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)

A Creative Mind and Life

I have noticed something of late and I wanted to share that. Full disclosure, I had ADHD as a kid. ADD as an adult. I'm getting older, I turn sixty-four near the end of August. I was lucky. As a kid, I had lots of activities that taught me control and discipline.

Myself as a kid

It was torture to master. Years of practice. Years of pain and frustration. Years of delayed gratification. We all need some of that, some of us far more than others. Structure to be unstructured. Discipline to be undisciplined when the right times come upon us.

I noticed as I got older that I had better control over things. Far better than many. Not as much as some, to be sure. I had built good habits growing up. Or they had been built into me. Probably out of necessity so as not to kill me as an offspring.

It was a struggle to figure out, to learn, but in the end, I did figure it out. I found I had a certain way of thinking and that it was more productive to work with what I had rather than to work against it. As we are typically taught in school through K-12.

Once I realized that my life got easier. I also realized I had to hide it. To be perceived as the other kids. To fit in while not fitting on. So I had to work around things, had to work harder and faster than others. Reminds me of that comment on Ginger Rogers doing what Fred Astaire did, only backward, and faster. I'm not claiming to know the female experience in life as I'm male, but intellectually, I do get it.

I learned to make notes for myself. I learned to take responsibility. To not be a victim to my circumstances but to find a way to succeed despite them. I learned that if I had to do something I had to see it got done to completion and if that required extraordinary means, so be it. If I had to walk the extra mile from others, no one cared, as long as I got my responsibilities cared for.

I realized that I was very good at creating in going forward, not so much remembering and regurgitating. I was exceptional in synthesis, in synthesizing things. In taking from one concept and adapting it to many others.

I was very good at taking something and modifying it, making it far better. Eventually creating from scratch myself and then modifying that over time. As they say in the writing field, writing is rewriting. So it is in other fields. To create, you make something and modify it, over and over to perfection. To YOUR perfection.

As you modify you learn. When humans do anything, in doing it over and over they find the flaws and find the enhancements needed. Those who sse that, who apply that, find success. The other end of that is the business side of creativity which is hard for most artists and why so many fail.

My grandmother told me repeatedly, if you start a book, always finish it. I can today count on one or two hands, all the books I've started in my life and not finished. Probably on one hand.

Another side of this is perseverance. Those who give up fail, by definition. Don't be defined by your failure. As Thomas A. Edison said: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I've heard so many who have "made it" who said it was luck. You do have to, as they used to say, "take a licking and keep on ticking." Persevere.

Being in the right place at the right time, making that happen, so that luck could happen to them. So it is luck, but it's also setting yourself up for luck to happen, rather than failure. They've also said that in their never giving up, while their friends had, who started when they did, some who were even better then they were at whatever their endeavors were, while they made it, the others didn't. Because they quit or couldn't take rejection after rejection.

A famous author once said about rejection in relation to writers, that you should collect your rejections as a positive thing. As a collection. Put them on your office wall where you see them every day. Collect more. Fill the wall. Fill another wall. Fill all your office walls. Then start to fill another wall in another room.

By the time you fill your wall, or your office, or another room, or your entire home, you will have a sale and then another. You have to acclimate yourself to so-called, failures. Because each failure is a success in learning, in moving past that failure to the next and so eventually to the success you want. Or another success you never saw coming. And be sure to see that when it arrives.

Opportunity knocks only once, they say. Be sure to answer when it knocks. Truth is, opportunity knocks in our lives many times. But we often never ever hear the knock because we're looking for a knock at another door. Or listening for a knock when it is a doorbell or a whistle from outside our windows.

My High School Graduation Photo

My sister suggested when I entered high school (and that was the year after she had graduated so we missed one another), that I should write notes and put them in my jeans pocket, the pocket with my keys in them. She said it had worked for her. And I knew she was smart. After some months I found that some days, I would have a pocket full of small pieces of paper with notes on them.

When I was leaving school at the end of the day I would reach for my keys, in 12th grade, it was my car keys to drive home (even better) and I would feel the notes, read them, refresh my memory on what was to come.

Or if it was for the next day, leave it in my pocket for tomorrow morning to refresh again my memory and then try to remember to, remember. Or to keep checking my pocket throughout the day. It got to be a habit as the day went on to just touch my pocket, to feel if there were notes in there. I would remember (maybe) what the note(s) said (which actually helped my memory) or when I couldn't remember, pull them out and review them. Which also helped my memory.

My confidence grew. I made it a point to show up for things on time or a few minutes early. I came to be known as punctual. Also, dependable. A teacher pointed out one day the difference between most kids who sit in the front or back of a class.

I started putting myself on the front line, in the front row. I found I could pay more attention, get more involved. I became more interested. I had always felt I didn't want to engage (a holdover I think from my lower grade school experiences. I found ways to trick myself to, or to force myself, putting myself into positions where I had to learn or to become involved. At first, I hated it. But I persevered and eventually got to relish the interactions.

All this led to a change in how I was perceived by others. For two reasons. My strong desire to be trusted and dependable, and those pocket notes. For a while later on, it became my watch with an alarm. But there were times, without a supporting pocket note, that the alarm would go off and I would have absolutely no idea why. Nowadays, of course, I have my smartphone and calendar app along with other apps for support.

My reason for bringing this all up though really has to do with creativity. Something I studied at university. My major being psychology, one of my classes actually was titled, Creativity. And it wasn't an easy class. I quickly realized that shot name classes were hard and classes with longer names were easier.

I've noticed something for some time now about my creative pursuits. I'm very good at them. I can produce a lot, much if not most being of very high quality. But not always. And, why not?

What I have noticed first, is a change in myself as I age. When I was younger, I had massive amounts of energy. In fact, I seldom got a full night's sleep in high school. I would lie awake most of the night until four or five in the morning. Then fall asleep and wake exhausted to my alarm clock.

I had a night job at a drive-in theater snack bar. I became the snack-bar manager for the last couple of years there. I went to school during the day, then to work in the evening, then home and bed. I learned to get my homework done at school during the day.

Sometimes working in one class on homework for another class. Teachers weren't stupid and they'd rail against kids doing that. So you had to be smart about it. And you still had to pay attention to the class you were in. But I seemed to be good at multitasking and it kept my mind from wandering (ADD again).

But at night, I was usually running at a high rate of speed by the time my head I hit the pillow.

Still, I had the energy to spare when I was young. In fact, being ADHD/ADD I had far too much energy most of the time. I just had to learn to use that to my advantage and not disadvantage.

What I've noticed as I've aged though is that decrease in energy. Obviously. I'm getting older. Regular workouts become ever more important as we age. It's not just that I could be in better shape though.

There is another and well-known component involved. I asked my doctor at a checkup some years ago about changes I'd noticed. I seemed to feel things more deeply. Emotionally. I'm more affected by things than I ever used to be. He said that was really quite normal (normal, there's a concept).

Obviously, as you age you gain experience and so you feel things more deeply, he said.

OK, that made sense. Then I noticed that my creativity seemed to become more problematic. That is, I've always been able to produce quality on demand. I still can, to be sure. Years as a technical writer do that, just as Isaac Asimov had claimed in his first autobiography, In Memory, Yet Green. A book that affected me deeply when it came on the market years ago. But for pure creativity and comfort, I've noticed a change.

Example. in 2016 I sold my house of sixteen years and moved to a rental in another town, Bremerton, WA. I went where the best deal possible was at the time. I had to. I wasn't rich and I was going to retire and live off of my retirement at too young of an age. Because I could.

I was retiring, young at sixty-one I was tired of on call and IT work and wanted to finally take the time and effort (and could) to explore my creative pursuits. Writing fiction, screenplay, become proficient in film production, perhaps shoot my own films from my own writings. And so I am now doing all this and making progress.

I expected to live there a year or two and look around, find where I really want to live after having sold the house, and then move to a more long term situation. I was also retiring from twenty years in IT. Which I did. One month after moving.

Now, if you talk to a realtor, they will tell you that buying (or selling) a house is like dealing with the death of a loved one over the course of that year. There is actually a numeric scale of how much stress you should have in a year that gives you a kind of guide by which to know if you are heading into taking on too much, if not headed into more serious issues.

Friends told me when I retired that it takes people anywhere from six months to two years to recover from retiring. It is a massive changed after all and I had not only sold a house I had moved into with my wife and children, but was now a house I was to move out from without that wife and kids now full grown. And I was retiring. All that in one year was a lot. Apparently.

Yet, I figured, "I'm tough, I can handle it." Maybe a month or two to reorient and I should be good. Several months of partying and doing whatever I wanted and having drinks nearly every day if not more, one day I realized that I wasn't slowing down. It was over six months later that I realized, I was finally getting over that previous summer's house sale and move.

Two years now after selling my house and moving, I moved again.

In the interim, I had to deal with family member situations, my dog of fifteen years dying and within a month, my mother dying. There was more family drama overall going on than I want to go into here but suffice it to say, it took a lot out of me. Now that I look back I think over this last move, even though it was only from one rental house to another and only a mile away at that, it really was more intense and compromising than the move two years previous.

Once again I am trying to get back onto my creative feet and needless to say, it's been difficult. Though to be fair now, there were issues with this move too. I had volunteered to help refurbish the new rental house so I could move in earlier without paying rent for the partial first month.

The guy moving out had three large dogs, hadn't paid rent in several months and seldom on time when he did and he took questionable care of the house and yard. It was a mess. We had to rip out all the wall to wall carpet and replace them and paint the entire inside as well as clean and remove things left by the previous renter. Unused to 10-12 hour days of physical labor and during some very hot summer days, I was pretty beat when finally I moved in.

Because the carpets were put in a week after I moved in all my things were downstairs except for a bed we had to move to have the carpets installed. So I'd been delayed in getting all fully "moved in". It took a while to get my writing desk in place or a working...workspace.

It was a little frustrating. My youngest child (mid-20s) was having problems finding a place and so had moved into the previous house and about a week into the new house before moving to a new location, and suffered the interim condition of the house along with me.

My real point in bringing this all up is... I find when I go through mental duress, and working for a month requiring oneself to ignore the pain and exhaustion of remodeling in sweltering heat at my age, is a mental thing too. I find that it compromises my creative endeavors.

I find I need a period of decompression, if you will. Of relaxation and perhaps, of healing. I can fight it, or I can give it its space, which I did as I happened to still to have that luxury. Lucky me, to be sure.

I have struggled to do what creative things I could. My hardest work is writing. Alone, blindly and boldly creating, if you will. I've done some events and other physical things where I could do something creative. I've worked on and been in a few local small indie horror film projects for instance. Attended some Cons. But my goal has been writing, creating, and film production as in filming and editing my own works.

Here's my mental image of what I'm dealing with.

It's like my mind is a vast and finite cacophony of (as in a murder of crows) eggshells, all arranged in a massive solid structure. Each next to and stacked upon another. When I go through these periods of, shall we say, challenge? Some of these get crushed. So I need time once the difficulties are over, for these things to heal back up. Or be replaced. Whatever works.

If the structure is somewhat crushed I cannot traverse the creative routes. Like trying to wind through a maze in a forest, where there is too much overgrowth and too many downed trees. IF however, I take the time to clean up that part of it, to allow things to heal and grow back, then I'm back to normal and not untypically, even better.

It's just that I find now that it is easier for this structure to get crushed than ever before. Though now that I think about it, there were times in mid-life when I had trouble being creative and I gave that up to laziness. When in hindsight I can now see it was daily stress and just many of life's compromises.

It is frustrating now though because I now have what I've worked toward for some years and I'm unable to be that creative or productive. Still again, my point in bringing this all up is that I know it will pass and I only have to work with myself in order to get back on track and... I will.

I have for one, made an appointment for the first time with a top rated consultant on a screenplay of mine that has been consistently getting high reviews (THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD). I have high hopes for it, as do others. But also I need to be writing every day for a full day at a time and I'm not. Still again, I know it will come... and eventually, I'll get to where I'm headed.

Because it's all a matter of time and allowing myself to take the time I need, to properly heal up and then step bravely into a new stage of my life.

But for now, I feel kind of broken.

Like my fragile list of daily habits has been broken. Floating, drifting, rudderless. I just need to rebuild my list with a new set of habits. Or the same exact list as I had before, which can be frustrating. When you get used to that happening in your life, that urge to rebuild that which shouldn't have been broken becomes more challenging. First world problems, I know.

Taking the time to live the new life, to get used to it, to assimilate it, the list will come, eventually. If I need it faster, then I need to do it intellectually, pedantically. to know that the rest of me will eventually catch up, organically.

It is in not understanding that, where some people go wrong. They become irate, unsociable, irrational. When all you need to do is relax, be patient, and work towards a positive outcome. As best and quickly as you can. No stress, just effort.

No. It's not all wonderful. But it doesn't have to be a big difficult life event either.

You just have to let yourself... Live.

I wrote the above during the third quarter of 2018.

At this point so much has happened. I have produced my first short horror film. I'm about to start shooting my second, more than twice the length of that first eight minutes short. I'm now working with a Hollywood producer on my screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard. This week I'm shooting an interview of me to hopefully be included in a horror documentary from the UK on horror writers and filmmakers. And I now qualify ss both.

It took me a while but I'm finally in a good place to explore the creativity I had always wanted to explore over most of my life. Those skills and things I've gone through over a lifetime have paid off and I'm seeing hope for a new career. I've met many new and interesting people. I see a path up now.

It hasn't been easy, it hasn't been quick. Not by a long shot. But those who persevere, who set themselves up to be in those places where luck CAN happen for them and others they have surrounded themselves with, who hone their skills and creativity, who take the time to make themselves indispensable to others who can help them...they are the ones who have a chance.

They are the ones who made their opportunities. And when that knock comes, will hear it. Even if it is a whistle.

And I'm just getting started...

Is deluding yourself good?

Humans are very good at two things. Delusion and repetition. We tend to reproduce what we have done in the past, we have a tendency to repeat our mistakes, for instance. We don't like to admit we have screwed up, we don't like seeing what we don't want to acknowledge as real, and so we tend to delude ourselves about reality. These are both, bad things and they take control away from ourselves. We freely give up control just to avoid feeling bad. But we can use that, use what is bad, for our benefit, too.

So how do we do that? How do we control ourselves in areas where we seem to freely give up control?

It's been said that focusing is the best way to achieve a goal. Focusing and sticking with it. Exclude all else and only see one thing, your goal, however you need to do it. Trick yourself if need be. Alter your perception for what you want to focus on. In a word, delude yourself, but consciously and with purpose and intent, not just to avoid, embrace.

So instead, delude yourself and become repetitive.

Use your "God given abilities" to be somewhat OCD. You see, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, can be a good thing. Unless you actually have OCD of course, in which case you have to be very careful. OCD is not a great thing to have by a long shot. But I believe we are all susceptible to it. So, why not make use of it? To go with nature is the best way, after all, to do things.

For instance, if you want to lose weight, you of course need to adjust your diet, but you can do that and you will continue to gain or at least, to not lose weight. So you need exercise. Which it seems is most people's problem. No matter what they try they tend to not do enough proper exercise.

So, convince yourself that your one and only problem in losing weight is that you have to exercise. Now, go with that. Exercising could solve all your problems. Delude yourself, if need be. Tell yourself that you have nothing to worry about but getting in your daily exercise. That once you get a regular habit of exercising going, your money, your life and your health problems if any, will go away.

It doesn't matter that it's not true, it only matters that you convince yourself that it is. Now, what about after you lose the weight, after you get where you want to be and the only thing it has solved is, your weight?

Well honestly, you KNEW you were doing this to delude yourself, but now that you have lost the weight, you can delude yourself about your next step. Just remember and be aware that YOU have to control your delusions. You are for all intents and purposes, tricking yourself into doing what you want to do, anyway.

As for the repetition part, you have to start and repeat your exercises. You have to make it a bit of an obsession. Not that you have to do it every minute of the waking day, but you have to design a workout routine and stick to it, obsessively almost 

You should work out the same hours each day, but then doing the same exercises wears off after a while, doesn't it, and you need to change it up. Because your body is built to adapt. So even though you obsessively do the routine at the same hour each day, if and when possible, you need to alter that. So it's okay, to say, not exercise at 4 PM but instead go to a movie, as long as you exercise enough, before or after. But you have to exercise, daily.

See the danger in obsession is specificity. You have to be aware of that, of what the bigger picture is.

Get it? As I said, once you get there, then you can move on to your next issue. Just maintain, continue with your exercising. Once you achieve your desired weight, you can cut back as you don't have to work out so hard to maintain as to lose.

But don't think that your bad habits, capabilities are just simply, bad for you. Use what you have, good and bad, so that in the end, YOU achieve what YOU want to achieve.