Unfortunately, beyond noticing that I have several Jim Reeves records, nothing jumpstarted my brain cells. So we continued with our mental wandering to see what else could jumpstart my brain cells.

I briefly thought about giving a writing update, but instead I began ruminating about what kind of contract I would enforce on anyone who would want to option the movie rights to my series (you can spurt your liquid refreshment at the computer screen now). T.L.;D.R.: my series actually checks off a multitude of very important identity boxes in order to be given proper consideration for dipping into the cesspool of Hollywood.

So, after making that right turn at Truth or Consequences, we continued on our vainglorious journey for a writing topic. We briefly stopped at the music depot, to see what kind of topics, if any, they had for sale, but alas poor Yorrick, I knew him Horatio. So we stepped out of the music depot and thought about going to Homeless Depot or the railroad depot, but instead we made a stop at the mail depot.

Unfortunately, beyond getting a very thick guidebook to....drum roll please....MEDICARE! and griping about lost mail (that's a mind-numbing story within itself) and T-Mobile (another mind-numbing story within itself), nothing of any political import was to be had. So, yikes! and away we went to trample through the forest with our band of stoic manly men.

After trampling with my band of stoic manly men, we decided to exit the forest with blisters on my fingers and bunions on my toes in order to continue my search for a blog topic. Now if you've made this far and you're scratching your head wondering just exactly what the blog topic is and where are my blog words, let me tell you my dirty little secret.

To borrow from Jerry Seinfeld, this blog post is about absolutely nothing. Buuuuuut, it's a nothing that managed to bring a smile to your tired face on this mediocre Monday morning, because my friends, you read a post about nothing in particular. Unless you count someone dropping over a dozen pop culture references to be actually something, then you read a post about something.

Either way, you found a way to occupy anywhere from sixty seconds to one-hundred five seconds of your day absorbing a piece of fiction that contained absolutely nothing of import. Which means that my job is done here until next Monday, when we get to do this all over again not live in front of the studio audience, but via the compact disc. Or cassette, depending on what decade I would like to briefly reside in.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #251: Cover Me Softly To Better Music Quality

This was taken on one of my few full scale (for me) hikes in Cedar Mountain this year. Legs are to the point where going up an incline greater than 1% causes great pain, but the peace and tranquility I do get in the aftermath is well worth the aggravation.

This week's post was inspired by a mediocre e-zine article that I had via the M$N news aggregate that listed their version of a top 20 cover song list, and one of the covers mentioned was "Boys of Summer" done by a mediocre alt-rock band called The Ataris.

Now I've listened to that cover and that mediocre version is the only standout of the mediocre collection surrounding that song. 

Stating my opinion about a mediocre cover song by a mediocre band perfectly segues into my personal opinion that cover songs fall into three distinct categories: versions done by quality indie bands/artists that exceed the original; versions done by known bands that equal the original, even when they put an unusual twist; and versions done by known bands that sound like they were phoned in or done to make a quick buck.

Four artists that immediately come to mind that fall into the first grouping are Post Modern Jukebox, Violet Orlandi, Frog Leap Studios and Broken Peach. They managed to harness the power of YouTube and parlay that exposure into live stream concerts, higher quality videos, original songs, original full length c.d.s (the former has 10 c.d.s out, two have released/are releasing their debut and Frog Leap has released about 80+/- full length downloadables) and tours. I highly recommend checking them out as all four are fantastic artists.

The second grouping, known artists that have done covers that have equaled/surpassed the originals, are the ones that I will truly rave about, because their covers show that they actual care about the final product. Some examples are as follows:

1. I Fought The Law by the Dead Kennedys: This particular song actually got me hooked on the DKs back in the early 2000's. It's a skewered version that features the events surrounding the deaths of activist Harvey Milk and S.F. mayor George Moscone.
2. In Bloom by Sturgill Simpson: This is one of the few cover versions of a Nirvana song that absolutely knocks it out of the park. It's moody, dark and in my personal opinion, is how the song should've been played originally.
3. Boys Of Summer by The Hooters: This is the song that triggered me to write this post. This cover by The Hooters, is performed in the way that I believe does this song justice: lightly dark, foreboding, melancholy for what was illicit for a brief moment in time. In my personal opinion, the song should've never been presented with an upbeat tempo.
4. Black Betty by Ram Jam: This was the best rework cover of a song that the artist never received a writer's credit for. The original was done by bluesman Leadbelly, so it was a down tempo bluesy kind of number. And for an added twist, Australian band Spider Bait did a very cool cover of the cover.

Now to present some examples of those who basically do covers to either phone it in or to make a quick buck. Sadly, these few examples are ones that get played a lot on commercial rock radio. There are a lot to choose from, since it seems that every well known band has done covers, with the majority of them being just average/mediocre. Note: there will be no links as I don't want to add any more to the seven I already have.

1. Whiskey In The Jar by Metallica: For me, this cover only stays true to the original lyrics and nothing else. Having grown up on Roger Whittaker (my father had odd tastes in music when I was a child), the original version of this song was a lively Irish folk tale, almost like a jig. The version by Metallica was something that just hurt my ears to listen to. Turning a song into a metal song doesn't instantly make it good...but it does give it the potential for it to be a money-maker/way for a metal band to keep their name in the public eye.
2. Everlasting Love by U2: This was strictly a cash grab/keep the name out there between releases. The original is an uptempo sub-three minute song that makes you want to sing along to. This bleechy cover does nothing for the listener, as it's bombastic arena rock at its absolute worst.
3. Last Kiss by Pearl Jam: Strictly a cash grab that offers no variation to the original. They turned a decent "teen death song" (a sub-genre in the late 50's that featured songs like this one and "Tell Laura I Love Her") into something that a no-talent person like myself could play blindfolded. The insipid drum beat sounds like it came straight from a recording studio from the same time period. Just. No.
4. I'm Down by Adrian Belew: This was, in my opinion, an uninspired version of the Beatles classic. It just really didn't do anything for me, and it was definitely suited as a "B" side to the "A" side of "Oh Daddy!" (Billboard 100 chart). I kind of put it up there with the uninspiring bootleg version performed by the Beastie Boys.

It's sad that one can remember the bad versions of well known songs more than the original versions of the same song. There are a lot of cover songs that I've heard over the decades, courtesy of college radio and internet radio stations like SomaFM and believe that at least 70% of them are really good, and this includes all genres that I've been exposed to over the decades. It's the remaining 30% that bothers me to the point of being exceptionally unbent, because it's often those 30% that get the most airplay.

So I hope you've enjoyed my pleasant little diatribe about cover songs, and if cover songs are your jam, please check out SomaFM. SomaFM is another link in the chain of the only good thing to come out of California: music. They have a channel that is called "Covers", which plays nothing but in all possible genres.

Happy Monday!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #248: The Power Of Persuasion Can Be Insidious Indeed

For those of you who enjoy the Elf ruling the world from a Shelf, I bring you his cereal. Sugar Is Good Food.

The title of today's post can mean a multitude of things. For those of you who have a genuine sense of humor, you'll immediately get the gist. For everyone else, today's post is about how the arts & entertainment sector can surreptitiously remove your hard earned dollar from your locked wallet without you being the wiser.

But first, a writing update that features, rather annoyingly, a setback. My current saga, conveniently titled here as Hot Mess, has been forced to expand to one more volume. Between last week's post and the writing of this post, I've been forced to concede that in order to bring everything to a proper conclusion (including uniformity of content), I need to drift into one more volume. This pain is still fresh, and it's something I will elaborate on in a future post. 

With that out of the way, let's jump to the topic at hand: persuasion in the arts & entertainment field, with a specific look to books.

Oddly enough, this topic came to me in a roundabout way. I was settling down with a gently used book that I had purchased from my public library a few weeks ago {"Drunk" } and had posted a picture of here boasting how you can find a non-fiction book about any topic under the sun, and one of the main reasons why I had acquired the book were the jacket blurbs that were touting the praises on how good this book is.

Within the first thirty pages, this book performed a complete 180 from what it outwardly presented itself to be. Outwardly, it presented a picture of a fun-filled historical romp through the millennia about drinking. Inwardly, it presented a detailed picture of social/behavioral sciences indicative of what the various people of the world did when it came to producing/consuming/regulating fermented drink. All well and good, but this book was more suited for a college level social sciences course than as a book for the masses {aka literary non-fiction}.

Usually I've been pretty good about weeding out reading material that says one thing on the cover but says something completely different on the inside, but this time, I fell for the hype without researching to see if the hype lived up to the product. As the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I'm just a gullible kind of guy {modern twist, so sue me}.

I'm often seeing this more and more when it comes to browsing both the new book selections at B&N or the gently used book selection at my public library. Lots of hype that I take with a large boulder of rock salt because why would a particular author have (at least with non-fiction) have so much hype about their book that contains a topic more suited for pop culture as opposed to not.

Now, I have seen some good hype geared towards books in certain non-fiction genres where the content ultimately lives up to/exceeds the hype (e.g. certain historical events/periods, sports and true crime), at least in my personal opinion. But I've also been the victim of where the hype thoroughly masqueraded the dullness/zoning out capabilities of the book itself (again, looking at you the literary genre).

The reality of good hype/bad product is that the person who created the perceived bad product will almost never have the opportunity to win that particular reader back. Reputation is everything in the literary world, and unless you're someone who has churned out quality product and can get away with the occasional lemon, one perceived bad tome is very hard to recover from.

Sad to say, I only purchase books based on the reputation of a writer who I have either interacted with personally, or peripherally in another format (e.g. a podcast host who writes a book in their particular field of knowledge). For general reading, the public library remains my go-to source of material.

So my friends, have you fallen victim to this insidious issue when it comes to the written word? 

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #247: A Little Coagulation Makes Everything Gel

While yes, this picture is...wait for it...nearly 17 years old, I'm reposting it not so much as it's a cute picture of my daughter but the store that's in the background next to Jo-Ann Fabric (in bankruptcy I believe), Big Lots, which has closed/is closing over 350 stores, including the one pictured, as it works it way through bankruptcy. Welcome to the new retail world of 2024.

Today's post, while writing related, won't be that heavily skewered towards the nuts and bolts of my current project {e.g. page/chapter/word count}, but like looking for an opinion on a particular part of a book that people have lots of opinions about.

Epilogues.

As loosely defined, an epilogue is a coda/summation that brings to a satisfactory conclusion to what you've just read/heard/seen. It's quite prevalent in books, of all genres, when you want to shine a light on what might've possibly happened to your characters after your story has wrapped up.

In my particular instance, because I have invested so much time/energy on the lives of all my main characters, giving them nuanced motives in pursuing/completing/not completing a particular task, that I sincerely do not think that trying to WRAP UP ALL OF THOSE PLOT POINTS in one final penultimate chapter will be fair to the readers (or myself for that matter) who invested so much time with those characters. 

Just to give you a basic idea of what I'm looking at that must have A RESOLUTION of some type, and this doesn't include the actual ending, which I'm still trying to resolve to my satisfaction.

1. A sentient being that was "killed" off in book #3, is deciding whether or not to reincarnate and become a sentient to another, or stay with her current host, who is serving penance for causing her to die to begin with.
2. Two cousins who are trying to successfully complete their last assignment, which will allow them to regain control of their lives AND find a new home/host in which to restart their lives with.
3. A swerve in which one protag/antag must decide on which person who should take delivery of her hostage, with each person having their own different outcomes.
4. A secondary swerve involving the protag/antag mentioned above, which culminates in the gentle reassignment of the remaining four members of her family conclave.
5. I have two immortals, one who is now host to a sentient being, who are in charge of making sure that the hostage is being delivered on time.
6. The two sisters who ultimately betrayed their Queen for the Queen who wants the man in question.

Those are the main points that indirectly involve the actual ending as it applies to the pursuing/pursued side of this conflict. The following points that directly involve the actual ending as it applies to the receiving side.

1. I have a lady-in-waiting who has recently become a host to a person who was reincarnated into a sentient being and is recovering from a brutal multi-faceted assault from the next bullet point.
2. The renegade from the conclave that is the actual power behind the throne who is looking to perform his own usurpation.
3. The Queen who was the catalyst for this entire story. Does she win in the end? Does she lose in the end? Does she break even in the end?
4. The Queen who was the pursuer for the entire story. Does she win in the end? Does she lose in the end? Does she break even? In regards to a couple points mentioned above, does she win or lose?
5. The Milady, who was the hostage in question's first wife, what does she win in the end? How does her life continue afterwards?

Since all of these points have to be concluded to everyone's satisfaction, and there are many intertwined points at stake here, I guess the question now pivots to this: should I have two separate epilogues involved for both sides?

Funnily enough, writing this blog post has allowed me to look at my entire series with a fresh set of eyes, and in order to do all of the intertwined/interconnected plot points, both large and small, I really do need to write two distinct epilogues in order to properly close out this series.

But after reaching this very realistic possibility for this series, I've also come to the very realistic possibility of writing novellas/novelette as follow-ups to these particular characters. Note: these characters have been my entire world for the past 2 1/4 years, so I can truthfully say that I've grown quite attached to them.

Not sure if I've ever experienced something like this before, in that while trying to make a case for something, I ultimately convinced myself to make a major swerve into something else. But, while writing this blog post, I also came up with another idea for this series, which I will presently keep to myself until I can talk to others about it.

In any event, please enlighten me with your thoughts about epilogues in general or a proposed dual epilogue ending. Have a fantastic week everybody!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #245: Where Oh Where Are My Ideas?

Decided to do one last quasi-hike/walk up the mountain this past Saturday {10/19}, which included a closed side street that was recently shorn of vegetation by Eversource so that they could safely access the power lines. Was able to take almost a half dozen pictures of a seldom seen part of the mountain, including this nifty fall foliage scene crackling with sunlight.

This post is my semi-monthly to monthly two-fer, in which you get random thoughts here and pictures over at that resurrected picture blog of mine, Pictures For Smarties!

Random thoughts

Had a brief writing related reality check when I suddenly had a full barrel of fish, a rod and reel and no fish caught. In other words, no ideas on what to write for a blog post.

I mean, I could give a writing update, but frankly, how many times can I say, "I'm in the home stretch and I have just a few more chapters to go!", before it starts sounding painfully redundant?

"I'm in the home stretch and I have just a few more chapters to go!"

 But, as they say, inspiration comes from the oddest of places, which in today's skewered world is Face-planting my Book. A FB friend of mine made a comment about Mondays being a drag, which triggered a tangent based on that troublesome day of the week. Fortunately enough for everyone else, I had enough presence of mind not to continue because I still don't quite know how they take my quirky sense of humor. So keep your eyes peeled for a very odd post about that troublesome day of the week, done in the form of...well, I'll let you both be surprised and be the judge.

So, this post is short on brevity and short on word salad. Have an enjoyable Monday, because the world indeed does revolve around you. Oh and in case you're below the age of say 50 and haven't watched the golden years of 70's television, part of my blog title refers to this nifty song.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #242: We Haz Scribbles And Pictures!

The sun was looking especially inviting the day after the rainstorm the prior weekend to this post, so I took a few dozen steps inside for a few pics. Not quite Autumn in this part of New England yet.

This post will be a short two-fer, in that part one is a brief writing update, while part two will be linking up to my picture blog.

Here is part the 1st: the writing update.

Sometimes doing the most mundane things in life often can be the impetus to working out a satisfactory conclusion to a thorny issue. Which in this case is something that I've recently written about here a few weeks ago: a title. 

But, first things first. We are now into the home stretch of completing our four part lo-fantasy series, in that the final confrontation will be commencing very soon, which I hope will tie up at least a half dozen plot lines to a satisfactory conclusion.

We are currently sitting at 102 total chapters, of which 101 have been transcribed, totaling 494,751 words. Now before you act on the popular acronym of WTF?!, let me enlighten you on something: those chapters will be properly broken down to the appropriate volumes once I go through the initial round of edits, because there is no way that particular numbering will stay exactly like that. I may be a bit eccentric with my writing, but not that eccentric.

Now, onto the other issue, the title. As I hinted at, the mundane thing I was performing was one of my twice daily walks while listening to podcasts. Sometimes, when I'm listening to a topic that doesn't quite keep my short attention span occupied, my mind will wander about on the inside. That wandering about eventually came up with a base title for my series: Sister vs Sister.

Now I know it sounds cliche, but when you boil down all of the plotlines contained within, it basically comes out to two sisters, one that knows the other exists while the other doesn't know she has a sister, battling over the possession of one sister's husband.

So, this overall title actually completes my title search, as I had already come up with the titles for the remaining four books: The Kidnapping, The Campsite, The Retrieval I and the Retrieval II {although the last two are not quite set in stone just yet}.

And now for part the 2nd, pictures.

I've decided to make my picture blog into a bi-monthly occurrence, as it gives me something lighthearted and fun to do with all the pictures that I got hanging around on Google. This particular post deals with the theme of All Hallow's Eve, so I sincerely hope you take a short stroll over to my picture blog to check it out.

Pictures For Smarties!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #240: And You Are Called?

Books By G.B. Miller

Today's pic is a 100% honest attempt at promotion. This novella is my latest release, a dark fast paced rural/urban fantasy that doesn't slow down until the end. Available at most major e-tailers in e-book and print. Click the link for further details.

There are three things that I absolutely loathe as a writer: 1} picking a title for a story; 2} writing blurbs for a completed book and 3} choosing characters names.

As much as I would love to rant about my trials and tribulations in picking character names (and there are a lot) today's post will be about my trials and tribulations in picking story titles.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've always, ALWAYS, had problems in choosing/brainstorming titles for my stories. More often than not, the titles that I pick for stories would often have absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the story whatsoever.

One example, the original title for the novella that you see standing before you. Prior to the final title that you see, I originally went through almost seven different iterations of what this story was known, and I only remember what the previous title to this novella was, "Blackness In The White Sand". Could not remember why I came up with that title originally and it took me over 8 years to come up with the title that you see before you, and I had to use the very sound advice of a writer's group to help me come up with that.

Another good example of a very bad title was the original title of my adult fiction novel The Inner Sibling, which was Line 21. This was a title that absolutely no one understood the meaning behind it. Twelve years later, even I came to the conclusion it was a crappy title. For those who are curious, the original title refers to the old version of the 1040A form, in which line 21 is where you put the amount of miscellaneous income that you had earned for the year.

Now let me give you a couple of examples of titles that I had given to some short stories of mine. Red Stripe and The Right Thing. The former story is featured in my collection called What Is Life? and it tells the story about a day in the life of a punk rock musician. Why I titled the story after a bottle of beer is anybody's guess, because the story has absolutely nothing to do with beer. The latter story is about a day in the life of a guy who was cheated on by his girl with another girl, and it uses the backdrop of a town festival for the story to unfold. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The latter story can be found in my collection called A Trilogy of Love, which is actually a replacement title for the same collection under the name Broken Promises.

Now to the present. When I had originally started my current project, which has the blog tag Hot Mess, it was called Dandelion Tears. Again, I have absolutely no idea as to why I had chosen that title to begin with. I mean, it's mentioned very briefly as a place of employment for one of the characters, but that's about it. I have, however, come up with a working theory as to why I choose bizarre titles for my stories: I simply latch onto a particular word, regardless whether it actually applies to a story, and viola! it becomes a title for a story.

However you want to break it down, the real challenge, at least for this series, is to come up with an overall title for the series. My saving grace this time around is that because I have the four volumes broken down by events {kidnapping, 1st recovery attempt at a campsite, 2nd recovery attempt is a pitched battle, and the final recovery attempt takes place at the place} I will have no problem it titleing those four volumes.

Literally, my entire writing journey is littered with stories that have absolute crap titles that I now have to rectify with brand new titles, and it hasn't been easy. I have succeeded in renaming a previously published story with one that actually makes sense, while another novella desperately needs one beyond the placeholder of the "Average American Novella". In addition to those messes, I have nearly three dozen short stories from my defunct short story blog that needs new titles so that I can create new collections.

Basically, I suck at picking out titles for my stories, because apparently I subscribe to the bizarre philosophy that some musicians apply to their works, which is to pick a nonsensical title for the c.d.'s, which leaves everyone collectively scratching their heads trying to decipher the reasoning {example: The Boomtown Rats, who had that cult hit "I Don't Like Mondays" titled their album "The Fine Art of Surfacing", which contains that cult hit}. I guess you can call me "The Muddler" when it comes to story titles, because my muddle choices often make no sense to anyone, including myself.

Happy Monday to one and all, and remember just because the world doesn't revolve around you, you can take comfort in the knowledge that people used to believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved