Jim Murdoch's Comments

Attention Writers! by Rhetta A.

Apr 12, 2008 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 8

Jim Murdoch May 8, 2008, 8:55am EDT

I have a book listed on Amazon but you can only actually buy it through the UK site. Here's the link either way: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Truth-Jim-Murdoch/dp/0955063612/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210251055&sr=8-1

Tangle Me in Wind (haiku with photos) by Kate Keeley

Mar 5, 2008 | rating: 10 | comments: 48

Jim Murdoch Mar 5, 2008, 8:51pm EST

It's more of a modern take of the haiga isn't it? And I think, that being the case, your poem would be more powerful if reformatted. Forcing it into a 5-7-5 format isn't doing the piece justice.

Tangle me in wind
Song whispered
Grass flutes playing

Me
Eternity

Just a suggestion, mind. If you've never looked into haiga here's a decent enough place to start: http://raysweb.net/haiga/index.html

IS IT ALWAYS WRONG TO TELL A LIE???...... by ''The One & Only BERF" ..

Jan 17, 2008 | comments: 50

Jim Murdoch Jan 17, 2008, 8:50am EST

I think it's more complicated than that. Is the woman who asks her husband if her bum looks big in this looking for the truth? She is probably acutely aware exactly how big her bum in that dress, out of that dress and in half-a-dozen different dresses. She wants her husband to lie to her because she has already lied to herself. We live in a society built on lies. We expect politicians to lies, we expect statisticians to manipulate the figures to support whatever "truth" they need to. It's easy to moralise about it but I was watching a programme on TV the other day that showed that babies as young as three months "lied" to their parents to get what they wanted; who taught them to do that?

I run a blog called The Truth About Lies, the tag line of which goes, "And the truth about lies is we can't live without them. Not even the white ones." It's a literary blog and, of course, all fiction is a form of lie. The thing is, within these lies, people find great "truths" for want of a better word; lies can give our lives meaning.

Even apart from that language is a very poor conduit for truth. I can say here and now, never having met you, that I love you and that is a true statement. You have the problem of working out what I mean by that and why it's true. It's true because I'm referring to agape love, principled love. I knew that but did you?

Just to take that one word and consider what it has to do might clarify how hard it is to precisely communicate the truth: I have to love my wife, my daughter, by siblings, parents, cat, country, fellow man and strawberry yoghurt all with that one wee word, and every kind of love is different. Truth is an abstract notion. Most of us learn to live with something approximating the truth. Thankfully none of us have to live in a world where we have to live with the whole truth.

This is why I write (All writers-PLEASE READ THIS- as it is very important) by Roger Kiser

Jan 13, 2008 | rating: 10 | comments: 24

Jim Murdoch Jan 13, 2008, 11:58am EST

Yes, it's so easy to get disillusioned. Like you, I try never to forget the times like that. We have a very powerful tool at our disposal - it's easy to forget.

I gave a collection of stories once to a workmate who, much to my surprise, took them on holiday and read them out loud to his mates. If that was not startling enough, one of these men was reduced to tears by one of the stories. "How does this man know how I feel?" was his question. To this day I don't know which story affected him so or why but it just goes to show you never know who will end up reading your words.

I'm pleased for you, I really am.

Publishing Reality Check by Julie Ann Dawson

Jan 7, 2008 | rating: 9.9 | comments: 23

Jim Murdoch Jan 7, 2008, 10:56am EST

Excellent article. Nothing I've not read before but this is something that cannot be restated and not everyone reads very widely. We can whinge about the way the world is all we like. But this is the way it is. My wife produced a couple of literary magazines a while back and it can be done to a high quality for a reasonable price but, as you say, it's for the love of it; there's no money to be made in it.

The big issue that most newbies fail to understand is marketing. We intend to self-publish my novels and I've spent months preparing the ground and, to be honest, I doubt I'll have done enough by the time the first book is ready but it will have a better chance than if I did nothing and, of course, the marketing will continue on a rolling basis from then on so I'll still be able to push the first novel when the second is ready.

We are quite lucky in that between the two of us we have a decent skill base, our talents compliment each other, but it's also taken years to hone our skills. Hopefully our patience will be rewarded.

Blogging versus Writing: Time Wasted or Time Well Spent? by Bobby Ozuna

Dec 21, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 5

Jim Murdoch Dec 21, 2007, 4:43pm EST

The answer to your question depends on why you write a blog. A lot of blogs are a waste of time but not all. You're a writer as am I but the responsibilities of a writer have expanded considerably over the years. It's been a long time since we could sit in our respective garrets and just write. Now we need to promote. It doesn't matter if we have a publisher or if we choose to self-publish, these days a writer is expected to participate to a much greater extent.

Writers need readers. You can sit back and hope they come to you but you'll be lucky. A blog is a way to attract readers. Of course, the blog will also need to be promoted and there are ways to go about that, registering with blog-centric search engines and commenting on other people's sites. You need to sell yourself before you sell your writing. I've also joined a few communities like Gather to network and make friends. All of these entries contain links to my site and the search engines like them.

If you want to see how I'm doing it then check out my blog, 'The Truth About Lies', and see what you think. My book won't be coming out until the middle of next year but I started blogging about five months ago and it'll be two or three months before I'll start plugging the book. The book is almost coincidental. Do you see where I'm coming from? Every now and then I slip in a poem or a bit of prose but I'm taking a softy softly approach. No one likes a hard sell.

http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/

Kidspeak by Peter C. Frank

Dec 17, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 10

Jim Murdoch Dec 17, 2007, 7:25am EST

Bearing in mind your preamble, and ignoring the nonsense for the moment, I think this expresses quite well what it's like trying to communicate when the "brain fog" is at its worst. It's like trying to shout over this damn machine that won't stop for an instant. Good use of rhyme and alliteration.

Terry Pratchett diagnosed with Alzheimer's by Julie Ann Dawson

Dec 13, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 5

Jim Murdoch Dec 15, 2007, 6:56am EST

His Stoicism is to be commended but it is not unique. I still remember the television playwright Dennis Potter being interviewed on television literally days before he knew he was going to die, the interview being punctuated by his need to take sips from a flask of liquid morphine. Like Pratchett he had had fair warning of the inevitable but continued to work. At the time of the interview he was desperately trying to finish his last two plays which he managed with a few days to spare. There was no trace of self-pity in the man. It was a very inspiring interview which was repeated and, not long thereafter, appeared in book form.

What Does "Success" Mean To You? by Rebecca Goings

Dec 5, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 15

Jim Murdoch Dec 5, 2007, 2:59pm EST

I wrote a poem once and a man pinned it on the cork board beside his desk so he could read it every day.

I wrote a poem that a lady asked for a copy of but wouldn't tell me why.

I wrote a poem once my boss renamed "the Barry poem" because it expressed exactly how she felt about this guy.

I wrote a short story once that another girl I worked with wanted to hang in her loo so everyone who visited her could read it.

I wrote a poem about my mum that made a grown man cry.

I wrote a novel that got me a wife.

God alone knows if that counts as success but it sure don't pay the bills.

Just a thought about getting old and grey by Roger Kiser

Dec 3, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 17

Jim Murdoch Dec 3, 2007, 11:37am EST

This reminds me of a poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

Borrowed Knowledge

As a child
I knew I knew everything.
No one believed me
and over time I
forgot most of it.

When a man
I thought I knew many things.
I knew of many things
and I believed
the things I knew were mine.

Now, of course,
I've grown old and it is clear
to me I knew nothing.
It is the one
thing that I know for sure.

Two plus two
is not mine, nor the capital
of Venezuela,
nor the reasons
I'm all alone tonight.

02 October 2007

Actually I'm not alone - I have a lovely wife - but there are so many people who, for one reason or another, are no longer a part of my life.

Why do you buy new books? by A. F. Stewart

Nov 30, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 9

Jim Murdoch Nov 30, 2007, 11:34am EST

To be honest I rarely buy the work of new authors even mainstream authors. When I do buy a book it is always because the subject matter is of interest to me. That said, if a book has an eye-catching cover I might pick it up. I do buy books as presents quite a lot and I'm far more likely to risk money on an unknown quantity if it's well presented.

Compiling a Book List by Danelle K.

Nov 27, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 3

Jim Murdoch Nov 27, 2007, 2:50am EST

There are so many books out there. Where does one start? Personally I would suggest you join http://www.goodreads.com/ because what you can do there is look up the authors or books you do like and see what other books people who have read them have read.

'Read, read and read' doesn't do anymore by Queen Akasha (Previous Dead Soul)

Nov 25, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 14

Jim Murdoch Nov 26, 2007, 7:00am EST

Your second sentence is better grammatically. Stylistically, that's another thing. I'm an English speaker and writer and I struggle regularly with the language. Its biggest problem is its palette; it has absorbed words from so many cultures, which makes it a treasure trove for writers although, at the same time, it has a tendency to overwork its words. Take the word "love" for example: I have to use that one word to express how I feel about my wife, my parents, my country, my fellow man and my strawberry yoghurt.

Long sentences are out of fashion. With the rise of the internet people want short bursts of information that can be assimilated quickly. But you are quite correct, the longer your sentence the more scope there is to muck it up.

I was one of the lucky ones. I got taught how to punctuate at school. We had one particular teacher who devoted an entire year to sentence analysis. I own two books on grammar which I still refer to fairly often.

As for being a copycat, it depends what you hope to achieve. One of the first things artists do is the still life. They copy. And many writers greater than you or I will ever be began by basing their writing style on a mentor. Samuel Beckett copied James Joyce but we don't remember him for his early work, they are clearly imitative, he is famous because he found his own voice.

On the point of reading, that is the advice every writer is given irrespective of the language he is writing in. It's knowing who to read. Charles Dickens is a great author but his style is outdated. People don't need the kind of elaborate descriptions he gives. You need to draw from contemporary authors and different authors from all kinds of genres.

Lastly, if I was writing that sentence of yours I would change it to this:

The instant Nicholas seized the goblet echoes of goblins' gasps filled the cave.

I'm assuming here that a) you have already explained the significance of the goblet, b) we know why his hands are sore and c) that the cave is dark. I've changed "When" to "The instant" to make the sentence more immediate. Granted, I have no idea how you've built up to this point – that's the problem with sentences, they rarely stand alone – but this is clearly part of an action sequence and if ever you were going to write short punchy sentences here is where you need to do it. The reader has no time for, and is not particularly interested in, elaborate descriptions at a time like this.

Anyway, didn't mean to go of on one. Just a few thoughts.

Friday Writing Essentials: Critique by John Harris Beck

Nov 9, 2007 | comments: 18

Jim Murdoch Nov 11, 2007, 6:38am EST

I know very little about Poe. He was never taught at school, not even around Halloween, but I was surprised on his comment, "I hold that a long poem does not exist," since he didn't exactly stick to limericks himself.

So, I did some research only to find that he was not only well aware of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but listed it, along with other lengthy works such as Tam O'Shanter and Kubla Khan as "poems of the purest ideality". Ideality he also calls "Poetic Power". (See http://books.eserver.org/fiction/poe/criticism.html)

It is understandable that Poe would suggest that Paradise Lost is really a collection of smaller poems but I suppose the real question is what constitutes a long poem. Obviously back then a poem covering several pages was not considered long but a poem taking up a book or more likely was.

We tend to think of a poem as something that can be read at one sitting. Why? It's a chore to read a whole novel in one go and most of us don't and yet I don't hear cries from the rooftops for authors to stop churning out big books. I personally don't care for poems that last any more than 20-odd lines but then I'd rather read a novella than a novel. Still I defend the rights of those who choose the bigger poetic canvas (think William Carlos Williams' five volume work, Paterson, or Tony Harrison's V). Just don't expect me to read them. Then again À la recherche du temps perdu is not exactly high on my books-I-have-to-read-before-I-die list either.

I now have a name for a pet wolf. Thanks for all the suggestions? by April Robins

Nov 5, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 36

Jim Murdoch Nov 5, 2007, 12:18pm EST

Loopy (as in Canis lupus)

I will start us off by J. G. Weddle

Oct 27, 2007 | rating: 9 | comments: 5

Jim Murdoch Oct 27, 2007, 1:03pm EDT

Happy to join the fray but it'll be several months yet before I'll have a book of my own to post; we're still working on the website and book covers at the moment.

Example of a Press Release by Rebecca Goings

Aug 23, 2007 | rating: 10 | comments: 12

Jim Murdoch Oct 14, 2007, 8:19am EDT

I've read a few articles on this subject but hardly any provide an actual example. It really cuts to the chase.