The works of JZ Murdock - Where to Find Them today?

A bit about myself and where my works are to be found today, on my birthday. I'm offering for 1 day, my epic ebook DEATH OF HEAVEN for free! 

Coupon (1st 100): C3ULQ

Cheers! Sláinte!

My writings, my film works? As for my social media links, those can be found on LinkTree. Like easy ones such as JZMurdock.com or LgNProductions.com.

I have been interviewed a few times. Here's my December 2019 Slash Night Shorts interview, a monthly film festival a friend and I created, until Covid hit and killed it. We had local indie filmmakers show up and it was basically a party once a month, with films and on stage interviews and networking of filmmakers and fans.

Below is a photo of some years ago at a gallery in Port Orchard, Washington, during my author reading for my book, DEATH OF HEAVEN.

This is an interview from February 2018.

Regarding my books, ebooks, and audiobooks, they are all available at Amazon, Smashwords, and Audible.com.

Many of my covers are produced by artist Marvin Hayes.

There is more than anyone should ever want to know about me, on my website.

My films, are different...

Some are available on my TheJZMurdock YouTube channel.

Some are on my LgN Productions YouTube channel.

"Gumdrop", a short horror, is currently only available (for $1.99) on the LgNProductions video site. This is a rough film, indie film, but also a film noir/horror film shot with a nod to the film, "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer". Technically, there are interesting things going on in it as well as some things often missed going on in the background. 

And in part because of that, it's also an award-winning film. 17 awards to be exact: Best Noir, several Best Horror/Thriller, and others.

My biggest award-winning film is, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". Sadly it's in limbo until the primary (and title) song goes into the public domain in January of 2031. It's a long story, I misunderstood the song's public domain status during research and production and was later surprised to find it's still owned by a company). I also started on the film when I was trying to struggle out of a year of long covid, so maybe it's not surprising I made a mistake on something. Still and that being said, it's now won over 60 international film festival awards.

Its trailer, outtakes reel, and "Wars on Earth" videos are available on YouTube.

My first narrative film, "The Rapping" (referring to a sound, not music), is available.  This is an unlisted link so you cannot find it by searching online for it. This film includes NASA InSight Mars Lander audio incorporated into the soundtrack to add to the eerieness.

It is also the long version of the pieces of it used in my next and longer film. That film is, "Gumdrop", a short horror, which I have already covered. It has a trailer. Curious as the entire film lasts only 8 minutes. 

I also have some short silly films like, "Below in the Dark". Or, "Happy Birthday from Dragon Boxer - February 18, 2011". A film I made for my youngest backpacking eastern Europe at the time, and feeling rather low. This cheered them up. How could it NOT? 

Another favorite of mine is the short "Eagles & Crows, a fable". Yes, for a 4-minute film, I did ridiculously make a trailer for it. I had some footage of the eagles in my backyard over months and thought I should use it. One day I watched a crow harassing an eagle and thought it was funny. 

I made one up of some extra video for an audio recording I made of my son and friends playing drums up at Ft. Warden Park in Port Townsend years ago. I called it, "Beyond Abbadon's Gaze. For a while I used that percussion audio for the original trailer for my film, "Gumdrop". I liked the coarse, uneven beatings and noises for the trailer. But when my soundtrack composer Andrea Fioravanti heard it (from the Italian band, Postvorta), he offered to do the music for the trailer, and I went with that.

How dumb DO you have to be to piss off an eagle? So I made a film about why that happens, why a crow would attack an eagle, and made it about the eagle trying to educate the crow. Silly film I thought kids just might like. But I don't think any yet have seen it.

Here's a couple of old pieces from Indies Unlimited:
- Meet the Author: JZ Murdock
- Article on JZ Murdock by LA Lewandowski: "Gender Bender"

I also made up some book trailers for my books. These are from 11 year ago and since I started producing films, my tastes have changed and I would make this very different today. But they are what they are and so I offer them out of nostalgia if nothing else.

Like Expedition of the Arcturus, a generational spaceship story. First published on the online, hard science fiction magazine, PerihelionSF.com

• Death of heaven (Revised 2014) / Death of Heaven (2012)
• Synesthesia (non-fiction/psychology)
• Some Notes on Field Theory and Psychology (non-fiction/psychology)
• The Conqueror Worm (1st story from, Death of heaven)
• Mr. Pakool's Spice (zombie story)
• Anthology of Evil (collection of older short fiction-horror/scifi)
• Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer (surreal horror)
• In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear (1990-dystopian America & giving one man, all power)
• Quantum History (humor-science experiment gone mad)
• Gumdrop City (story the film "Gumdrop", a short horror is based upon)
• Simon's Beautiful Thought
• Sarah ("Twilight Zone" type story)
• EarVu (horror/scifi-science experiment gone mad)
• Japheth, Ishvi and The Light (religious cult/zombie story)
• Andrew (novella that Death of heaven is in part based upon)
• The Mea Culpa document of London (medieval witch hunter story)

I have several new books out after those above. The sequel to my first collection of short stories is, Anthology of Evil II Vol. I & "The Unwritten" Vol. II. Also Suffering "Long Covid". 

And that's a list of where all or most of my works are located, should anyone be interested. Have fun!

Cheers! Sláinte!

My Writings...

I should say for anyone who was reading my Walking Thoughts series, it's winter now. Between my health being weird (Long Covid, going in and out), and the cold, not walking so much now. And? Soon... maybe.

So, I was writing up a bit to offer in yet another literary management round of seeking representation and I stumbled upon doing this. I'd always wanted to have a survey of my writings and really see what's up with me and what I am saying in all of my writings, even across my screenplays (and my indie films), though mostly in my fiction. 

Which are located mostly here:

Amazon books, Amazon ebooks, Audiobooks, Smashwords (now, Draft2Digital) and...

IMDb, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero" ($5/mo & I get about half, you can see my film, outtakes reel, and other indie films...support indie films!). Also, JZMurdock.com and lgnproductions.com.

Anyway...

I noticed a while back that I've written about young kids (the novella "Andrew", the short story, "Jaonny's Apple Tree", screenplays like, "Popsicle Death") in how screwed up the world is through their eyes, or in how they are maltreated, at times with the best of intent. Which obviously speaks to my own curious childhood in having moved every year, in and out of the country before four, living in authoritarian semi-Fascist Franco Spain in 1958. Then moving almost every year once back in America and from one coast to another, and so on. 

I have a degree from Western Washington University in Psychology concentrating in phenomenology in their Awareness & Reasoning division and so the psychological elements in my writings as well as the observational (phenomenology) are reasonable and obvious. 

Anyway in doing this, it gave me let's call it, a survey analysis light, of my writings, as such:

Just thought I'd share...

Cheers! Sláinte!

JZ Murdock - an update on my writings and works

I was thinking today that I should put out an update of things I've been working on. I have been feeling pretty good lately, my long covid having backed off, I thought maybe it was nearly gone. My expectation/hope was that it would be gone before, on, or near 2 years since last infection (April 2022).

Then this past week it seemed to come back. It was a miserable week with a couple of days ago being especially so. I'm feeling better yesterday and today. The trouble with long covid is it sticks with you in the beginning, then it comes and goes, less and less over time (hopefully) until you start to falling prey to belief it may be gone, then it comes back, feeling more devesting each time. 

It got me to thinking about what I'd done these past few years. And that's when I thought about an update on things. So here it is.

Several of my books are nominated for various book awards this year. More about that below. Suffering "Long Covid" is one of those book, as you can see from the stamp on the cover for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Kind of wish they'd sink some of their money into redesigning their webpage. 

I just revised my 2022 non-fiction book detailing both my own personal experiences but also long covid in general, Suffering "Long Covid". My son runs a health food store in another city and it's been selling there well enough that they are going to start paying me when they receive the books from me rather than after sales are made. I updated it with new information from 2023.

Long story this updated revision. I've had a few stumbles, continuing to add to the revision. There are now three versions to be found in the world. Original 2020 version, this year's revised version and this week's Revision 1.1. If you look on the copyright page in the front you'll see which version you're looking at. As of now it's published on Amazon in ebook and hardcopy and the books are on the way to me here and a brick and mortar store. 

It is also now available for the first time as an ebook on Smashwords along with other ebooks of mine there. I'm having some trouble with the epub version there, some error about "Frame" duplication, but it mostly looks good. Waiting on their review to continue working on it.

Nice thing about the ebook version, the research links annotated and supplied are easily clickable. I wish on Amazon the hardcopy purchased also included the ebook version. But that requires a setup on there I'm not willing at this time to accept from Amazon. Feels a bit like a bully move on there part. 

I just noticed my audiobook "The Mea Culpa Document of London" (also, Kindle), was in unpublished mode. I'd used a graphic for the cover I later found was not public domain and immediately pulled it, like two years ago. I noticed that this week, found a replacement graphic and now it's back up for sale. It is a story about an Inquisition Judge and witch hunter's crisis of conscience. I had written it for my university Intro to Fiction class toward my minor (my major is psychology, awareness and reasoning with a concentration in phenomenology). 

That professor (and class) loved my writing and admittedly they were a cut above the rest of the class (save for one other classmate). But he said I needed to write dialog and so sent me to playwriting. From there I got selected for a year long class with seven others to learn team script and screen writing (mostly writing TV shows). An amazing time. One of my two profs for that was a massive brain and loved medieval literature. 

I would hang out in his office when I had time just to learn from him. When I told him about my story about the witch hunter he really got into it and helped me with it. It's deeper than you might think. 

And the story is probably better than my voice acting, but I did my best. The story is in my first published book of short stories, "Anthology of Evil" (I have a sequel out to it now, in volumes one and two) of my newer writings, some previously published and some new). 

My WWI antiwar filmic poem and historical documentary, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero", has been internationally awarded a lot of awards (going on 100) and Official Festival Selection status (also approaching 100).

I'm getting closer to finishing my film companion book for it. 

My short film noir/thriller/horror film, "Gumdrop", a short horror - finished it's journey around the world at film festivals and also won a bunch of awards and official festival selection status. Though nowhere near as many as "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero"!

I realized how much time, effort and money I'd put into my films and I should be doing the same for my books and screenplays. And so I've started on that (again). My true crime biopic screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard" has two versions. My original and one that got producer Robert Mitas (my IMDb) interested so that he helped me write another version. Robert works with Michael Douglas on films. We spoke to several directors interested in directing the film, but I came to realize, though the new version was shorter, tighter as a screenplay, it seemed to be leading directors into thinking it was a teen film and not a more mature drama. 

As the original producer in London, who first heard about the project and asked me to write the screenplay and let him see it first, he thought it reminded him of the film, 'The Place Beyond The Pines". And I agreed. Problem was, I sent him the screenplay, he said he'd send it to his readers and, I never heard from him again and he has since disappeared. 

I started sending both off to festivals and screenplay contests. I have seven now for my original version, and three for the rewrite. It's won the Brandenburg International Film Festival, honorable mention at the World Film Carnival - Singapore. David Film Festival (İstanbul), Tabriz Cinema Awards (Azerbaijan), Medusa Film Festival, United States Motion Picture Alliance (California), and the International Film & Script Festival Lotus. Also, Semi-finalist in the Page Turner Feature & TV Pilot GENRE Competition.

As for my books, Suffering "Long Covid", DEATH OF HEAVEN (horror/scifi) and Anthology of Evil II Vol. II The Unwritten have all been nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. I've also submitted the last two, to other festivals. DEATH OF HEAVEN received an Honorable Mention at the Halloween Book Festival. Also another one at the Royal Dragonfly Book Award for science fiction/fantasy. It's submitted to and received reviews from Literary Titan and Reader Views. These book awards run through 2024 and I look forward to see the results. It's past time for DEATH OF HEAVEN to receive some recognition as I believe it's a very good book. And reviews are testifying to that.

While I am hopeful I'm at the end of nearly 2 years of my last bout of long covid, it has has made doing anything these past three years somewhat problematic and at times impossible. For one thing it cycles. You think you're good or it's over and it comes back. Until as with my first bout of it, it's just gone one day. Yay! 

For a while I thought I may never be able to write or produce anything ever again. "Mind fog" sucks. Being lethargic for nearly a year sucked. With the second infection two paramedic visits and hours at the emergency department of our local hospital sucked. Wearing a heart monitor for two weeks sucked. Lots of blood and heart tests and xrays and in the end, 

I seem to have come through it all with no findable damages. In fact, I swear two things are better after it. I can remember things now I couldn't remember well before covid and my physical reactions seem better (if I drop something that would normally end up on the floor, I seem better able to, and often do now, catch it first).

But IN these past few years since acquiring that rather devastating first infection in February 2020 (then again, a worse one in many ways in April 2022), I produced the WWI film (it was mostly done but I had to edit it for 6 months), then send it to film festivals around the world (I was surprised how something I did to help me heal from covid, won so many awards!), I published my first collection of short stories sequel in two new volumes of my writings as mentioned above, then wrote and published my book on long covid, revised this past week with updates for 2023,  and published that.

In thinking I'd done nothing since first contracting covid I thought I'd done nothing. Until I looked back one day to realize how much I had actually done. I would have to say myself, under these conditions it's rather remarkable. Honestly, my first edition of my long covid book had some spelling errors in it, which I've now fixed when my son pointed it out to me. Which led me to updating it, which I've been feeling I should do considering the advances and findings on long covid that have happened, even though I didn't motivation to work on that book again (it's hard writing a book about the worst times of your life where you almost died). 

I was at a standstill on my film companion book. Then when I got motivated to update and correct the long covid book...the info was all accurate in it, I'd just not had good attention to minor details like spelling when deeper into long covid than I am now (and even then, there weren't many spelling errors but I'm meticulous about my edits before publishing)...I found myself ready to get back to the film companion book.

So I'm working on it, looking forward to finishing it also. So I can then move onto my next project which I think may be about my grandfather, my mother's dad, who had traveled the world in the 1940-50s and 6os. 

And...that's my update. Now, go out and be happy, be brilliant and productive!

(I used to tell my kids that when they were leaving the house)

Should you publish whatever you write?

There was a recent Indies Unlimited article titled,

"I encourage YOU to write, but even more importantly, to publish."

Well, sort of. But not really. There is another side to that which I'll briefly explore below and yet another side explored briefly in this article, "One Size Does Not Fit All For Self-Publishing".

I actually have the opposite argument to everyone writing and publishing. I've read not a few writings by "writers" who everyone would wish not to publish. Then there are those who are quite fearful of publishing who I wish I could convince to take the time and effort to publish.

I encourage everyone interested in writing to write but Please, don't just then publish. Not as a defacto event following writing, anyway. Publish only with thought and consideration for others.

First let me say that although posting online is a form of "publishing", I define "publishing" as not just putting your writings online, but actual publishing in the somewhat traditional sense as in a book, ebook or audiobook format. There is shall we say, publishing as a verb, and publishing as a noun.

My overall point being, there is already enough junk writing out there as it is.

Writing should come easy, rewriting, editing and publishing should come harder.

To suggest people publish easily, frequently, is to flood the market. If you want to publish, there are blogs, there is Wattpad.

So please, don't publish; unless you have a good piece of writing that you have worked on, over and over, perfecting it until it is worthy to be published.

A Professor of mine once told us in class that to show your first draft to some one is on par with showing your own shit to others (his words, to shock us, to make the point, and it worked). As that is something few would do, don't do it.

Many would argue that they wouldn't show their first draft off but some are actually good enough to do that; many others have a multi-draft pieces that appear only to be of a first draft level of quality due to their lack of knowledge, practice, skill or expertise.

The point is here, unless you have put the actual thought and effort into producing a readable piece, don't publish. Not unless you have first crafted a piece with a level of quality that deserves to be read by others.

That is your decision of course, when it is actually ready, and the decision of your beta readers. You do have the control. But control indicates thought and effort and a decision. To simply write and publish is almost offensive, unless it is truly worthy of others who do not know you to take their time to acquire, perhaps pay for it, and read it.

A writer should be qualified to publish, but also compassionate in not wishing to put into the public reading sphere, works that are worthy of others spending their hard earned time and money, to read them. All you are doing otherwise is to flood the market with poor writing, as has been done now for some time.

We used to value our good writers. Now a days there is much talk about how bad some published books are. We need to change that, to turn things around.

There are certainly good writings out there by amateurs and that's great; that IS wonderful. Just be sure what you are pushing out into the world deserves to be out there. Put effort into it, have it vetted, read by others first, then publish it. And understand that what many think is "effort" to publish a book, many times now a days isn't really effort. It seems to them to be effort. But there is a big effort in putting out a good book. I've been doing this for years now and it still seems like more effort than I remember from the last time, every time I do it.

So get get help, get an editor if you can, join a writers group, barter for skills of others, do whatever you can to not put poorly written works out into the readers' domain.

Because in the end, everyone will thank you for it and you will get so much further for those efforts.

That all being said, I'd like to also mention another important issue that has been crippling our nation: Education... and our chastisement of those young (and old) who wish to achieve an educational level higher than that of High School, which really now is not to high. Why is our nation so stupid as to do so much harm to ourselves and our future. Check out the link to see what I'm talking about.

#authors #writers #education