Errors in a Published Book?

Before I get started...

I just switched internet hosts to Hostinger where I got a great deal and I like their interface more. So, I revamped my websites. I haven't gotten around to being 100% done with them yet (I haven't touched the Purpleism site yet, but I have high hopes there.).

• JZMurdock.com (author/filmmaker website)
• LgNProductions.com (my production company)
• Murdockinations.com still brings you here.
• Journaled.com (still online since 1995 when it was just a webpage)
• Purpleism.org (an absurdist religion in the vein of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)

From ChatGPT

Now, on errors in a book...

When asked, "If an author presented you with their book and you noticed editing errors, how would you approach it?" 

My answer depends on several factors, especially the edition and publisher.

First editions, even from major publishers, can have errors. What matters most is whether the book is good. For instance, "The Martian" was self-published and still went on to become a bestseller and a major motion picture.

I had a similar experience with my horror/sci-fi book DEATH OF HEAVEN (which has garnered incredible reviews and won the 2024 NYC Big Book Award Horror for Horror). A reviewer initially criticized it as being “full of errors.” However, the issue turned out to be that the book’s longest story was written from a British perspective, so I used British spellings. Once I explained this, they kindly updated their review.

Ultimately, it all comes down to whether the story is compelling and well-written. Ideally, books should be polished and error-free, but perfection isn’t always the standard. Any student of medieval literature knows that spelling inconsistencies were the norm due to a lack of standardization. Context matters.

That said, dismissing a self-published book outright smacks of elitism and can mean missing out on some incredible reads. Researching whether a book is worth your time is a reasonable first step—after all, not all self-published books are great. But I’ve also read poorly written books from big publishers, so the problem isn’t exclusive to self-publishing.

If an author handed me their book with visible errors, I’d approach it based on the severity. A couple of typos? I’d mention them. Dozens or hundreds? I’d still give feedback but might suggest prioritizing the story’s quality over nitpicking, depending on whether fixing them would be worthwhile.

Finally, my university professor once told us, “Sharing a first draft with anyone is like showing them your shit. Don’t do it.” If it’s in published form, significant errors become less forgivable because they reflect on the finished product. That said, even perfectly written manuscripts can go through the publishing process and still turn up with errors.

Cheers! Sláinte!

Editing and History of "Gumdrop, a short horror"

First, some housekeeping and promotions...Last year I shot my first short-short eight-minute narrative film, The Rapping. It was a festival selection at the New York Midnight Film Festival, actually, showing in New York and won the Weekly Online Once A Week Film Festival for January 2, 2019. I shot this with a single actor, Nikolas Hayes. We had worked together previously on Kelly Hughes' horror films.

I have worked on several projects with Kelly and lately, we've been working on the ongoing annual GUFF, the Gorst Underground Film Festival. We began it and held it for two years at Blue Collar Art but are moving it to The Historic Charleston Theater in Bremerton. Both venues are perfect for it.

Our most recent event series is "Slash Night" at the Historic Roxy Theater here in Bremerton which I recently wrote about here. Gorst is a small community right next to Bremerton, Washington. Kelly started both events and both are now becoming standard annual and monthly events, respectively.

This past summer I shot my short horror film, "Gumdrop, a short horror" with multiple actors. I wrote the screenplay and directed and shot it myself. It is a prequel to my short horror story based on a true crime, "Gumdrop City" (2012) on Amazon as an ebook and included in the collection of my first short horror tales in "Anthology of Evil" (2012). I have a manuscript ready for a sequel as, "Anthology of Evil II", but haven't had the time to deal with it.

On Gumdrop, a short horror and Gumdrop City, the new piece is a prequel. The story is about Sampson, an odd character who in the short story is older and more decrepit but just as dastardly and deadly, but even more despicable a personality. In the current film, In using the short story as a roadmap, I drew a character who had been abused as a child and had grown up traveling to escape his birth country of Czechoslovakia and his horror of a childhood.

In those restrictions of his accent and so on, I gave him a background of having traveled to South Africa and to various locations that affected his accent. His father was Irish, his mother Czech. So he has an accent that is an odd juxtaposition of a Slovak accent with a South African slant to it and words of an Irish orientation. He knew his father but didn't know him long enough for it to affect his accent that much, but enough and in odd ways. This makes him confusing for those he interfaces with. His mental status and his orientation led him into criminal enterprises and to avoid traditional forms of employment and sustenance.

Actor Stan W with lead actor Tom Remick as "Sampson"

Sampson is one odd character and not to be trifled with. As the character, Manz (played by actor Stan Wankowsky) discovers int he film.

Okay now...editing.

First, apologies. I'm more concerned with working on this project than blogging. And I'm adding to this as I'm editing, and think of things to mention.

Like treats. I get up in the mornings around 6-7AM and have breakfast, sometimes just toast and peanut butter, or oatmeal, and two cups of coffee. Years ago I limited myself to two cups a day, maybe tea mid-morning if needed. I watch something on TV, usually news of some sort, or a late-night talk show. Then I get to work. If things go on too long, watching a show, and it's really interesting, I'll stop, and save it to watch at lunch as a kind of reward. Understand I'm retired from IT and work on film production and writing from a home office which at this point happens to be half my living room.

I've found tricking and treating myself works wonders for my motivation and stress levels. Have something to look forward to. And use any way you can think of to make yourself do what you woin't or don't want to do. Whatever works. Just find a way to be productive, and try not to (have to) kills yourself over it. IF there is any way possible to make it entertaining/ Do that. But save the wasteful time spending for after you have worked for a day's amount of work, or more.

I have no formal training in film production. Just theory and doing. Self-taught you might say. I've read a lot of books on film production but should have spent more time ready about editing. Well, I've spent some time learning about it, but this project is in part that education. My next project will look a lot better edited, I'm sure. I'll also be reviewing some videos on editing now. I'd meant to do that already before starting this but the flu had messed up my timing. And other things...

 Sony Movie Studio Suite 16 - Gumdrop
Shown, actors: Luke Remick (Jinks), Tom Remick (Sampson)

I am using Sony Movie Studio Suite 16. For that matter, I write screenplays using Final Draft 11. One of these days when I can afford it I may switch to Final Cut. My first edit of a film was at Western Washington University. I used a half-inch black and white reel to reel rig and had to edit in the camera. At some point, I was soldering wires to add music. And it was a nightmare. But I produced a phenomenology film for my department advisor, Dr. Rod Rees in part toward my degree in psychology. I also got a minor in creative writing and team script and screenwriting.

My next production came years later as a Viacom public access cable TV producer where I shot and directed and edited with a few friends a documentary for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the old Lost in Space TV show. I shot on VHS using my own camera as I'd had a bad experience in college where the battery in every camera rig was dead or almost dead in my case, which was the problem.

I didn't know it was "dead" as it worked some and so I shot a bunch of film to near-disastrous results. Still, some of those shots made it into the film. I used a Panasonic VHS editor deck at the studio and it did cablecast twice in the associated region.

For both The Rapping and now with Gumdrop, I'm using my own equipment and software entirely under the auspices of the production company started in 1993 for the LIS doc, LgN Productions (Last good Nerve Productions). I'm using a Canon DSLR 80D, a Roland R-26 digital recording, an HP video editor system from 2016 and the aforementioned software.

Shooting the film I am using the 80D and a Rode mic on top of the camera as a backup, with the Roland R-26 and a boom mic and tripod for main audio. I highly recommend a backup mic, it can be a lifesaver. But that means you have to marry the proper audio with the proper video and that can be a real job. Especially if you are not documenting your shots as you go. Which, I haven't, sadly. But which I hope to in the future.

Beginning the editing I pull out the screenplay and follow that roadmap. I start to insert the video media and begin to edit. Once I have a sequence of shots or a scene edited, I start to locate and insert the digital audio media. Then I begin matching it up. Part of my problem in not matching up the video and audio first and then ordering up and cutting is I could end up doing a lot of work for naught.

IF I had annotations taken during the shooting, this would go much smoother. But in having actors, especially amateur or nonactors in a production, considering timing as they are working people, not working actors paid to have their time on a schedule to act in my production, it makes life and shooting problematic.

I don't have the time to take the time myself to document and clapper my shots. I have to shoot quickly as on any production, without the safety net of documentation and in shot annotations (clapper and onboard notes).

Another issue was the processing of the audio clips. I really didn't know if I could edit this film, then go back and select only the audio I need, process it (I'm using Reaper for that) and then replace the clips I've used. That is, replace the base media in the editor and have it replace all those snippets all throughout the project. Finally, I took the time yesterday to first do a test and it worked out great.

Another issue I had was I built the opening titles sequence first. In this project the opening titles are the end credits to an extent, only reversed. So in building the opening, I figured as it was fresh in my mind, I might as well build the end. And so I did.

However, that put the end at the actual end of the screen, the project, the file. While editing the other day, and this can happen, I deleted a file and didn't realize I had deleted the end sequence. I realized what I did and could feel a nervous breakdown coming on. So I just sat there absorbing it, thinking if there were ways out of that. Putting off the breakdown until necessary. As it turned out, I found it and from then on every day I save a new version of my work that day and begin a newly named file for the next day. I also saved the end titles in a separate file. THAT won't be happening again. I had also created a couple more unneeded tracks and put it alone at the top out of the way. Which was where it was. Not lost. So my habits aren't too bad after all.

Aside: This happened once after college when I had a dul 5.25" floppy disk PC. One disk had the OS on it, the other was data. I had just written a short story. Sometimes I get in the zone and a story just dumped out onto paper. And it's usually pretty good. I did that once while working on a paper on synesthesia in college. I was exhausted, it was midnight and a short story, one page, single typed, come out. I dumped it onto paper (typed it out) and handed it in to my psych prof, my department advisor in class that next day. The following day we all got a handout. I loved his handouts. I was stunned to realize it was my short story (Perception, which grew along with my short story, later novella, Andrew, into my first full book, Death of heaven). Anyway, I was writing this short story on the dual floppy system and suddenly (and it had done this before), it locked up. Because the data disk got full. At that point, there is nothing to do but reboot. But I hesitated an hour before buying into that need. Finally, I rebooted and immediately rewrote the story. Now when I was almost done with the story I was thinking at the time that it was the most perfect short story I'd ever written. Obviously, I didn't rewrite it word for word but close, but it was not the same as I had written. That was lost.

My point? When you think all is lost, don't accept the breakdown. Breathe. Then think. And do what is productive. And move on.

So I have what I have.

This has been so much easier than editing physically with film or VHS as I had in the past. I was the film editor in my family when I was a kid. I had my grandfather's physical film editor (I still have it) and I did cut and tape film. VHS editing was easier. Digital editing is a dream. As in writing is in using a computer over longhand, or that's how I find it anyway. So much faster to cut and paste than as I did in college, literally cutting and pasting and then typing it all up (back then after being in a queue at the library to use a typewriter).

Yes, I did edit The Rapping last year. But that was a shorter film, a much less complicated film. A film I shot and edited just to prove I could do it. And since it got shown in New York and won one festival, even a micro-festival online, I did prove I could do it.

After a week of editing, the nightmare effort began to get easier as I got into the swing of things. Yesterda I was about six minutes into the diting (six-minute of edited video under my belt) and I hit potentially the toughest scene in the film.

It is the scene with hitwoman Wanda (actress Amy M) and Sampson (Tom Remick). The difficulty came in an interaction that required a lot of insert shots and bouncing back and forth from mid shots to close-ups and some ECUs (extreme close-ups) of a tool. That scene, that sequence of shots took me a couple of days. When I started again yesterday, I felt pretty hopeless, like I'll never work it out.

I thought I was done with that scene but today found I had a mirror sequence (gotta have a cool/bizarre mirror sequence in a film like this). I just finished it and I'm now done with that scene and moving on to the Rowan scene with Tacoma actor Jason Lockhart.

But I'm dumping my media I'd inserted into the project at the end where I clean it up and inject it into the timeline with the other assembled pieces of shots. It's important to remember to clean up. I overuse files/copies in my pre-editing end area of the file to avoid having to reapply a clip. Though I end up with a lot of extra pieces  (also in clipping, and expanding), and just need clean up between sequences, which isn't much of a problem.

I'm also thinking now it might be easier and faster to just video edit and then focus on the audio. As you get used to one thing, video or audio, you get in the swing of it. But when I'm jumping between, I seem to cause myself too much confusion. A few days of this will prove the point one way or another.

But, you take a deep breath and begin again, or continue on as it were. by midday, I was feeling much better. Do not accept the breakdown. Or, accept it, but don't have it. Be productive. Always moving forward.

Professionals produce. Be a professional.

As it is this project needs to be done by the second of November so it can premier at the Slash Night event here in Bremerton, at the Historic Roxy Theater. If I'm not ready, then I can show it in December, and then I'll have more flyers sharing its premiere. And so I may show it twice in a row. We shall see.

At the end of each day's edit, I am rendering a movie of what I have done. Essentially finished rushes. Sort of "finished". As this is all going to take a rough cut, and then a run-through for other issues and another rough cut, over and over as any editor knows.

I have also created a Facebook group, a private group just for the crew and actors on Gumdrop under the LGN banner. There I/we can share issues about the production.. Actors can speak up and hopefully, everyone can learn something, or at least, be made away of progress. I found as an actor you know so little about progression on a production and it can be frustrating.

In making this private group I was hoping to have the actors be more involved, aware of progress (and delays) and hopefully as I said, learn something.

Yesterday I found a few useful links about film production/editing I'd like to share and I shared in our private group.

IFH 113: Post Production Process – Understand It or Suffer the Consequences

Understanding the 5 Stages of Indie Film Production

The 6 Stages Of Editing As A Film Director

I'm into filmmaking, I retired from a very well paying job and a career in IT of 20 years, to make films. To write. To turn my past writings into screenplays and sell or shoot them myself. I couldn't get a film made if I were dying. Like so many others. So I finally just thought, "To hell with it, I'll make my own damn films!"

And so I am.

I made The Rapping up and shot it. I am now finally, for the first time shooting a film based on my own past writings. I first heard about the story behind Gumdrop City in 1983 in an abnormal psychology class. A story so affecting of the entire class, I felt I needed to share it with the world. So I made it entertaining and slipped it into a story about a damaged guy and a serial murderer across the street from him.

I worked for a while with a Hollywood producer on a feature film-length version screenplay of Gumdrop City (I just finished working on a screenplay rewrite of my true crime biopic The Teenage Bodyguard with producer Robert Mitas who has worked with Michael Douglas a lot). I thought that story would be the easiest thing to shoot on my own as my first film of a story I wrote years ago. But to shoot the original itself would be problematic in many ways. So I wrote a prequel and added in some interesting characters and elements. Still, it is a difficult story. But doable. And that's all I needed.

What are those interesting characters and elements? In time you will see.
Hopefully, in very little time.

Cyber Monday Special - Mind of a Writer, the Evolution of a Story... Andrew

Welcome to CyberMonday! Today I have for you a blog about the evolution of a story.

Once a short story, now a novella, it is called, "Andrew". Want a free download of it? If you wait, you can have the re-edited version, but it might take a while, we're working on it now. Or you can have both! Either way.

Currently I am re-editing it with my editor, Ilene Giambastiani. If you are interested in reading it as it is now, here is a coupon ( GN32P ) good through this week. If you contact me later after we re-released it, just let me know you read this blog, I will give you a coupon for a free copy of the new version at that time. But stick with me, there's more coming.

This, is a story that has had big ramifications for me.

"Andrew", cover by Gosling called "Andrew's Final Vision"

This is the story of that tale....

Before we get started however, allow me to invite you to read my ongoing story on Wattpad titled, The Unwritten. A mixture between old fashioned horror, sci fi and biblical nightmares, I doubt you've ever read anything quite like it. But then, that's my forte. The odd, the unusual, the macabre and the horrifying.

Okay now, let's get on with it....

In 1983 I was a senior in the Psychology Department at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, up near the Canadian border. I was taking my first university fiction writing class. Finding that I had enough credits to get a double major if I took another two or three quarters of classes, I decided I would settle for a minor in Creative Writing .

I took Fiction 101 as my first class toward that minor. I wanted to force myself to actually write a story, beginning, middle and end, as I had written quite a few interesting stories with no endings, much to the frustration of my friends.

Our professor in Fiction 101 tasked us to write a story, make enough copies for all in class, then everyone would read the stories for the next day, the night before, and the writer would read the story in class. We would then round table and critique it.

There were some interesting stories, but mostly as I remembered it, there being more females than males in the class, there was a high degree of romance based stories. The Assistant Editor of our school magazine wrote a story but I found it rather dry, though well written. Then it came to my day. I wrote a story that I titled, "When Fades The Shadows" (later titled, "Andrew").

After I read it in class, I discovered two things. They all liked my story. Our Professor hated it. Perhaps partly because I was overplaying my hand, writing beyond my capabilities, but also because he didn't like how melodramatic it was. He especially mentioned a scene in the TV room when five year old Andrew envisions a horror all around him in the room.

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

I was voted along with another, to write one extra story than the others in class to be read on finals day, as we had no finals in that class.

Also available as an audio book

My stories were, "Mea Culpa" (which I've expanded now and have included in my collection of short stories, "Anthology of Evil" and as a standalone ebook); and, Sarah (same situation), about a woman with Alzheimer's disease and based upon the story of a coed's grandmother that she told me right after Abnormal Psych class one day at Western Washington University.

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

Over the years I fooled around with Andrew and it grew and changed. But the core of the story is the same. A child who is very advanced, who has parents who were into using their child as an experiment, did everything in their power to push his intellectual capabilities to their extreme limits and beyond. This is juxtaposed with his adult pursuits and an ending for Andrew that is really just a new beginning.

Years later, I had an opportunity to put my stories into a collection of my works but it was over 1,000 pages. So I made one volume ("Anthology of Evil") with the stories in it that I couldn't fit into a more novel like book I titled, "Death of Heaven" (for more see, DeathOfHeaven.com). Here is a coupon for this book, good through December 7th: RM89D - feel free to share this with your friends and their friends.

Here is what one reviewer had to say about it:

"[Death of Heaven] ... has a Books of Blood vibe [referring to Clive Barker's seminal book series], which really works well. It's in these tales that the author's writing ability shines. He demonstrates a lovely turn of phrase and some of the writing is almost poetic in its beauty.
Michael Brookes - Author & Reviewer

All that from two tiny little stories. Well, little stories with massive story lines. Story lines big enough to evolve into an epic science fiction horror story.

To create that book, I also took another short story I wrote on a lark at midnight one night on a single page, single spaced and then turned it in to my Psychology professor the next day. He then made copies and passed them out to all his classes so that I walked in the next day and received an unexpected handout of a purple inked, mimeographed copy of my own short story, "Perception", which is now included in the back of "Death of Heaven".

Between those two stories, in 2012, "Death of Heaven", was born.

I finally got an editor, end of 2013 and she agreed to work on Death of Heaven with me. We republished that on my birthday August 30, 2014. Because that book meant so much to me and the reviews were so good,

Cover art by Marvin Hayes

I realized I should try to re-edit all my stories in my first book. In that book was my first ever published story, "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear" and the last story was "Andrew", the lead in to my next book, Death of Heaven". I just thought that Andrew and In Memory, both, especially, deserved to be properly cleaned up and re-released finally.

So now I am working on the re-edit of Andrew, my first short story written for Fiction 101 at my university in 1983. Now a novella, it is the basis in part for my book, Death of Heaven, along with another story titled, "Perception".

I had originally labored so hard over this first story while both fear and trepidation watched over each shoulder as I concocted this story that brought such great irritation to my writing Professor and yet such awe and fascination from my fellow students on that day that it was read in class for the first time.

Now after so long, so much tinkering with it over decades, after publishing it and now working on it with my editor (thanks Ilene Giambastiani), it is so very strange indeed to be thinking once again on those words burned so long into my mind. I find myself once again struggling to find the rightness in the morass of meaning and words that it is or maybe, has become.

The words are there and like a sculpture chiseling at stone, I'm trying hard to find the art that has been set in stone for so very long. It's a process of birth and death, joy and sorrow, of rebirth and, like a phoenix rising, honing it down to a deft flame of time and tale into an appropriate foundation for what a vast story that has come of it since it was originally conceived and shared.

Here is the original version presented to my class that day in 1983, the first published version released in 2012 and the newest version, so you can see how it has changed over the years. In these three snippets, you can see how I was writing in the beginning, how I had gotten to be after several decades had passed, and finally how I am now after several very intensive years of writing in the public eye.

Original version of Andrew:

When Fades The Shadows (1983)
"Invisible movements. Billowing, cotton-like breaths of pressure descended gently from on high. "Appearing to be only a breeze, the molecules conveyed along ever so imperfectly, the breeze gathered unto It any and all particulate matter; whatever was accessible to it; thereby hiding somewhat, It's violent loneliness. The gregarious animation of those particle's, was forced plastically, and yet...gently...tenderly, even perhaps, affectionately. One whispering sigh of wistful ardor, slowly succoring up to the clean, bright, and powerful Lifeforce of...a child; listlessly sitting within the confines of a window frame.
"An owl, sensing something amiss, swooped serenely into the midst of the Entity's presence. She then stumbled, surprised, in mid-flight. Never had she ever come across anything with such purpose, and yet, almost completely hidden within Nature."

Then I published it in a book, Anthology of Evil and after that as a standalone ebook novella.

Andrew (2012)

"Invisible movements of a honeysuckle fragrance; billowing, cotton-like Breaths of gentle Pressure cautiously descended into the suburban neighborhood from on high. It hesitated, looked down into the white, picket-fenced yard, and pondered on Its achievement. Appearing as a mere cool dry, fall breeze, the molecules conveyed along ever so— imperfectly; it gathered unto Itself any and all, particulate matter in proximity. In fact, whatever was accessible to It, hiding somewhat in a loneliness of vast and violent proportions.

"The gregarious animation of those particles was forced plastically and yet— gently, tenderly, perhaps even affectionately, up against a window. A whispering sigh of wistful Ardor that slowly succored up to the glass and the clean bright, powerful Lifeforce of— a little child. Listlessly, the boy sat on the window bench, one leg bent partially beneath him, looking out the window. He shifted his feet allowing them both to dangle loosely at the ends of his legs.

"Sadly, he remained crowded within the white rectangular confines of the untattered window frame, vacantly staring off into the yard beyond the panes of glass, bearing forth no remembered regrets.

"Trailing the breeze at a distance was an owl."

As I said, I am now re-editing it with the help of my editor, Ilene.

Today as I write this it is November 30, 2014. I wrote the following and including this version of the first few paragraphs, in an email to Ilene.

"Here are the first three paragraphs, of Andrew, reworked. It took me all week to get up the strength to work on this, though I had the week off from my day job. I was a bit hungover from a great time on Thanksgiving. Today, I think this sudden cold change in the weather is messing me up and I feel pretty lousy. But bucking it up, I finally tried to work on this, but after only three paragraphs, I feel artistically and emotionally drained.
"You know, I wrote this living with Monica in college and I wonder how much of that is tied up in this. In working on this, aside from the poetic nature of my attempts in writing this originally, to expand myself artistically and creatively, this is like reliving my college years, including a long term, intense and failed relationship and memory of how much has happened since with two more failed marriages, living alone, and so intensely wanting to quit my job in IT work, being where I am now and also where I'm headed to.
"What a chump, right? I do find working on this story much harder than anything else I've worked on, and not because of the difficulty of the piece, though that is some of it, but for all the emotional reasons. SO here is today's pass: "

Andrew (2014)
"Invisible movements of a honeysuckle fragrance; billowing, cotton-like Breaths of gentle Pressure cautiously descend into the suburban neighborhood from on high. It hesitated. Looking down into the white fenced yard it pondered this achievement, concealed somewhat in a solitude of vast and violent proportions.
"Appearing as no more than a cool, fall breeze, airborne particulates of all kinds were gathered unto it and carried along ever so lightly into the picket fenced perimeter. The gregarious animation of those particles was forced plastically and yet— gently, tenderly, perhaps even affectionately, up against a window. A whispering sigh of wistful Ardor slowly succored up to the glass and the clean bright, powerful life force of— a little child.
"The young boy sat on a window bench, listless on the warm side of the glass, one leg bent partially beneath him as he gazed out. Shifting somewhat he unfolded his slightly numb leg, allowing both feet to dangle freely. He remained sadly crowded within the white rectangular confines of the untattered window frame, vacantly staring off into the yard beyond ancient panes of glass, bearing forth no remembered regrets.
"At a distance an owl trailed the entity, sensing something amiss."

And well... that is where we have gotten to so far and there is much more to come. It may get another run through of these passages as I've not yet heard back from my editor. We will continue to edit and re-edit until "Andrew" finally becomes the story it could always have been.

Once we finish, I'll repost this blog and update it.

Stop by my web site for information on any of my other writings. at JZMurdock.com.

Cheers! And have a great holiday season!

The Phenomenology of the Writings of JZ Murdock - The Mea Culpa Document of London

In May of 2012 I released, by definition, an epic Horror novel titled, "Death of Heaven". It is a quite unusual book. A bit Horror (okay a lot Horror), a bit Science Fiction, even somewhat social commentary and an argument for rational and critical thought. But mostly, it's for fun. For the roller coaster that is the genre of, Horror.

1st edition cover of the book

I recently found an editor I am working with. Ilene Giambastiani. She is coincidentally wife to a favorite writer and friend of mine, Kurt Giambastiani who has a fun catalog of his own books available that I suggest you check out. He also has a fun and informative blog titled, Seattle Author.

But this blog today isn't about either of them. Nor is it about me, or my own catalog of writings that now include several audiobooks. This is about the book that I am now in the process of re-editing with Ilene's editorial assistance.

Why we are here today is, the process.

There is a story within Death of Heaven titled, "Vaughan's Theorum", about an insane man named Vaughan who is locked up in an asylum in England. The asylum is run by his old, one time best friend, Dr. Truman. It's a long and involved story that leads you through some pretty horrific and hopefully, thrilling moments.

This story started when I was at University. I had an incredible Professor named Perry Mills. He was a fan of Medieval literature. He has always been the type that you love him or hate him. Most of the women I knew loved him, as did most of us as students. He was a "Brain" (capital "B"). You just wanted to bask in his humor and knowledge.

One day for no reason, I wrote this story called, "Mea Culpa". I think he gave me the idea for the Mea Culpa object and document. I was just writing a story about a witch hunter and judge in Medieval times. I did a few rewrites, he read it and commented to me in his office on it. He liked where I was going with it and in the end, he wanted to do a one man stage show of it. But I could never work that out for the stage and I had plenty of actual schoolwork to do. So that never happened.

Eventually I graduated. Years later I took it back out and after having tried to peddle it to magazines (as well as other works, one of which finally sold in 1990 titled, "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear"), I started to build on the concept of that document about a witch hunter. I wrote an intro page for it. I put it away. Years later, I pulled it back out again and decided to expand on that intro part, creating Vaughan and bringing Truman to life.

Yes, then I put that away and pulled it out some years later. I started to write it into a novel based on Stephen King's, "The Stand" along with other short stories I had written. But I never finished it. That happened several times with different concepts, one based on college guys and the IRA chasing them which my short story, "The Harbinger" fit well into. It never got finished either.

Then in Winter of 2011 I got an offer to publish my short stories. I went to work. "Anthology of Evil" was born at about 1,000 pages. Okay, too big. So I cut it in half and created what was at first a second book, but turned into something else. Rather than a collection of short stories, it became a kind of hybrid novel. I created a narrative through it using those left over short stories and gave a copy to a friend. She said, "Too many words." Okay, then. Now what?

I thought about it long and hard. What did she mean? How can I make that useful to me? Then something clicked and I restructured it. Then I gave it to a few people and they liked it a lot. I figured I was onto something and so "Death of Heaven" came to be. Both books were published early 2012 by Zilyon Publishing on the east coast. Cal Miller, awesome publisher.

So here we are today.

Ilene (my editor, remember?) had found that I needed to give the reader a little more toward the end of the Vaughan story because, although I had done this on purpose, I left out two primary scenarios. She argued that the reader would want the catharsis I could supply them with a few additional scenes. By the way, part of the "Mea Culpa" story is in the anthology, the bigger part about Vaughan is in the other book which I'm dealing with here.

So last weekend I completed an additional 7,000 words to the story about Vaughan's demise. That section is done, first draft anyway (third honestly) but it's not fully done yet. And I still need to finish a second, smaller section (it's written but needs editing) That of the discovery by the police of the abducted and tortured body of Dr. Truman. The story will keep the original ending on the beach at the white cliffs of Dover as it's a very well written piece (not my judgement, but others).

I thought it might be interesting to trace the flow of my writing of this new section. That is, to show a first draft. Something my Professor (Perry Mills again) once told us in class should never be done, because it's like showing someone your own "feces" (my word, not his, he was more shocking in class that day to make his point).

Here is the situation at this point in the story. SPOILER ALERT: Things happened after Vaughan escapes from the asylum. He takes his old friend, Dr. Truman hostage and hides him away where he can torture him and take his time to enjoy the man's misery in private. He then leaves Truman alone to go seek the conclusion of something he failed to complete earlier in the story. Truman at this point is sliced up pretty good, immobilized and being kept alive with artificial means, like a saline and drug drip which can be moderated when Vaughan is there to allow for massive amounts of pain, while keeping the man alive.

The scene in question is the one where Truman is discovered by the police in their effort to find him. They have several patrols out looking for him. Some are just looking around on patrol and keeping an eye out for him. But several are specifically sent to locations where it is mostly likely he will be found, places discovered through investigative police work. And there you have it. This scene is about the two man team who actually arrives at the location where Truman is being detained.

So now you know what I'm faced with, and where I'm going. I know I have to describe and build a scene wherein two cops find a torture victim. I have the back story in mind though if you haven't yet read the book, then obviously you don't at this point. But you have enough for this to make sense. It is getting dark to a point that light is starting to fail. Though it's still day time, the shadows are too dark to see in in some cases and so the cops need flashlights ("torches", as this is England), adding to the tension.

This particular team has been sent to an abandoned church in a forest that isn't frequented much by anyone anymore, save perhaps for the odd out back trekker, or local kids. As Vaughan certainly wouldn't want anyone to find his prize, he had to somehow seal the church where Truman is situated on the "alter". That is, what once would have been considered where the alter should be but was arranged now by Vaughan to be the alter.

I know several things at this point. I need to show the reader the cop's concern for the object of their search, for the perpetrator and his whereabouts, and for the safety of any not involved who they might run into. They do not know where Vaughan is, or if he is currently there. They do not know if Truman is alive still, or if he is there. They don't know if there may be other victims. Or if Vaughan himself, is even still alive.

I didn't want this scene to go on very long. I wanted it short. A paragraph, a page maybe, though I know considering how I write, if I'm not careful I could make this go on for page after page. So I wanted to keep it brief. We've already experienced in previous scenes what Truman's situation is and I won't go into that here. Let's not spoil too much.

And so, here I go....what follows is my first draft of this scene:


Sgt. Rand was the first out of the car. He ran up toward the church but was stopped by Constable Jameson who, standing still now, was staring at something. So he stopped and they both stared as their eyes adjusted. The old church beyond was no Church of England, but an old Catholic church long since abandoned.

"Look at that," the Constable said. The Sergeant could see that he was looking down on a field full of dug holes which lay before the entrance of the old, unconsecrated church that they had been sent out to. As of yet no one had found either the criminal or the victim in their search.

'It takes takes a single glance in the wrong direction, and life will never be the same again,' he thought as he thought about the case at hand and looked about the plot of land surrounding the church structure. He was searching for any movement, anything out of place. Sgt. Rand was one of the newly trained of Scotland Yard's "super-recognizers" and he knew he was being underutilized on this task. He had been trained as had a few hundred others, to identify suspects, even months later, from surveillance photos or on the street. But they were stretched to the limit on this one and anyone available was out on the search."

So, here I have established a few things. Time of day, stress, time factors as the officer was running from the car toward their target, not walking, therefore the effort and importance of the case, and at a more than local level, number on this team indicating a level of danger, superiority of individuals employed on this case of even the most routine of tasks like running down leads. I continued....

The Constable walked up to the nearest of the holes and looked in.

"It's recent, dug today maybe, even," he said observing the lack of settling in the soil. "Someone's been here recently." He looked at Sgt. Rand. They both pulled out their handguns and flashlights, as there would be even less light in the church. Together they picked there way through what must be about a hundred dug holes about the size of a man digging a hole down to nearly waste level. Some of he holes they passed seemed to be older than others and they soon realized that whoever had dug them had started near the church entrance and worked his way outward.

They got to the front door. They were old and massive doors. Locked or barricaded, they had to take the time to get tools from the boot of the car and then began working on the doors. It took them about fifteen minutes, but finally, one of the doors gave way and they were able to force it open all the way. It was dimly lit inside, some light filtering in from outside through the stained glass windows, many of which were broken. Probably by local kids on a lark, throwing stones and enjoying the sound of breaking glass and depravity of damaging a one time holy structure.

The Officers pushed their way through the door into the vestibule. It smelled musty, like old linen, mold and rotting wood. The Sergeant nodded to the side door and they split up, both entering the nave, the main hall of he church from obtuse angles on either side of the room. They had to pick their way carefully trying to be quiet, trying to be careful not to trip over something. There were various odds and ends around the floor along with dust and dirt. Something had made a nest here, defecated there, some pews were haphazardly set out of order. Then the Constable's light hit on something up front and he marked the find with a simple, "click" sound from his mouth to draw his superiors attention.

The Sergeant saw the other flashlight aimed ahead and drew his own up to match and enhance what they were seeing. They were about halfway into the nave now and what they saw made the Constable suck in a breath louder than he had intended. Their lights were bathing an odd structure of shiny lines, like thin steel cables in a "cat's cradle" configuration that hovered above a still form on a table of sorts. What would have been the altar in an active and consecrated Church.

"What in the Hell?" The Sergeant said this as he moved forward. When Jameson realize that, he too hesitantly started to move toward the oddity reflecting their lights. When they got to about three meters from the table, they both stopped, neither wanting to advance further because of what they saw before them. It was obviously a corpse, its....


Well that was all I got done, unedited, from this sitting. Stream of consciousness straight forward dumping onto the screen, for what it's worth, for how good or bad it is. It's not after all in the writing, but the rewriting, where this will become fully developed. But I think I have a good start.

I have since updated, edited, reread the original story in my book, "Death of Heaven" and found a few flaws and continuity errors that I will have to fix. After I have it all done, the creative part, I will "massage" the text to flow and all fit together in a cohesive story. I had found a couple of errors in the original story and I liked one or two things I did here in this new section, that I will massage well into the original piece. I will have my editor review it, work things out with her and, we will have a completed manuscript.

Once we complete re-editing the book so that it will be tighter, flow better, and put in some fixes, the second edition will be born. As I said, I hope to re-release it in the next month or two for the holiday season.

Please, wish me luck!
Have a great Holiday season!

Cheers!