November 9, 2015

Wallowing In The MIrth Of Today

Yowza.

I's still here, wallowing in the mirth that is my day-to-day existence that we call life. Still trying to figure what I want to do here, 'cause you know, clarity is overrated.

Anywho, a writing/book related update of sorts for everyone.

I spent this weekend chipping away at the unknown story (that is, story sans title) that I originally wrote some years ago, back when I was still a semi-newbie writer. Yes, the odd thing about this story is that has no title. Imagine, writing a six chapter novel/novella with no working title connected to it, beyond calling it "My WiP!"

So, "My WiP!" it is. I've been chipping away at it and I have just a tad over 10K words written for it. As soon as I can figure out what this story is actually about (yah, very bad to write a story sans title and recognizable plot), beyond being a prequel (?) for this book, I'll let you all know.

In other news, the e-zine that had published my short story Red Stripe, has sadly gone belly-up. However, the good news is that I have all the other rights associated with that story, so now I just gotta figure out what to do with it. I am thinking of pairing it up with two others to offer a short story trilogy thingy for Amazon, like I have with Smashwords, but like everything else I plan, it requires time and money to complete.

And finally, in book news (hence the tag Books), I decided to actually BUY a book. Online. At Amazon. While this seems like a blinding case of the obvious, it really isn't. On the rare occasions that I buy books, I cut out the middle man and buy directly from the author (hence, I own almost two dozen indie/non-indie books wonderfully autographed by their talented creators). The amount of books I have bought directly from a retailer, including e-books, you can count on one hand.

Seriously.

So after reading a nice comment from Alex J. Cavanaugh about the availability of his work in print, I took the plunge and bought a copy of his first book (not the one listed for $1500) in his space opera series, CassaStar. As I've always said, I'm always interested in exploring new genres, so this will be a cool adventure indeed. I also bought a c.d. from Duran Duran that replaces a cassette I own, called "White Lines", which is a c.d. full of cool cover tunes from diverse artists like Lou Reed, Melle Mel, and Public Enemy. Funny side note, I found the 12" of White Lines at a Salvation Army thrift store sometime after I had bought the cassette.

Happy Moanday!

(c) 2015 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.

16 comments:

  1. Thank you for taking a chance on my book! I hope it doesn't disappoint.
    Glad you got the rights to Red Stripe back. A short story trilogy sounds like a good idea.
    My second book got all the way to my publisher before it had a title. Yeah, I suck at those.

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    1. No, thank you for the suggestion. As I've gotten older (how a half century old) I've expanded the genres that I read exponentially, which makes things quite interesting.

      "Red Stripe" is a fine example of not really having a good title to work with. And yes, I seriously suck at titles.

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  2. My sister was here this weekend and we were sorting through things when I came across a short story written by me years ago. I began to read it aloud and my sister was enthralled, as was I. It reminded me of some information I got from Ken Jackson years ago. He said "Set it aside an come back in a few months. If you still like it, it's good and someone else will like it too. Maybe not everyone but it will cross the eyes of someone who relates to your writing skills." Well reading this short story again was a little more than three months later. It was like 20 years! LOL

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    1. And yet, it still held it's own 20 years later. Any story that can make another person stop and listen (in this particular case), can be called "a success story" (no pun intended). Love to read it some day.

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    1. I didn't get a chance to read any of the reviews, but I did notice it has at least a 4 star average rating. So I'm really looking forward to reading some escapist fiction in the coming weeks (my TBR pile currently sits at 3, so this will be a good addition to it).

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    2. Yeah...titles. UGH. I stink at those too. I've got more than one file on my computer that has nothing but a vague idea of what it's about as the file name. Makes life more interesting when I open it to find out what I wrote, or started. Like Christmas with more "WTH?"

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    3. Yeah, I got files on my other computer like that. Pain in the butt when I'm searching for an old story to work on (like, it's where??). As for story titles, I suck at those too. A lot of my titles have a major disconnect with the story, which it turn makes it hard to connect with the story.

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  4. A book signed by the author adds an extra cool factor and makes the book more worthy to keep as part of a personal library. Sounds like despite a passing slump, you've got things in pretty good control.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. I do, to a certain degree. The cool factor is always a good thing, because I've actually read some of those books, so I can talk about them with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

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  5. I don't even e-read yet! Still get Library freebies-Still reading Larry Niven stuff- I tend to follow authors until I'm current... Reading Rainbow Mars Hope you like the book!

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    1. I have a NOOK but haven't used it since I promised a writer friend to proof it this past summer. I don't have a Kindle, but I did download the freebie when I need to proof my last two books for them. I'll still be a paper guy to the very end, but I do see myself getting a Kindle in the near future.

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  6. Ah, a fellow Duran Duran fan who admits it! We need to start a club.

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    1. Gotta remember, I was around for Duran Duran's heyday, so I found their music to be quite good. Wouldn't admit it though since most, if not all of my classmates were hip deep in rock.

      The song that's linked, I first heard on the radio, then I saw the video, which I thought was very cool, is what got me hooked on this underrated cove c.d.

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