K. Marvin Bruce

PBS recently reaired (if such a term can still be used) a special on science fiction television. This was in the aftermath of Leonard Nimoy’s death.  On the show Twilight Zone was lauded as being one of the most literate television series ever. They don’t write them like that anymore.  I was a kid in the sixties when the reruns of Twilight Zone were still being shown.  At the time I had no idea who the writers were.  One of them, I learned as an adult, was Richard Matheson. Matheson is best known for his short novel, I Am Legend .  From today’s perspective, the writing isn’t exactly stellar, but the ideas are rich and profound.  "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” for example, has stayed with me since I saw it on the Twilight Zone . I’ve been reading some of Matheson’s short stories.  I have no idea how many he wrote during his long life, but as I compare them to some of my own fare, it is clear that we think/thought pretty much alike. ...

As I sit here lingering on the edge of self-publishing, I decided to read an improbable novel recommended to me by my friend Steve.  Robert Repino’s Mort(e) is an apocalyptic tale about a cat whose single-minded purpose leads to a poignant conclusion.  I won’t spoil it for you; I’m a professional. I’m always encouraged to see madcap novels published.  The Medusa novel I have out with about six publishers at the moment is bat-shit funny.  It is also intelligent, and maybe that’s my problem. I know editors, and they are fallible people.  They have sins just like the rest of us.  Their deadly sin, it seems, is not being able to see the potential in a story that’s clearly got it.  Repino, according to Steve, had a tough time finding a publisher for what is clearly a brilliant novel.  His story gives me hope. It might just be easiest to give up, but when I think this I realize that publishers are starved for good content.  To get to ...

Early in my professional life, I experienced emotional trauma at the hands of my employer.  Many years later the pain is still so vivid that I have tried to deal with like any writer would: by penning a novel about it. The first attempt, while still not abandoned completely, ended up sounding too self-pitying.  A friend of mine with an MFA told me that many students elect to use biographical novels as their thesis.  I want the story to be profound, and funny, and not so dreadful.  I began revising it recently, but put it back down. The second attempt was to make it all a metaphor.  This led to 75,000 words that didn’t have a strong center.  These words lack the cohesion of painful narrative, but they do contain some very nice writing. I revisited that novel recently.  There may be hope for it.  Novel writing draws on personal experience.  These two novels are not among the six I’ve completed.  Both are sufficient, length-wis...

Two of America’s earliest authors were Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe.  They established the first stages of what would become the American prose tradition, and both can be classified, in some ways, as originators of the Neo-Gothic. Irving was a bit older than Poe.  Although his personal life had its share of ups and downs, he made his literary fame with his satirical retelling of the history of New York.  He became an overnight sensation.  Some thought him the funniest writer ever. Running out of money while living in England, he began publishing his series of “Sketches” or short stories.  Among them his most famous works, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  The latter, according to some, established the spooky autumnal scene as the perfect venue for the scary story. Irving met John Allan while in London.  Edgar was traveling with his step-father there, but may have been too young at the time to know that he’d met ...

A friend recently traveled to Oxford, England.  On his blog he mentioned that J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis used to meet in a pub there.  They actually met with a group of writers who encouraged one another in their craft.  Tolkien and Lewis were only the most successful. Curious, I started looking Oxford up on the web.  Every March they host a Writers’ Festival.  No wonder, because in addition to the two mentioned above, Oxford has been able to claim some of the most famous English writers in the world. Oscar Wilde was an Oxford student, and Lewis Carroll, of Alice in Wonderland fame, was also a resident.  Thomas Hardy lived in Oxford for a time, and Philip Pullman still does. Certainly there seems to be a connection between the educational atmosphere and the arts. A writer, of course, requires no educational credentials.  Writers are writers.  Still university towns house that increasingly rare commodity—bookstores.  When y...

A few years ago my writing partner Elizabeth pointed me to the website “I Write Like” ( iwl.me ).  As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t emulate anyone in particular, but, like most writers I pick up some traits of those I read. Back when I first tried I Write Like, it was hardly surprising that its first answer was H. P. Lovecraft.  I’d been reading a lot of Lovecraft at the time, and I sent in a sizable sample of my writing.  Oh, and it also suggested Stephen King. Elizabeth tried it and also came up with Stephen King, despite the fact that her writing was, at the time, young adult and geared towards talking cats.  Perhaps Mr. King has written so much that it is hard not to sound like him? I’ve written thousands and thousands of words since I last visited the website.  Not really sure I’d still find it available, I was pleased to see it there.  I’ve been experiencing a reading malaise, and I needed to recharge my dry cells. Copying seve...

An equation, by definition, has two sides.  Each side ultimately balances the other.  Being a writer is not an equation.  Being a published writer is. I recently had lunch with a friend who is a published author; I’ll feature his book in a post shortly.  As we talked about the long process it took to get his book into print, it dawned on me that I may be a writer, but I still need to play the publishers’ game. As writers we write what we want to express.  We are literate, intelligent, and full of emotion that finds satisfaction only in the written word.  Publishers represent the other side of the equation if we want to become published writers. Publishing is a business while writing is a creative enterprise.  As a writer it is easy to think that we don’t need to please anyone.  Our thoughts are our motivations and our souls are laid bare on paper.  Anyone should want to buy such valuable material. The publisher has to g...