The Price of Authenticity

I’m working on a steampunk novel. Although none of my other novels have yet found a publisher, one of them has been submitted to an agent and I sit with my fingers so tightly crossed that typing is difficult. The Passion of the Titans, as it was originally called, had been accepted for publication only to have the indie press renege on its contract. So it goes.

This isn’t about that.

My current project is all about gears and corsets and gentlemen adventurers. There’s a dirigible, of course. And absinthe. What is steampunk without absinthe?

As the child of a professional alcoholic, controlled substances take on a dark cast in my mind. I overcame my fear of beer over a Guinness in a crowded bar in Boston while studying for a master’s degree in one of the many schools in the city. I still don’t drink to excess, but my former enemy has become an occasional friend.

But absinthe. Once claimed to be psychotropic, it was illegal in the United States until just seven years ago. Now it is known to be just another spirit, strong, but salable. And pricey.

A sense of profound naughtiness accompanies every trip to the liquor store. I’m no street corner lush, and my expenditure on drink is very modest. Shyly I had to ask about absinthe. It isn’t easily found. A single bottle will set you back more than a Jackson.

Feeling like a kid skipping high school for a bender, I drove the bottle home and set it on the counter in wonder, afraid to touch. This was an expensive experiment.

Absinthe is prepared by trickling cold water over a sugar cube set on a special slotted spoon above the liquor. The spoon that came with the bottle was cheap. The smell of anise rose headily from the glass. The green fairy.

One glass and I’m steaming punk like it’s nobody’s business. And given my success rate, it probably isn’t. Someday I’ll finish my steampunk novel. It will go on the shelf next to, I hope, my published version of Boeotian Rhapsody in somebody's reality. Until then, it may be found in the bottom of a glass under a strangely slotted spoon.

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best...

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. ...

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...

K. Marvin Bruce

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