Jeffrey Miller's Blog: Jeffrey Miller Writes, page 30

Ice Cream Headache: Places of Interest

It was either the spring of 1966 or 1967 the first time I went to the Supreme Dairy Bar for a milkshake and a microwavable hot dog. Years later, when I was in high school the dairy bar had been converted into a pool hall and pinball arcade. I stopped in there one afternoon, during my two-hour senior lunch, to play some pinball. (I had gone to Oglesby to have my senior photos taken at the Pryde’s Photo Studio.

In Ice Cream Headache, I wrote that the dairy bar had once been a grocery store. Well, I used up some of my poetic/artistic freedom with that one. The building used to be Gambles Department Store.

Most of the action in the novella takes place here as well as the dairy across the street.

Soundtrack for Ice Cream Headache

You know when you hear certain songs how they take on a musical journey back in time to when you first heard them? That happened a lot when I was writing Ice Cream Headache. I had all these songs in my heart and soul; songs that I heard when I was a young boy in 1968 and songs that would soon become part of the soundtrack for this novella. They also helped to inspire me and put me in this 1968 frame of mind again.

There were some songs that I had heard in years; others which get a lot of playing time on my iPod.

 

Crispian St. Peters  ”You were on my Mind”

When I heard this song, I thought to myself, I remember hearing this somewhere, but I just don’t remember when. No problem. I listen to it a lot now.

 

Beau Brummels  ”Laugh, Laugh”

Is it just me, or do these guys sound like a cross between The Beatles and Buddy Holly?

 

The Rolling Stones  ”Paint it Black”

Classic.

 

The Monkees  ”Pleasant Valley Sunday”

In the autumn of 1966, I remember watching The Monkees on prime time. Twenty years later, sans Michael Nesmith, I saw them at the Peoria Civic Center

 

Paul Revere and the Raiders  ”Kicks”

I bought a Paul Revere and the Raiders cassette at Arlan’s Department Store with this song on it.

 

Lemon Pipers  ”Green Tambourine”

I remember listening to this song on the jukebox at M&J’s Cafe.

 

The Easybeats  ”Friday on my Mind”

Waking up in the Land of the Morning Calm

It’s not just a state. It’s a reality.

Kindle

Paperback

Hardback

“How did you end up in Korea?”

“How did you end up in Korea?” is a question that most people have asked when they learn that I have lived and worked in South Korea.

“I turned left at Japan,” I’ve often replied, tweaking a famous line from The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night when John Lennon was asked, “How did you find America?” upon which he replied, “Turned left at Greenland.”

For less than a cup of joe from Starbucks, you can read all about it here: from killer fans and a night in a love motel to staring down North Koreans or meeting the current president of South Korea.
Waking up in the Land of the Morning Calm. It’s not just a state. It’s a reality.

Give ‘em Hell, Bill!

http://news.yahoo.com/video#video=305...

I’m feeling a little nostalgic today.

On my way to school this morning, I listened to some 1992 Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M, and Alice in Chains on my iPod. Hearing that music this morning, took me back to the fall of ’92 was when I was getting ready to leave the ELS school near Kangnam subway station in southern Seoul and begin the next chapter of  my life in Korea at Yonsei University’s Foreign Language Institute (FLI). Once again, music has taken me on another journey back in time.

So, what’s this music, this journey in time, ELS and FLI all have in common with President Clinton?

It was also 20 years ago when Clinton was running for president which was also going to bring about a lot of change.

My roommate in the apartment we shared in Chamsil was a die hard Republican and he said that if Clinton was elected the country would be in serious trouble.

That’s what I was hearing from a lot from people at the GOP convention last week in Tampa about will happen if President Obama is re-elected.

Watching President Clinton give his speech brought me back in time, back to a time when there was a lot of hope for the future.

I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. It seems like yesterday.

Ice Cream Headache: A Look Back — Part 1

Writing Ice Cream Headache, I was overcome with an enormous wave of nostalgia as I drew upon a trove of memories from my youth living in Oglesby, Illinois (1966-1976).

This story started out as poem about a young boy who goes to the Supreme Dairy Bar one day and has a milkshake. From that poem, it evolved into a flash fiction story, and finally a novella.

Living overseas for as long as I have, there are a lot of things I miss about being back in the States and a lot of memories that I have stored and filed away in my heart and soul to visit as many times as I need. As a writer, I have taken journeys like this many times, such as describing a scene at the Igloo in War Remains, but this journey back to Oglesby, when I was growing up there back in the 60s, was very near and dear to me.

And the story I would eventually tell about Ray, Jimmy, Johnny, Billy, Nancy, and Earl would become very near and dear to me as I drew upon actual events in my own life to tell their stories.

Synopsis: Ice Cream Headache

Set in a small town in Illinois in 1968, the novella centers on the lives of a community of people whose lives intertwine on one fateful day in May of that year, including: Ray Jackson, isolated and strong in the face of losing his business and wife; Johnny Fitzpatrick, who has decided to run off to Canada to avoid the draft; Jimmy Smith, who overcomes psychical and mental limitations and willing to believe the best about people; Nancy Smith, who has devoted her life to raising her only child against great odds; and Earl Jansen who carries the guilt of an accidental shooting two years earlier that forced him off the police force. These characters are linked together in conflict, and in articulate friendship and understanding. Their plight as human beings is one we all share.

To self-publish or not to self-publish, that is the question — Part 3

What should I do?

Should I self-publish Ice Cream Headache or should I try and find a small press?

If I wanted to, I could have an eBook published in a few weeks after one more round of editing, followed by a print version via Lulu. Or should I take my chances and send out the manuscript to some small presses and hope that someone is interested?

Decisions, Decisions.

The only thing that is really holding me back is all the work that I will have to do to market the book. I love this book so much and I want it to be a success. It’s a good story. I worked my butt off trying to promote War Remains and I got some help along the way when it won two MWSA awards last year.

That was then; this is now.

I feel very good about Ice Cream Headache. I hope a lot of people will feel the same way.

Reverend Sun-myung Moon Dies

When I heard the news about the death of Reverend Sun-myung Moon today, I thought about one hot summer afternoon twenty years ago when I was on the Number 2 subway line in Seoul.

This is an excerpt from Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm:

I’ve always been fascinated with riding trains and subways and living in Korea. I’ve gotten to ride and take many of them during my first couple of years in Korea on a daily basis. Less than twelve hours after I arrived at Gimpo Airport, my mentor and I were crisscrossing our way underneath Seoul as he guided me around the city. When I took the subway into school in the morning, I made sure to avoid the rush hour as much as possible and the dreaded subway“push men” who pushed and packed commuters onto subway cars.

On many of those subway rides into work I was reminded and later inspired by Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro.” One afternoon in late August 1992, I was on my way back home on the subway. When the subway pulled into the Olympic Sports Complex Subway Station, one subway stop from my destination, I couldn’t believe what I saw: the platform was crowded with hundreds of wedding couples waiting for the subway.

It was the strangest sight, as the subway doors opened and all those couples swept onto the nearly empty train in a sea of white gowns and dark colored suits. Most were silent; those who did talk did so in hushed voices. Only a few showed emotion on the happiest day of their lives. Later, I learned that these couples were some of the 30,000 couples married in the mass wedding presided over by Reverend Sun-myung Moon of Korea’s Unification Church in the Olympic Main Stadium.

Pound had his petals on a black bough; I had Moon’s wedding march.

 

In the Seoul Metro

I’ve seen your tired souls riding under the city

lost in drowsy morning calm commutes.

And when I’ve seen all your lonely faces

reflected in glass, I think of Pound

and his metro station—

with faces like petals on a black bough.

But that tried and true allusion

is no match for rush hour

when the subway pulls into station

and push becomes shove

as white-gloved subway push men

pack commuters into waiting metal cars.

To self-publish, or not to self-publish, that is the question — Part 2

Remember the 1960′s film The Graduate when Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is taken aside by a friend of the family at his welcome home party and told one word for the key to success:

Plastics.

In the world of self-publishing it also comes down to one word:

Marketing.

For anyone who has self-published a book, whether an e-Book or a print version via Lulu or other companies, the challenge is how does one promote and market his or her book? Self-publishing is a breeze these days. For example, Smashwords has revolutionized the process of converting a document into the various e-Book formats. In a matter of hours one can go from their manuscript on their computer to an e-Book waiting to be downloaded. And recently, the integration of Google Drive™ with Lulu has made the process equally easy for POD purchases.

Inasmuch as the industry has revolutionized the ways authors can self-publish, authors are still on their own when it comes to marketing. There are numerous books on the subject: everyone sharing their success stories on how they have cracked the marketing conundrum. They tell you that you need to have a blog, have reviews written, and use Facebook, Twitter, and now Pinterest.

It’s getting really crowded out there. I know this one website that reviews books telling people they need to take some time off because they received hundreds of requests (including one from me) to have their books reviewed. I see it getting even more crowded and competitive as more and more people turn to their iPads, Kindles, and Nooks to read books.