Silence of the Titans

The internet has filled the world with noise. Communications specialists tell us that it is important to distinguish signal from noise since signal is potentially useful information. Ah, but the internet is so vast! SETI would have more chance of finding signal in an infinite universe.

So when I heard from my contracted publisher that Passion of the Titans, my first novel accepted for publication, is being released back to me, my breath caught in my throat. Perhaps I should’ve heard the signal earlier. Accepted last summer, it was downgraded to an ebook release this spring, and then finally cancelled.

Wheat and chaff are very different from one another. As are sheep and goats. Signal and noise are far more ambiguous.

Like Edgar Allan Poe, and probably here the likeness ends, I have read many inferior bits of literature that have engulfed public demand. Has anybody ever tried to praise the literary merits of Fifty Shades of Grey? I had trouble getting myself to pick it back up.

Sex sells, but only if you get it into the right hands. Passion of the Titans is funny, sexy, and smart. Maybe that’s a bad combination. Maybe it’s just noise. Somewhere out there on the internet is an editor who liked it. Maybe it is time to hit the delete key and find out what Christian and Anastasia are up to. Fifty guesses...

I’m not the greatest writer who ever lived. Nor am I the worst. Why is it so fucking hard to find a publisher who likes the authentic voice and wry observations of a quiet guy who looks myopically at life, and wishes he could join the game?

Passion of the Titans was to be published by now. Instead, I am back at the starting gate. Only I’m exhausted already. And frustrated. And what is this constant ringing in my ears?

Comments

Patterns

There’s a pattern I’m noticing. For fiction publishers. Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle. Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers. The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in. That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested. I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns. This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses. I check many lists. What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic. It’s literary but it’s weird. Publishers don’t know what to do with it. If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered. Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...

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. ...

Maybe Okay

A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers. I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks. As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying. Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine. And it’s likely true. But the stories: “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing. JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher. I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology. Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game! A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast. Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted. It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...

K. Marvin Bruce

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