T. S. Miller
Last Updated 7/29/05 -- added two essay-type thingies
Updated 7/25/05 -- added Separate but Not Equal
Updated 7/24/05 -- added Want Not
Updated 7/06/05 -- added Relic Fever
Updated 5/25/05 -- added The Undine of Lauzeta Pond
Formal Update 5/16/05
Ahem. Well now. It may seem to you that I had stopped writing for a little while there. But I am here to assure that such was not the case! Well, okay, I admit it, for a *little* while there, I had. But not to the extent that it appeared. Appearances, they can be deceiving, you know. I could say I'd been busy doing a lot of work with Cowherd, and that's certainly true, but that's no excuse for not writing. And if somehow you've made your way to this site but don't know about Cowherd, well, you should stop reading and go to Eggplant's site. Yeah, promoting myself like that has been a lot of fun. Shameless fun! Cowherd aside, the theme for the summer is let's get serious, thanks to one P.F. Kluge and his aversion to the literature of the fantastic. Gotta practice being well-anchored in reality. That's fair, I told him. So be it. Be real. Or, wait, true. Yeah. Be true, said Schultz. Either/or? We'll see. I'll get right on that crazy writing thing. Just you wait.
--T.S.
Note: And I think I'm supposed to say that all of the works on this page are the property of T. S. Miller, except of course those marked with an * are actually no longer the property of T. S. Miller for the next year or so, but instead belong to the Scholastic publishing house. (Give them back plz!) Either way, no intellectual theft is, uh, permitted.
Note: The works on this page are listed first by general category of writing, and then in order (approximately) by the date on which they were first completed, more recent ones first.
Note: This is a poor dead (poor stabbed dead, even) message board.
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Hey, where did the Mostly True stories go?
Short Fiction
100% genuine fiction... more or less.
Separate but Not Equal -- Slightly longer than the stories I seem to be favoring lately, but it still has one of them twisty-type endings that gets people in trouble. I promise I didn't write this story just for that rather mediocre ending. In fact, it was the only part of the story I had to think about at all once reaching that point. I might change it completely. Only time will tell. Enjoy the original version while it lasts!
Want Not -- In an attempt to make myself write regularly, I'm now forcing myself to write a page or so (longhand) before I go to bed. This short short was the first product. Now, this story doesn't mean I approve of Faulkner or anything yet. It's just what came out. I think it'd've made a nice 500-word college app essay, no?
Relic Fever -- 606 words do a story make. I've been reading this collection of 100 short short sf stories, see? I guess I got all motivated to try my hand at writing another one myself. The trick, the trick is you gotta have a punchline. And a punchline is different from a twist ending! Kind of. See for yourself.
The Undine of Lauzeta Pond -- It's been a while since I've written a short story. A long while. And this story was a long while in the writing, if you consider that I began it over six months ago. However, this story was a short while in the writing, if you consider that I wrote about 90% of it yesterday and today. Before I let you get started reading "Undine", let's talk a little about intertextuality. You see, Lauzeta Pond was not always called Lauzeta Pond. That's an intertextual reference. I only disclose this bit of information to you because I hadn't planned to make any particular textual references in my little story. It just happened, a parallelism that goes much deeper than the title. I'm just telling y'all now that the title is a reflection of the other relationship. Lucky for me I discovered the right text -- "Quand Vey la Lauzeta Mover" -- just in time! That's what really motivated me to resume and resolve to complete the story. (Millennium Actress motivated me to resume the story two days ago, but that's another issue entirely.) Funny things, ballads.
Fimbulwinter - The title is misleading and still not quite right. Oh well. At least it's no longer untitled. Anyway, this story is short. It's got dwarves in, but no elves.
The Erl-King - My contribution the the literature of the King. Props to Valerie for suggesting the little man in the light-bulb who eats wulfrum. Mad props. I actually finished writing it on Christmas, and it's a mildly seasonal story, I suppose. It has got an elf in.
The Third Corbie - A short short story that took only two days or so in composition, from idea to finished produt. It was written in haste; enjoy it in haste. But brush up on your ballads first.
The Cowherd and the Poetess - A story for Rachel and Dennis, by request of the former. I had to remove it from my site, because it now has been professionally published by Eggplant Literary Productions, Inc. as a Jintsu e-book. Look here.
When the Underwear Runs Out - A nice blend of the old and the new -- the premise was provided by C.A., but the story is unarguably Kenyon. That laundry room exists.
Whicker Once, Whicker Loudly - This was a commissioned work. It is a motorcycle story. Short and (sweet).
The Food of Other Gods - This is the first story I completed at Kenyon College, though I started it while before coming here. There's a definite influence hanging about it, though. I had to sacrifice something to get it finished. This was a stubborn story, and it's not half as good as the title.
Don't Bother Asking Why - This story is not a very good story, as such. I hesitate to call it "bad," so I think I'll use the word experimental instead. It was definitely written in a more experimental manner than the rest, anyway. You see, Valerie O'Brien, in effect, wrote this story. So judge her relative awesomeness, not mine.
Shoeing the Unicorn - Oddly enough, not science fiction at all. It's all about the things that aren't metaphors, people...
The Books of My Numberless Dreams - Has room for expansion, extension, and elaboration, but it's also complete as it is. As complete as these things are.
The Only Thing - This silly story won me $75 in NKU's writing contest. Good deal, I say, good deal.
Polar Beans - Inspired by a typo, what can I say, besides that it shows.
*Ferrous Ice - This is what a lonesome October does to you. The critics say that the narrator is "a little too self-absorbed to be enjoyable." Nevertheless, I included it in my Scholastic General Writing Portfolio, which won the second-highest type of national award. That's why you can't steal it.
Tired Waves - Long, convoluted, and not quite what it was supposed to be. What was that? I don't know. Ask that girl on the other end of the phone line.
*The Collector - Represents the transition from the GSP Era to the Modern Period. I did the first page or two at GSP, and all the rest after that. Part of my Scholastic portfolio and also my illustrious senior writing portfolio.
The Eardrum of the Universe - An odd little number that popped out of me at GSP, though it never attained the fame and accolades of such works as "Ad Simian."
*Ghost - Behold, the short short story at its finest. I just started writing and went with it. I added it to my Scholastic portfolio, just for variety.
*Every Which Immortal - The first incarnation of this story was written at GSP as "Those Immortals," inspired by that exercise where you look at a piece of art and write about it. I included a slightly altered version in my Scholastic portfolio, and I also submitted it separately under the Science Fiction category; and lo, it won the highest national award. That doesn't mean that this story is necessarily better than its fellows; I only chose this one because it was 2999 words long, well under the 3000 word limit.
Her Star - This one should really go in the Mostly True section, seeing as how it's definitely more true than any of those, but that was a long time ago...
*Ad Simian - The famous monkey story. First thing I wrote at GSP. Also part of my Scholastic portfolio and my senior writing portfolio. Needs no further introduction.
*Behold, the Muse - Warning: this is not a short story. It is a personal essay of sorts, written for Mrs. Schultz's class junior year in high school. (Wow, it feels really strange to have to make that clear, "in high school....") It was part of my Scholastic portfolio and my senior writing portfolio as well. Another warning: please do not take this too seriously, though it is more or less true.
*Those Existential Blues - I found out later that the title on this one isn't exactly original, but oh well. Just wrote this randomly one night. For kicks. Included it in my Scholastic portfolio. Also for kicks.
Oceanus Procellarum (Yes, She Can!) - This represents my first experience with censorship - I submitted it to my sister's Girl Scout Council's writing contest, but my mother refused to enter it after reading it.
Car Cowboys - A short little vocab passage assignment. Interestingly enough, a few months ago, I discovered that Roger Zelazny had written a story almost identical to this one. His was, of course, a lot better.
The Visitor - A fairly pointless short short story that was supposed to be a longer story, and of the longer story about ten pages are extant. But Inever finished it, and I never will, because its themes no longer appeal to me and my philosophy.
One - This is the beginning of a novel I am never going to finish, because it is silly. I started working on it the beginning of the summer before junior year, and I quit working on it the end of that summer. It's just interesting to look at what I had that wasn't completed, I think, the seven or so pages of notes and fragments beyond the finished pages.
On the Waters of Lake Texcoco - At 10,000 words, this one is almost bordering on novella size. I wrote this the spring of sophomore year, and it's not that great. I don't recommend reading it, unless you're really desperate to see how I've progressed as a writer. I just put it on here 'cause I'm putting everything on here. (Oh, and by the way, that character named Whitt, is not based on Mr. Whitt. I have a certain dearth of creativity when it comes to randomly selecting names.)
Finding Eden - This story is almost so unoriginal and plagiarized (oddly enough, from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) that it's embarrassing. I wrote it for Mr. Whitt's class sophomore year in high school. It's on here for the same reason the previous story is. I think Nathaniel Hawthorne (hah) said it best, "Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred."
Trapped - I can't recall if this dates back to sixth grade. That's what I'm thinking, though. Because the eighth grade story was "Airborne Cataclysm" (now lost, unfortunately), and in seventh it was that fable about the racoon. Note the use of the word monotonous in this fine yarn. Who boy, that's a big word. Man, I sure was... precociously pretentious, eh?
Mostly True Stories
These mostly true stories are a new (new meaning the summer before entering college, of course) thing for me, more or less. Basically by "mostly true," I mean that the principal players in them are not characters, but actual people, and sometimes I change the names to protect the innocent, and sometimes I don't, and sometimes I change the names for fun, and sometimes for artistic reasons, etc. But they're people. And sometimes real events.
Gia Ta Dyo Tragoudia Kai To Trito Molis Vgei - Well, This Is Number Three, the final part of the second trilogy. I think I'm done with the Mostly True for a while now. Kinda burnt me out.
Kiss Me; I'm a Meteorologist - This is the inevitable sequel to the story below. My cast of merry characters grows larger and larger...
Sing the Siren Song (And Then Clap Your Hand) - When I began with the Mostly True concept, I did not intend to write anywhere near this many. It was originally just a story requested by my friend C.A. But one thing led to another, and now I've got bunches. Sometimes I feel like they're a waste of effort, but that's a silly feeling, because they're a lot of fun. Besides, I'm no good at making up characters; it's so much easier to skip all the trouble of failing at that by simply using real people. This saga, for example, revolves around the exploits of three beautiful girls. And you can't fabricate a beautiful girl. Thanks, girls.
Seeing You - This is the third and final installment of a trilogy of sorts, this Mostly True trilogy of sorts. (For that reason, it does not stand on its own so well.) It is a good-bye story. It has truths in it.
Confessions of a Lizard-Kisser - This story is guaranteed 100% true. Keep that in mind. (These are the images that go with this story.)
CATS - The precursor and companion piece to the above, this one is not guaranteed 100% true. It does, however, provide an accurate representation of people and things. (If the character of C.A. thrills and excites you, know that she lives here.)
Poetry
There is only TWO entry in this section for a reason. [sic]
October - I blame this on too much exposure to other people's poetry as of late.
Lines Composed a Few Feet from Chelsey DeMarcus, On Revisiting the Banks
of Ennui - This poem is really more or less untitled. This poem is not characteristic of me. This poem looks better in its original form, on paper, handwritten, and with its corresponding illustration. Keep in mind that I do not write poems, as a rule.
Interesting Non-fiction
By interesting I only mean "relatively interesting," because I have lots more uninteresting non-fiction.
Valedictory Address - Yep. I read this, I did. It's non-fiction because it's a speech, see, even though it has a story in it.
Foreboding Day: Things That Didn't Make It into My Graduation Speech - This is the article written by Brian Patrick O'Conner, which was cut out of the senior edition of The Colonel Journal. (Yes, he was.) So we (i. e., I) printed copies to distribute independently. It's on here because I wrote the forward. But read my article first. I'm first.
Forbidding Morning: Things That Didn't Make It into My Graduation Speech - I wrote this several months before commencement commenced. It was published in the paper without the above companion. Now here they are, for the first time side-by-side. (Okay, so it's not that interesting. I'm just saying it's better than a formal report on acetylsalicylic acid or something.)
NEW! -- Chronicle Entries
Placed strategically below Interesting Non-fiction, these so-called "Chronicle Entries" are little essay under 500 words about, well, writing, that I entered in this Writer's Digest contest. I forget how I heard about it. Probably from Frank or one of his associates, because the earlier of the two I have included here was written immediately after GSP. It is very trite and silly, but I think it's interesting to compare to the silly one I wrote and entered this month, for August 2005. Note: While you're down here, please ignore the fact that the Coming Soon! section hasn't changed in almost an entire year. Please.
Waiting at the Shore -- A product of the new late night journal, plus some elbow grease today. Heh. Elbow grease.
White Paper Dreams -- See above Nathaniel Hawthorne quote. Some of the stuff I write is embarrassing, really it is.
Coming Soon!
I changed the name of this section from Works in Progress, because this new name sounds so much more optimistic. (And it worked! I finished two of them, I did!) But I also moved this down to the bottom of the page, because it was getting in the way up there.
In Medias Resin (tentative title?) - I may be overusing the Latin in my titles. Just a word of caution - if you're new to me, I don't suggest you start here. It's not that I don't think you can handle it; it's that I don't think you can handle it. Last updated 9-10-04.
The Adventures of Colonel Phil: Colonel Phil Goes to Mars -- Part I - Bad example of a Mostly True story. But this saga is a spin-off of the Mostly True trilogy, featuring none other than the good Colonel himself. Be aware that Phil is, in fact, a Colonel. And Mars is widely believed to be the fourth planet from the sun. Everything else is made up. Note: This story is officially on the proverbial back burner. Sorry, Phil.
Reductio Ad Simian - A probable sequel to "Ad Simian," but by popular demand more than an actual desire on my part. But I had some ideas floating around still. For now I have nothing to show, because I don't have the beginning written yet. However, by advertising it here, I certainly can't go back on my word and never finish it. I have quite a few other unfinished stories hanging around, and I can hardly call any of them actually "in progress." Like "The Last Idea" (also a tentative title, not because it's Latin, but because it's bad), something I just started to add to from GSP long long ago. (Listing the more promising unfinished stories here actually worked for a couple of the most recent ones I've got; I'm hoping it shall continue to work.)
Miscellanea
- On this very site, one may peruse the writing of Ms. Karen Miller.
- I also dabble in the visual arts, you see. Behold, my Illustrious Gallery.
- One final thing, if you'd like to see exactly what I wrote at GSP including the unfinished randomness, that can be found here, at least for as long as Frank Ward decides to leave it up. There are some good people there, too. Check them out.
-T.S.