Motivations

Hello! I'm back! Been away in spirit if not in body. My heart just wasn't in writing the blog and rather than post the depressed maunderings of a man approaching an accelerated old-age, I opted to let the blog lie fallow until I had something of worth to plant in it.

Addressing the title of this post: my motivations for writing. I like the idea of leaving something behind me for others to see. Perhaps they might come to understand me to a certain degree. It's not that I'm especially difficult to understand; I live, I breathe, I eat the foods that others eat, I want many of the same things that others want. I'm just not very vocal about how I feel about things. That's where writing comes in, like a knight on a white horse, carrying me forward and spurring me to essay new and untried avenues of expressing myself.

There is also a cathartic release for me in my works. Did I have a romantic relationship that went horribly wrong? Yes. Have I come to terms with it? No. Though the blame resides with me every day, it originated with another and I curse the day that I relented and agreed to speak to her. After being hammered day in and day out with her pleas and promises, I eventually did as she wanted and it cost me dearly, in more ways than one.

So, how do I achieve a cathartic release from that? I have written several pieces expressing how I feel about the pain that I feel every day. My novel, "Congruencies" was my daydream of how I would go back in time to change the thing that I did to ruin my life. No. I haven't taken my characters from anyone that I knew in life. I'm not about to court a lawsuit of any kind because of my writing. My work is a product of my imagination coupled with the pain I've known in my life. The short stories in my book, "The Empty Heart: A Collection", are also drawn from my emotions and longing for a second chance. As a young man, I was what was called "a dog" where women were concerned. I suppose it was only justice that I was lied to, lied about and deceived in every sense of the word. The penalty that Kellan pays in my short, "Cost of Passage", is self-flaggellation for me. The emptiness of heart and loneliness of never truly having loved another that Wade Travis feels in the title piece sums up the way that I've felt for a very long time. Incidentally, the macabre visitation that he experienced is something that actually happened to me shortly after I betrayed the young woman that I should have spent my life with. Was it a product of her ill-wishes? I don't know. That's why I explored it in the story.

After dealing with such heavy thoughts while writing those stories, I wrote "Wild Weasel Wilson and the Banshee Chicken" as an exorcism of those dark thoughts. I thought that something funny was in order. "Repetitions" expressed my thoughts regarding reincarnation. I don't believe that there is any possibility of distancing from race or culture. I believe that if reincarnation exists, then people must be reincarnated within their original culture, from DNA belonging to their families. How else can they atone for their sins against people they have known intimately? It only makes sense to me that by remaining as a karmic burden of their family, they are most likely to come in contact with the reincarnated spirits of thsoe they've hurt the most. That's simply a personal opinion and I have nothing to offer as proof.

Do ghosts exist? I addressed that question in "If Shadows had Voices". I kind of think that karma is also tied up with the concept of ghosts. If a spirit is unwilling to be reincarnated; where does it go? Is it stuck in a kind of limbo? Is a haunting, being tied to a place, a kind of limbo? Can ghosts be tied to living people?

"Cold Feet" was my foray into the urban adventure genre. I liked the experience and will probably write more of them. Imagine; ordinary people, faced with extraordinary circumstances. It enables me to write with realism and gives me an enjoyable writing experience.

For my attempt at writing a Howardesque piece; see "The Keystone". I liked it but felt that it was incomplete when I was finished with it. I wasn't able to write with the florid phrases that he used in his works because I have been too heavily influenced by the spare, but evocative writing style of Zelazny. I AM NOT AS GOOD A WRITER AS ZELAZNY AND NEVER WILL BE! I wanted to get that said so that no one will think that I am comparing myself to him. I just like the way that he wrote and don't think that anyone can ever write as well as he did.

Now you have read a few of my motivations for writing and I must say that there are others that I don't have time, space or inclination to go into here. The best way to get a firsthand sampling of my motivations for writing is to read my work. Read between the lines and apply them in a suppositional manner to aspects of your own life and you may come up with an idea of why I write.

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

Progress on the sequel

I don't often post anything in this blog about something that I am currently working on, but thought that today was a good time to start doing that.

Work goes on apace on the sequel to Gulf of the Plains: Fog and Bog. Paget and her new family are suffering another upheaval in their lives and I'm wondering where it will lead. Oh, I know what I've plotted, but as I once said: I like to let my stories grow organically. She has acquired a new romantic interest to take the place of Bailey and her sister is making her first appearance. Unlike Paget, she has not suffered at the hands of any enemies until now and I'm wondering if she will be made of the same stuff that Paget is. Will she be too brittle to handle the occurrence as well as Paget has done in the past? While I have toned down the sexual abuse that marked the first book, (it seemed kind of skeezy), it is still important to show how Paget's sister deals with it. I felt there needed to be some symmetry in their relationship. Julia had judged Paget harshly pre-polar shift and I believed it was necessary to let her walk a mile in Paget's shoes.

John Sheaves is growing within the role that his father and his own actions have set for him and Beth has become a tried and true helpmeet in the smashed world they have to live in. Matt and Molly are as steadfast as ever and Matt's sense of humor is standing him in good stead. He is still the same irreverent, young man in an old man's body that he was in the first book.

Moving on to Paget's love interest; Carl is as silent as he was in the first book, but now we see that it is just his way. He is a wise and canny leader of men and it is his judgement that helps Paget to survive in their adventure.

A new character, Pencherjevsky, has made an appearance and will continue to have an impact on the lives of the group. I am toying with the thought of establishing a relationship between him and Julia, but feel that it might be too convenient. I'll have to think about that. Maybe they should just have a casual-type thing. Or, maybe he should be too concerned with what's happening in the story to spend any time dallying with her.

You see, I have a weakness for showing some characters as heroes and others as victims. Bringing such characters together naturally includes giving them a relationship. But maybe it isn't so natural. In life, it may be, but such relationships tend to fail in time. Maybe I need to show that failure. It would tend to give both of them some depth, something that a new character needs in any story.

Okay. I've told you my thoughts without including any serious spoilers, so that's about it for today. I have to go throw my characters into their lives and see if they sink or swim.

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

Characters

Okay, so the title of this post is a little lame. It has meaning for me, and you read this blog to see what I have to say. Accept it and move on.

The characters in the books I have written, Mason Kelly, Claire De Luca, Lillian Reese in A Taste For Blood, Stephan(Stitch) Lyne, Grrrl-tew, Brisa Lyne in Stitch in Thyme, Brian Caffrey and Aditi in A Quart of Djinn, Patrick Cameron and Rebecca Franklin in Congruencies, Michael (Miles) Peregrine and Katie Milburn in Behind the Stone, Dorothy Augusta, Peter Sunday and the private investigator trio of Shepherd, Tanner and Decker in Eggs of Empire, Louisa Gerard and Demon in Taken Apart, John Sheaves, Paget Redpath, Bailey Lovell and Beth Stewart in Gulf of the Plains, Brian Maclin and Annalisa Carey in It Happens Every Day, Drummond Rand, Bruiser and Cruiser Linehan in Questionable Interests, all owe their existences to my imagination. Gee, that's quite a list. And it doesn't even include all the secondary characters that I created.

Did I mention that I re-use some characters in other works than the ones in which they make their first appearances? Lillian Reese and Bruiser and Cruiser have all been in multiple books. Bruiser and Cruiser have been in three, though in two of them, they have played extremely limited parts. Identical twin geniuses, condemned to live far from academic lives because of their appearance and background, they seemed to spring full-blown into my mind when I began writing of them. Did I say that they are both nearly seven feet tall and, though highly intelligent, somewhat obtuse regarding how they look? They dress well in expensive clothing, but seem unaware of their badly broken noses. The only difference in their appearance is their noses and it is the only way that people can tell them apart, though most people are too intimidated by them to mention it.

Some of you may have noticed that I have used several mysterious characters who seem to have no place in the story, though their actions are the deciding factors in the stories' resolution. They are: Rod (Rodw Muze'l Oki) Mallory, Rhiann (Oki Rhi'an'a Shta) Mallory, Emmet (Em't oKun Rodw) Mallory and Delia (Rhiaph Deli'a Shta) Mallory. Another character that I have used, but failed to identify for you, the reader, is Anna (Rhiaph An'a Shta) Mallory. All these characters belong to a series that I cut my teeth on before I ever published anything. In all, they and others, populate five, or is it six, novels that I wrote prior to anything I have published. I'm very much afraid that I will never publish these other novels because I'm not sure that very many people will be accepting of these aliens' familial dynamic. Or even of their hidden identities.

You see, I reasoned that the ancient gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece had to have come from somewhere and; why couldn't they have been aliens? The stories I have written regarding them start just as they are leaving their home world and I have envisioned, and included pastiches of their pasts, in several books as flashbacks. While I am certain that a great many new-agers, emos, goths and other people who can't be identified by any of these classifications, would enjoy the stories, I'm afraid that mainstream readers would sneer at them and avoid them in droves. Besides, since I was just beginning to write, they come off with a soap opera flavor to them that makes them seem amateurish and unsophisticated. Not that any of my other works can be called high literature. I simply recognize that they require a great deal of re-writing that may or may not be worth the trouble. Maybe someday I'll re-write them. If I do, you, my readers, will be the first to know.

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

Things that burn, things that soothe

This post won't exactly be about writing, although I believe I said in the very first post that this blog would be about my journey as a writer. Or, something to that effect.

Just over 4 1/2 hours ago, I awakened in the wee hours of the morning, (if you're over fifty, you know what I mean by that) and was unable to return to sleep. Sinuses were stuffed up and running and then the room was too hot. After kicking off the covers, the a/c kicked on and then it was too cold. I lay in bed for an hour, clearing my mind to sleep and found that I was not in the least tired. Or sleepy. I finally arose and slipped into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and repaired to the living room. After desultorily gathering that the early morning news was no different than the late night news, I settled on watching Mallrats from beginning to end. Always before, I had watched it in disjointed fashion, not understanding some of the references because the context and continuity had been lost by only watching portions of it.

I decided that the appeal of the movie is that it seeks to shock by showing young adults doing and saying things that even the previous generation would hesitate to say and do. At least as cavalierly as was portrayed on the screen. Having grown up during the fifties and sixties, I was no stranger to shocking behavior and questionable decisions that horrified my parents. While young adults and teens in the mid-nineties believed that the movie was the next best thing to sliced bread, there really were few redeeming qualities to be found in the movie and I believe that was the point; that a movie didn't need to have any redeeming qualities. Yes. The movie depended on shock value to draw attention to nothing at all and the humor was sophomoric. So, to sum up; this movie, and pretty much every movie by this film-maker seems to be intended as a portrait of a generation and no more. It goes overboard to evoke a humorous response from the audience and judging by all of this film-maker's other movies, he seems to be a comedian with a one joke repertoire. This movie may have been fresh and funny near the beginning of his career, but he has not trotted out anything new to say in the later ones. And, that's a pity.

Now to address the title of this post. I wanted to write so badly early this morning and knew that if I did, I would get nothing else done today, and I have many time-consuming things that I need to do. The need to write burned my soul and spurred me on as though the monkey on my back was digging the spurs in to no avail. However, one might surmise that I didn't like the movie I watched and they would be wrong. The humor, marginal and simple-minded as it was, soothed me to the extent that I was able to forget my need to write, which was exactly what I needed at that time.

I don't often suffer from insomnia and I must admit that today was the first time I was able to deal with it sensibly and come out of it feeling refreshed and without frustration. On another note, before I began writing this post, I checked my horoscope. Yes, I am one of those, though I am not a slave to it. You can imagine my mild surprise to read that something momentous in the heavens was supposed to occur at exactly the time I awakened. Just another in the long line of coincidences that have filled my life. Someday I must write them down. I have used a few of them as inspiration for a few of my stories and have not been disappointed in the finished product.

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

A common writing mechanism

Have you ever been reading a story and gotten really caught up in the action and etc. and suddenly run into a *** followed by the problems another character is concerned with? Yeah, me too. I kinda like it. So long as it advances the story, there's nothing wrong with it. Interesting things happen to other people in the story besides just the main character and this mechanism allows you to learn of them.

We may be completely comfortable with such things in a story, but not be able to apply the mechanism to "real life". Many members of my extended family were, or are, career military and have spent years living in faraway and exotic places. As a boy, I don't think that I was ever more than fifty miles away from home on any sort of trip, so if I had cousins, uncles and aunts that lived across the country; that was pretty exotic.

But many times, they would return home for their once or twice-yearly visit and seem to expect nothing to have changed. Some of them seemed to think that I should still be a young boy, only to find that I had a driver's license, a car, an after-school and weekend job, and was dealing with pretty much adult-type problems. They also failed to comprehend the fact that however much their own lives had changed, the lives of those of us still at home had changed as well.

That's what I like about the writing mechanism that I mentioned. It shows that the characters that are "off-stage", so to speak, have their own problems to deal with while the main character is being suitably heroic. It drives home the realization that life does not stand still for others just because you aren't there. Perhaps it helps us to not be self-centered and insensitive. I don't know. I just like the mechanism and use it frequently in my works.

Leaving that subject for a while, I would like to say that I am currently working on the sequel to my novel, Gulf of the Plains. I am calling it Gulf of the Plains II: Fog and Bog. I am also working on two currently untitled pieces; a tragedy and a thriller. The tragedy has bogged down while the thriller is moving along. Neither of them is moving nearly as well as the sequel. I find that I have trouble dividing my time among them and cannot devote as much of myself to any of them as I should. I am on the verge of telling myself to just pick one and get on with it.

Well, until next time, thank you.
Derek A. Murphy
Author of The Empty Heart: A Collection, Congruencies and others.
Available on Kindle

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