Episode #104: Yeah, I'm Still Alive And Well And Living In The Suburbia Of My Mind

Woah, doggie! Can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted anything of note on the blog. Sad to see this blog turn into almost an afterthought these days, but this year has been such a bust that sometimes it's been completely unavoidable, especially since July, when I had to relocate to the dining room in order to do my own thang.

But, all inconveniences must come to end, and this one has come to an end. By Monday, December 20th, I will be safely re-relocated back to the den, so that start doing certain things again {writing and goofing on the computer} w/o the prying eyes of the family.

Yup. As much as it pains me, while the family did appreciate being able to see me more than normal for the past six months, the overall distractions simply became too much to bear. Some of the more annoying ones included:

1} Having to listen to music in order to properly write w/o distraction. Yeah, a few...hundred...hours of listening to all kinds of instrumentals save contemporary Christian (nothing wrong with that, it just didn't pop as a suggestion by YT) and currently listening to stations like Metal Detector, Thistle Radio and Sonic Universe (eclectic jazz et al), has me deeply yearning for the blissful silence of my furnace and water heater.

2} Being able to write w/o someone looking over my shoulder. This is a no-brainer. My current writing project has themes that while I have absolutely no qualms in expound upon, having people look at what I'm writing or even worse, writing it with people around is now becoming a major headache. I'm always feeling like I have to censor myself while I'm writing, which is usually not a good thing when I'm working on a story.

3} Also in conjunction with the previous point, I need to write an outline/synopsis on where I want to go with the chapter I'm currently re-writing. In general I'm tidying up the story so as it makes more sense, but specifically I'm changing the entire tone/tenor of the story, so I really need to stay the course with my consistency. Which means I have to vegetate in a chair while staring at what I got written so far on the computer and what was previously written and try to come up with coherency, which is something that I can't do surrounded by people and the like.

4} I just need my quiet time back. Prior to the water pipes imploding, my den was my quiet space, in that I could escape from everyone and every annoying distraction. In fact, prior to the water pipes imploding, I was making plans on consolidating all of my c.d.'s by moving them down to the basement. And all of the other little projects to keep myself occupied. But yeah, I really do need my quiet time back.

So basically this is what I'd done this past weekend, relocating the major day-to-day parts of my entire life from the dining room back down to the den. In the coming months, the minor stuff left in the basement will have to be relocated back into the den, which will be interesting. Kind of lick when you go grocery shopping, the cart doesn't look like a lot when putting stuff in, but somehow grows exponentially after you unpack then repack everything into the necessary recyclable bags.

Should loads of fun. Hopefully when the new year rolls around, I'll be able to get back into a blogging groove again. Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #103: I'm Still Here And I'm Still Sitting

The picture to the left is to simply and officially notify one and all that the first measly snowstorm has hit Connecticut. Nothing as even remotely severe as the pic, but more like the panic hysteria that the south gets when they see a snowflake.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anywho, I decided to let everyone know that I'm still alive and butt-surfing the chair of mediocrity. However, since originality is still among the missing in action this year {after all, I'm in the process of doing my 3rd re-write, so originality has gone out the window like the entertainment industry hiring the best actors for a given role}, we decided to mine one of my other blogs, in the case Father Nature's Corner, for extra help.

Now unlike my first blog, Cedar's Mountain, which is chock full of interesting content, it was a bit of a struggled to find something worthwhile to mine with this one. With Father Nature's Corner, I was getting a bit more pessimistic with my blogging. It was during that blog in which I was posting to the dark side {Tumblr} as well, so a lot of my posts have tons of broken links {that is, non-functional due to me nuking that blog when I created this blog a few years ago} and some non-functional videos that apparently violated some archaic YT rule that caused them to vanish.

But I did manage to find a post from early 2016 that contains no broken links and a passing reference to my defunct Tumblr blog. This post covers two topics: movies and food.

Specifically, movies with a food based plot lines, and my now adult daughter's dietary change {carnivore to vegetarian} that's now been going on for over 5 1/2 years now.

Now I actually do like these kind of dramas, as I'm always a sucker for these, whether they be theatrical releases, which is what this old post is about, or a Hallmark movie release, which I really did enjoy back when I used to watch the telly.

So let's enter the Yesterday Machine and head back to the spring of 2016, and let's check out four of my favorite food themed movies. Feel free to add yours in the comments below, as well as your thoughts on the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle {although vegan doesn't apply here since daughter does like some dairy products}.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #102: Gluttony Is A Writer's Sin Of Major Proportions

Greetings and Salutations to one and all!

The picture of a star is in direct response to hearing Christmas music while grocery shopping this past Sunday {11/7}, as I needed something decidedly non-Christmas, IMO, to counteract this serious breach of holiday protocol.

Anyways, on to the topic of the day: gluttony.

The traditional sense of the word means, in very crass terms, porking out at the proverbial dinner table {something that I often did in my younger days, to my now adult dismay}. In the non-traditional sense of the word, it means consistently starting new projects while you have others in various stages of completion patiently waiting to cross that finish line.

I already have two manuscripts completed that have gone through two rounds of editing each and are waiting for me to make my next move. The next move for them probably won't happen until the Spring 2022. The next move for me was to find something to occupy my time again.

Don't know about you, but lately I've been feeling kind of rudderless when I'm in between projects, especially being retired and all that stuff. So I decided to revert back to when I had lots of energy and gumption for my writing. Back then, I used to do all kinds of writing because I had so much creative energy to burn.

But, like with all issues since early July '21, is trying to find projects to work on. Everything is all scattered helter skelter in our seriously deconstructed basement. I lucked out on the first project because everything got waterlogged and had to move everything to the dining room. I lucked out on the 2nd because the basement wasn't completely deconstructed yet.

The 3rd required some searching since everything was deconstructed, and after finding a couple of possibles, I was able to find a challenging suitable: 50% already re-written and 50% needing to be re-written, and all of it mind-numbingly cringey. Every. Single. Page.

And of course, it has no title and the bare military grade minimum for a dual plotline. So yeah, lots of fun with this one. And just to give you an idea on how long this was last touched, apparently the red ink I used for making editing notes back then has now turned to a light umber.

McYummy!

So yeah, fun times ahead, especially trying to figure out how to get plot #1 (which I think I still remember) to plot #2, which is a funeral. Not sure why I though writing about a funeral would be a solid plot line to work with, but this should be interesting read/work on.

So gluttony can be a good thing as a writer, especially if you have an unlimited amount of creative energy to burn off. Prepping can be good, but over prepping can eventually drive you sane.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #101: When Having A Title Doesn't Work

<---This is what happens when you really don't care about respecting town property. 

Note: This was sand blasted a few years later and is now clean with reflectors screwed on to ensure safe driving.

I really couldn't think of a proper title for the post, which can be chalked up to the changing of the guard at the blog. Gone are the days of being in the 40 to 49 age bracket when one {with the help of being gainfully employed} could find humor in things and easily write about them with a heaping degree of confidence.

Instead, we are now residing in the mellowing upper end of the Medieval age bracket of 50 to 59, where one tries to make sense of things to a large degree, and often leans on the shoulders of their children for explanations when he doesn't understand something and needs clarification.

This is not one of those times, but simply circling back {see the memes about Psaki} to the previous paragraph about the changing of the guard {not Right, that is}. Today is simply a hodgepodge of bullet point updates about things going on. Plus, I need to keep on my minimum bi-monthly blog posting.

1} Writing: I've finished the first round of edits on my latest re-write project. Funnily enough, I was able to come up with a new tentative title of "My Soul Has Been Captured". I was also able to double the amount of chapters (17 from 8) and get the word count down to 43k+. So now the next step is applying those 116 pages of edits and reprinting the thing out again to go through yet another round of editing. Yay me!

2} Family: The family is doing quite well. Son is settling down to married life quite well, having just celebrated his two year anniversary. Daughter is somewhat back on a semi-skewered path of personal fulfillment. She has a good job in retail, a permanent boyfriend and has made concrete plans for restarting her college education, as well as moving out. The wife is doing good, as well as mother.

3} Me: In general, I'm doing good. Retirement is suiting me quite well presently. I'm still hitting my daily goal of 6k steps/2.5 miles, which is going on 507 consecutive days (basically started in earnest Memorial Day weekend 2020). As with the first update, I've been keeping myself busy with my writing, or rather, my re-writing, and basically my self quarantining with my walking and dealing as minimally as possible with the general public. I'm about as stress-free and relaxed as humanly possible these days and I'm enjoying every single minute of it.

So that's where things stand presently: enjoying retirement, my daily walks, being a small nuisance on FB from time to time, but not so much that I get put into FB jail for speaking things that they don't want to hear, and steadily working on my writing to the point where I'm getting actual enjoyment out of it.

And that is all you can want out of life, which is to enjoy it to the best of your ability.

{c} 2021 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved