Inspiration and the "muse"

First, I would like to say that I very rarely use the word muse when referring to where I get my inspiration for stories. I am driven by a need to create storylines, and ideas for stories seem to pop into my mind at odd times of the day and night. I have awakened from a sound sleep with an idea and I try to 'bookmark' the idea in my mind but I think I need to keep a notebook next to the bed. The ideas refuse to stay bookmarked.

Then there are the songs that I grew up with as a teen and young man. They awaken emotions within me that won't let me forget them and I take those emotions and create storylines from them. I don't mean that I take a song and dissect it; creating occurrences in my stories from the lines of a song. I mean that if a song makes me feel sad, angry, bitter, lonely or lost, you get the picture; I write from those emotions.

Sometimes I think about what my life would have been like if I had done something pivotal in my life differently, and I write about a character who has done what I think I should have done and project the lines of his or her life from there. It's no more complicated than that. I try to write with realism and the simplest, most effective way I know of doing that is to put myself in the place of the character and imagine what I would do, or what I should do, taking a different tack in each situation than I did in life. Perhaps that makes each of my stories somewhat autobiographical, but that's the way I do it. I think a lot of people do the same thing. Besides, many writers write about the unthinkable and suddenly, it isn't so unthinkable.

That's enough for today. Gotta go write about apocalyptic stuff.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Gulf of the Plains, The Empty Heart: A Collection and others
Available on Kindle

Better late than never

Yes, it is better late than never. I have found returning to the crushed land of my novel, Gulf of the Plains a little difficult. The sequel has been pretty tough sledding because of that difficulty. Nevertheless, the story continues to move along, though slowly, and I believe the sequel will be ready to publish in a month or so. For those who are familiar with my post-apocalyptic Gulf of the Plains, Paget continues to take centerstage and this time she has a new romantic interest. Readers will find that she has distanced herself even further from her former pop-star persona and is becoming a true post-apocalyptic warrior.

On another note, my book of short stories, The Empty Heart: A Collection, has been published and enjoyed a short run of sales that have been heartening. It has been featured on the bookslovecompany.com website and I hope that exposure will drive more sales. I enjoyed writing the shorts even more than I did writing the novels I have published. The cast of characters for the stories has been challenging and I believe they could almost live lives of their own.

That's enough for today. I have a ruined world to get back to and Paget is in a tough spot.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Gulf of the Plains, Congruencies and others
Available on Kindle

Yes, it's been a long time.

Very sorry, Everybody. It's been a long time since I posted on this blog and I apologize. Or, maybe I'm just apologizing to myself because I really don't know if anybody is reading any of this. In any event, I have published a new book on Amazon's Kindle and I think it is good. It is a book of short stories and I found while writing them that I seem to enjoy writing shorts more than I do writing novels. I'm not sure why that is, but the shorts seemed to have an energy to them that I missed in writing novels. maybe it was that I was able to address and utilize ideas that I had more quickly. Perhaps I'm not a patient writer. I really don't know. What I do know is that these shorts gave me more enjoyment while writing them than I experienced while writing novels. I like for the action to move fast and leave me feeling as though the story I just read was gone too soon. Whatever it is, I think the readers will like them.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of The Empty Heart: A Collection
Available on Kindle