K. Marvin Bruce

Confession, they say, is good for the soul.  So I’m over fifty and haven’t broken through to the paid writers’ club.  I write under a pseudonym.  I love taboo topics. To be a writer, I’m told, you have to get out and promote your stuff.  I wonder how you do that with a false identity.  Mine is a matter of necessity.  Although I’m half-a-century on, I have family members way ahead of me.  They don’t know what I do with my free time. My family tend to be conservative Christians.  There are some words I’ve never heard uttered in my humble homestead.  Words that, if you want to be a realistic writer, you’ve got to use.  Not to mention the ideas that the Bible strictly forbids. I live in my head.  My daily existence is unremarkable.  That’s one reason that I write.  The other day I was reading about some people, in real life, stranded in an isolated location.  They had to do what they could to survive.  All I could think was—if I were one of them, I’d want to write it down so p

There's always one within reach.  I carry one in my pocket.  There's one on my bedside table.  Any computer will do in a pinch.  Inspiration comes in spurts. In fact, like a nocturnal emission, you can never predict it.  Notebooks are the writer's best friend.  That's because inspiration can't be tamed. Even the notebook is no guarantee.  Inspiration comes voyeuristically when you're in the shower.  She likes to scream loudly when you're driving in the suicide lane of impossible traffic.  She whispers in your ear just when you're dropping off to sleep. My notebooks are like traps set to catch her whenever she appears.  She's quick, however, and that idiot driver passing you on the right can take her brilliant idea with him, so that she's lost forever when you have a moment to scribble it down at the gas station. In a former house I kept a waterproof noteboard in the shower.  When we moved, the sticky adhesive stayed behind.

A guilty pleasure, I’ll confess, is reading the Dark Shadows novels by Marilyn Ross.  As a child I found these stories tucked away in a paperback bin at the local second-hand store.  If I could find one I hadn’t read, I would snatch it up for a few cents and begin reading right away. Formulaic and predictable, the little books always evoked a stormy atmosphere of the Maine coast.  I’d never been to Maine, but watching the soap opera had cast an image in my young mind that would stay with me for life. When, as an adult, I grew nostalgic for the paperbacks I’d sold back so long ago, I found them difficult to locate.  ABE, the friend of lost treasures, led me back to most of them, followed by Bookfinder.  Re-reading them, however, I notice the lack that young eyes just couldn’t see. I’m not sure when I realized Marilyn Ross was actually a pen name for Dan Ross (or properly William Edward Daniel Ross).  I was, however, acutely aware that these gothic tales might be categ

So, I've been thinking about how writers write.  A colleague who just published his first novel said that he planned it out in detail.  Each chapter was driven by what would have to happen in the next chapter to reach his final resolution.  The final result was a fun read. Some famous writers, I've been told, write by the seat of their metaphorical pants.  They sit down and begin to write with a vague idea of where the story should go.  They, like many of us, discover their characters have minds of their own.  Hopes, dreams, and plans that conflict with those of the author. I often write in snippets.  Great phrases come to me and I think, "that would make a good story."  I write them down.  A notebook is never more than a few inches from me at all times.  I used to have a waterproof note board in the shower.  Some of the best ideas come when I'm driving. When I can catch these snippets, I write them down.  My digital file, when I have time to update it, is o

Some things I just take for granted. My friend Steve, for example, is an editor. Although he works for a non-fiction publisher, he still knows a few things about the publishing process. He suggested that I share some of it with the struggling writers out there. Most of us dream, I suppose, of getting a book published.  I know I still dream about it.  How does it happen?  With traditional publishers, it begins with a query. Editors are, for the most part, very busy people.  Publishers are the ones who give credibility to writers, and to get published, you need to work with an editor.  All editors work with a “slush pile”—submissions that come in unsolicited.  Until they get your query, editors don’t know you exist, and your submission ends up in the slush pile. Slush piles do get read, but they don’t have the priority that a known author or a repeat author with the press earn.  This can take a surprisingly long time. Many editors require approval of an editorial board t

My young writing partner Elizabeth often used to ask me if she was writing something the right way.  I responded that there is no right way to write.  Sure, there are rules and conventions that help more often than not, but when it comes to writing, you do what comes natural. I can’t know, but I suspect, this is one of the reasons it is so difficult to get published these days.  I do know publishing professionals, and they all say that publishers want works “like” those of a best selling author.  As close to a sure thing as a publisher can get. True creativity, however, blazes trails.  I enjoy fiction that I have a difficult time classifying.  Genres, after all, are guidelines to help us categorize written works.  Sometimes, however, the categories just don’t match the reality. I often write by phrases.  Phrases come to me—often at the worst possible time—that seem to be the basis for a story.  Phrase gets added to phrase, light molecules forming protein strands.  Those st

As a kid I used to wonder why some books were sold so cheap.  In the occasional bookstore I’d see big, expensive-looking books for unbelievably low prices.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, I’d discovered remaindered books. A friend in the publishing industry explained it to me.  Publishers have to project how many copies of a book to print.  This is becoming increasingly difficult to project.  Reprints are always possible, but as in most industries, buying in bulk is cheaper, so publishers try to project sales for a first print run. In the case of a famous author it’s okay to overprint.  Better to have enough stock on hand to meet initial demand than to risk the public losing interest.  Despite technology, publishing is a slow industry, compared to the world the internet has created.  But what it you print too many and public interest never rises to the bait? First you offer such books at a discount, hoping the reduced price will pick up sales.  The more despe

The success of a friend felt personal.  Well, perhaps “friend” is too strong a word, but I feel a natural camaraderie with other writers.  He’s a guy I know from work.  We occasionally share projects, and I had no idea that he was a fiction writer.  Until his novel published. As I sent him a congratulatory email, a strange thought occurred to me.  We rely on publishers to get out hard-won efforts out to a reading public, and yet, the relationship often feels adversarial. It’s almost like the publisher is the enemy to writers.  We who seriously write know that we have something to offer.  We pour ourselves into our words, laying ourselves naked for the world to criticize.  And we’re told not to take rejection personally. Is it possible to stand naked before someone only to have that person turn away and walk out and not to take it personally?  Editors and Judas Iscariot.  What a team. As a writer, I read a lot.  By some estimates I read nearly a hundred books a ye