J.R. Murdock

I didn’t know my father growing up as a kid. Oh, I’d met him, but I didn’t know him. I talked to him once or twice a year on the phone and met him every few years, but my mom and dad had divorced when I was young. I think I was three. My mom remarried when I was five and we moved a few hours away from where my dad lived. I was born in Minneapolis and we moved to McGregor. The backwoods of Minnesota.

My dad wanted to be a successful businessman. He worked long hours, took many trips to Europe to raise business, and struggled to be a father. My mom felt it was best if he went and followed his dream and they went their separate ways. They always stayed friends and still talked on the phone from time to time. We attended his wedding in 1980 to my step-mom and later when my Uncle Ray (whom I’d never met) passed away. For the most part we never saw him and I always wondered what he’d been up to.

My mom’s third marriage (my dad was her second marriage) fell apart many years later when I was 12 or 13. At that time my dad knew my mom was struggling financially and offered to take ‘the boys’. That’s when my brother and I got re-introduced to my dad. I learned everything I ever wanted to know about him at the time.

He was born at the Mole Lake Indian reservation in Wisconsin. He had brothers and sisters (Uncle Bob is one of those) but I’d never met any of them. To this day I’ve only met Uncle Bob. A story I covered some time back. My dad had moved from Minnesota to Colorado. I knew the name Universal Dynamics and I had been to his business once. I didn’t recall what it was he did. I knew it had something to do with teeth, but that was about it.

Before he was 20 he had gone to a business school for minorities. He graduated and was the only person in his class to actually start a business. For years he’d been working at Udell Dental Lab in Minneapolis and had taken courses to learn the trade. He started up his own business that, for a time, competed directly with Udell. Eventually with his overseas trips, attending conferences, and learning from people who invented many of the dental appliances used today, he became one of the best known names in the business. Udell Dental lab was a huge success, but my dad got remarried and didn’t want to be running a huge business with so many employees. He wanted a simpler life so he sold the business and moved to Colorado with his wife.

Kathy had been one of my dad’s top technicians. I never heard the story of how they’d met, but they were a great match being married for nearly 30 years. They moved to Colorado and started up Murdock Laboratory. When my brother and I moved there they ran the business as a mail order business out of the basement. A few times a year my dad would still attend conferences to keep bringing in business and to keep the Murdock name out there. Even though he worked hard, he still tried to make time for holidays and small vacations.

Getting to know my dad was great. I got to learn many stories of his youth and how he got to where he was. A lot of hard work and becoming the best at what he did. Spending time in the basement lab watching him work bending wire and creating works of art that helped to straighten people’s teeth amazed me. He tried to get my brother and I interested in the work, but it was something that I just couldn’t pick up.

I do, however, have my dad to thank for my current job. He handed me a book when I was 13 on how to program the TRS-80. I never looked back and have done a lot of computer work and website work for my dad over the years. I still maintain his website that I’ll soon be giving a facelift.

In 1986 my dad decided that he was tired working for himself and shut down Murdock Laboratory and we moved back to Minneapolis (minus my brother who’d joined the Navy). He went back to work for Udell Dental Lab; the place where he got his start. I went to visit it with him several times and it was a cave. Apparently the same cave it was when my dad had started working there and most of the same people were still there making appliances, crowns, and bridges. He was hired on to manage the company for the owner and his son.

In a matter of two years my dad turned the company from a one million dollar a year company to a multi-million dollar a year company. He was on the road a LOT going to many local dentists and paying visits to drum up more and more business. They redid the entire interior of the building, upgraded all the equipment, hired a lot of staff and completed changed the face and reputation of the company.

Then my dad asked for a raise. For all his efforts he didn’t feel he was adequately compensated. He gave Udell and ultimatum. “I get a raise or I walk.” Udell said “You could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”. My dad quit and told Udell “If I got hit by a bus, I wouldn’t be taking away a lot of the business I’ve brought in here.”

My dad once again started up Murdock Laboratory. It was a scary time for him. He had a new house he and Kathy were spending a lot of time changing from a run down house to a beautiful masterpiece of old world/new world, I have moved out (I also joined the Navy) and he had to start all over. He had to begin attending conferences, bring in new clients, and of course contact a lot of old clients, many that had been with him since Universal Dynamics. Once again business was booming.

I kept in touch with my dad, went back to visit for the holidays, called once a month just to stay in touch. That’s mostly how I knew my father was from our phone calls. We talked for a couple of hours and would talk about any range of topics. Even when I got married and had my baby girl, we still had a long distance relationship. He always felt he’d be able to spend more time with the grandkids when he retired. It didn’t matter when I called, how often I called, or how often I visited. I could always hear my dad’s smile in his voice. Not just a smile, but a smile that said “Everything is great and I’m so happy you called.” When I visited there were never enough hugs. Not just a hug, but an embrace that said “I love you, kid. I’m so happy you’re here.”

He moved the business back to Colorado. He always loved Colorado. Yet again it was another fresh start for Murdock Laboratory. He and Kathy built an incredible house in Grand Junction. They had planned to work long enough to pay off the house and retire and enjoy the fruits of their labors. All those years working so hard to get to the finish line.

Sadly he never made it there. Squamous cell carcinoma. It’s a skin cancer. It’s easily treatable. Lots of people survive this type of skin cancer. The only people that don’t are once that get it in their lungs. The x-rays showed what looked like a chest hit by a shotgun. Dozens of large and small dark spots in his lungs.

My dad stayed upbeat and positive. “We’re going to beat this. Nothing can keep a Murdock down.” The first round looked positive. It had nearly cleared away and the doctors gave it a little time. It came back, but not quite as bad as the first time. A second round was started right away. My dad still remained upbeat, positive, and I could hear the smile in his voice over Christmas when I called and he finally told me about the cancer he was being treated for.

I hadn’t known. It hit my hard, but he sounded so positive how could I even begin to worry? I called him two, three, four times a month to get updates. Yes, I was worried about my dad. What kid wouldn’t be in that situation?

His prognosis after the second round wasn’t good. It had no effect and the cancer was growing once again. I went out to visit my dad. He still looked like my dad. Sounded like my dad. Worked like my dad. He had down days after the chemo, but that was just a side effect. He felt great. He was going to beat this.

The third round of chemo my dad had to stop going to work. He had been heading carrying a box and fell down the stairs. That was his last day in the office. Instead Kathy would being his some work to do at home and if he would fight to stay sitting at his kitchen table and get his share of the work done.

My brother and his family, and I with mine all went to visit with my dad. We spent a week there and had a great time just seeing him, seeing him with the grand kids. Enjoying every moment. He pulled my brother and I aside one day to let us know that he’d been given three to six months and it was looking like it’d be more on the three month side due to the effects the chemo had on his body. I had expected the news, but it was still so hard to hear. He’d been so confident that all would work out in the end.

I went to visit my dad again. It was hard. His hair had started to fall out. He’d lost a lot of weight. He struggled to stay awake. I worked from his house for a week keeping an eye on him. Each morning he’d come out and we’d hug, he’d smile. He’d sit in his chair listening to morning talk radio while I worked. He’d drift off to sleep, but each time he woke up he’d have one of those smiles for me. A smile that said “I love you kid. I’m so glad you’re here.”

I had to go home at the end of the week. I told Kathy I would be back if she needed me.To call with any news. I hugged my dad four times before leaving and heading home. I called each day to see if there was any news. I had everything set up to fly back at the end of the week. I just needed to make sure everything was in order at home before I left.

I didn’t make it back in time. He’d had a bad fall and had to go to the hospital. I’m not sure if it was the fall that hurt him or if something went wrong inside. It didn’t matter. In a matter of hours he went from weak and frail to critical. The doctors gave him medication for the pain and he slipped away, struggling to tell Kathy something. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for her to be at his side as he went. She called. I cried. I cried hard.

I changed my flight and flew home to help with the arrangements and for the funeral in Colorado. There were still happy times remembering life, and hard times knowing those happy times were now behind us. Many of his colleagues came to his funeral. I wish I had been in better spirits to meet so many people that he’d known over the years. One thing I learned was just how much my dad talked about my brother and I to all the people he knew and how much he talked about his grandkids. Yes, we talked a lot, but I never realized just how proud he was of his kids and how much he made sure everyone he knew, knew how much he loved his kids.

I knew my dad was a Shriner, but he was an active member since the late 60s. He was in the Corvette club (they drove mini-corvettes in parades), he was in the pipe and drum band (playing drums, not bagpipes), and donated much of his time to helping the Children’s hospital. He was also the president of the Lutefisk where husbands and wives would meet once a month for lutefisk and aquavit (strange white fish and turpentine). The wives would always give their aquavit to their husbands.

But I digress.

There were parts of my dad’s life that I didn’t know and will never know. The parts I did I loved and I’m sure the parts I didn’t I would also love. He always had a huge smile for me, my brother, any one he knew and even for many that he didn’t know. He didn’t just hug, but pulled you in for an embrace. Even though I didn’t spend much time with my father, I learned a lot about life from him. Even now that he’s gone I still learn from him and remember things he did.

I’m only just scratching the surface here. There are so many memories about my dad I’m glossing over or missing (like his finicky eating habits that would have you laughing) or his affinity for telling shaggy dog stories by a campfire. My dad was a complex man. He left us too soon.

Like I said yesterday, telling about my dad would be a long story. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my step-dad. Ducks will have to wait for another day.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Today I spent with my favorite daughter, the wife, and several of the wife’s family. It was a WONDERFUL!!!! Day. And more exclamation points!!!

We went to Hillcrest for breakfast at Chocolat. It’s a little French place that servers some incredible food. It wasn’t busy so unlike other places we called (reservations? What are those?) we didn’t have to wait 2 hours for a table. In fact we didn’t have to wait at all. It was great.

We then did some shopping for our vacation to Palm Desert next weekend. Then did some more shopping. And finally landed at my Father-In-Law’s house to wish his a happy father’s day. It wasn’t planned as we had planned on celebrating next weekend when all of us (the wife’s entire family more-or-less) are at Palm Desert. There was food, there was playing ball with the dog, there was watching of baseball. It was grand fun.

The entire day I thought about my dad. How I miss him. Over the next few days I’ll be posting daily updates about my dads (My dad, a couple step-dads, and my grandpa). It’s far too much to post in one blog so I’ll spread it out over the week.

This weekend no fiction writing happened. Because I was thinking so much about my dad I went to his site and started doing some updates. There are still a lot more that I’ll be doing there, but while I was there I decided to visit my Aunt Debbie’s website (http://filtertechsystems.com) and grab the source code of all the pages and redo her entire site. I had a lot of fun doing it. There’s something relaxing for me when it comes to digging into someone else’s code and cleaning it up, streamlining it, making it more readable, stripping out all the extraneous code, and putting it into a better framework.

I think I’m done for now with the pages. I’m going to send them to her for an opinion. She doesn’t know I was going to do this so it’ll be a surprise. Once the final design is done and the site goes live (if she wants it) I’ll let you know. For all I know she’s hired someone else to take care of it. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.

I had a great day. Thank you to all who wished me a happy father’s day. Happy Father’s day to you if you are a father. I hope you were able to celebrate with your father. If you don’t have your father anymore I hope you at least thought about him and enjoyed the memories. I know I did and I’ll shore those over the next few days.

I’m tired, it’s time for bed. No ducks were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

There are some days I feel like I’m letting things slip a little. I’ve become too focused on the writing and letting little things pass by that are becoming bigger things. This weekend I’m going to remedy some of those personal items and get them taken care of.

Next weekend It will be vacation time. There will be no time for writing so I will be writing as much as I can before that. I’m currently 59,000 words ahead of schedule for the year so I’m not worried about the annual goal, but I’m 3000 words behind on my JuNoWriMo goal and I want to stay close on that one before we go on vacation. I’ll be knocking out some words tonight. I’m about to write another Maus chapter (those go so fast) and another Slick chapter (now that he’s met Maus and Willie those will go smoothly as well). I know I’ll be able to knock out a lot of words.

I’m also going to be revamping my father’s webpage. It looked good when I first did it, but I know I can slap a new coat of paint on it and make it look a little better. I’ll be putting some jQuery on it and I’ll drop a link when I’m done. I’m also going to revamp a website for my aunt’s business. She’s been telling me for years that she’s going to get someone to do it, but she hasn’t so I’ll build a new site, host it, and send her a link to see if she likes it. It’ll be fun to do some basic web design for a change instead of massive web applications that take months to complete.

My Favorite Daughter also needs to work out today. We’ll run, practice some volleyball, do some light weights, and she has a conditioning sheet of exercises to do. All that and she’s studying for finals. Next week she has three days of finals and she’s done with the 9th grade. They grow up way too fast.

Last night we went to dinner with the Millicans. We went to the buffet at the Barona Casino. They do have the best buffet in San Diego. I ate until they needed to roll me out of the joint. With all that food I had some crazy dreams last night and I think it was a combination of the upcoming vacation with my wife’s family and some illnesses that have been going on. I slept in this morning and tried to finish my dream, but the dog was having none of that. She saw me open my eyes and it was play time. It was a very personal dream or I’d share the details here.

So I’ve got a lot going on and a lot to do today. I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes.

I’m done hating on Prometheus. It was a great visual movie. The first half with David was brilliant. There were a lot of good things about the movie that I wish had followed through to the end, but hey, it’s a movie. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hating on it. Just like Avatar. Maybe they’ll write a better sequel. We’ll just have to wait and see.

All this and I have duck pictures to download. I’d better get at it. I plan on have a month of pictures and a month of writing prompts before I get those out into the wild. Those will be out on a daily basis just to get a little more content out there. I’m also working on a new weekly article. Got something besides ducks or writing you’d like me to talk about? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

One of the things I’ve been trying to do this year is produce something daily. Hence these daily updates. I’ve done my best to keep them interesting and cover all the things running through my brain, but every so often I miss something that may seem trivial at the time, but a week or so later it’ll seem much more important.

The reason I’ve tried to post something daily is to get content out there. Granted this has been almost like a daily diary about what’s going on with me and I’m not sure if I’ll change the format or not. I do want to post more important topics that might interest a wider audience and bring in more traffic. Traffic and getting noticed is the overall goal of this blog. So there might be more interesting content coming in the next month or so (including daily duck pictures and that long awaited duck post).

As a writer that’s my main focus is to get the attention of potential readers. That’s all any writer wants. Well, that and to get paid huge sums of money. But the audience must come first before the money starts to roll in. So I’m already writing down ideas on topics I can cover that might interest people. Yes, I have Unorthodox Writing Tips each Friday, so I’m going to look at something else I can post on another day of the week. I’m thinking about Monday. We’ll see what happens. Wednesday is just as good of a day as Monday is. Tuesday and Thursday are also other days of the week that I’ve got my eye on. Saturday and Sunday are right out as people have other things to do on the weekend than read something posted by me about some rambling topic I haven’t even chosen yet.

While I will still ramble daily about what I’m doing, how my writing is going, and the like, I want to expand what I’m offering on these pages. More than just advice. One thing I had thrown out there was a daily writing prompt so that might appear soon (along with the daily duck photo). Just something to keep content coming out. Another thing I may do is post character sketches. Not actual sketches mind you, but written notes on a character in a given story. I might start with Of Gnomes and Dwarves as that’s fresh in my mind and I’m currently working on that story.

Finding things to write about each day can be difficult, but I seem to be managing. I read a post by someone else that they’ve been writing daily that they no longer believe in writer’s block. I’m of the same feeling at this point. I’ve written every day since January 1st, 2012 and I don’t see any reason to stop now. Nothing has prevented me from posted something on a given day. Sure, time constraints arise, but on the days of light posting I’ve been my own worst enemy not taking advantage of available free time thinking “I’ll get to that later”. I know I can do better.

What I’m trying to say in the long post is that I don’t want to just ramble senselessly. Well, I do. It helps get the old brain juices flowing, but I also want to provide more content on more than just what’s in my head at the start of my day. I hope you’ll stick around and see what I come up with. I hope you’ll share with your friends. I hope I’ll find a wider audience for my words. Maybe that’ll force me to actually become organized when I write these. Who knows.

On the writing front, I managed 3500 words yesterday despite a very busy day. I did take advantage of any free time I had and wrote as fast as I possibly could. I hope to write more words today. I’m currently at 40,000 words in Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I’m not even at the half-way point, but I’m getting there. This book will be much longer than the original. Possibly three times as long (not counting the parts I cut). It’s a much stronger work for all I’ve added. Again that’s my personal opinion. We’ll see what Beta readers thing.

The cool thing about my beta readers. Many of them have read the original Of Gnomes and Dwarves (4 of them have). So it’ll be great to get their feedback as I’m sure they remember those first rough writings. If you would like to read the original, email me and I’ll send it over. Like I said, it’s my first completed novel. It suffers from many first novel issues. It’s rough even though I’ve edited it a LOT and added a lot of words, and rewrote some parts. It’s bumpy, lumpy, and just how I like my mashed potatoes, but it’s lacking. Severely

There is a lot to do so I’m going to get at it!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Monday was a late night. Tuesday was an early morning. Meaning I had about four hours of sleep. I got my daily update done yesterday, but that was about all the writing I could squeeze in. Work is crazy busy this week and that has eaten into my writing schedule. It’s all good though.

Yesterday we went to visit my mother-in-law and father-in-law and didn’t get back home until late. This usually happens as much conversation ensues. I also got to see a couple of my sister-in-laws and my favorite niece and nephew (they’re all my favorite if you’re wondering).

When we did finally get back home it was late, I was hungry, so I had a light dinner. A pollo asada burritio. My favorite daughter and the wife split a bean burrito. It was my intention to write for 30 minutes or so just to stay up on my word count. Then maybe read for a little bit. Perhaps watch an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Yeah, that was the plan. My brain decided it was best to just fall down and sleep. I didn’t argue. Sleep happened. I woke up a couple of times from strange dreams. I always have the weirdest dreams when I eat a lot before I go to bed. The only sad part is that I was so tired I didn’t remember anything when I woke up. If I could remember any of them I’d tell you all about them. Sadly last night’s escapes me.

At present Of Gnomes and Dwarves is at just over 36000 words. I’m happy with the progress and I had thought at this point I would be roughly half-way through the book. From what I can tell that’s not even close. I’m not worried about that. If I hit 100,000 words with it, I’ll be happy because that means I’m telling the full story that needed to be told rather than glaze over certain points and miss out on a lot of detail that the world needed for it to be fully fleshed out. I hint at a LOT of things that will be used in later book. I didn’t want to drop a lot of hints that I never come back to.

Being that I’ve written the first four books and have basic plots for more, I know where everything is going and how it all ties together. I think being that I’ve done that, I have a much better understanding of how things will play out and will be able to foreshadow many events and build up characters better than I did before. I can’t wait to share this story with people. It still has a lot of the humor the original did, but it’s also a lot darker in spots and I’m really liking that.

There’s still a lot of day job left. My favorite daughter has a physical and a volleyball dinner for her travel team. School is almost done. Vacations are coming up soon. There are pictures of ducks to download. There’s a lot of words to get in while I can. I’d better get at it.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Yesterday was a good day for words. I wrote a lot of them. 4600 in fact. Less than I could have, but I needed to spend time with the family, pick up my favorite daughter from a schoolmate’s house where she was working on a project, workout.

Oh yea. I started working out again. I’d been walking a couple times a week while my favorite daughter was at volleyball practice. Now that she’s done with that for a little while, I’m making her go to the workout room at our complex and workout with me. The wife is also joining us. We didn’t get there until 8pm and were back home around 9pm. I was pooped. I had intended to do a little more writing but today is an office day so I was up very early. I read for a little bit then crashed hard.

Speaking of reading, I’ve finished Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero by my good friend Mike Plested. I will be reviewing that this week and getting that posted real soon.

I recently renewed my subscription to Flying Island Press: Flagship. It’s been a year already. Wow! Time files so fast. So many good stories. I subscribe to the audio and text versions as I never know which I’ll be able to read/listen. It’s nice to have the choice. And for $12.99 for a year. That’s a no brainier.

A little more on the writing. There are a couple of reasons I’m able to write Of Gnomes and Dwarves so quickly. I’m over 30,000 words. Of the last 25 days I’ve written on the story 16 of those days. I wish I had put in more days, but that’s a pretty good pace for writing. When I do with and write the words just flow out so smoothly. The main reason for this is I’ve lived with these characters in my head since the mid-80s. I knew the people who played them. I knew the style they played the characters. But I took all of them beyond the game. I’d already written this book several times. I’d re-written it. I’d edited it. I’d written it as a comic book. To say I know this story inside and out and know the world just as well as I know my own would be an understatement. I know them so well that their actions are like second nature to me.

I’ve introduced new characters and new scenes, but that hasn’t slowed me down at all. Why? Because I already knew who these characters were. I had mentioned them briefly in the first writing, but in my head I knew all of their back stories. I knew everything about all of the characters that I’ve introduced. At some point I had intended to write short stories about each of the minor characters I introduced to give them more personality. I’m sure I’ll be writing a lot of short stories in this universe. In my mind is so rich and full of things that I’ll never explore in the novels and there are a lot of stories that I want to tell.

From the original text I removed the ‘storyteller’. I didn’t feel that it added anything to the story other than a lot of words. My original intent was that the storyteller would be one of the characters ‘telling’ the story of their adventures. Doing so to make sure that people never forgot what happened and the sacrifices they’d made to ensure people could live the lives they now lived. It also gave hints to events yet to come and a little mystery of who the person in the story was as I never mentioned the storyteller’s name.

I removed him from the story as it wasn’t what I wanted to concentrate on. It added nearly 10,000 words to the original book. Where I’m at now I’ve nearly doubled the size of the book. The original text was roughly 15,000 words to get to where I am now and I’ve written roughly 32,000 words. I said this before, I’m a different writer. The original was the best I could do at the time. Now I’m writing what I feel is the best work I can do now. The story is better for all those words as I’m adding in a lot of what was in my head all those years that never made it to the page.

Sure, I could have just edited what I’d written before. But I’d been there, done that, and I didn’t want to just edit and re-write parts. My writing style has changed so much over the years that it would have looked like a patchwork story with parts here being better than parts there and not really telling a cohesive story. I wanted this to be the best I could make it. And I think I’m doing that now.

I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m having a great time getting there. Hopefully tonight will see a lot more words. And pictures of ducks.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!