Be Wise. Be Brilliant. Be... Aware. Since this is Mother's Day weekend.... "There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep." - Ralph Waldo Emerson Cheers to those who can celebrate a satisfying familial tie to their progenitors! Having children is a privilege, but some treat it only as a burden. We dole out marriage certificates like they are candy; guns like toys; driver's licenses with more care than the most important thing we can ever do in our life, which is to create and raise our children. Parents are just people who have had sex and a baby came from it. And some people have really bizarre beliefs. When they become parents, especially if they are the types that should never become parents, they treat their children through these strange beliefs and pass on their ridiculous thoughts to them. I heard a guy the other day saying how he was on a plane and a kid was making a fuss. The dad got in the kids face and trying to be quiet but exhibiting terrifying passion to the kid, told him to shut up or else. The observer said he wanted to stop the parent, realizing the kid had just lost this last hold on safety and security and was probably traumatized, but instead, he went to the back of the plane to regain his equilibrium. While he was calming himself, he realized something. He realized that if that man had done that to a dog, the guy would have punched him out, but because it was the guy's kid, he didn't lift a finger, or say a word, or even project a look to affect the parent. What does that say about us as people? That we are living in a litigious society or age? That we are cowards? That children truly are still object of property? That these little people, the future leaders and rulers of our world when we're too old to manage, are being raised to be defective, untrusting, insecure, fearful? I think we need a page for people who's mother's are not what they should be. There are many people out there for whom Mother's Day (or Father's Day, or both) is a painful thing. If you have had a bad relationship with either of your parents, well, consider this, have you ever had a bad breakup with someone, your girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with you leaving you raw, scarred, in emotional pain that almost feels like physical pain; maybe a divorce, or even a death? Death is a cop out though. As with a martyr, it leaves you with a different set of dynamics; unless it was a relief that they died. My point is that when you have that breakup, have you ever noticed that you hear and see reminders of what you lost, simply everywhere? You turn on the radio for a distraction and it's all love songs. Every movie you try to watch or that is available to watch seems to be a love story. Or you find a good one, maybe a good thriller or horror film, something that in no way is going to have a love story in it by your reasoning. But then, there in the middle when you least expect it, bang, someone breaks up with someone, or someone is enjoying what brings you the most pain, romance before the down side in the film. Maybe that down side makes you feel better in a kind of negative feedback sort of way. My point is, Mother's day is like that for some people (or again, Father's Day for that matter). Everywhere you turn this past week, has been marketing, marketing, marketing. Mother this, that and the other thing. For those who have no Mother, or whose mother is a horrible person, these people have to suffer through that. It's a tough time for these people, but no one thinks about it. If they think about it, they tend to think openly, or surreptitiously, what a horrible person, they don't love their mother, they have a terrible attitude about their mother, etc. But inside, those people want to have a loving relationship with their parent(s). They just can't, and for most people in that situation, the responsibility is weighted on the parent's side, leaving the child with a painful wound that will never heal until either the parent dies, or that person does. Not only does the child have to go through life with a damaged parental relationship, a seminal touch point for every human being alive that needs to be healthy, they have to suffer hiding their feelings. Or if they open up about them, they only get ugly looks, negative feelings, or bad comments from people who don't, can't, or won't understand or try to understand, putting down people who simply do not deserve it. Most people can't understand what these people have been through. Luckily, these people are in a minority. But they are out there. So, the next time you start going on about your loving relationship with your parents, or their Day and what you are going to do for them, be aware of the people around you and how they react, what their body language is. If they wince, if they suddenly for no apparent reason come off negatively, perhaps in an entirely unrelated way, consider, you may have just unintentionally wounded them. As with Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year's even, being the "silly season" for the higher rates of suicides, Parent's Days, are one of the other, hidden and sad times of the year where we need to be a touch more aware, that not everyone has had, or continues to have, a pleasant live because of a random choice of who their parents are, or were. That all being said, do give the respect and love, attention and care to your parents who deserve it and enjoy the time you have left with them; espeically, if they have been good parents to you. Because the good ones, deserve all you can offer them in thanks and love. Happy Mother's Day! "To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons." - Marilyn French "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." - Theodore Hesburgh "Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist." - Michael Levine

Because this blog article has been so popular this past week leading up to Mother's Day, I wasn't going to do a blog for today, but I will post this as a reprise. All the best to you all and a Happy Mother's day to all Mom's everywhere (who haven't killed us by time we finish with puberty). For those Mom's who have killed us, well, hopefully we deserved it. I know I probably did.

Be Wise. Be Brilliant. Be... Aware.

Since this is Mother's Day....

"There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Cheers to those who can celebrate a satisfying familial tie to their progenitors!

Having children is a privilege, but some treat it only as a burden. We dole out marriage certificates like they are candy; guns like toys; driver's licenses with more care than the most important thing we can ever do in our life, which is to create and raise our children.

Parents are just people who have had sex and a baby came from it. And some people have really bizarre beliefs. When they become parents, especially if they are the types that should never become parents, they treat their children through these strange beliefs and pass on their ridiculous thoughts to them.

I heard a guy the other day saying how he was on a plane and a kid was making a fuss. The dad got in the kids face and trying to be quiet but exhibiting terrifying passion to the kid, told him to shut up or else. The observer said he wanted to stop the parent, realizing the kid had just lost this last hold on safety and security and was probably traumatized, but instead, he went to the back of the plane to regain his equilibrium. While he was calming himself, he realized something. He realized that if that man had done that to a dog, the guy would have punched him out, but because it was the guy's kid, he didn't lift a finger, or say a word, or even project a look to affect the parent. What does that say about us as people? That we are living in a litigious society or age? That we are cowards? That children truly are still object of property? That these little people, the future leaders and rulers of our world when we're too old to manage, are being raised to be defective, untrusting, insecure, fearful?

I think we need a page for people who's mother's are not what they should be. There are many people out there for whom Mother's Day (or Father's Day, or both) is a painful thing. If you have had a bad relationship with either of your parents, well, consider this, have you ever had a bad breakup with someone, your girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with you leaving you raw, scarred, in emotional pain that almost feels like physical pain; maybe a divorce, or even a death? Death is a cop out though. As with a martyr, it leaves you with a different set of dynamics; unless it was a relief that they died.

My point is that when you have that breakup, have you ever noticed that you hear and see reminders of what you lost, simply everywhere? You turn on the radio for a distraction and it's all love songs. Every movie you try to watch or that is available to watch seems to be a love story. Or you find a good one, maybe a good thriller or horror film, something that in no way is going to have a love story in it by your reasoning. But then, there in the middle when you least expect it, bang, someone breaks up with someone, or someone is enjoying what brings you the most pain, romance before the down side in the film. Maybe that down side makes you feel better in a kind of negative feedback sort of way.

My point is, Mother's day is like that for some people (or again, Father's Day for that matter). Everywhere you turn this past week, has been marketing, marketing, marketing. Mother this, that and the other thing. For those who have no Mother, or whose mother is a horrible person, these people have to suffer through that. It's a tough time for these people, but no one thinks about it. If they think about it, they tend to think openly, or surreptitiously, what a horrible person, they don't love their mother, they have a terrible attitude about their mother, etc.

But inside, those people want to have a loving relationship with their parent(s). They just can't, and for most people in that situation, the responsibility is weighted on the parent's side, leaving the child with a painful wound that will never heal until either the parent dies, or that person does. Not only does the child have to go through life with a damaged parental relationship, a seminal touch point for every human being alive that needs to be healthy, they have to suffer hiding their feelings. Or if they open up about them, they only get ugly looks, negative feelings, or bad comments from people who don't, can't, or won't understand or try to understand, putting down people who simply do not deserve it.

Most people can't understand what these people have been through. Luckily, these people are in a minority. But they are out there.

So, the next time you start going on about your loving relationship with your parents, or their Day and what you are going to do for them, be aware of the people around you and how they react, what their body language is. If they wince, if they suddenly for no apparent reason come off negatively, perhaps in an entirely unrelated way, consider, you may have just unintentionally wounded them.

As with Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year's even, being the "silly season" for the higher rates of suicides, Parent's Days, are one of the other, hidden and sad times of the year where we need to be a touch more aware, that not everyone has had, or continues to have, a pleasant live because of a random choice of who their parents are, or were.

That all being said, do give the respect and love, attention and care to your parents who deserve it and enjoy the time you have left with them; espeically, if they have been good parents to you. Because the good ones, deserve all you can offer them in thanks and love.

Happy Mother's Day!

"To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons." - Marilyn French

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." - Theodore Hesburgh

"Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist." - Michael Levine

Why do we need big Sci Fi?

Some might label my new book Death of Heaven, as a massive big Horror / Sci Fi novel, but I suppose technology doesn't play that big a role in it; not a lot of science is involved, really. Though it does span the entire history of the Earth and goes far into deep space. So that makes it more speculative fiction, but it does kind of walk the line. It does however step outside of our comfortable understanding of history both natural and social and redefine the entire history of our world, how we understand who we are and where we came from.

One of the most important things that the old Sci Fi stories did for me as a youth, was to open my mind to new ways of thinking. They redefined how I viewed the universe. As examples of those books I read, see the Foundation books, the Dune series of books, even Ender's Game, and Gibson's books.

The Sci Fi of the early years that I grew up with from the 50s and 60s (I started reading them in the mid 1960s but I read back to the 1920s), were very tech savvy and space heavy. Well, we're there now. So why would it now hold the same fascination for us as it did then? What has become our next fascination, as that would be our new "Sci Fi"?

Possibly, "magic"? Defining "magic" as a technology so far ahead of us that we can't see it's source or mechanism, we do see a big upsurge in fantasy tales recently which current films of the superhero stories certainly fall under. I'd even include in those, Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter franchise of films and books. Though those do fall more under entertainment than Science Fiction, they do something that Star Trek did for us in the 60s, they can examine things outside of our daily lives, because obviously those people on the screen cannot be us. For instance, Star Trek could point out race issues, something very difficult to talk about back then, by showing us how foolish aliens acted over their race issues.

We want total fascination. Immersion. Escapism, surely. But also to look forward as a hope to something better, some better possible future, perhaps one that we will one day see. Tech just isn't so fascinating for us as it once was, as we're all more educated now and it's really just every day life for us. We basically have Star Trek communicators (cell phones). We're not beaming around... yet. But we are very close to having a true "tricorder", a device with multiple sensors and a conglomerate readout.

I actually have a "Tricorder" app on my phone utilizing the capabilities of my Droid and it's really pretty cool for what it can do; certainly from the perspective of someone who was once fascinated by the original Star Trek TV show when that was all we had.

So, why should it still be as fascinating as it once was? We have more recently seen the Steampunk genre on the scene, a hybrid of tech and old societal nuances which I find interesting to some degree and rather charming. So much so actually, that I included a pair of demon hunting Steampunk subculture women in my screenplay, "HearthTales" (currently out on MovieBytes.com and Inktip.com). They are Steampunk for a very good reason in the story and not just for fake, aesthetic purposes.

All that being said, we do still need Sci Fi and Spec. Fiction, as much now as ever. We're just not as fascinated by it all because of having it all around us, of being immersed in it on a daily basis. It has indeed made us a bit jaded and inured to it. But also through all of my life, and I've seen this happen in my own interests: there seems to be a trending cycle, both personal and societal of going from Sci Fi, to Fantasy, to Science, and then it starts all over. It could be that we're just in the non Sci Fi part of that cycle right now. Not to mention Science now a days has replaced Sci Fi in many cases as it is simply reality for us in many ways and no longer Fantasy or Fiction. Turn on the Science channel, and you are watching "Sci Fi", but for real and not for Fiction.

Sci Fi and Speculative Fiction allow us to step outside of ourselves and view the world around us and where we are heading in a way that is far less threatening, as well as entertaining, if it is done well. It is almost imperative that we do this now in a world that is changing faster than we can keep up with. One of the most powerful tools we have in life is awareness, anticipating what is coming and being prepared for it. Politics doesn't do this for us, it seems to fail time after time in this arena. And so we have to turn to the Arts, specifically Films and books and now, even computer games. Games which even become books and films now.

Paramount in this kind of consideration should always be History. But along with that also, Science and Speculative or Science Fiction.

In the end I would say that yes, big Sci Fi is necessary for us now a days. The bigger the better. And as much as ever if not more. It's just that it only seems less necessary than in previous times.

But don't let that fool you.

Death of Heaven on Indies Unlimited Freebie Friday Listing TODAY!

Awesome! Death of Heaven has been selected for Indies Unlimited Freebie Friday Frenzy Listing!

Death of Heaven, my latest Horror novel of Epic Speculative Fiction proportions (hmmm... yes, cross pollinating here), has been selected by the kind folks at Indies Unlimited to be listed on their beloved Freebie Friday Frenzy listing.

One of Marvin Hayes' great graphics of "Blue" in Death of Heaven

So yes, we made it on Indies Unlimited Freebie Friday Frenzy (you see, Death of Heaven is free today (and I figured what the heck, also through the weekend), so get your copy, ASAP!). Or not....

Really, now that I think about it... oh wait, it's now also on Amazon.com Kindle... and if you prefer the hard copy version, it will be out in paper format soon, too!

Anyway!

Best not to try and read this book. I don't know anyone who could handle it without therapy afterward (if not during) and believe me, no one will pay for it, for you, because they will be like, "So you read Death of Heaven? What, are you an idiot? So, you jump off a bridge and what? You expect no pain, or death? You expect US to pay for it? Look, you got what you deserve... stupid."

So my advice? Run away, run away now!

And, don't stop!

Death of Heaven is finally out and free through the weekend!

My new book of Horror and Dispair, Death of Heaven, is now available for free through Sunday, May 13th, on Smashwords in various formats.

It will be out soon after on Amazon and in paperback. Let me warn you, this is not your Daddy's Horror novel and there is something to offend just about everyone, but there is a reason for everything in there. You can visit the book's web site at DeathOfHeaven.com to see more information and more graphics by our brilliant cover artist, Marvin Hayes.

The History of this unique Universe is further explained in the novella "Andrew" available in "Anthology of Evil".

Draft of Death of Heaven back cover

Two brothers-in-arms since childhood, in learning that the answer to literally everything is what nightmares are made of, will foremost along with all of Humanity experience, the Death of Heaven.

This novel Horror novel questions everything and resets it in a completely different light. For more, see the website DeathOfHeaven.com.

This was a massive conceptual effort. I do hope you like it.

Why do 1,209,600 seconds make such a difference in life decisions?

What is it about 1,209,600 seconds that seems to make such a difference for me?

I was just thinking about major life decisions I have made in my past and it seems that it's about that many seconds, or if you prefer, 203,493 minutes, or 3,391 hours, or 14 days, or two weeks, or a fortnight as they used to say, seem to make all the difference in the world to me in making major life decisions.

Before I went into the military, I spent two weeks thinking about it. I researched the world's situation. What was going on in the world? Where might I end up? If I joined the military, the Air Force as it turned out, what would happen to me? I read newspapers, listened to the news, talked to people. I "educated" myself about what I was about to get myself into.

Then, before I started college I also spent two weeks thinking about it. What's there to think about? I considered that before college, I was to some degree both knowledgeable and ignorant. After I finished college, I would then be some larger degree of both knowledgeable and ignorant. More ignorant? After all that learning? Wouldn't I be less ignorant? Actually, no. Because the more you learn, the more you learn how much you do not know, and so by increasing your degree of "smarts", you are also increasing your known degree of ignorance.

And that actually in part, was what I spent two weeks thinking about.

So, did I really want that increased knowledge and hopefully, wisdom (experience plus knowledge)? I was blissfully ignorant before college. I knew that. But once I got a degree I would have increased my knowledge of the world, History and the universe and I would then know more about what was good and what was evil, if you will. Anyway, the Yin and Yang of the Universe, overall more knowledge of Life. I knew I would increase the quality of my life in learning more about the Arts and Sciences, but I also knew I was be more aware of the evils in the world, possibly (probably) many things I should know about, but maybe do not want to.


And so, I "educated" myself about getting an education. Along with great knowledge, can come great heartache, great responsibility. Could I handle the painful side of acquiring a university degree as well as the fun and happy side? I really wasn't so sure at first.

But in the end, I decided that the military was my best option at that time. After I got out I decided that going to college was also my best option, at that time. I went for a two year degree and got it. Then, considering I had hated school in my K-12 years and although I swore when I graduated High School that I would never step foot back in school ever again, I had to decide if I wanted to continue on.

I liked the idea of a University over that of a college, because you are taught by Professors who have to have a Doctorate. You are not taught by teachers with only a Masters degree. Don't get me wrong, a Masters degree is a better than just a B.A. degree, but I have always tried to get the best instructors and teachers I could find.

As it turned out, in some ways the Military wasn't the best choice for me, for my personality, as it isn't for a lot of people, I'm sure. But I made it through and it woke me up to life (like getting a "wood shampoo", hit in the head with a wood bat, repeatedly), and I also got my college education paid in full. So even though I pretty much hated Military life, I loved going to college and really loved university life. I liked the people, the learning, the stretching of your mind and your limits, much in how I did in the Military. The Military taught me that I could do anything. College taught me things I couldn't have learned if I hadn't first had that basic understanding that I could do it, I could achieve seemingly impossible goals. Then the University tightly packed massively more amounts of information in my head.

At my two year college, my Philosophy teacher (a guy with a Master's degree who was working on his doctorate while he taught us), said that if we decided to go to a University and get a four year degree after we get our two year A.A. degree, that it would seem at first a shock and impossible. It would be painful, but he believed, he told us, that we could, all in his class there before him on that day, "rise to the occasion when necessary.

In fact he said that for the most part, people do tend to rise to the occasion", as we tend to do in life when are called upon. But we tend to spend a lot of time worrying about how we won't rise up and so frequently we won't end up in those challenging situations. Fear can drive us sometimes not to try. Which many times, is simply too bad for us. Because then we never get a chance to experience just how much we can achieve when we have to.

And to be sure, on my first day of my University life, at 28, my first Professor ever told us to read forty pages out of the text book for tomorrow's lecture. I was a little stunned but I thought, as did the others I spoke to about it after class, that we would just somehow, get it done. Now, many of us were used to showing up the first day of school (for all our lives up till then) only to do nothing until the next day, or in some schools, the next week. But this was a University. Time was short between classes so we all headed to our next class with only a little trepidation.

But, my next Professor said the same exact thing at end of class. I couldn't believe it, what was the deal with forty pages, again, and by next class time. By end of school day, I ended up with over one hundred pages total that I had to read before the next class. Needless to say, I was in shock. By end of day, my girlfriend and some of our new (and old) friends were also in shock.

But I survived. And so did they and eventually, two years later, we were all graduating and considering, should we go for a Master's degree? Which was another two years of classes. Having seen what my Master's Teaching Assistants (TAs) were being put through, I decided I wanted some time off and so, I now only have a Bachelors of Arts and Letters from Western Washington University.

Still, it all comes back around to those nearly a million and a quarter seconds that I had to take to make up my mind about making a major life change; whether or not to go into the Service, and then whether to go to college, or not. Those are only two examples in my life of the two week period of education and rumination and there have been others. But for some reason two weeks seems to be my cutting off point.

So whenever I do have the luxury of time, I try to use that two week period to learn about the decision I'm about to make, and the really think about it, over and over. Not to stress out about it, not at all, but to academically, emotionally, even spiritually, consider all the obvious and newly learned about elements, and then in the end, feel that I can effectively and hopefully accurately, make a good, solid, informed, decision.

But why two weeks?

Considering switching careers and becoming a Fiction Writer?

Three years ago next month I decided to switch careers and finally, after many fitful starts and stops over the years, to get something going with my writings. I'm currently still in IT in the Health Insurance industry. That's not been doing that great or being as stable as it once was. There's been many layoffs over the past years and I had to face facts that it was entirely possible I could be out of a job at some point. But I've been one of the lucky ones who has retained my position and I'm still there. It has paid the bills, raised the kids and gotten them out the door to adulthood. So now I'm living alone, writing, and taking it as a full time job, as well as maintaining my full time day job.

Since I started three years ago, I have begun a Blog with now over 1,000 articles on it and I'm not ever sure how many readers there are with all the feeds going on. Originally I was doing two blogs a day and now I'm down to once a week, simply due to lack of time. I joined Twitter where I now have over 13,000 followers at the time of this writing. As of recently, I have a several websites including JZMurdock.com, and two for my books, AnthologyofEvil.com, and DeathOfHeaven.com.

And please feel free to drop by my new interview with Indies Unlimited, live as of yesterday.

Because of my screenplays that I have online on MovieBytes.com, I was asked to adapt the first book of a paranormal romance book series. That began several professional relationships, got two of my short stories into two separate horror anthologies (both for charity), I got my first short story on Amazon (Simon's Beautiful Thought, which has a very nice review on it there now), my first Horror book, Anthology  of Evil is now on Amazon and Smashwords as both ebook and paper versions; and my first Horror Sci Fi book, Death Of Heaven about to go up on those sites.

I completed a horror comedy screenplay "HearthTales", which I have been told, could easily go into a franchise film series just from the two female Steampunk demon hunter characters alone (named, Gray and Lover). To get an idea of their dynamic and how well this worked, see "Lost Girl" the TV series. They are still very different characters than the TV show, but you'll get the idea; and I created them before that show was ever on the air. I have also worked with a mentor/producer on a Frank Capra type, small town America screenplay and well, I have many more concepts to write in various formats than I have time for. Basically one of the things keeping me from being more productive is my day job.

I still have to write around that job and it's a lot of work, but as my son pointed out when I got burned out a while back, I have really accomplished quite a bit since I start all this. As he put it, I kept thinking I was on the bottom rung in making this all happen, when in reality, I was several rungs up already, and that was a year ago.

Had I waited till now to get all this going, look at how much I would have to achieve to catch up. That just screams that if you want to make changes, Now, is the time. My goal and dream at this point is to quit my day job and I have a series of reasonable financial goals to achieve leading up to that point, and after. I figured that since any new business makes it or fails in 5-7 years, I am doing pretty well over all, even though at times it all seems rather hopeless. But really, that has a lot to do with keeping one's energy up and available. And using it economically. It's a marathon after all, not a sprint.

I started all this with the concept of working two full time jobs for a while, set fully in the front of my mind. After all, if you play with this as a hobby, you are probably wasting your time. Though not necessarily. I'll grant you, there are "accidental" over-night successes, but really, they are very few and very far between when you consider the number of writers trying in that way, and failing. If you are serious, you really do have to put in the sweat labor.

I also decided in the beginning that I wouldn't turn down any job offered and there were a few I would normally have turned down, but I didn't. Most of what I have achieved up to this point wouldn't actually have happened, had I not given myself those two initial challenges; to write as a full time job and to accept any offer if it was reasonable and I could fit it in. All, so that I would make more connections, acquire more finished works in my catalog, and learn, learn, learn.

So, for any of you who are trying to do this, all I can say is:

Cheers!
And never say die!

My Indies Unlimited Interview goes online today at 11AM Pacific

FYI, this is today in 10 minutes, my interview with Indies Unlimited. Thought I'd mention it, because they asked me to, but also so people will know it's a, well, an interview and a potential source for writers from Indies Unlimited.
Do note that there will be nothing on the page until after 11AM today Pacific time.
As an added benefit my book will also be featured in the Indies Unlimited Store.
Please stop by. I hope to "see" you there!