Circumstance of Victims

The folks at Danse Macabre are most accommodating. I’m pleased to announce the appearance of my latest short story, “Circumstance of Victims,” In Danse Macabre 72, Oubliette.

This is an experimental piece, but, if read with patience, it makes sense. It is also, like most fiction, somewhat autobiographical. If you would like to learn what that means, I would encourage you to read my story. Those who hold power over employees don’t realize just how awful that responsibility is.

I’ve been alive long enough, and with a personality strong enough, to have lost a job or two. It is never shy of anything but devastating. The first novel I attempted (unsuccessfully) to publish was about just this. I suspect the editors who threw it on the slush-pile had never experienced it.

I sent the manuscript to my friend Sluggo to read. S/he said that it was pretty long, but the parts about what it feels like to lose a job were spot on. Authentic. Compelling. Sluggo had been there too.

It’s not that writers can’t make things up out of whole cloth. I’ve written stories with no basis in any reality in this universe. Nevertheless, if we don’t show a part of ourselves, the lack of authenticity will show through. I try not to be too shy.

Being unemployed is all about being naked. Your pain is so obvious that anyone can see it. Anyone, that is, who is willing to take the trouble to look. And if it fucks you up in the head, well, nobody who’s been there should be surprised.

So as I cast my seed out there in the internet, hoping that someone may someday notice, I am pleased to find the fertile pages of Danse Macabre. It is nice to know that all the work these weary fingers do sometimes stands a chance of being noticed.

It should be clear that we are all circumstances of our own victims. They know I am.

Comments

Dusty

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Creative Righting

Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world. That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week. That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press. The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor. She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher. I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions. I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor. That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it? You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify. It’s got speculative elements to it. ...

Creativity

Maybe you’ve noticed this too. When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid. I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book. God, I’ve missed fiction! Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction. I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well. When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life. Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found. Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published. Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic. The vast majority, however, are unfinished. Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I...

K. Marvin Bruce

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