A Biopic of Your Most Private Moments For All To See From Big Data

We really need to start being more aware of our actions. Why? Today and each day forward will all too soon become our legacy. We are deciding each day who we are. At least who our descendants and others might one day come to believe that we were.

This is concept and info could would fit right into my continuing horror \ sci fi story, "The Unwritten" on Wattpad.

Here's the situation. We are already working on ways to access "big data", massive amounts of information that are essentially useless to a human being. Big data requires computers or a lot of people in order to make it accessible, intelligible, useful.

Without computers, information leaks containing a million pages as in the Edward Snowden situation, or more recently with the eleven million pages from the Panama Papers leak, we simply cannot make use of that much data. It's an ongoing problem the NSA deals with on a daily, even hourly basis.

But we are starting to get a handle on it. Solutions are on the horizon.

We have to assume that in merely a few years, certainly in a few generations down the line, we will have figured something out. Projecting from that we will one day quite easily and literally be able to generate an easily understandable format to receive and manipulate all that data.

The projection that one could make a movie about the life of someone from the past with all that data isn't that far fetched. It could also include far more than we would now consider possible.

It could include for instance, friends you never wanted anyone to know you had. Places you went, things you did you never wanted anyone to know about. To make it "commercially viable" in a sense, that is at least more pleasure able to view, it could even include sexual situations you were in that were never filmed.

Remember, we're talking about the future here.

Regardless of what hidden moments you have stored away, situations meant for no one ever to see, one day they may be able to see it all quite clearly. Just for purposes of speculation, from a short sci fi story of mine, "EarVu", a scientist finds a way to produce 3D videos from previously recorded audio tapes. Think about that for a moment. That technology alone could bring down the entire world.

Already we are talking about taking various random footage shot from ATM machines, people's cell phones, things posted on social media, combing them all and getting 3D representations of what happened in choosing a single element or person as focal point.

This is all rapidly becoming not, science fiction but science fact.

When viewed from the future in using massive data it's entirely possible and would be quite plausible not to mention astounding. What could be discovered about a person's very private life in hindsight?

It is in part after all why conspiracies always fall apart and come out into the light.

Time is enemy to all and friend to some.

How would you feel about one day a movie being made of your life? You would have no control over it, not say in it, and you'd never know about it.

All this from easily known historical data. Though perhaps now being from unknown data. Just information freely available through a future version of some benign entity like Ancestry.com or some other such entity. Like a library.

A film of your life could literally be made by anyone, though more probably it might be made by a descendant of yours. Perhaps simply out of curiosity.

Much as how someone can now write a biography of a historical figure from the past from existing information, photos and such. While now that is mostly limited to those highly documented individuals, many of us are already being highly documented in ways far exceeding that of anyone from the past, or of what we are even now aware of.

Something for us to ruminate over. As some people worry that God can see their most secret actions, what if literally anyone could?

I spent many years studying espionage when I was younger. I discovered from the analysis of freely available data that one can uncover, must as with statistics using available numbers, that you can uncover highly accurate details from information that is freely available.

In taking just a few things from someone's life you can find where they have been in a day on a specific date, even what they were doing. From that you can extrapolate other things. It's really quite amazing and the more you delve into it, the more you can discover.

In taking information from other individuals involved with someone, even peripherally involved in things, you can then find strikingly obvious things about that time. Things that an individual had believed was (and had been right about, except in hindsight) completely private and secret.

Just remember, Time, wears everything down. Entropy rules.

I was stunned during and after college to find what I could do with statistics, with just numbers being correctly manipulated, with reasonable levels of inaccuracy accounted for. I found I could literally foretell the future. I was a media buyer for a while for Tower Records and achieved worldwide top buyer one month for my accuracy. I didn't even have a computer at work back then in the 1980s, I did it all with pen and paper on a clipboard.

However in using computers, machines that can handle massive data, grinding it up into something intelligible, what will we be able to accomplish some day? To see? To know?

Think about it. You can now use a spreadsheet to generate very useful graphs. Even moving graphs. Computer models can generate real life-like looking characters. One day we will be able to produce a film just from big data. Or seemingly happened, might have happened, but that's another (scary) topic.

Time will tell. It surely will.

If ever you wanted to be the star of your own movie, a film about your life, it may just happen. Though it may happen many years after you've passed on.

Freebie of my book Death of Heaven for Halloween Weekend!

Happy Halloween!

Welcome, to your nightmare. But have fun with it!

Horror book for Free!

Now welcome to MY Nightmare! Just for the weekend, I'm offering a free ebook download copy of my book Death of Heaven. from Zilyon Publishing - coupon KL76K good through the weekend.

You've never read a book like this one.

Cover by Marvin Hayes

See the video trailer here at my YoutTube Channel TheJZMurdock

Demons for Free!

Also, my Wattpad story The Unwritten, is always free, available to read on your cell phone or mobile device as it's being written. I'm up to part XII now and part XV is going to be a massacre.

Ever wake in an old cabin which a crazy woman was sticking you in the side with a knife while you were strapped to an old table? I'd advise against it, especially with what this guy has to deal with. Alternate universes, Hell, literally...Hell. It's an ongoing story being posted as I’m writing it.

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

BOO!

I mean...Cheers!

What is, The Unwritten? Find out FREE on Wattpad. Experience, the cliffhanger, as it's being written!

[ My editor said she had trouble finding links to

my story on her iPad, so just to be clear,

here is the STORY LINK referred to below.

This is now a finished book on Amazon & Smashwords.]

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

This past summer I started playing with a site called, Wattpad. An author I know from Facebook, Louis Shalako, was posting parts of a book he calls, "The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue". I wasn't paying much attention to things till I started to wonder why he was using Wattpad. So I thought I would give it a try.

I posted a few things, getting my toes wet. I posted the popular story, To End All War. A short story I wrote on Wattpad. I posted my short short story, "The Fall" which previously was only available in an ebook of mine as an additional story. This was a story that led to an article on my writings, in Indies Unlimited called, "Gender Bender" by L.A. Lewandowski, about writers writing both male and female characters and making it work. I wrote, Crashing Indulgence, as an experiment that got more than a few reads. But these were all just testing the waters, until something of substance came about.

Then one day, I came across an old quote on my quotes page here on my blog called, Quotes Along The Murdock.

Currently only 12 parts, more coming, trust me.

Whenever I post something somewhere that I find interesting, I post it on that page. I posted one a while back and saved it in there attributing it to, "The Unwritten". Which actually meant to be a kind of joke and essentially something that I hadn't written, it was a quote from nowhere. I write just about everything: non-fiction, fiction, horror, sci fi, screenplays, whatever. I try to stretch my skill set.

The quote goes like this:

"I want to learn to love you best of all," she said, "and that's just easier if you're dead."
From, The Unwritten

It occurred to me that I should write it into something so that when I said it was from, "The Unwritten", it could actually be from SOME thing called, "The Unwritten". I thought about Wattpad and figured, what the Hell, let's see what happens. Wattpad is a place readers can watch writers as they write something. Some writers have even gotten book deals from publishing on Wattpad, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

You can see how writers think as they develop a story. It's a kind of first draft platform for many, both writers and readers. Some polish their work before publishing on there so their works aren't first drafts, but some of us are throwing our first drafts up there, a  pretty scary prospect, really. Especially for those writers who think it's offensive to show a first draft to anyone, as I was taught by one of my university professors.

For some, they really shouldn't publish a first draft. But for those who can kick out a first draft that's readable, especially if you already have readers, it can be fun and rewarding to see how a writer develops their stories. It's also a good experience for a writer. It can change how you work, it can embolden you and beef up your skills. I do have to go back from time to time to clean up parts to fit the new parts, new directions as things develop, but I've found that I really don't have to do that very frequently.

So, as for the quote, it is obviously some kind of a quote from a horror story, so I wrote part "The Unwritten Part I". I wasn't sure if I'd go on beyond that, or where it may lead.

Right after I posted that first part, I was on Facebook, joking around with some people I know from a group on there and to give a guy a hard time, who I was just teasing, I threatened to name a character in a horror story after him. I thought about which one and well, "The Unwritten Part I" became, "The Unwritten Part I - Tom". I'm not so sure he appreciated it, but there it is, the protagonist's name is now, Tom. And Tom has been immortalized in one of my stories. 

A part II came along and then a part III and I realized, there was more to come. At this point there's eleven parts published and two more in draft stage, with no end in sight.

I seemed to be publishing them on Wattpad at a rate of about one a week. Then it escalated. I work on it as I have time. I create one or a few drafts of upcoming parts and work on them if I have an idea where those part should go. I do my note taking in these draft parts and dabble in them, altering them as they develop, then sit down and write through the next part and publish it.

It's led to some research on things. Like Hell and how it's perceived throughout history and in different religions and cultures.

Okay, SPOILERS now -

If you don't want to know anything about the story till you read it, then go read it. It's free.

You can download the Wattpad app for your phone and within seconds of my publishing a new part (or whatever author you decided to follow), you get notified immediately and can read it right then on your phone. Or whatever or however you like. It's kind of a throwback to the old Saturday movie cliffhangers where you just have to wait for a new episode to see what is happening to our here. Or, our antihero, in some cases. 

Here comes a basic description of what you're getting into with this story, The Unwritten.

The story begins with a guy who wakes up in an old cabin in the woods, strapped to an old kitchen table, with a woman standing over him with a knife. She says to him (you'll never guess what):

"I want to learn to love you best of all, and that's just easier if you're dead."

There. Now that quote comes from somewhere and truly is from, "The Unwritten".

Moving along....

With that, she stabs him in the side. Not to kill, but to torture. And, he's not very happy about it. Finally, he finally passes out. When he wakes up, she's gone, he's still tied up and he can't remember anything. Not who he is, where he came from or how he got there. He just knows that he doesn't want to be there or see that woman again since, his host isn't very nice.

One thing leads to another and well, his day just gets worse from then, and then it gets really bad and finally, pretty surreal. Surreal in a way I don't think you've experienced before.

That is to say, things go downhill for him from there; literally and figuratively.

But they also go up.

You see, there is something up there in the cabin, too. Something, is flowing along the ceiling. That's bad enough but where it comes from, is even worse. But that's not all.

There are some others involved. No, they're not there. All three come together in this story in a bizarre exploration of some very disparate things that interact in unforeseen ways. Unforeseen for us, and unforeseen for the characters.

This is a horror story. It's a slasher and torture story. It's traditional and nontraditional. It's a sci fi. A very dark fantasy. Basically, a little bit of everything and, the kitchen sink.

Well, that's all I'm going to tell you. I may at some point in a future post, explain how the parts came to be.

For once, in writing this, I'm just cutting loose and enjoying my writing process. Usually I have a very structured way of going about things. But with this, as Wattpad allows, I can just go for it and see what happens, let my imagination run wild. Which some might say from past writings, I do anyway, but this is different. Maybe it will come out in a similar way to the readers, but for this writer, it's quite a different experience. 

The few people who have read it so far have liked it and have no clue where this story is going. Because honestly, neither do I. I do even more so than usual, write myself into a corner, then try to creatively write myself back out of that corner. If I do a good job in the end is yet to be seen. But so far, I have a pretty good track record in doing that.

One of the cool things about Wattpad, is that readers can make comments, can connect with the writer as the writing is being done. If I were to see a good comment and it changed how the story was going in an interesting way, I just might incorporate it.

I should say that I do have a path in the back of my mind, as to where I'm going. Up to a point. Which is mostly just one to three parts ahead at any one point with an overall thought about where I'm heading, that changes as I come up with a better idea from time to time.

The story is being honed as I write it. It's odd for me since people are reading it before my editor has a chance to do any editing. I should add that she is enjoying the experience and anxiously awaiting my new parts as I post them. So that's a good sign. Because if it sucked, I'd hear about it, I'm sure.

So if you like this kind of thing, please come along for the ride. Because you'll be on a ride that is free, fun, and a touch foolhardy. No, maybe not so much that last one, but it will hopefully keep your attention and be entertaining on several levels.

So, come on down to the dark side! 

Down? Yeah, you'll see what I mean. If you join us for the ride. Experience what the "cliffhanger" is about!

Come join us reading, The Unwritten

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

Cheers!

On Creating Great Story Titles

Properly titling a story is extremely important to me. In thinking about creating titles for stories, I thought I would share what my process can be. For at least one type of story title, anyway.

I believe that a good title can contain half of a story's meaning, in theory. It's something to shoot for anyway. By changing a title it can alter the entire meaning of the story. It can twist a story's meaning in unforeseen and  interesting ways.

Sometimes I write a story, from a short story to a novel, based upon a title I came up with first as inspiration. Sometimes that title lasts all the way through to publish. At times once I finish the story, another title becomes apparent.

Sometimes the title comes last once I discover what the story is through discovery as I write it. When that happens, I try really hard to come up with the right title. I try to find the title in the story. I'm not always successful to the degree I want, but it's usually worth the effort.

A good title can make a world of difference in reader perception as well as story meaning. One of my best titles came out of this story:

Nikolas Hayes as "Simon" on the cover of one of my free ebooks
Simon's Beautiful Thought

Having a story where the title pulls things all together at the end, can be very pleasurable. It's good to be careful however about taking a string of words from within a story as the title, as it can come off as cliche or in the worst case, simply annoying.

For our purposes here, I'll just use a story of someone I know, Nikolas Hayes. This is from his first published short-short story on Wattpad.  It's a cool little horror sci fi tale, a dystopic that worked on his first draft. It's a good title. Not quite the kind that alters a story outside of its obvious meaning or intent, but a good title nonetheless.

Wattpad, if you don't already know, is a site where you can find a lot of interesting and free writings. In some cases, authors are writing entire books online there that you can follow along with as they are written, chapter by chapter. You can comment on them, sometimes affecting how the book develops. Many of these stories are first drafts, written on Wattpad and published without a second draft attempt. Many find that interesting. 

I heard a well known writer once say that you CAN make a living as a short story writer, you just have to be able to write a first draft, send it off and have it bought by a publisher, every single day. Not a lot of people can produce a finished, polished purchasable story in one draft. 

Some people have even gotten book deals in publishing like this on Wattpad.

Here is one of my latest stories on my Wattpad, titled: "To End All War". It's about a scientist who misuses an experiment he and his coworker are working on, in order to affect the entire world to his agenda. He's finally had it and felt that he had to do something; something, to stop the madness. Hopefully in the end, it will work out for everyone for the better. 

Or perhaps, he's just sadly deluded as so many seem to be now a days. Yet, I wonder....

One last thing before I get to the point of today's blog....

Death of Heaven by JZ Murdock

A few years ago before I published my currently re-released epic book, Death of Heaven (you know, I don't use "epic" lightly either, the book IS epic in scope, there's simply no debating that...read it, you'll see what I mean), it still had no title as I approached the final edit prior to publishing.

Years before, Nik had produced a music CD of his original music on keyboards and there was one song titled, "The Death of Heaven" ( the link is to the video book trailer for the book using Nik's song so you can actually hear it). 

You can also see the web page for my book here, Death of Heaven.

In my search for a title for a book I scan a lot of art and music for ideas, to tweak to my own purposes. So at some point, I ended up looking over his song titles. I was starting to worry that I wouldn't find a title worthy of this book.

I loved that title when I saw it again. Perhaps I subconsciously directed myself to look at those songs again, songs I had previously listened to more than once. Although it wasn't quite how I was thinking of titling my book, over that next week, the more I thought about it, I just couldn't get it out of my head.

It started to make total sense to me. It fit the book the more I thought about it. So, I asked him and he allowed me to use that title. I dropped the leading "The" in the original title, as that isn't a great idea to use in book titles, but over all, the title was his.

In supplying Nik now with the title to his first short story published online, I've finally been able to pay him back in some small way for using one of his titles. I'm not saying that title doesn't exist elsewhere in the world, just that he came up with it independently on HIS own. 

Anyway, back to Nik's story and my method for devising a title, that would go something like this....

In his story there is mention of air, breathing, freshness and stars. These seem to be primary elements of the story, so good to focus on. 

Immediately I think:

star air

or 
air star

But that’s boring, right? 

It has the gist but not the cadence or pizzazz needed, especially in a short-short story. So I go and look things up in an online thesaurus. 

Maybe I’d keep "star", as it’s so immediate and recognizable. 

That leaves, "air".

So I enter into my browser URL field:

air syn

for 
air synonym

I pick a good site from the search results. This time it’s one on top:

thesaurus.com/browse/air

From there I get:

breath breeze wind blast draft heavens ozone puff sky stratosphere troposphere ventilation waft whiff zephyr

So 
zephyr 
seems cool to me. I like that word. 

Star Zephyr?

Except, now "star" seems boring and doesn't really match up well.

So maybe not "zephyr" after all.

Maybe:

star breeze?

Waft and whiff are both wrong; more silly than useful and this is in no way a comedy.

star wind?
That isn't too bad, but they don’t fit the story very well in my mind. 

So maybe "star" just won’t work.

star breath?

I like that, but it feels backward to me somehow. Maybe not "star" but "starlight"?

breathing starlight?

That just might work!

But not quite. It's too obvious, too straightforward, and I need something less obvious, with a twist somehow, something minor.

So if not breathing? Another sense? Feeling? Smelling? Tasting? Or maybe, drinking?

Drinking Starlight!

Drinking indicates thirst and that is a strong feeling. So is breathing but drinking twists things on its head and that's usually good.

So that’s it then. 

And that is pretty much how I go about creating my titles. Usually, anyway. 

I mean, that and other ways.

So check out Nik's cool little dystopian sci fi tale, Drinking Starlight, published just last week on Wattpad. I hope to see many more from him over the years as he has a unique vision on our world, our human condition and for that matter, our universe.

Drinking Starlight by Nikolas Hayes on Wattpad

Enjoy the free stories and as always... 

Cheers!