Still Talkin' 'Bout That Novella

Continuing on a theme of shamelessly pimping my writing, A Taste Of Pain is now available for pre-order on B&N (as well as my other two books). I'm hoping to get it listed on Kobo soon, and I can't even access the bookstore at IBooks to see if it's actually there yet.

If your speed is Amazon's Kindle, then you'll have to wait until May 13th, when it becomes available on Smashwords (as well as other retailers) in all the popular formats, including MOBI. I'm looking to do a print release sometime in late May/early June, or earlier, depending on what my finances look like.

Additionally, I reworked the blurb, both short and long for the book, and I think the long will work out better for the book, since it doesn't give the entire story away like the first one (which I pulled directly from my query letter.

Nikia, a demonic spirit escapee from Purgatory now residing above ground, is being blackmailed by Kevin to turn Keisha, the girl of his obsession, into the hottest slut of any male or female's wanton desires, so that he can ride to her rescue and make her beholden to him. A distress call sent out by Nikia's eldest prompts two archangels, Michael and Raphael, to answer the call. But can they arrive in time to save Nikia and Keisha from Kevin's lustful machinations? More importantly though, can a supreme demonic bitch from the bowels of Purgatory really turn her life around and do the right thing?

Finally, during the past week, I got to thinking about turning this into a mini-series of some kind, that features the lead character Nikia. I actually have the 2nd volume of this series in the can, as it's currently at the 3rd level of editing (needing a beta-reader plus some more editing notes need to be taken/applied). Additionally, I've been thinking about this particular book lately, and I'm thinking with the right kind of rewrite, I can make this volume #3.

I know I've talked about this before and I know that sometimes the focus isn't quite there (leftover old school hyperactivity/new skool ADD), but I do believe with the right kind of motivation (aka less distractions from work and home), I should be able to fix this story and bring it to my exacting standards.

And that, my friends, is always a good thing.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

So Much To Do

Modern procrastination is the art of getting all your schtuff together for what you want to do, then call meetings with yourself to decide on what you should do next.

"I think you need to do this first, then that second, and that other thing third."

"No, you need to do that first, this third and that other thing second."

"No, you need to do all three at the same time. Multi-tasking is the new in-thing, doncha know."

"Make it stop!!!!"

Obviously, some people just can't be taught. In my case, a failure to communicate is probably a good thing, since I spent the weekend doing the following, thus permanently adjourning the meeting:

1} Uploading my novella to Smashwords and making it available for preorder (doing a May 13th release date) on IBooks, B&N, and Kobo.

2} Designing postcards for said novella. A designer I am not, but it has to be done.

3} Completing a very small display for work. One that will not get me into trouble, thus it will have no pics and no prices.

4} Upload a copy with the US Copyright office.

5} As much as it pains me to do, a little advertising on Facebook.

6} Blab about it on my blogs without turning my readers off.

And that, is how I spent my weekend, except for the statewide DNS interruption inflicted by Frontier Communications (the geniuses who bought AT&T's cable/internet/phone service here Connecticut) that put me behind for about four hours, give or take).

How 'bout you? How was your weekend? Did you accomplish what you set out to do, or did you get sidetracked by stuff that was beyond your control?

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Where's He?

He* has been busy getting annoyed with all sorts of things related to the computer and cyber space, and surprisingly enough, not getting annoyed with work, which is directly due to the fact that since He decided that phoning it in makes the work day that much less stressful.

*no religion is involved with this particular pronoun today

First item that He has gotten annoyed with, is not surprisingly, Microsoft and Microsoft tech support.

The other day, He decided to get some post cards made up of his upcoming novella, so He went to Vistaprint to get the job done. Funny thing happened though, when He went to the website, He discovered that He was unable to access it, as no matter what He tried, He got the following error message:

Please wait while page loads

.

Miffed, He left IE and moved over to Chrome, and still got the same error message. Seriously annoyed, He went to the forums for help, then called tech support for help. Tech support proceeded to talk about his problem in all kinds of possibilities, then said he would help him if He purchased a service plan for $150. He said that was too expensive, so he said that they had a cheaper one for $99. He said that was too expensive as well. Techie said, well, you could do a system restore, but that probably won't cure the problem. He bid tech support adieu and decided to use the household computer to get the job done.

The next day, and after spending some twenty minutes attempting to use the computer that was the SPAWN OF SATAN and having no luck whatsoever, either accessing Vistaprint or His e-mail or the picture that He sent to Himself, He was about to throw in the towel and go on a minor league rant, when He decided on a whim to try something a little different.

He clicked on the link "In Private Browsing" for Chrome and presto! He had access to the website and His e-mail. He then became a mighty fine happy camper indeed.

While all that aggravation was being inflicted on His poor psyche, He decided to proof the manuscript that He received back from the formatter, which ultimately took Him roughly thirty minutes to do.

And that's why He has not been seen in the blog world for the past week. He decided that since all the little things were just annoying the crap out of Him so much, that to inflict His annoyance on His friends would not be a good thing indeed. Which is why He's made less than five comments this week on your wonderful blogs.

However, all things considering and even though He has some plans for this weekend (writing, planting some lilacs that He bought the other day, and basically decompressing), He has decided to make an attempt at writing another post, this time in the 1st person, and not as the Omnipotent One.

Because quite frankly, being Omnipotent is a bit of a drag, and not very much an ego booster. Or an Eggo waffle for that matter.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

A Taste Of Pain

So my wonderfully bodacious muse stopped by one day last week to see what's what with what. She walked into my den, radiating a heat so volatile that any mere mortal within a five foot radius would be charcoaled, rolled me away from my computer, sat down on my lap and purred, "So, did you fulfill my modest little request?"

I turned and locked eyes with my bodacious curvaceous one. Coughing a couple of times, I said, "I certainly did. Just feast your eyes on this."

Smashwords Interview

She squealed in delight, wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and asked, "For me?"

"You bet your sweet, sensual ass it's for you. This was one of your best portrayals yet. In fact, I was so impressed by your work as Nikia, that I'm going to use you as her again in the next volume in the series."

Weeping tears of joy, she kissed my cheek, jumped out and ran out the den, on her way to parts unknown, but my best guess is somewhere warm, sunny, breezy and 100% private.

Soon to be uploaded for pre-order, this under 100 word synopsis explains it all.

The hotter the humiliation, the more sickening the payback.

Nikia, a demonic spirit escapee from the bowels of Purgatory now residing above ground is being blackmailed by Kevin to turn Keisha, the girl of his obsession, into the hottest slut of any male or female's wanton desire, so that he can ride to her rescue and make her beholden to him. A distress call sent out by her eldest prompts two archangels, Michael and Raphael, to appear in the flesh and help Nikia not only obliterate Kevin, but to restore the symmetry to her life and become Keisha's personal savior as well.

And if you click on the caption, you'll find an updated interview featuring my muse interviewing me.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

They Got Me Yet Again!

Facebook.

Sometimes, it's a very good thing if all you do is socialize with others and/or play games. Other times, it's a very bad thing if you're trying to build some kind of name recognition.

Some time ago, my book blog moved to level two of Facebook jail. Level two is where you post a link from your website, and you get a pink warning box saying that your link is suspicious and thus you have to do CAPTCHA in order to post. EACH. AND. EVERY. TIME.

Additionally, having a website at level two means that you can never use it in your "shop now" button (if you have a business page like I do) because it will always give you an error message.

Well my friends this particular blog that you are currently perusing has, after two+ years, got moved to level one of Facebook jail. Level one is where you have to do CAPTCHA in order to post. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

How it got moved to level one is relatively simple: I posted a link one too many times over the course of a weekend. I believe it wasn't from my blog, but I'm getting punished just the same anyways.

So.

Because this particular annoyance is the straw that blew the brake line, I decided this past Tuesday (4/13) to resurrect my Tumblr blog, Father Nature's Mountain (don't click if you don't have the bandwidth to spare or you're sucking on IE instead of Chrome). I haven't posted on my Tumblr blog since last year, for the very simple reason of not having any pictures to blog about.

But this bonehead move by Facebook has forced me to shake things up. Instead of posting links to my blog twice a week, I'll simply write a summary of what I posted on my Blogger blog for the week (plus a bonus perhaps) and post that once a week.

Facebook is a bad Catch-22, in that unlike Amazon, who uses their algorithms for (mostly) good thins, they use their algorithms for (mostly) bad things. They want you to expose yourself to the world, but if you expose yourself too much and you aren't paying for it, then you get punished for doing so.

Facebook.

It's the new 1984.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

I Waffles With Sugar Free Surple

I am notorious for waffling on my writing projects, partially for the basic simple fact that I can never decide on what I want to work on and partially for the basic simple fact that nothing I work on as of late grabs me like this story, that story, that other story or these group of stories did.

Nowhere was this point jackhammered home when this past weekend (4/11 & 12), I got seriously motivated to do some writing. The motivation was a natural offshoot from taking the next steps with my novella: formatting and cover(s). So after performing my usual routine of last minute editing when opening the manuscript, I commenced to writing.

Funny thing happened on the way to nirvana though: I found myself writing some increasingly hostile verbiage for what seemed a rather overlong/never-ending scene of nastiness (no, I won't tell you what I was writing). Additionally, I found myself really not wanting to continue with story, simply because I really had no idea where I wanted to go with the story.

So.

I stopped and took a long look at what I wrote and I said to myself, "You know what you need to work on, don't you."

And reluctantly, the answer I gave myself was, "I do."

So I went to my box of floppies and dug out the disk that had the story that would simply not go away (sort of like the guy who has a life insurance policy out on himself and survives about a half dozen attempts on his life). The story that periodically, since March 30, 2014, knocked on my subconscious to say, "You know you wanna...do me! Go on, you need to do me! Do me bad!"

Well...maybe not like that. But you get the basic idea.

So here I is, reading the story that simply will not go away to quietly decompose in the G.B.'s Slush Pile Of Ignorance, in order to refresh my memory on where I was going, This story (scroll down the paragraph called "Time To Go") I was reading on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in wonderful downtown Burbank, California (this was an actual trivia question that my daughter got on her phone this past Friday), instead of this story, which I checked out of the library this past Saturday (note to reader: I've only read the first 11 pages/4 chapters and this book has got me hook, line and sinker).

So the next step in tackling this story, of which I have 50 pages/4 chapters written, once I finish re-familiarizing myself with it, is to do the following:

1} Write in all the edits;
2} Fix point of view so that it's consistently 1st person (mixing views improperly is a bad thing);
3} Print out fresh pages;
4} Start writing fresh stuff.

Sadly, this is probably the one novel in which no written outline is needed and the two plotlines remain depressingly easy to remember as well as easy to resolve.

Damn, I really hate working on something that gives me the creeps yet remains the one thing that I'll probably finish this year.

Ever have that problem: work on something you detest yet'll be something that you'll finish to completion?

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Where It's At?

Well....even though I do have two turntables and a microphone, I do not possess a super-wide tie nor a white dress shirt and dress pants from the 70's like Mr. Beck here:

However, what I do possess is my imagination, which is clearly the moistest thing that I have in abundance right now. I don't possess much of anything else of importance. Oh sure, you're yelling at your screen saying, "What kind of dribble and drabble is that? How can you say you have nothing of importance or social import?"

"Social import?"

What, we all getting Woodstocky on me here? To quote the world renown Fire Marshall Bill, "Let me show you something!"

Here, is social import:

Now then, where was I? Oh yes, the book related tags wot you see at the bottom of this here post.

I've been a little busy in the past week or so, getting the manuscript for my next book "The Taste Of Pain" ready for publication. As I mentioned last week, I managed to write the dedication, acknowledgement, where I can be found, and a sample to a previous book. Now, through the very good luck of the gambling gods, I managed to secure funds to get the manuscript formatted for e-book release AND to buy a cover for said book.

So I is one happy camper in that department.

However, in other related news, because work has still been kicking my buttocks and time is at a premium, coupled with a bunch of other nonsense I don't really feel like getting into right now, this post is the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment.

But...I promise you that very soon, I will bring you tales of not the great Ulysses, but tales of shopping on Amazon, where Amazon isn't the big bad bully in this melodrama. Honest.

To finish your Humpty-Dumpty multi-egg omelet of day, a little Cream.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

How I Does Reviews

After a semi-short hiatus, I decided to start doing reviews of both music and books again. For books, I review what I check out of the library, both fiction and non, and for music, I review what I purchase on Amazon (which reminds me I have to do a review of this c.d.) or used.

For each type of medium that I partake in, I have two slightly different but also slightly the same criteria that I follow. Yes, I know that preceding sentence doesn't make sense, but hear me out on it just the same.

Books

I'll give anywhere from 2 to 4 1/2 stars. I don't believe in giving one star because that is unnecessarily cruel. Every book has a redeeming quality to it, badly written or not, so to give it a one is just plain stupid. So the lowest star I'll give is a two, and for a book to earn a two from me, all it has to contain is a well written inside jacket blurb and nothing else. If it has a well-written jacket blurb, that is the basic minimum needed that will get me to pick up a book. Click here for an example.

To get a three, it must have the aforementioned blurb, plus when I open it to a random page, the prose has to blow me away just enough to get the book out the door in my hands. Then to keep earning the three, the story doesn't grab but I'll either keep reading it to the end in the vain hope that somehow it'll get better or I'll simply find a stopping point and give up. If I give up, I'll try to find some redeeming quality to the book or to the writer (no bloody pick axe job on the writer, just a clean  hatchet job). Click here for an example or here for an example.

To get a four or four and a half, the book basically has to blow me away. The writing, the plot (for fiction) or the content (for non-fiction), the pacing, the fact that I couldn't put it down, everything that you could possibly think of that goes into the creation of a good book. The bulk of the reviews that I've written over the years fall into this category. Click here for an example of a four star or here for an example of a four and a half star.

I used to give five star reviews early on, mostly as a proponent for a new writer (note, I myself have been the recipient of half dozen five start reviews, either for the reason mentioned or because my book actually blew people way), but I found over the years, especially after reading a slew of five star reviews that other writers had thoughtfully posted on their FB wall, it got be harder for me to take a five star review seriously. If I come across a writer, new or old, who writes a book that absolutely blows me out of my shoes, then I'll leave a five. Which for me, averages about two a year. Click here for an example.

IWSG Post #8!

IWSG

The first Wednesday of the month is set aside for insecure writers across the blog-o-sphere to share all of our individual experiences, the gud, the baaaaaad and the plug ugly.

In this particular case, the first of April is a special day for a lot of swell people here in the blog-o-sphere, in that today kicks off the 2015 A-Z Blogging Challenge.

On a personal note, while I participated last year, this year I am not. Last year, I had all kinds of time to prepare for it and all kinds of posts lined up for it. This year, real life has horned its way in to my blog life to such an extent that it was simply impossible for me to find even the time to devote to such an undertaking, let alone trying to come up with a theme or blog posts.

So for today's post, I thought I would reflect on where I was in 2014 at this juncture, versus where I am for 2015, if only to see what kind of progress I've made during that one year span. Basically, did I meet my exacting standards from last year to this year, or has everything been a bust?

On April 1st, 2014, I was gearing up for the A-Z challenge and trying to find a way to pimp...umm...market my commercial debut novel "Line 21". I had all kinds of blog posts written as it applied to my writing journey and I even had a special post devoted just to my debut novel. I wasn't doing much in the way of writing I don't think, but maybe I was. I'm not entirely sure, as I was pretty much floating from project to project, trying to find something that would resonate/stick with me.

So overall, I was feeling purty good about myself.

Fast forward one year.

For the next twelve months, I experienced a seismic shift in my writing. In June of last year, I regained the rights to my commercial debut, then spent the next three months doing the following: holding a contest for a new title; buying a new cover; and formatting the novel for both e-book and print release. Around November of last year, I managed to settle down on a couple of writing projects, and worked on them in fits and starts until Spring 2015. Currently I'm re-working a short story into another novella that would part & parcel of trilogy that is 2/3 completed.

So on April 1st, 2015, I just finished getting all the parts in place to do another e-book release of my novella. I finally was able to come up with a new title for this manuscript; received feedback from a beta-reader and applied a few of the suggestions that were made; wrote a dedication, acknowledgement and a where-I-can-be-found; and added an excerpt to my first novel as well. All that is left is to get it formatted and get a cover.

So overall, I'm still feeling purty good about myself. 2015 has been a little different from 2014 so far, but I believe that the course I'm following is good one. And as the old cliché goes, only time will tell how 2015 with ultimately shake out.

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.