Take inspiration where you find it

The day before yesterday, I awoke at 4:00 AM with a storyline and plot going through my head. I didn't need to get up until 6:30, so I lay there, drowsing, and let the storyline and plot percolate through my brain, making changes here and there, following different permutations to their logical conclusions. Truthfully, I was surprised that I could be half asleep and work so well.

Once I had gotten my obligations out of the way, I sat down to write and found that while there was no hesitation, some of the glowing phrases that had sounded so great in my half-dreaming state, went on paper like the leaden footsteps of a zombie. The work has required some re-composing, (is that something slightly different than decomposing?) and is still turning out pretty well. Upon reflection, I must dream in predictable, stock lines, for the storyline I dreamed up, (literally) is simply a classic, romantic tragedy. It's still worth writing though, so long as I give it a twist here and there.

Back to the state of my dream-life: Not all of them are so staid and staple. The dream that awakened me yesterday was somewhat outre' and weird. It involved one of my favorite people, doing strangely sexual things that I felt I was not free to involve myself in. Throw in the improbably grotesque setting that we found ourselves in and there might be, (I say, might be) a story there. Kind of along the lines of "Repent Harlequin, Said the Tick-Tock Man" by Harlan Ellison.

Having grown up during the 60's, some of the things I saw and read were probably drug-induced inspirations of the authors and displayed a willingness to relinquish control over their own minds. I find myself unable to completely let myself go like that and so, will probably never write anything like them. However, in keeping with the title of this post, I still say that a writer should take inspiration where and when he finds it.

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

The importance of keeping a notebook handy

Yes, that's right! A notebook...I can't tell you how many times I've had an idea and failed to write it down to remind myself later and found later that I've forgotten the idea.

For instance, this morning I returned from work, fiddled around the house for a while before going to bed and just before sliding into the sheets, I had a great idea for this blog,, spent a couple of minutes composing and mentally filed it away. Upon awakening, I stumbled through my usual 'waking routine' and moved to the office to write. When I went to access this blog, my chagrin was very great when I realized that I could not remember one bit of what I had composed just before going to sleep.

I know that some people sneer and tilt their noses at the mere mention of a homely, old notebook, but the entire point of having one, or anything like it, is to be able to jot down reminders to yourself. Maybe you keep a journal in a PDA or some other device. I encourage you to continue to do so. If you, like me, are at the age where a notebook is more your speed and you haven't made the switch to completely electronic devices; then by all means, keep on keeping on! Just so you have a way to remind yourself of those pearls of wisdom that trickled through your brain just before going to sleep.

Sure, the effort of raising up in bed to jot down a few notes may not be conducive to getting your rest, but think of what you will have missed. You may have been putting words together in such a way as to put the most respected writers to shame, but it doesn't mean a thing if you don't ever publish them!

Now, I don't consider my writing to be anything special. I'm not persuasive, witty or erudite, and I freely admit those facts. However, I am a decent writer and sometimes find myself with a turn of phrase that simply begs for attention. Of those few instances, I am proud and that's part of why I write. Having managed in a small way to preserve my thoughts and creations for posterity, I am assured that when I am gone, someone, somewhere, will read my words and be moved. If just in a small way.

Fame would be nice, but it is not what drives me. I have never craved it. Not in the way that celebrities, movie stars and other performers seem to. If someone picks up one of my books, reads it and tells a friend that they just finished a good book, then I am relatively happy.

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

A little mood music, please!

When writing, I find that I am able to order my mind and compose with music playing in the background. I have different playlists on my computer for different moods, and choose between them according to whatever mood I wish to be in for that particular story.

I use my moods for inspiration and freely move from one to another. There are times, however, when I get stuck in a neutral mood and can't seem to find the words that I want to put on paper. (figuratively) It's then when I have to shake myself out of that non-mood and get back to the business of writing. This blog helps in that respect and I feel that it also gives you, the reader, some idea of what is involved in writing. At least from my perspective. Everyone is different and what spurs you, or anyone, to write, may be completely different from what motivates me.

In my mind, I have cherished stories that I have read that I wish my stories to emulate. Music helps me to access the feelings that those stories generate within me and then, to put words in a line that simulate the feelings that run through me when I think of those stories.

If this helps any of you; then I'm happy. If this gives any of you some idea what writing is like for me; then I have achieved my goal.

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

Perceptions of whether or not someone is interesting

So, you don't think you are interesting. I never thought that I was until one night over thirty years ago. My first wife and I went to a night club with one of her Jr. High and High School friends, with the intent of helping her to find someone to date. She didn't, but while we were talking about what kind of guy she was looking for, she told us that I "intrigued" her. At a nonplus, the only thing I could think of to say was to ask her exactly what it was about me that made her feel that way. Her answer was: "There's just...something about you." Many years later, I attended a group retirement party for our entire department just before our work was out-sourced, and there was an obnoxious guy from another section that walked over to me as I stood in line for a pitcher of beer, (he had obviously had too much to drink) and said, "I've always hated guys like you; with your perfect hair and perfect clothes!" I was wearing a pair of Levis, athletic shoes and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the time. And it occurred to me, yet again, that people's perceptions of you may not be those that you relate to yourself.

That was when it hit me that no matter how "plain vanilla" we think we are, there is always someone out there who thinks, "There's just...something about you."

Now, you may ask, "What does any of this have to do with writing?" I'll tell you. I, you, anybody, may think that, for example, our feet are too big, our ears stick out too much, our noses have too much of a blob of flesh at the end, or that we need to lose a little weight to make our clothes fit better. However, other people's perceptions of us may run counter to our own. And that is what makes for misunderstandings that can be used in a story to produce conflict or, even a pair of star-crossed lovers. Don't ever think that people aren't interesting! They may have lived through something that most people only dream about. Do you remember that Gregory Peck movie titled "Pork Chop Hill"? I have an uncle who was actually in the middle of the action there at that time. He's kind of a 'class clown' most of the time, always finding ways to entertain people, but he has a dark side in his life that drives him to behave that way. Besides the action he saw on that hill, he was also tagged by his commanding officer to go on night patrols because he was Indian and the officer thought he would be better at it than others. He was, but that's beside the point. He was also forced to kill enemy soldiers at close quarters, and had problems later in life because of those things. Think, PTSD. Though he behaves like a backwoods hillbilly, he has also led one of the most interesting lives you can imagine.

All a writer has to do is to become friends with people and get them to talk about themselves. Once he or she finds how interesting people really are once they get past their surface perceptions, there is a wealth of material there for a story.

Of course, don't write a biography unless you get permission to do so. Don't simply change the names and write one, either. Use the inspiration you gain from the person's story to write your own.

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

Locations that still exist in my mind...

Some have asked me where the inspiration for some of the locations and physical features in my stories come from. The answer is: from my memory. I spent a great deal of time wandering around the countryside near my hometown as a boy and young man and some of those places were and are, dear to me. Slate Rock Bluff, the Low-water Dam, Three Bridges, Swinging Bridge, Punkin Center and their like will, mostly, never be seen again. Most of them were covered by the lake before I moved away. Even the roads used to get to them are gone now and the only way to get to them is by boat. With them covered by water, I wouldn't even know when I was floating over them. Three Bridges still exists and while the road has been improved, they look different now. I heard the Swinging Bridge was destroyed by a wind-storm and it's been so long since I was there that I doubt I could even find its location now.

Another place that lives in my memory is the cave below the bluff at Monday Hill. The hill was homesteaded by my Dad's uncle, Bob Monday, back when Indian Territory was opened up to settlement. He already lived there, being a tenant farmer on Indian land, which was the only way a white man could be a legal resident in Indian Territory. The cave was shallow and wouldn't have provided much shelter during the winter, but was good enough to keep the rain off your head during the rest of the year. Over the years, many people had scratched graffiti into the rock walls, some of them dated back nearly to the Civil War, and were quite interesting. Anyway, the way the river has flooded in recent years, I'm pretty sure the water covers it a good part of the time. There was a really neat way to get down the bluff to it, though. There is a very large crack in the dome of rock the hill is on and someone laid a couple of telephone poles end to end in the crack, making it possible to walk down through the dead leaves and scree that lined the bottom while hanging onto the poles. And, no, you couldn't slide down the poles like you would the banister on a stairway; too many splinters. One of the kids in my old Boy Scout Troop made that mistake and got laughed at all the time he was trying to pull his pants down to get at them. All in all, it was a pretty bloody sight. We were out there for a 'coon-hunt' and he was miserable the rest of the night. I've got to say that sitting up on top of the hill by a campfire, listening to the dogs bay until they caught wind of a raccoon was enjoyable.

For those who have read my books; I have included several of these locations in more than a few of my books. Oh, and there was another place that I have used several times. It doesn't have a name. The old story is that it was a cave on the Verdigris River bank used by the Daltons and was large enough to drive a wagon into. The government blasted it sometime just before statehood, leaving nothing but a jumble of boulders. I don't advise crawling around on them as it is too easy to slip between the boulders and break a leg. There was another entrance to the cave above the bank and a local man crawled into it when he was a teenager. I was told that he found several wagon wheels, a couple of rotten, wooden chairs and a table inside. When he told his father about the find, his father told him to cover the entrance so no one could get lost in the cave. Once the young man realized that the cave was a dangerous place for anyone to enter, he did as his father told him and covered the entrance with a few small logs, several sheets of tin roofing, a couple of wooden barrels full of trash and dirt. by the time I saw the place, everything had more or less rusted and dissolved into the surrounding dirt and was only a flat spot in an unused field.

Yes, many of the locations I use in my books are gone forever, but not forgotten. At least, not by me. Anyone who tried to find them using the turns that I describe in my stories would quickly find himself lost or sitting in the middle of the lake.

I have to admit that many of my stories are based on what I wish still existed, or things that I wish had occurred differently. My readers seem to find them enjoyable as they keep buying my books; and isn't that a measure of success?

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Congruencies, A Taste For Blood and others.
Available on Kindle

Ho-hum storylines

That's right. Ho-hum. What do I mean by that? I was thinking last night about storylines and it occurred to me that most adventure stories never revolve around people who have money problems and don't go to extraordinary lengths to resolve them. Seems kind of self-evident, doesn't it? No adventure to be found in a story of a guy who just goes to work every day and drags his butt from pillar to post just to pay the bills. But, how many times has just such a thing been the central focus of our lives? In order to make a story of it, you have to show the dismal, daily round and quickly contrast it with some momentous event in the main character's life.

For instance; the character may be concentrating on getting through the gauntlet his life has become and suddenly be thrust into circumstances that require him to sink or swim, fight or die, just to continue living. We've seen those mechanics used thousands of times, and that's okay. It points up the juxtaposition between what he or she has had to endure and what he or she has forced on him/her. We are suddenly confronted with the question of whether or not a man or woman who can barely drag him/herself through life, can deal with an overwhelming challenge. Many times, we learn that the character has deeper resources that have gone untapped in his/her daily life because there was just no way to use those resources.

A visit to the movie screen calls up an example that is very close to the scenario I have laid out. Who among you remembers 'Straw Dogs'? It's almost a fish out of water story. A man who is mild-mannered and almost diffident, is forced to become harder and more brutal than the people who confront him without losing his humanity. It's a more complex story than that, but it gets the point across.

I believe that the whole intent in showing a man who is beaten down by the circumstances in his life, or is oblivious to the changes going on around him because of his focus on something else, is to lend realism to the story. 'Everyman' forced to become something out of the ordinary. We all like to believe that we are equal to such challenges and many of us are. Look at the stories you find in the news about people who face overwhelming odds to save a drowning child, or pry someone from a wrecked car before it burns. Or the men and women who step up and tackle an armed robber or purse-snatcher and hold them for the police. Of such things are heroes made. Countless men and women have joined the military as ordinary citizens and managed to perform acts of heroism that people who know them would have doubted they were capable of.

No. A story that consisted of the daily rounds of a man or woman who was just getting through life would not be anything that anybody would want to read unless it showed the evolution of that character into something that captured the reader's interest.

These are my thoughts on the subject and probably pretty common and self-evident, but I thought they were worth vocalizing.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of It Happens Every Day, The Empty Heart: A Collection and others.
Available on Kindle.

A Classic Storyline

This isn't going to be a dissection of a storyline; simply something to reveal an influence in my writing style.

As a teenager, many (too many), years ago, after I had recently discovered science fiction stories, my uncle was home on leave from the Navy. Unknown to me, he was a sci-fi fan and while I was at school, he left to return to his duty station. As adults frequently do, he disregarded my ownership of my books and asked my mother if he could trade books with me. When I returned home, Mom told me about it and I found that he left a double-book in place of one of my favorites! I can't remember the title of the book he took, but I still have the double-book he left me.

The book consists of "The Legion of Time" and "After World's End", both by Jack Williamson, and I found that of the two stories, I like the former most. In the story, a man is lured and thrust, (a strange combination) into a noble pursuit and manages to prevail against all odds with the assistance of nearly a dozen other men pulled out of Time at the moments of their deaths. During the story, one and another of these men are killed in action and their remains released over the side of the Time-Ship they are on until only the hero remains. He triumphs at the cost of his life and anyone would believe the story would be over there, but you must remember that this is a sci-fi story and no one is ever really dead if the author doesn't want them to be dead.

The hero awakens in a hospital aboard the Time-Ship and is confronted with his shipmates, presumed dead until this moment. The only permanent casualties in the story are the myriad baddies they dispatched, the arch-villainess, and the tragic character of the man responsible for pulling them all out of Time.

Now, it may seem trite and contrived, but to really judge the story, you should read it yourself if you can find it. I suggest cruising some of the moldy-smelling used book stores that seem to crop up in the weirdest places, because the copy I have was printed sometime in the 30's.

Returning to the "trite and contrived" aspect; it may seem so at the first reading, but I've discovered that Mr. Williamson wrote the story in such a way as to inject an undeniable symmetry that is difficult to dispute. I know that any editor would caution against this as it is no longer a favored writing style. It is an antique and false writing style, but I believe it betrays that within us which wishes to have a "happily ever after" at the end of the story. Not just this story, but any story.

I have played with such a construct in several of my own novels and have been pleased with the result. Maybe that explains why it has been so difficult for me to find an agent while still posting fairly respectable sales figures. I view editors as critics and have seen too many stories, movies and TV shows that critics hated, but fans were wild about. Critics try to instill an artificial style and taste in the audience despite what the audience wants. That's why so many of them admit to 'guilty pleasures'.

To sum up: I will continue to write to please myself and my readers in spite of the things editors my shake their heads over.
Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of The Empty Heart: A Collection, Gulf of the Plains, Congruencies and others.
Available on Kindle