The Shock of Success

With a shock I realized it had been months since the last time. Months! I write every day, and yet I hadn’t submitted anything for publication since the spring. I had several stories ready to go, and although my skin is getting more reptilian, each rejection still hurts (nobody’s allowed to say that, by the way).

A couple weeks back, then, I took three stories that have been gathering electronic dust, and sent them out. The first, a prose riff on Whitman called, “O Driver, My Driver,” was turned down by a journal that had published me twice before. I’m incredibly busy so I just took the pain and went to work.

A decided to send it out again—it really is a good story. I will discuss it more, once it’s published. That’s why I started this blog. Long ago a friend warned me not to try to publish fiction on a blog. Of course, some people do, and become best sellers.

Did I say it’s going to be published? Oh yes, thank you Exterminating Angel Press!

Despite fiction being my first love, I have a paltry job that pays the bills (barely). For a guy my age, that’s a little embarrassing to admit. I should be shucking up retirement funds ready to bask in late middle age on the shore of a lake somewhere. (I told you I write fiction.)

In the course of my life outside of fiction I ran into Exterminating Angel Press. Naturally, I thought of my story “Angel Hunter.” It had already been published in the excellent Deep Water Literary Journal, and I don’t regret that. I just thought our titles indicated similar sensibilities. I’d done a couple of reviews for Exterminating Angel Press and decided to see if they’d like my fiction.

Some time in the future, I’m happy to announce, “O Driver, My Driver” will be published in their magazine.

What I noticed immediately was that although yesterday was dull as Hell at work, I was happy all day. The reason was, quite simply, news of acceptance. I’ve been getting a lot of pinhead letters for jobs that look better than mine. Being published, even if it’s far off in the future, validates me. That’s the way with adult children of alcoholics.

Who knows? If EAP likes my work I may find a home for one of my six novels yet. Meanwhile the daily grind goes on.

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. ...

Creativity

Maybe you’ve noticed this too. When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid. I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book. God, I’ve missed fiction! Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction. I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well. When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life. Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found. Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published. Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic. The vast majority, however, are unfinished. Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I...

K. Marvin Bruce

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