Hello, again! Sorry it has been so long since I last posted on this blog. I've been consumed by work and re-editing one of my early novels, Congruencies. I've completed that bit of work and need to think of other things. The re-edit makes the novel's action a little tighter and moves the story along at a faster pace. I hope you, the reader, likes it as well or better than you did the original edition. Now, on to news of the other things I'm working on. I've been moved to add another novel to the Gulf of the Plains series and I've decided to call it: Paget at Dark-Thirty. For those familiar with the series, you know that Paget Redpath is one of the central characters in the series and this new book will be even more 'Paget-centric'. For those who have not read the previous two novels, Paget Redpath, P-Red to her fans, was a pop singer with an unfortunate past who found herself when the 'end-of-the-world' happened. She went from being a 'pop-princess/bad-girl' to being a 'stone-cold' killer with an eccentric sense of loyalty. Since the 'love of her life' died in the 1st book, and she found a new love who seems somewhat emotionally distant, I've decided to give her a change. I think I always intended this because there are hints of 'heat' and attraction between Paget and another central character, John Sheaves, in the 1st book. Now, you have to remember that with the 'end-of-the-world', the social conventions have been dealt a severe blow, making them social relics that people barely acknowledge, much less conform to. Another thing I'm working on is the request by a fan that I write a zombie novel. I fully intend doing that and hope the readers like it. I plan on twisting and mashing up no less than two sub-classifications in the horror genre to produce this novel. I'm not sure what the title will be yet. There will be a werewolf and several vampires in the story, working together to rid their world of zombies. I am going to inject Lillian Reese, the consummate vampire from my novel, A Taste For Blood, into this story and infect everything with her presence. If you haven't read the aforementioned novel, Lily is almost totally amoral and recognizes none of the usual moralities except motherhood. Given her penchant for doing just as she pleases, when and to whom she pleases, I think this story has the potential to become fairly popular. At least with the 'fan-boys'. Mixing genres isn't something that those who like mainstream literature care for, so I don't expect it to become anything more than a cult-classic, if that. Folks, you may be surprised by this, but I don't write for wealth or fame. I don't expect any of my work to survive much past my own death. I write simply for the pleasure of creating worlds and stories that I, and readers, may enjoy. If any of you have enjoyed my work, then that's good. I've enjoyed creating the stories that have given you pleasure. Thank you, Derek A. Murphy Author of the Gulf of the Plains Series, The Dolly Games Series, Congruencies and others.

Things previously unexplained

Yes, I have recently been going over the catalog of books that I've written and it occurred to me that some of the subject matter needs to be explained. I freely admit that there is a fair amount of violence committed against women in my books and that has troubled me of late. It doesn't mean that I am in favor of it, or that I have any 'dark' leanings in my personal life; far from it, "I'm a lover, not a fighter." is my watchword and always has been. No, in my stumblingly, clumsy way, I have been trying to point out to people just how much violence is directed toward women in 'real life'. My awareness of this situation goes back a long way, so please bear with me. After my first wife and I were divorced, I obviously began to date and time after time, I learned that the many of the women I dated had been either raped or abused by husbands, boyfriends or casual dates. Not just once, but several times. All of them had their psyches marred by the occurrences and most were able to move past it and take up their lives again, while a couple of others were bitter and spiteful. I came to recognize the hallmarks of women who had been abused and when I began writing, I decided that besides seeking to entertain the reader, I also wanted to attempt to educate them. By showing in my books just how easily and quickly such things could happen, I thought that the readers might also become aware of the situation that is prevalent in our society. Now, I'm not saying that I can take one look at a woman and know that such a thing has happened to her. No, it takes a while to get to know them and judge by their responses to certain stimuli if they can count abuse by a trusted person in their experiences. It's not a skill that I ever thought I would develop, or need. So, in closing, when you read my books and find such subject matter in them, it's not that I am glorifying it in any way, rather, I am decrying it at the top of my voice. I hope that in the responses of the heroes and heroines of my books, I am showing how I feel about it. Thank you, Derek A. Murphy Author of Gulf of the Plains, Dolly Games and others.

Stuff I'm working on

Hello, again! Been a while. I've been busy. Working at the regular job to pay the bills while I try to keep up this hobby.

As the title of this post says, I've been working on a variety of things. While actually working on the third novel in the Dolly Games Series, I've had a werewolf origin story on the backburner that I've titled Everyone Dies  as well as plotting a third book in my Post-Apocalyptic series, Gulf of the Plains. Add to that the fact that a friend wants me to write a zombie novel and that my nephew has suggested a collaborative effort, you can see that I've been quite busy.

Let's take these one at a time, shall we?

The book I'm working on right now, is titled DG III: Savage Gambit and picks up the story where I left it at the end of the previous novel, Laying Ghosts. I have some surprises in store for a lot of you. Marta returns, but not the way you think. Carl Tanner gets on with his life and tries to remain among the living. This is a pretty general description because I'd rather not give away too much of the story.

The werewolf origin story is an alternate worlds type story in which a part of one universe impinges on ours. The werewolves are bestial things that prey upon the humans of the locale in which their little part of their universe appears. That they are also able to move from one universe to another makes it just that much more complicated. A small group of humans is caught in their part of the universe and have to stay one step ahead of thousands of the creatures.

The Post-Apocalyptic novel will throw John and Beth Sheaves, Paget Redpath and others back into the meat-grinder the world has become after the great polar shift and subsequent earthquakes, tsunamis, fimbul-winters and societal upheavels that we saw in the previous books.

While playing around one day, I composed a paragraph for the zombie novel during a post on FB that I like quite a lot. Here it is:

     Stumbling over a jumbled pile of slowly moving bodies was what awakened Will Talbot. His hand sank into a mushy sludge that he dimly realized was the brain that formerly resided in the cracked-open skull, the jagged edges of the bone which scraped the back of his hand. In horror, he jerked his hand back and stared at it. Filthy, as though it hadn't been washed in weeks, it stank of rotten meat and other offal and his stomach nearly revolted at the thought of what he had been handling. 

The second sentence is a bit run-on, but as with all new work, it needs fine-tuning. Still, it's a good beginning. I think it's pretty good for an impromptu effort.

In any event, this is the stuff I've been working on. I hope it meets with your approval.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, The Empty Heart: A Collection and Gulf of the Plains.

Stuff of minor interest

    There are things of which I sometimes speak and there are things which go unmentioned. If you have heard some of this before, forgive me. If not, then read on and perhaps, learn a little of what goes through my mind as I create. What I create may not be to your taste, or liking, but you are free to move on to some other author if you feel compelled to do so.    I will begin with the earliest novels I have written, which so far, have not been published. First, there is a series of five novels based on the similarities I noted in a variety of ancient mythologies. Gods and Goddesses who held the same attributes and things which happened to one which were replicated in the myths of yet another, or more than one, culture. Rather than write about the major gods and goddesses, I wrote about a very minor one, who by virtue of marriage was made all-important to the major deities because his wife, who became a major deity out of her desire for revenge for his death. In the myths, he was indeed killed by order of his brother, but in my story, he used subterfuge to avoid death and spent thousands of years trying to assuage his wife's anger and rectify the wrongs she had done in his name. The story becomes more complicated because though he loves his wife, he was destined to be the husband of yet another woman. As you can see, this situation gave me ample opportunity to inject a great deal of drama. After five novels, the story is finished. Or, is it?    Next up is my vampire novel, A Taste For Blood. One of the greatest tragedies of all time is the story of Oedipus and it has spun off a variety of themes that continue to be popular today. I twisted it a little, feeding off a little-known Nordic saga and was surprised. The story received little attention, though having a fair number of favorable reviews, and I believed it would someday pass into the realm of 'out of print' books. I was on the point of 'unpublishing' it on Amazon when I decided, just for the heck of it, to make it available in a free promotion. This is where the surprise comes in; it became the #1 English Language vampire book available via the Kindle Store in France and Germany for an entire weekend.    Next is my novel, Stitch in Thyme. I wanted to write an interplanetary story and of all the familiar Terran animals, landed on the cat as the beast most likely to fill the bill I needed for the story. The beast had to be sensuous, engergetic and powerful. It also had to be anthropomorphised into a form acceptable as a possible love interest. I afraid I plowed over old ground that has been cultivated by a great many science fiction authors far too many times. Though I like the story, the setting has been a disappointment for me. The premise leaves something to be desired also.    A Quart of Djinn: I was still trying to use wordplay to arrive at acceptable titles and before I go any further, I must reveal that I sometimes get these flashes of wordplay and I write them down. I'm afraid that I arrived at the idea to write a story to fit the titles I dreamed up instead of the other way around. the story is okay, but simply that. Given time and effort, I could turn it into a much better story. maybe someday I'll take the time to do so.    One of my personal favorites is Congruencies; a time travel story in which I poured all the energy and angst I felt for a period of my life for which I feel sorrow to this day. The present edition has formatting and editing issues that I really need to address. I feel that it could be a better seller than it is if I devoted some time to making it better. Oh, I wouldn't rewrite it; simply make the corrections it needs and is crying out for.    Behind the Stone: A daydream I had as a boy, born of a boulder that sat beside a ridge in a residential section of my hometown. I like the story but feel that there is something missing. Maybe I'll revisit the land behind the boulder someday.    Eggs of Empire: For some reason, I have always been drawn to the story of the Empress Theodora. I am unable to say why, the words just aren't there for me to explain the attraction. Maybe it was the humble origins of the Great Lady, juxtaposed against the heights she scaled and refused to give up, making her husband a greater Emperor than he might have been. Add to this the fact of her early death, due to the life she was forced to lead as a child, I don't doubt, and you can see that the story has the makings of a first-rate tragedy. In this story, I created the nucleus of the Shepherd, Tanner and Decker Detective Agency, intending them to be 'throwaway' characters, but found that I was loathe to waste the effort I had spent in creating them. Thus, they acquired their own series of novels. I mean, just look at all the TV shows which use characters with those names as heroes. Keep that statement in mind the next time you watch a science fiction TV series and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll see what I mean.    Taken Apart: I wanted to write from a character inside a character. Demonic possession stories have been popular off and on for the past forty years and I wondered why it had never occurred to anyone that in the event of a possession, the possessing entity would know the host far better than anyone ever could. If it was possible for a demon to know love of any sort, might they not be drawn to their host, given the intimate knowledge they had of them? And, to bring such a love to fruition, the possessing entity must be forced from the host. I failed to mention when discussing A Quart of Djinn that I had injected some of the characters from the first series of books into the story and I did the same in this one. I mean, demons are supposed to be fallen angels and if the God who created them had any compassion, mightn't He not wish to show mercy for one of His creations who had shown remorse and a desire for forgiveness?    Gulf of the Plains and Gulf of the Plains II: Fog and Bog: I intended this as a simple Post-apocalyptic story but it grew into a series. The inspiration for it was the great number of earthquakes we had been experiencing for a number of years, all around the world, in conjunction with Global Warming. That a number of those quakes occurred in Oklahoma, of all places, only gave greater impetus to my personal theory that what was once the bottom of a sea could be again. I have wanted to build an earthquake-proof, tornado-proof, fire-proof house for a long time and the way I designed and drew it up, it became a fortress of sorts. The only way I could ever afford to build it the way I wanted it was to become wealthy; a thing which will never come to pass, so I decided to make the fortress a partial reality by giving it form in a book. The characters were secondary to me in the beginning but when I began writing the story, I began with the character, Paget Redpath. Her father is a secondary character in A Quart of Djinn, and I wanted to show that when the world as we know it ends, it will end for all, no matter what their walk of life. So, why not begin with a former pop-star/party-girl? It was necessary to use two books to show the evolution of her character from a pampered pet/sex slave of a couple of wealthy men into a killer without remorse. Yes, Paget grew full-blown from my mind, like Athena from the mind of Zeus. How could she not be a major player in the story?    It Happens Every Day: A fantasy. I was processing the grief I felt for the death of a former paramour, much deferred for a number of years. I felt that she deserved remembrance beyond that of a few flowers upon her grave. This story, more than any other, was a labor of love. Her face, limned in the moonlight upon her pillow still comes to me in sleeping and waking moments.   

Storylines without fear

Sure, "without fear"; that's what I said. When you're working on a storyline and you believe something is missing in it that would make it better, though some of your readers may be displeased; go ahead and write what makes the story better. Think the story you're writing is too 'vanilla'? Think the difficulties faced by your characters are too mild and 'anybody' could prevail in the same situation in real life? Think your characters don't experience enough heartbreak? Kill off a sympathetic character. You can even kill off an important character if you want. Make it shocking and sudden. That's how it happens in 'real life', by the way. Show your characters carrying on without their friends. Show how your characters have to push the grief aside in their efforts to come out on top of the situation. In 'real life', we all have to do that. I've never understood how others could put their entire lives on hold to deal with their grief for days, weeks or months. Whatever situation I was in never afforded me that luxury and if you will take a look at the best action/adventure books and movies of our time, you will see that the authors didn't allow their characters the extra time to wallow in their grief. There was always a 'baddie' to be resisted, a life to be saved, a death to be revenged. Since I have always had trouble understanding setting aside the life I have yet to live for grieving over a death; perhaps that makes such writing easy for me. I don't know and I'm not going to try to understand it. I just use it to make my stories as believable and 'true-to-life' as I can. Of course, some of your readers may have so much empathy invested in whatever character you kill off that they are unhappy about it, but if you make the story better, they will remember that character fondly and continue reading your work. The character may be sympathetic but have certain flaws that the reader is uncomfortable with, though they like him or her anyway. By killing off the character, you can remove the uncomfortableness and let them remember the character as he/she was. This lets them overlook the uncomfortable things about the character and 'rewrite history', so to speak. Then if they re-read the book in the future, they see that the 'uncomfortable' feeling they had can be set aside and they will see that with the character flaws, the death of the character made the story better and they will see that the story wouldn't be the same if the character came out unscathed. As I've said before; I am not trying to teach a course in creative writing or anything like that. This blog is only supposed to show you, the reader, how I write what I write. Thank you, Derek A. Murphy Author of Dolly Games, Laying Ghosts, Gulf of the Plains and others.

Rewards for writing

Sure, the first thing people think of when they think of any rewards for writing is the money that the big authors receive. Then they think of the perks of celebrity; the appearances on late-night talk shows, trips to LA to see the progress made on movies taken from their work, trips to location shoots, that kind of thing. Well, for most writers, there is very little money, no appearances on TV, no trips. Just the satisfaction of having some of their books rise in the rankings and possibly get nearly as far as becoming a bestseller.

For myself, I have one book that has achieved a very minor milestone that is useful only for 'bragging rights'. Gulf of the Plains has been in the Top 100 Kindle Genre Novels at least one day every week since it was published in May of 2010. And, it has been in the Top 25 in the UK at least three times. A small but enthusiastic fan group has latched onto it, and me, and is helping to drive sales. That is gratifying for a small-town boy who never had anyone pay any attention to him or his efforts at bettering himself. While I was a highly competent Mainframe Computer Operator and Communications Specialist for 34 years for a major oil company, there was always this need to write and tell stories that people might enjoy. My writing career might have been much further along if I had been able to write while I was still employed there, but I doubt it. There was little free time and my frame of mind was centered more on the job than it was on fulfilling my potential as a writer.

Now, I admit that my achievement in writing is very small; almost negligible compared to many much younger writers, but it is more than I ever accomplished before. I doubt that I will ever become one of the big authors, able to command million dollar advances or anything like that, but I enjoy what I am doing and will continue to write. If a few hundred or thousand readers recognize my name and picture, then that's more recognition than I had before.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Gulf of the Plains, Gulf of the Plains II: Fog and Bog, Congruencies and others.

Genres

Which genre do you like to write in? Sometimes I begin a work, thinking that I'm writing in a particular genre and find later that the story has 'morphed' into something else. Now, that can't be all bad, but it can't be all good, either. You have to have the discipline to do one of several things: throw out the story, file it for later use when you are in the mood to write in the genre it has 'morphed' into, or continue writing and hope for the best. For instance, when I began writing Eggs of Empire, I believed I was writing a fantasy with macabre overtones. Little by little, the action/adventure aspect of it crept in, along with a small dose of sci-fi and before I knew it, the book was complete and I was left with a book that I felt was almost impossible to categorize. Thanks to the folks at Amazon, the book was included in several categories and just last month, it was the number one, English-Language, Tales of Intrigue or Spy Story, available in the Kindle Store in France and Germany. How's that for serendipity? ********Spoiler Alert!******** Genres come in a variety of 'flavors' and something that may turn one person off may appeal to someone else. In Eggs of Empire, I began writing a book that I thought was to be about undying love and devotion, centered around a modern (and doubtful) form of reincarnation. The premise was that an individual's memories could be stored in their DNA and awakened in a clone. The story was to be about the devotion that the Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora held for each other. It still is, but along the way, the Peter Sunday character became an action hero of sorts. When the action carried the story quite far afield from the original premise, I killed Peter off and put Dorothy(Theodora) and her friend and ostensible sister, Toni(Antonina) in a position to demand that Peter be cloned. Since I had established that memory could be transmitted through the centuries via DNA, it was presumed that Peter would regain not only his Petrus Sabbatia(Justinian) memories, but also his Peter Sunday memories. To determine if such was actually the case, please read another of my books in the Port Morgan Cycle, Questionable Interests. That book followed the guidelines I had set for a not-quite-what-it-seems action/adventure story. With the addition of a vampire of my acquaintance, it became something different than it was intended. I know, I know, I haven't really touched on genres very much in this post, but the point, at least for me, was to get my thoughts out about how I felt regarding genres and the discipline of writing. Thank you, Derek A. Murphy Author of Dolly Games, Laying Ghosts, Eggs of Empire and others.

But does it detract from the story?

This is the question I have to ask myself when I put something into a story that may or may not add to the flow. Sometimes I believe it does and I edit it out. Other times, I believe it adds to character development, whether individually or in a group dynamic sort of way.

For instance, a group of people, like my characters in the Dolly Games series of stories, work closely together and it's very likely that in a mixed-sex group, that one or another of them may be sexually attracted to another. To show how they can continue to work together while their sexual attraction either works for or against them, I let the story flow around them; like a stream around a stone. The stone presents no real obstacle and even adds to the general 'scenery'.

And if one of the characters is prone to sexual behavior that is 'out of the norm'? So what? Life is filled with a lot of people and they're not all alike. Think of the cop you may see picking up a quick breakfast at a local diner every morning; do you know for certain that he doesn't wear a 'hair-shirt' in his private life? Or, the woman who cuts your hair; is it possible that she may have been a groupie back in the 70s? Or, she may have even sang backup for a popular group. That life is behind her and she doesn't talk about it; her children and grandchildren fill her life now.

By mentioning such things in the stories I write, I add a little color to the story and give the characters a depth they might not have had otherwise. In showing how they deal with the different compartments of their lives, I'm showing how people the world over are able to put such things away, or take them up at will.

Another instance is the silent, unassuming man or woman in their 80s or 90s who may have been a paratrooper during WWII and dropped into Normandy the night before D-Day. Or, the woman may have been an Army nurse in the Phillipines and spent several years interned in a POW camp by the Japanese. They don't talk about it because it was something they had to live through in a private way that they may feel is nobody else's business. But by creating such a character, and showing them initially as a relatively innoucuous character, then revealing this hidden depth at a critical moment, I am adding color to the story.

Since people come in all varieties, there will be hookers, party-girls, unsuspected heroes, vulnerable middle-aged men and women and people who have never had an opportunity to make a difference mixed into my stories. I don't write 'everyman' stories, I write stories that include 'everymen' and 'everywomen' as supporting characters. Sure, my lead characters seem to have something special about them; sometimes to their detriment, but if the reader digs deep enough, they will find that my characters aren't so special after all. They're just people, doing what they need to do to live their lives in something more than simple survival.

That brings me back to whether or not something detracts from a story. I've wondered often if the sexual escapades of my characters detract from the stories I write, and I'm beginning to think that they don't. I try not to let them, anyway. Few of my readers have mentioned any such detraction and since I try to let the story flow naturally with the inclusion of sex lives for the characters; I guess I've succeeded. Oh, yes, one amateur reviewer once openly wondered about my mental health, but in doing so, he put the focus of the review on himself. Did he ever watch any of the critically acclaimed movies of the 60s and 70s? Apparently not. Incidentally, the book that he savaged sells very well and did not do so until after he posted his review. To that naive, fussy, sexually repressed reviewer, I say; thank you.

So, to sum up; a writer must view his work objectively and decide for himself if he is 'killing' the mood in his story and making his readers want to throw up their hands in frustration at being taken down the garden path when they really want to get on with the story. I try to show interpersonal dynamics in my ensemble of characters and keep the readers' interest in them. I mean, the story is important, or each book would simply be a string of loosely connected occurrences. But if the reader doesn't care about the characters, then what is going to keep their interest? Without characters the reader wants to know about, a writer may as well be writing procedure manuals.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Laying Ghosts, Gulf of the Plains and others.

What motivates the characters...

Hello. I'm back again, like a bad penny; turning up when and where you least expect it and being useless in the answering of your needs. Or, something like that. At any rate, it's been a while and I'm back again. Been busy doing this and that. Mostly, I've been working at the sequel to Dolly Games, and I have to say that I expect it to be fairly good.

And that brings me to the title of this post: What motivates the characters. Well, that can be any number of things. I try to write my characters as though they stepped out of 'real life', so I feel that they need to be motivated by the kinds of things that I see motivating people all over the world.

Now, motivations are relative to whatever group of people you are confronted with; whether it be the police officer who just pulled you over, or the salesman who is trying to get you to buy something you really don't want or need. Well, people want to survive, so whatever they need to do to do that ranks high on any list. Working to earn their 'daily bread', cheating others out of money to take the easy and quick way, or sweating and swinking to earn it by the sweat of their brow. Without money, people can't buy food or provide shelter for their families. Money is a given in this context.

Then there is sex or love. How many marriages have been ruined because one of the parties wanted a new sexual partner? Countless, isn't it? How many people have decided they were married or attached to the wrong person and wanted to make a change because they've 'fallen in love' with someone else? Well, that's also a thing that can't be numbered. Given that status as an unquantifiable occurrence, sex or love are also a given.

POWER. Who wants power? Any takers? No, you say? Look around you. The deacon or elder in your church who politics to get the church to go in the direction he wants, wants power. The man or woman you work for who pushes you to perform so he or she can get a raise or promotion also wants power. With power, sex, love and money are expected to follow. And, any of the others can be viewed as an avenue to POWER.

So, you see? These four motivations are basic and form the foundation upon which our world is built. What's that you say? Religion isn't like what I described? Not all deacons and elders are like that? My reply must be: Some are benign and even very good people, but make no mistake; they have a will to power or they would not be who and what they are. I'm not being cynical. I'm making an observation based on what I have witnessed throughout my life. People, good or bad, are motivated by these four things. Take whatever they claim motivates them and reduce it like a gravy or sauce until you see what it is made of. You will find one or more of these four things.

And that is what motivates my characters. POWER, SEX, LOVE and MONEY. Sure, you can have one or more of them without the others, but then, of what use are they? They may be satisfying to have, but will provide little in the way of security if they don't lead to the others. Everybody wants them. You say you don't believe that I'm right? Okay. That's your opinion and you're free to express it. Just...try to live without these things. You'll see that I'm right.

That, in a nutshell, is what motivates my characters. I try to make them believable by making them visceral and driven by what drives the people I see every day. They are tortured by the things that torture 'real' people and are haunted by the doubts that haunt 'real' people.

With that, I'll leave you today. I really need to spend some time in my fictitious city of Port Morgan and give my characters something to do.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, It Happens Every Day and others.

New Promotions

I have enrolled my novels, Questionable Interests and Taken Apart in KDP Select at Amazon. They will be available through the KDP Select Lending Library within the next few hours and will be available for the next 90 days, free of charge.

My novel, It Happens Every Day will be free for three days, beginning Friday and ending Sunday. As usual, I expect hundreds of readers to snap the book up during the promotion; just as they have the other books I have sold for no charge.

What is it about free stuff that turns people into penny-pinching curmudgeons? What real difference does it make if they spend $.99 cts on a book, as opposed to getting it for free? Maybe if I price my books at the rates dictated by the Agency Model, more readers would buy them. I mean, I know my books are good or so many people wouldn't have bought them over the past couple of years, and so many wouldn't be grabbing them when they are promoted as free. Are readers just that cheap? In the old days, Amazon let us price our books as low as $.49 cts, or even free for as long as we wanted. Then Jobs and the Big Five publishers came riding in on their tanks and forced Amazon to accept the Agency Model in pricing of books. Suddenly the Indie Publishers, (like me)were being passed over if our books were inexpensively priced and our work wasn't promoted by Amazon at all, while books published by the Big Five were taking front and center place in the promotions. At their exorbitant prices I might add.

Let's face it; e-books cost next to nothing to publish and the Big Five are charging as much for an e-book as they charge for a paperback, a trade-paperback, or even a hardcover copy. But some readers seem to equate quality with price. For that reason, I believe I will begin slowly increasing the prices of my books. I doubt that I will ever price them as much as a paperback, but perhaps readers will be more attracted to them if they cost more. Bless their contradictory natures.

Thank you,
Derek A. (Wings) Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, The Empty Heart, Congruencies and more.

My writing style and content

Yes, I know my style is somewhat quirky in the placement of the ellipses, but they denote passage of time or change of location or pace.

As for the content; well, the content isn't always everyone's cup of tea. However, many of my readers have said that though the content wasn't what they were accustomed to and not what they usually looked for in a read; most of them have said that the story was compelling enough to draw them in and make them stick with the book.

Of course. You're asking why that should be. Well, I take great pains to make my characters as real as possible. If the character has another problem besides what I have presented him/her with in the story, then I also show him/her dealing with that other problem in order to develop the character fully. The only exceptions I have made to making the characters real is the short story, Wild Weasel Wilson and the Banshee Chicken. In it, I used stock, stereotyped characters, though the stereotypes my not have been recognized by many readers. The reason they were unrecognizable is because I knew a great many people in my youth who spoke and acted like Niedyck and his cronies. And the vernacular in which I wrote the story was one that I grew up hearing from family members and friends. It's very nearly another dialect of English, like the old Plug-a-ploo dialect spoken by the mountain-men of the 19th century.

Yes, I exaggerated the dialect. Why? you ask? Well, the story was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek, taunting leer at myself, my family and many of the friends I once knew. You would have had to grow up when and where I did, with the people I grew up with, to really get the story. Oh, sure, it's funny and at least one of my readers gets it; though she is of a later generation. She has known, and still knows, people who behave and speak as the characters in the story. So, yes, Wild Weasel Wilson and the Banshee Chicken lives on and re-echoes through the years, though the people who inspired the story are long dead or so respectable nowadays that they can't recognize themselves as the inspiration for the characters.

As for my other works; as I said, I make the characters as real as I can and give them problems to deal with that can be insurmountable. That they manage to emerge victorious makes them the heroes that I once read about as a boy in old Norse myths. Incredibly human and flawed, but willing and able to push their way through to the end and come out on top.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Congruencies and others.

Finding yourself in an unintentional series

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book about a cloned, historical figure and needed a set of supporting characters that I thought I could throw away. Little did I know that those throwaways intrigued me so much that I felt compelled to use them in still another book. And another, until I discovered that I had begun writing a series.

I discovered myself in a fictional city that I came to know like the back of my hand and the characters had taken on lives of their own. They came to life in Eggs of Empire, and continued, in a peripheral way, in Questionable Interests, until they came to be full-blown in Dolly Games. I am currently using them again in a sequel to Dolly Games, titled Laying Ghosts.

I have written the books out of order and am working at tying them together with this sequel. For those who wonder what the actual order of the series should be; here it is, in chronological order: Dolly Games, Laying Ghosts, Eggs of Empire, Questionable Interests and still another novel to be named later.

I know that reading them out of order messes up the flow of the story-arc that will not become apparent until the reader encounters the last, un-named novel, but that is the way I have usually read most of the series I have read. Of course, I am an inveterate re-reader of the books in my possession, so I almost always give myself a chance to forget what happens in the series and then go back and read it from the beginning.

I hope this helps my fans and occasional readers.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Gulf of the Plains, both I and II, Congruencies, Taken Apart and others.

Backstory

What is it and how does it work? Well, backstory is what has happened to or with a character when he/she isn't front and center in the action. It's something that isn't described in the story but contributes to the character's development.

Some authors, one of my favorites among them, will sit down and write an entire biography of a character and pick and choose things in the bio to throw into a story to color the character. In my novel, Questionable Interests, Drummond 'Butcher' Rand, has been out of town attending the wedding of his half-brother's daughter. He mentions it in passing and reflects on the hard feelings between him and his half-brother without really detailing the source of the hard feelings. It also shows that despite the difficulties of his relationship with his half-brother, he is thoughtful enough to attend the girl's wedding and give the happy couple a generous wedding gift. It gives him a history without the tiresome info-dumps that can drag down the flow of a story. It's economical and gets the information across.

Sometimes, the author may have had people wondering about a character's backstory and be pressed into using more of it in a later novel to feed the readers' curiosity regarding the character. Of such are pre-quels born.

For more instances of how backstory can be used, simply read a few of Hemingway's stories. He was a master of the lightly alluded to backstory. His use of the tool managed to give the reader a sense of understanding more than he knew from the story. Perhaps that description is a little tricky but it gets the point across.

Did you ever pick up a book and begin reading it, only to find passages in it that made you think that you had gotten into the middle of a series? That's backstory. The character has a history, the reader is aware that there is a history and it tends to make the reader more interested in learning about the character.

Now, I said when I began this blog that I am not qualified, and will not attempt, to give any how-to lectures on writing. However, I did say that I wanted to give the reader some idea of how I worked. This is it. Take from it what you will.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Gulf of the Plains and Congruencies

The imagined city

And you say, "What in the world is Derek talking about now?" Well, I'll tell you. A couple of years ago, I was writing a story and needed a city to hold a great deal of the action. I felt that I wanted it to be in the Pacific Northwest, but I knew nothing about any of the cities there. Oh, I know which ones they are, but I knew very little about them. I knew I could research them, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that if I got something wrong about whatever city I included in the story, there would be a million or so people lambasting me about their hometown. Any errors would throw doubt on the story and on my abilities to write. I couldn't have that, so I devised this fictitious city of Port Morgan.

To tell the truth, I've actually lost count of exactly how many stories I've used the city in, but I'm going to put them in chronological order for you. Because, you see, I also used or mentioned several characters in multiple stories. Or, I allowed characters from one book to walk down the streets of Port Morgan as 'extras' in the movie that played in my head and ended up on the page. But, you know what? I couldn't come up with an appropriate name for the city until my latest novel.

Okay, here they are, in chronological order according to what is happening in the stories: Dolly Games, Eggs of Empire, Cold Feet(A short story), Questionable Interests and Taken Apart.

I know this isn't exactly fair. In order to understand what I'm talking about, a person would have to have read all of these stories. Incidentally, Cold Feet is included in my book of shorts titled, The Empty Heart: A Collection. But you have to pay attention because some of the characters who have made uncredited cameo appearances in these books are not identified and only exist in the stories for a paragraph or two. Sometimes, they are only described in passing. but if you know the stories, then you know the characters.

No. I won't tell you which ones they are and I won't give hints.

Returning to the fact that I didn't give the city a name until recently; I don't know if a name never really popped out and made itself known to me, or if I was just being lazy and using a location that I had already invested a lot of time and effort on. Who knows? I don't.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Gulf of the Plains I and II, and Congruencies.

Latest novel's reception

I last left you with the news that Dolly Games was going to be available in the KLL(KDP Select Lending Library), and was going to be offered free for just two days. So far, the number of downloads of this book far outstrip all my other offerings by such a margin that it is difficult to quantify it. At least, for me it is. I wondered for the past day and night if it was being downloaded so much simply because it was free. Well, now I know that it is also a very good book. One of my toughest critics is my youngest daughter, (Hi, Kris!) while my oldest daughter has been overwhelmingly in favor of everything I've written, (Hi, Mel!).

Kris is one of those very busy people who has difficulty finding time to do the things she wants because she has so much that she has committed herself to do for her family and others. As such, sometimes, dear-ol'-Dad falls by the wayside and that has been the case with many of the books I've written. Of course, I know that the genres I generally write in aren't for everybody and not usually to her taste. However, she called me today to tell me that she loved my latest book and that it was "scary". She also told me that she had called a friend of hers who writes a blog dealing with free Kindle books and started to tell her about my book. Her friend stopped her and told her that she had already downloaded the book and loved it!

Since so many people refuse to buy a book that has no reviews posted about it on its Amazon page, I ask all those who have read Dolly Games to post a review. You wouldn't believe how many people won't buy a book for the most inane reasons; some people won't buy a book if the cover doesn't appear to be professionally done. Or, if it has a generic, two-color cover. Or,if they think the book's description page indicates that it might have skeezy content. It is the same with reviews. Some people won't buy a book that has no reviews. Others won't buy a book that has even one bad review. Still others won't buy a book that has reviews written by people who can't spell grammar, much less use proper grammar when writing anything. I guess they think the book must be low-brow or that the people who wrote the reviews are so clueless about what is good that their opinion can't be trusted. So, please, if you have downloaded Dolly Games, post a review. It doesn't matter to me if it is a good or bad review; a good one can only help others to make up their minds about the book and I can learn from a bad review.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Congruencies, The Empty Heart: A Collection and others.

Self-censoring as a writer

Yeah, that's right, I'm taking that subject out of the box. Let's grab hold of it, roll it around, give it a shake and see what happens.

From cruising the Kindle Boards, I've seen some folks lament the lack of clean stories. I agree that there is a time and place for the sort of thing that sometimes ends up in my novels, and those who object to sometimes vulgar language, tittilating, even almost explicit subject matter, should understand that every bit of it in my stories is meant to advance the story. Either that or to add to character development. Sometimes I use it to set the tone for the story or to clarify a character's motivations.

Bad language can and should be used to show the state of mind of a character under stress. If that character is the type of person who wouldn't be expected to use bad language. And it can be used to show exactly how stressful a situation is. If the character has taken everything thrown at him/her in stride and is suddenly found to be cursing, that just means the character is under a great deal of stress. More than he/she has experienced previously. And sometimes, a character is just such an uninhibited person, accustomed to the lowlife, that the use of bad language is natural for him/her.

Now, to sex. How many of us have had sex waved under our noses as a carrot to get us to do something that someone else wants us to do. I mean, sex can be a great tool for manipulation of others. It can and has been used to ruin many lives in the past and will continue to be used because it is such an effective tool. Sex is one of the great motivators of History. Though it is viewed as something cheap, it is very nearly as great a motivator as Money and Power. If we could peek into the boudoirs of the most powerful, richest people in History, I think we would find that freedom of sexual practices is one of their favorite pastimes. How many rich and powerful people have had careers ruined because the most intimate, private and personal details of their lives have been brought to light?

By using sex to show how a character reacts, whether he/she is the most powerful person in the story, or the least, I can establish the fact that he/she is simply another person. No different in substance than anyone else.

So, should a writer self-censor himself/herself? I can only say that it depends on the circumstances of the story, the audience he/she wants to reach and how the writer wants his/her work to be perceived. Think of all the books that would have been tremendously different if the author had left sex out of the equation. Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy's Complaint, Ulysses. Those are only a few that I can name, but you get the idea. Writers are creative people or they wouldn't be writers. I'm not sure I would go so far as to describe them as artists; I know that I am not an artist, I'm a writer.

As a writer, I have an inborn need to communicate, to be understood, to connect with my readers. I thought once of blunting my creative urge and becoming a critic, but felt that the choice wouldn't allow me to be true to myself. I have to admit that I was feeling somewhat tremulous about my writing ability and was timid about putting my writing efforts out there for others to see. I mean, the full extent of a critic's creativity is only in how to describe how much they like or dislike another's work. From some of the reviews I've read of others' work, critics don't seem to feel the need to self-censor. Believe me, I self-censor quite a lot of my work. I have written some passages that have stunned me when I've gone back to proofread them. A couple of times, I've said to myself, "What in the world would Miss Grundy say?"

In closing, I can only say that whether or not a writer self-censors is entirely up to him/her.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Dolly Games, Gulf of the Plains and Congruencies.

New Options

After so many months of wishing that Amazon had some sort of program for Indie authors to promote their work, it has finally happened. They have gotten their KDP Select Lending Library up and running and given Indies the opportunity to enroll their works in it. Of course, the author must allow Amazon to be the exclusive eBook retailer of the title for 90 days, but that's no hardship. At least not for me. Maybe it is for other authors, but everyone's opinion and outlook is different. My opinion happens to be that any positive exposure is good for sales.

Along with this, the author also will be allowed to promote his/her book free of charge for 5 days every 90 days. That means that for the duration of the promotion, that title will be free to prospective purchasers. At one time, we (Indies) were able to set our price at $0.00 for any period of time, and that helped to drive sales. It got the author's name in front of the public and anyone who liked his/her work, would normally begin searching for other books by that author. When the Agency Model was forced on Amazon by Apple and the Big Publishers, that option was taken away from the Indies as part of the marketing agreement with Big Publishing. That's when the option to make free eBooks available to readers was reserved for Big Publishing alone. I believe that to be something like restraint of trade. Now, of course, the U.S. government and the European Union are both investigating Apple and the Big Publishers regarding price fixing. And that's a good thing. I don't believe that any reader should be forced to sometimes pay as much for an eBook as they pay for a hardcover or Trade Paperback book.

For those who don't know; most of the paperback books that people buy are called mass market paperbacks. Trade Paperbacks are generally about the size of a hardcover book, with somewhat larger print and better production quality. Trade paperbacks are more expensive than mass market paperbacks, too. So, you can see what I'm getting at here. Apple and Big Publishing forced readers to pay more for an eBook than was previously necessary. There is no reason for an eBook to cost more than $2.99. Many authors, like me for instance, price their books anywhere from $.99 to $1.99, and that pricing model seems to work very well. I know of an Indie author who routinely earns royalties in the six figure range every year while pricing his books at $2.99.

No, I don't expect to earn that much from my books. Anyone would be a fool to think that. In the meantime, I'll be reasonably content to sell a few books to people who have come to trust and like my work.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy

New novel published

Yes, it's true. My new novel, Dolly Games is published and will be ready for purchase in about 24 hours. That's Friday, November 18th.

The novel predates the other novels that I have used the characters, Carl Tanner, a Lakota Sioux detective, Julie Shepherd, a former actress who tired of Hollywood and its seamy underbelly and Isaiah Decker, a smart-assed clown who nevertheless has a deep and solemn side. Their original partner, DeeDee Barton, a woman with hidden depths, is included. This story takes place prior to the adoption of the STD Detective Agency for their business name and shows how the group interacted with each other. We also learn how DeeDee Barton came to leave the agency, and why.

I think this story was one of the most satisfying for me to write because it forced me to pay more attention to plotting and storyline. There are plot twists within it that I had to engineer carefully so that they were neither transparent or appeared to have been pulled out of the air. The motivations of the characters had to be strong and true to human emotions. As with all my stories, I tried to exhibit the things in life that motivate people to take the actions that they do. I have tried to make the story both gritty and romantic to show that the softer side of very nearly anyone is always beneath the surface of their apparent personality.

For inspiration, I had to look no further than some of the old film noir movies of my youth. The machinations of powerful people are in the background, but can be felt by the pricipals of the story in every action that sets the circumstances for the plot.

It is my hope that those of you who read this novel will be suitably horrified and appalled by the crimes of Dolly Dagger and follow the actions of Carl Tanner and his partners with relish.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Gulf of the Plains, Congruencies, It Happens Every Day and others.

Progress on my new novel

Hello again! Long time, no talk-to! I've been distracted and working diligently on the thriller I started immediately after finishing the sequel to my novel, Gulf of the Plains.

The thriller, titled Dolly Games, takes place in the fictional city of Port Morgan, in which the action in my novels, Eggs of Empire, Taken Apart and Questionable Interests, takes place. You may ask why I have chosen to make up a city as a scene for all these novels when there are so many others to use. That's a good question and I must say that it was a decision of convenience.

Sure, I can bring up from memory any number of physical features in quite a few cities and place action sequences in them, but if I committed an error in memory, people would lambast me for not knowing the city. I would rather not have an innocent mistake detract from the story. For this reason, I have created a city, complete with Interstate highways, low-rent districts, a country club with an attached marina, a shopping district and any number of businesses and restaurants in which my characters and move about. If there is something about the city that any readers find similar to their hometown, they can nod wisely and say, "I'll bet he used to live here to know the town so well!"

At present, the novel is about 90% complete, lacking only a few finishing touches to make certain that there are no errors in context and continuity. Oh, then there's that other thing. I approached a friend for help with a certain thing in the story that I knew nothing about and was told that my friend "would be honored" to help. When the job was only half finished, a job that would take no more than fifteen minutes if done all at once; my friend backed out without any explanation at all. This left me with the job of altering the story to make up for the lack which this caused me. It was vitally necessary because the job my friend was supposed to do would support a vital clue in the story. Leaving the story as it was would be meaningless and amateurish, and it required quite a bit of rewriting to salvage the clue. I am currently occupied with that and have simply taken a short break from it to post in the blog. For those who will not only read the blog, but will also read the book; tell me later if you can find the seam to which I have just alluded. I'm willing to bet that you can't.

The inspiration for the story? One line in an old song. I'll leave that for you, the reader to decide about after you've read the story.

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

Character names

I've written before about the names I use for characters and how I come up with them. You know, the bit about using a baby-name book, phone books and such. However, there are three characters I've used before and am using in the thriller I'm writing. In various TV shows and movies, I've noticed that three surnames keep cropping up in use for heroes of the pieces and I decided to use them. How many times have you watched a TV show or movie and learned that a hero's surname is Shepherd, Tanner or Decker? That's what I'm talking about. The names themselves indicate not only the background of the character, but give hints about what his or her family may have been like. They are less universal than Smith, or Jones, or Brown, or even Murphy, but they still provide a link to the commonality of human social convention.

It's not the sort of thing that people take time to think about, but rather a visceral reaction. Take the time to think of each name and note the unconscious preconceptions that swim to the surface of your mind regarding each of them. Shepherd: a person who not only guides a flock to good grazing, but protects it from predators. Tanner: someone who works for a living at a job that is smelly, dirty and yet, provides him or her a good living. Decker: this one is more difficult. A man or woman whose family has worked with their hands, but has risen to a position of prominence, bringing their family along with them. Those are my preconceptions attached to the names; yours are probably different, but you may see what I'm getting at. Use the names of your characters to help the readers' minds fill in the gaps in the characters' histories. It conveys a small part of what the character is supposed to be like, saving the author the effort, and the reader the boredom, of writing and reading about a character's past life. I can think of little more boring than reading a lengthy passage about a character's background just when the the action is beginning to heat up.

So, I've passed along a hard-won bit of writing wisdom that helps my work to move along with a minimum of fuss, and I hope it helps some of you along the way.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Congruencies, The Empty Heart: A Collection, It Happens Every Day