March 30, 2016

Horizonatal, Vertical And Diagonal, It's Still The Same Bop

As per the norm (and not F the norm per RATM), we have a very informative post at I Are Writer! that covers some actual progress on my short story quad-logy. Which is something that you might want to check out. Because...it's...the...return...of...

The Disclaimer (think Jello Biafra or John Mayer's voice reading these lines): Today's post contains some semi-frank talk about sexual situations et. al. and very little in the way of inappropriate language. If this kind of thing makes you feel a tiny bit woozy or more probably, slightly uncomfortable, please don't click on the "read more" link. Instead, click on the Tumblr post up yonder.

March 23, 2016

Rudderless Annoyance Nearly Throttled!

First up, an original brand spanking (ooh baby) post up at I Are Writer!, in which we talk about one of my favorite writing topics (ooh baby).

Secondly, the topic of today's post is pretty much a given, if you can connect the dots from the title. How this came about was pretty simple: I did a little surfing of the archives at my old blog Cedar's Mountain, and came across an interesting tag called Anger Management Issues. For those of you who have been reading my scribblings for the past 8 years, you know that I wrote some seriously juicy and beefy rants on that blog. You name it, I probably wrote about it. The bulk of my rants were tagged under the aforementioned phrase and if you have the time, I strongly suggest checking them out. Give yourself a little flashback to a time where G.B. was exceptionally passionate about his blogging and the world around him.

In the meantime, here is a rant to make you stop and say to yourself, "I know exactly where he's coming from!"

Last Saturday (3/19) I had to work a few hours of mandatory overtime. No biggie, but it does cause my major errand running to be moved back a few hours, so instead of finishing say, around 1p, I'm finishing around 3p. Anywho, I did my banking and went to the post office branch I now go to. Alas, the line was out to the lobby and almost to the parking lot. Normally I would hang ten and wait, since I usually had nothing better to do, but because I was pressed for time (brother's b-day, ya know), I went to my local branch.

March 16, 2016

Is This Thing Working??

Today's post will definitely not be peaches and cream but hard cider and rotten tomatoes. Why? Well, mostly because of the following factors taking place.

1} Computer blew its brains out. Since Thursday, been unable to download updates (19 totaling 280+MB), so it's at Staples being fixed. Which leads to...

2} Using daughter's old computer, which was squatted on by mommy dearest. Damn thing has Windows 10, and I had to log out of three different websites that mommy dearest forgot to log out of. And if that wasn't enough, I have an extra long keyboard to battle with 'cause the manufacturer done installed a stupid telephone (you remember those) keyboard on the keyboard, so I gots to type on an angle.

3} Tumblr eating up a blog post that I spent thirty-five minutes writing. If you are thinking about using Tumblr, please keep in mind that unlike Blogger, THEY DO NOT HAVE AN AUTO SAVE FEATURE. I was writing about one of my favorite controversial topics (Sex), and I was going on one of those seriously informative tangents that I like to do from time to time when it comes to my writing, and for some annoying reason, the backspace button decided to not back space a few words but the entire website. Lost every F'n thing I wrote. Yah, I am still upset about this. Wrote a seriously short post about it too.

4} No writing was accomplished this week. 'Nuff said about that.

5} No blog visiting to speak of. See bullet point 1 & 2 as to why.

Which leads us to a blog post that I wanted to write today, which was about songs based on current events.

March 9, 2016

Life Is But A Series Of "Really? Really?" Moments

As per the norm, a fresh writing update can be had at I Are Writer!

We are now for the most part, settled in at Tumblr for the long haul, as it applies to my writing journey. While I may share something of writing related import here from time to time, the bulk of the writing updates can be found there. So if you can find the time, please give it a look see.

As for the time to time, here is something of import to share: it looks like I'm gonna have to seriously gut and redo my Tumblr book blog. I originally set it up about a year ago as an alternative to my other book blog that has been basically put into permanent Facebook jail for the crime of me being too giddy about my first traditionally published book. I went into the Tumblr blogging system with the expectation of that being like this, but to my surprise, that ain't this, so it will require a major gut job to make it like this. I may also add another book blog here for the sole purpose of making it a little easier for people purchase my books from Tumblr.

Now, with the dry drollness out of the way, lets segue into the post title.

"Really? Really?" is my new pet phrase to safely describe the incredibly stupid behavior that I encounter not only at work, but elsewhere in the real world. You know where I'm coming from, right? You've had encounters, either at work or elsewhere, that have left you flabbergasted and/or stunned. Well, this is my world. I experience this kind of thing on a daily basis at work, and while I have a ton o' cannon fodder to use, we'll use two (count 'em) two examples from the real world that will (I hope) leave you shaking your head in amazement.

March 2, 2016

This, That, And What Was The Other Thing?

As per the norm, a fresh post at I Are Writer! is to be had.

I thought for a slight change of pace, I would give everyone an update on my various writing projects.

1} The Friendship Has Begun. If you didn't get a change to peruse last week's post at I Are Writer!, this is the title to my current re-writing project. The title itself is based on a seriously inside joke at work. The companion inside joke is The Friendship's Over, which is the title of the sequel to this novel. Overall, I'm making good progress on this novel, as I'm writing over 750 words per non-working weekend and I'm doing some occasional writing during the week as well, which is why I'm not make the blog rounds as much as I used to. I'm current on chapter four, and I'm finding that the easiest way to rewrite this novel, is to ignore most of what I originally wrote. Each chapter has a particular scene that plays out, with a beginning and an ending. All I have to do is fill in the middle.

2} What Is Life? (A Three Act Play). This my short story trilogy and it's turning into a delightful bit of organized chaos. For instance, while I was researching dates for the copyright page (Amazon, like Smashwords, has this thing about plagiarizing, unless you explicitly mention on the copyright page that your story/stories were previously published), I found a nifty little short story that I published some 6 years ago on my adult blog.

Detour about copyright page: 99% of what I'm putting into this short story trilogy has been previously published, so it took me the better part of thirty minutes to find and write down every single publication date for seven stories and three story snippets. Damn thing is about a quarter page in length.

Anyways, this nifty little short story, which was previously untitled, has a medieval/Shakespearean feel to it. So I thought, "Wow, this would make a great bonus story for the trilogy."

A good thought, but it needed some fine tuning. Enter super-duper smart daughter Jenelle, who was in a good enough mood to read/critique the short story. And surprise surprise Sgt. Carter!, she came up with some good editing suggestions, which actually makes sense, since the story was originally posted on my blog. So it took me about thirty minutes to tweak those parts while transcribing said story to the computer. All that remains coming up with a new name for the spirit guardian of the forest, because, quite frankly, the name Kenya simply does not work for the time frame in question.

Beyond that, the only remaining items on the menu board are: blurbs for the stories, cover pic and formatting.

So my friends, that's where I is with my writing. The gogo-mojo is back and for the first time in quite a few years, I'm actually having fun with my writing.

(c) 2016 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.