K. Marvin Bruce

I asked my friend and writing partner Elizabeth what I should write about.  It's not that I have writers' block, it's just that sometimes I don't know what aspect of writing to address.  If you're reading this you're probably a writer too.  You'll know what I mean. For a writer, nothing's more important than writing.  Few tragedies in life can't be wrestled with by using our avocation.  Still, sometimes it's hard to say much about writing.  It is.  It exists.  It is greater than the writer. Lately my job has been impinging on my writing.  I have to spend extra hours every day and all that time spent with work-related activity takes time away from what's really important (writing).  I still manage to write some every day, even if it's just fifteen minutes.  Even if it's just a blog post. I recently had a day where I could write for a couple of hours, uninterrupted.  It was an amazingly therapeutic experience!  Instead...

When we’re concerned about someone we ask, “How are you feeling?”  I don’t think I’ve ever said to anyone, “How are you thinking?”  Some scientists believe that thinking begins with emotion rather than with rational thought. As a writer, I know all about how emotion affects what I can write.  Yes, it controls what I write.  I’m in the middle of a couple of big projects.  I find it hard to write on the same topic for long periods of time, but I really want to get this book finished.  Sometimes I just don’t feel it. Like today.  I’m sad because a friend is moving away.  I’ve been fighting the depression that usually attends such things, and I have managed to whittle this down to a persistent sadness.  Sadness often brings out superior writing, but it means that the happy piece I’m working on will have to wait. Well, it’s not really a happy piece.  It’s more of a funny piece.  At least I hope it’s funny.  My Medusa n...

A brand new notebook.  It's a thing of such exquisite beauty that I begin to weep.  The pen in my hand is nervous, like a first date.  Once I begin to write, this notebook will never be the same. The ideas flow, partly based on the medium chosen to channel them.  Any writer knows this.   Growing up before word processors or home computers, in a time when even typewriters were too expensive for families like mine, I came to adore paper.  In almost a mystical sense, I feel a growing thrill when faced with completely blank pages.  Writing can be so visceral, so physical.  I can get lost in it, as if I'm following the folds in my gray matter to places I never knew I had.   The results, whether any publishers like them or not, prove that I am a writer.  I have gone some place unexplored and have brought something new to light.  It may not survive.  No museum may want it.  It is, however, now part of the universe.   ...

During vacation I spent time around lots of other people.  I should, I suppose, clarify.  Although writers need time alone, I really spend little of my working day, and what’s left of the day, among regular people.  There are the people at work, but they hardly count. What stood out to me on vacation was just how many people have what used to be termed disabilities.  Spending a few days in a crowd, it become clear that many people have difficulty getting around, or are missing limbs, or have mental illnesses.  It occurred to me that it is difficult to write about people with disabilities. I fully realize this is a personal bias, but when I think of characters, I tend to think of people from the perspective with which I’m familiar.  I do sometimes write from a female perspective, most of my characters are from my ethnic background and are, according to current views, not disabled. The few times I’ve tried to incorporate different ethic backgroun...

Have you ever noticed that on the days when you desperately need a bit of good news—when you’re viscerally aching for it—these are the days literary magazines send their faceless rejection letters?  The universe is tilted against us. I wrote a piece that looked perfect for The Literary Commute .  It was about commuting, and it was very literary.  Even made subtle reference to Whitman, taking his poem in a direction he wouldn’t want it to go. Even though The Literary Commute is new, they sent me a rejection letter on a Monday, a day of direst need.  I would say I’ve lost count of how many journals have rejected my work, but that would be a lie.  I read enough to know that it is nearly every writer’s story. I had a professor once who said, in paraphrase, “If you’re work is good enough for some people to like, it will be good enough for others to hate.”  It seems the haters outdistance the lovers by a considerable margin. Probably the...

My computer died.  While there’s no good time for that to happen, when you’re traveling and there are no Apple stores nearby is perhaps the worst such time.  I was able to beg, borrow and surf on friends’ machines, but since they didn’t know me as Marvin, well, access was limited. This is one of the problems with a dual identity.  Not that my inability to check my email had any impact on the stories/novel I’ve got out for consideration.  When my computer was replaced yesterday, I had no emails at all. Being computerless, as a writer, was a strange and interesting experience.  With one exception, my publications are all online.  The files are all electronic.  Even though I travel everywhere with a notebook, and a backup notebook, I was cut off from my own work. Now that I have a new computer, and a much diminished bank account, I was able to recover all my old files.  I use a Mac because a Mac is the only kind of computer to use. ...