Episode #283: How To Keep Busy While Publishing

This was taken during my first real long distance hike up Cedar Mountain. The deer was gracious enough to allow two photos to be taken before they made a right turn down the mountainside (as you're facing the photo).

I know the blog post title sounds just a tad redundant, but I made the mistake of trying to publish my book in July, which is the busy season for publishing. The end result to this madness is that timelines are often stretched out, which for people like myself who don't have real deadlines to meet, are sometimes put on the back burner.

So the seriously obvious answer to the question posted above is keep writing. But what should you specifically write to keep yourself occupied? Short stories? I cranked out about ten short stories of various word counts from a low end of 2,500 to a high end of about 12k. How about a novel? I don't quite have the brain capacity for writing another full length novel. What about writing a novella? I might have the brain capacity for that.

But where would I get the germination of a story idea for a novella? That is a toughie, but it was a problem that I was willing to tackle, so to speak. I had one that I had recently put on the back burner this past spring because it was becoming a cluster....bomb of a mess, so I actually thought about taking another look at it. But the idea that I eventually came up to fix it was one that would need some serious brain capacity to work on and that was something I really didn't want to pursue (changing the character focus completely around by making the incidental characters the main focus and the main characters the incidental focus).

So I turned to the short stories that I had previously written, which I had previously talked about here. While nine of the ten stories written were major rewrites that ultimately used the original story as a outline, nine of those stories didn't possess anything that would inspire me to explore further. But that tenth one, it had everything needed to nudge me to take that risk of expanding it.

What did it possess, you may ask?

The short story possessed the ending. I originally rewrote it to emphasize that the assignment that the main character was to carry out was their final chance to actually complete an assignment, or face the ultimate consequence for failing to launch. I'll still have to re-re-write it again to make it fit the setting/aesthetic of the novella, which will be feudal Japan, specifically the Shogunate eras of feudal Japan.

Which if you think about it, is a lot easier to research than it was to research my fantasy series. I mean, one country (Japan) as opposed to four continents and two planets, one of which was due to world building; one time period versus multiple times periods; and finally one ethnicity/culture (Japan) versus six (five original: Mayan, Aztec, Incas, American and English; and one made-up: Pod People).

So after choosing the story that seems to promise a whole lot of prior to that could be successfully written to turn it into a novella of some kind (trust me, I already have, based on the actual content of this story, mentally written the entire outline of how events should unfold leading up to this particular ending, which is something I almost never do), the issue now becomes how much time I can spend mentally/physically working on it while waiting for the creaky wheels of self-publishing to advance back into my personal realm of frivolity.

The main reason as to why I'm waffling about devoting all kinds of time and energy to this novella is once I get the manuscript completely formatted for e-publishing (KDP, e-pub and Word), I'll have to apply the brakes as I need to pass on the specifics for the print version of the cover. And that can easily become a cluster....bomb of titanic proportions if I'm not careful.

So presently, I am following my own advice and have started working on yet another novella while waiting for phase one of my book to come back to me. My only hope is that I can easily pick up the proverbial pieces to the novella and re-start from where I had originally left off at, and not have it turn into something that showed so much early promise, only to flame out faster than a flambe dish at a fancy restaurant.

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

Episode #282: "To Live Is To Die Young"-The Real Journey Has Begun

My friends, after a very long (3+ years on this particular phase) journey, we have moved onto the very most important journey that a book can undertake: being published.

It took over three weeks (apparently the summer is a popular time period for publishing books) but here is the cover for my upcoming crime fantasy novella To Live Is To Die Young.

To refresh everyone's collective memory, it took me an aggregate total of 3 1/2 hours spread out over three weeks to come up with a title, a tag line, a short blurb, a long blurb and a basic concept for cover.

And to answer one very important question: the cover is multi-racial because the four main characters of the story are as depicted.

It was really weird how everything came together so quickly. Unlike with my previous novella, which took a couple of reader polls and the collective effort of a writing group to come up with the aforementioned items, this was truly a piece of cake. Like if you were called in to work on an issue that you're so familiar with, that with only a cursory glance at the issue, you know exactly what was wrong and fixed it. This novella went exactly like that sample scenario: a cursory glance and everything eventually wrote itself.

~~~~~

The teaser blurb:

Caught in a power struggle between his supplier and a drug kingpin, Jon needs to find a way to keep on living in order to not die young.

The short blurb:

Jon Morris was in a world of physical pain and mental numbness.

Caught in a horrific power struggle with his supplier Bradley Tomas, a raging wannabe who could never be and his morally bankrupt hybrid wife Alexia on one side; and an extremely violent regional drug kingpin Terrence Torquicelli, who had no qualms in collecting body parts to solve fixable issues on the other side, Jon needed a way to fix all three of his problems while staying comfortably alive.

Thing was, could he succeed before the others succeeded with theirs?

The long blurb:

Jon Morris was in a world of physical pain and inner turmoil.

After throwing one of his infamously raunchy house parties, he soon found himself under a vicious attack orchestrated by his drug supplier Bradley Tomas. Once the dust had cleared, Jon had found, much to his annoyance, that his new job was now to be a nanny to Bradley's hybrid wife Alexia.

Alexia, who even in the best of times was a barely passable professional escort of dubious morals, decided to show her extreme displeasure of her husband's choice of nanny by making Jon's life an absolute nightmare.

Which included, among other nasty deeds, ripping off a major drug kingpin.

Jon knew that being held personally responsible for Alexia's shenanigans, meant at the very least, he would be suffering a barely living death. Thing was, could he find Alexia to make things right with the kingpin before the kingpin could make things permanently right on his own terms?

~~~~~

Having sent the cover to my formatter over the July 4th holiday weekend, I think that a realistic date of release would be late July or early August. I'm very happy with the work done on the cover and I can't wait to show it off to the world at large. Sometimes being a light nag with a "I need to get this done" mentality is an endearing quality to have.

{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 #274: A Fugly Tale Of Two Novellas

Pretty sure I posted another version of this photo in late 2024, but I still think it's a cool pic. I mean, when a cat casually appears in the street to survey you, and only you, it makes you feel...special.

It's been a really slow week here in Connecticut, which usually means we're going to blog about something writing related. This time our writing related topic, like the title suggests, is about two novellas, one published and one hoping to be published, and the two radically different paths that were trodden to get where they currently are today.

Let's start at the beginning with the comparison. They were both born during a rather fertile creativity period of the very early 2010's, in which I was churning out all kinds of slop for stories as well as for my blog (I think I was doing maybe three to four blog posts a week at that point). They were both poorly written but they were near and dear to my heart, which of course meant at the time they were ready to be published.

This is where their dual journey took a major diversion at the proverbial fork in the road, with the published book going left and the unpublished one going right.

The published book caused me a whole lot of stress and a whole lot of money. Because I was simply oozing with confidence, I decided to hire a now ex-Facebook friend in 2014 who was a freelance writer and editor, to edit my book. About two to three weeks later and $300 poorer, I had a nicely edited novella and a three to four page critique on what needed to be fixed on it. I read the critique, studied the editing notes that were written on the manuscript....and promptly shelved the entire thing because I was too chicken to actually knuckle down and fix it.

Fast forward to the wonderful world of Covid-19. We're happily retired and got to work on a number of projects, including this novella. Once I had fixed all of the issues and got it to where it was ready to be published, I promptly ran head first into a two-bay garage door.

It took me a total of ten years and an online poll to come up with a plausible title for the novella. I've always had issues creating a title for my stories, and this novella was no exception. The next problem that popped up was writing a long blurb, a short blurb and a tag for the novella. This also took about a month to write both, which included some substantial help from my Facebook writing group to hammer out two rough drafts of the long blurb before nailing it on the third. Had the same issue with the short blurb and the tag, multiple drafts before nailing each.

So overall, the published book caused me a ton of stress because I had a wickedly hard time trying to write 150 +/- word long synopsis, an 80 to 100 word short synopsis and a 20 +/- word tag for a novella that I had a moderately difficult time, due to the complexity of the plot, in deciding what the story was actually about.

Now we move on to the unpublished novella.

The unpublished novella was also similar to the published novella, which also included a complex plot and a fast pace. But that's where the similarities end, as even though it had a complex plot line, the underlying event/reason (drug turf war) was very simple to understand and work with. We performed at least four rounds of editing, both in Gdoc and Word (the formatter I use works in Word as a starting point for everything else) and in that process became overly familiar with the entire novella cover-to-cover.

Because of this over-familiarity with my story, everything else associated with it became the polar opposite of what was done for the published novella. In a span of three days totaling one hour, I had a 159 word long blurb that I was happy with. It took me twenty minutes to write a 91 word short blurb, and another twenty-five minutes to create a title. Because of the difficulty I had in trying to come up with a cover concept on the fly the first time around, I sat down and spent an hour re-reading the novella and taking notes about what I want for a cover. In fact, the only thing that I have left to do for this novella before I move on to the next phase of publishing, is to come up with a proper tag.

So we have a tale of two novellas, both of which took over a dozen years to come to fruition, but took divergent paths to reach the proverbial golden ring. One fed directly into my stress/anxiety of writing blurbs, a story title and a vision for a book cover; the other ignored my stress/anxiety and instead gently stroked my ego and self-esteem to the point where I was able to complete all but one of my goals in rapid succession.

A question that I would have for you: does your stress/aggravation level ebb and flow when it comes to writing the blurbs/tags, creating a cover concept or even coming up with a title with every book that you complete? Or do you find it to be the same no matter what kind of book you write?

{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 #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 #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 #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 #243: I'm Sorry, What Was Your Name Again?

Another lovely chalk drawing created during the annual Newington Waterfall Festival, which is the official goodbye to summer and a timid hello to autumn.

I love creating throwaway characters for my stories. You just give them a few characteristics and a reason for being in your scene, then POOF!, they're discarded like a celeb's political opinion, never to be heard from again. Usually.

However, while I love creating throwaway characters, I do have a small issue when it comes to giving them a....bleech...name. When I have to plaster their entire being with a name, it usually means that this person can't be deposed of like a celeb's political opinion, but instead you have to give them the short attention span treatment.

Which is easier said than done. But...I do have secret guilty pleasure when it comes to slapping a moniker on a throwaway: giving them the most horrendously puerile name that I have stashed in my memory.

I know you know what I'm talking about. There are names that we have heard used back in the day in books, movies, radio and t.v., that automatically makes us want to use a spoon for gagging purposes. That's right, they're the kind of names that you can instantly conjure a bad stereotype of right off the bat (think of Ralph Wiggins from the Simpsons), whether they're male or female.

I actually have a short catalog of annoying names, mostly male, that I draw from when I have a character that appears in the story just a shade longer than a "blink and you'll miss" cameo. I say 'mostly male', because the majority of my stories skewer quite heavily towards women and I cannot bring myself to write those kind of obnoxious people as female.

For example, I use the name Melvin quite a lot in my stories. Back in the day, I rank the name 'Melvin' right up there with 'Myron' and 'Eugene' for names that I instantly dislike {equivalent would be those cute kitty memes/pics that often can induce rage among the populace}. So I often use the name for very unlikable characters that need to stick around longer than a "blink and you'll miss him" cameo.

In an upcoming novella, I had a character that was key to moving a few plot points along, even though each encounter lasted less than two total paragraphs (had three appearances in total). So naturally he gained the sobriquet of 'Melvin'. 

Melvin was one of those greasy fat blobs of a human being that seemed to live in his car 24/7/365 and was one of those annoying little druggies who thought he was hot stuff with his dealer and the ladies he would come across {what we would probably call today, an 'incel'}. Melvin was easily intimidated by anyone who had displayed just a tiny whiff of intolerance to his verbal vomit, so naturally, he became a verbal/physical punching bag to those who could actually back up what they were saying to him. So he was the perfect throwaway character that showed up, drank your beer, scarfed down your nachos, insulted your female guests, then left with his tail between his legs.

In my current novella, I managed to use quite a few throwaways that lasted less than three pages for each appearance: generic wannabe tough guys, corrupt cops, various members of a large collection agency, even an atypical druggie and pimp. All nameless and all were used to simply move the story along. I believe this was the first story where I didn't need to tack on a name for a long term throwaway, as everyone who was named was an essential character to the story.

In my current project, because I had so many plotlines going, the unfortunate aspect of naming my throwaways had to be deployed. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep the usage of each throwaway character to a manageable level, so in essence, they started drifting from throwaway to additional. But, and this is a big one, I actually had to go back in time to make sure that I wasn't repeating any of the names for those throwaways, because each and every character was injected with just enough personality to make them unique.

So the throwaways for this story with names were as follows: a Lothario teacher (Leonid), a peasant (Simon), a chatty horse who doesn't know when to stay silent (Lawrence), a well-respected teacher among his pupils (Mr. Percival), a group of humanoids (Arturo, Isiah, Louis, Anatole) and one dog (Cerberus). All of these charming people were essential to moving the various plotlines along.

Now comes the part that all writers can enjoy creating: throwaways with no names.

Those are much more fun to play with, as it's one of the few times that you can use a blatant stereotype in order to move a plot a long/showcase your protagonist/antagonist in their particular element without the reader getting too much annoyed with you. At least if you're putting that particular throwaway in their place.

Need a way to showcase a character's ability to inflict broken bones/leave a lasting impression by only touching them? Create a stereotypical brutish drunkard with more brawn than brain cells. For added hilarity, imply that the man might be from the Old West. To leave a lasting impression, create a stereotypical foppish palace courtier that is all bark and no bite. Need a way to showcase a character's acerbic wit that can cut a Sequoia down to kindling? Create a pompous Kevin/Karen who likes to name drop "important friends".

There are virtually an endless amount of opportunities to create throwaway characters that are both cannon fodder and move a particular plot point along. You don't need to pour a multitude of character development for a throwaway character. Remember, people playing a red shirt member of Star Trek or a starship trooper from Star Wars were there just to collect a paycheck. No more, no less. Your throwaway character is there to just collect a paycheck, only in the form of actual dialogue. No more, no less.

Have a fun filled happy Monday, and remember, every person deserves their moment in the sun, but not every person deserves to have multiple moments in the sun.

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

Episode #241: Hello! And You Are...?

This is one of my newer little friends that my muse was kind enough to introduce me to, as apparently I now need someone to keep me properly motivated with my writing. I think she's trying to tell me something.

A few weeks ago, I had participated in a small conversational thread, on a favorite YouTube channel that I subscribe to, about old fashioned names {the Reddit story in question was about the poster's sister mocking him for naming his child 'Lyric', and the sister was enamored with old/classic names}. The conversation thread got me to thinking about old fashioned names in general and how they're used in today's world.

I wasn't a big fan of the old fashioned names early on, mostly due to the only exposure that I had to them was like everyone else: Hollywood {period t.v. shows, period movies and cartoons} and books. It wasn't until I had started my first state government job back in 1996, helping microfilm old CT newspapers, that I had decided to take a more serious interest in what we now consider to be old-fashioned/classic names.

Fast forward to roughly 15 years ago, when I decided to get serious about my writing. One of the first items on my list to tackle was how to properly name my characters, both male and female, so that the names would more accurately reflect the type of person I was writing them to be. Which basically meant that I didn't want to either use short versions of popular names {e.g. John, Kate, Chuck} or popular American English names {e.g. Matthew, Mel, Rich}. So this left me using other sources to come up with interesting first names that would accurately reflect the character I'm creating.

The road to interesting names is paved with pop culture, history, foreign languages and the Internet. To whit:

1} Pop culture: drawing on this particular item required me to search the memories of my life, specifically the world of Warner Brother cartoons, where all kinds of interesting names were used, abused and mocked. This went hand in hand with point #2.

2} History: I spent 1996 thru 2003 working with late 18th thru early 20th century newspapers, so this gave me a surprisingly in-depth education on the societal norms and habits of those eras, of which one was the first names of men and women. Almost to a fault, the full proper version of a name was used publicly, which I was eventually able to turn on its head once I had gotten serious about my writing.

3} Foreign languages: this basically worked hand-in-hand with the Internet, since a lot of the names I was brainstorming sounded way cooler after they were run through a foreign language {e.g. Spanish, Italian}. This led directly to #4.

4} The Internet: since going to the library nowadays, while a good place to do research, was not conducive to the almost ADHD style of research that I would typically undertake when writing a story {focus? what's that?}. Thus, the Internet was a very key tool when it came to researching character names, especially when I was struck with a whim of "hey, I wonder what this would sound like in French or what's the equivalent in Norse mythology?" {note, those were actual search terms used by me}.

So, armed with this vast not-quite-encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture/history, off I went in search of using names that were slightly different from the contemporaries but fit quite snugly in a given story. Let me give you three examples where I've successfully applied this philosophy.

A} My current novella, The Mortality of Familial Love, features an eclectic mix of character names that were chosen from all of the aforementioned points. Three of the main character names were Dmitri, Charles and Kaitlyn, while a few secondary characters had names of Amaliya, Andrik and Niles.

So I'm a big fan of using Slavic/Russian names for both good/bad/amoral characters; using alternate spellings of traditional names and using names directly inspired from t.v. shows. I'm also a major fan of using traditional names in general for some of my stronger characters, no matter where they fall on that tri-scale of good/bad/amoral.

B} Novella with a potential publishing date of 2025. This one I went a little hog wild by using all the aforementioned points, with the names falling under the entire tri-scale of good/bad/amoral. I did use a nickname or two, along with an alternative spelling for a few others. I will note that some of the following names were recycled for example C, because there are times where selective recycling of names is a good thing.

Names that I had chosen were: Jon, Alexia, Bradley (trad no nickname), Terrance (trad no nickname), Freddy/Frederick, Melvin, Claire, Virgil, and Xandra.

Again, the bulk of the names chosen were mostly old traditional names, which actually fit with the basic plotline that centers around two local criminal organizations that were vying for dominance in their home state. To me, using traditional names, no matter the gender, signifies respect, albeit 18th & 19th century style of respect, where nicknames were not really used.

C} My current lo-fantasy project. This is where I really went feral hog wild with choosing my character names, in which I had applied everything from the original four points plus others like different spellings.

I won't go into redundant detail on the names that I had actually chosen, as those could be found in this particular post from the Spring, but I will go into some of the background as to where they had originated from.

I originally wanted to say that at least five of the original character names were brought over to the new series, but after giving it some thought, only two and a half were brought over: Jhon and Adeola, with Myla's alternate name of Alicia being brought over. Everything else was created from scratch using sources as diverse as: Greek mythology; real life; a reader's poll; Spanish and Italian translation; very traditional names, with source material alternating between WB cartoons/old newspapers/classic television from the 70's/period history. We then detoured to classic literature, 19th century Europe and modern life. 

In short, we tried to select names that closely mirrored the kind of character we had in mind to create. I think the biggest mistake one can make as a writer is to choose names that are the proverbial square peg to the character's proverbial round hole. For me, it's something that I can picture quite clearly in my mind that this character needs this particular type of name attached to them.

Over the years it's been a hard struggle to choose names for my characters, and even a harder struggle not to reuse a particular name as a lead character no more than three times in consecutive stories. But I am trying my very best with my selection of names for my lead characters, whether they're male or female.

Within the next few weeks, look for a post where I talk about how I choose names for characters that are either throwaways or hang around long enough to advance a given story arc.

{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