K. Marvin Bruce

A friend who is also a writer sent me a story to read.  It is a rare and distinct pleasure to read what other unknown writers write.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but his story, as always, captivated me with secrets he wasn’t telling.  He writes well. My friend studied mythology in college.  His stories draw from the characters of the Classics.  This isn’t a bad place to look for ideas.  I sometimes use the Bible for the same purposes.  The old stories never seem to wear out. Another friend, this one assures me he is no writer, sends me a story every year.  He writes ghost stories for his nieces and nephews and he includes me because I ask him to.  His stories are uncanny, but they don’t scare.   Both friends write stories with cars.  I stopped to think about this.  Cars have created their own little microcosm where stories play out.  One of my published stories, “Fashion Wear for Gentlemen” takes place mostly in a car.  A good bit of “Good for the Gander” also transpires

Long before I read much Stephen King (I only started on King in my late 40s), I had made up a fictional town.  King is well known for his fictional towns of Derry and Jerusalem’s Lot (‘Salem’s Lot) in Maine.  These are lands of magical realism where the paranormal happens, but people act just as people do. My fictional town is Breck, New Hampshire.  One of my published stories, “Good for the Gander,” is set in Breck.  Since my fiction hasn’t yet found a wide readership, nobody would realize just how many of my stories are set in my fictional town. Like most working writers, I write in fits and starts.  I begin each day with writing time, but occasionally it is harried by work and daily life issues.  I begin, continue, and finish stories and move on.  Most of them have never been sent out for rejection. Recently I realized that my Breck stories might start to interlock.  I had started a novel about Breck some years ago, to introduce the town.  I had sketched out a map of do

The last time I moved, everything was in a rush.  I had been unemployed and my new job started just a month in the future and half a country away.  I slung things into boxes and unpacked, haphazardly, on weekends.  In the decade since then, life has been a blur. Lately I’ve been trying to find things.  While sorting through a stack of paperwork, I came across a box of old stories.  Really old.  Some of these tales go back to when I first started to write fiction.  Most of them are embarrassing, but when I recall how young I was, they aren’t as embarrassing as all that. One of the stories I remembered writing as a ninth or tenth grader.  My English teacher told me I should try to get it published.  I lived in a small town where no one had connections to the publishing world, and where nobody really knew how to get anything published. Where you’re born does make a difference. The story was in a pile of papers I found.  It seems to have born its age well, but some o

This year marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.  Like most kids in high school, I found Shakespeare tough going, but I didn’t despise the Bard.  What always amazed me is that one man’s work had lasted so long. We went through one of the standard curricula for reading Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice , Julius Caesar , Hamlet , and MacBeth .  We memorized the famous speeches and learned the words and phrases he gave to our language. While involved in a romantic relationship after college (where no Shakespeare was required), I decided to read Romeo and Juliet on my own.  I was surprised that I didn’t need to use the notes as much as I recalled.  Reading, I suppose, helped fill in some of the blanks. I have wanted to read more Shakespeare over the years.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream , The Tempest , and others that I had missed.  This year, however, I decided to begin with King Lear . I had known the story of King Lear only in a minimal way. 

The advice that many writers give to those who would be authors is simple: read.  In order to be able to write, you need to learn what good writing looks like.  Fashions change over time, but good writing is just good thinking. I’ve decided to take one of the many reading challenges you find online at the beginning of the year.  Various websites suggest that such “contests” are better than resolutions that fall by the wayside by the beginning of February.  For me, I don’t need a contest to make me read, but these contests may make you read things you otherwise wouldn’t. One of the categories in my contest is a book that you’ve read before.  If a book is far enough in my past, the details become hazy.  I hate to admit it, but I’ve even read books that I remember nothing about.  My details of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov are one such victim. I picked this book up the first week of the year.  It is a big book and I’m a slow reader.  It is not paced for the pre

Just how many literary agents are there?  I wonder if I’ve run through the entire list yet.  Just before the holidays, when I had a rare few free moments, I started sending out queries.  I use agentquery.com .  As Preditors & Editors shows, there are plenty of people out there ready to take you for every word you’ve got. In this day of webocentrism, you’d think agents, of all people, would keep up-to-date.  Agents, however, are literally spoiled for choice.  Most of them don’t need new clients since so many people are trying to break into writing that they can pick only what they find titillating.  Like deciding at a glance that you’d never go out with this person.  Never mind what might be inside. So I found five agencies, all listed as open to new queries and saying, “Yes, I’d like to see your work!”  Out the emails went.  The first email received an autoreply stating my query was being automatically deleted since the agent was too busy.  Check back when her website said

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had unsolicited advice from a couple of sources suggesting that my writing expectations are off.  Aim low, they advise, and even then don’t expect much.  That I already understand.  It’s the next bit of advice that gets to me: Don’t write what you want to write.  Write what sells.   One way they suggest doing this is to become a ghost writer.  People who have the profile to sell books but who can’t write often want someone with talent to tell their story and give them the credit.  It is accepted wisdom that this is a standard way to break into writing. I don’t doubt that they’re right.  Nobody’s heard of K. Marvin Bruce—he’s never been a major athlete, political figure, or entertainer.  Why should they care what he has to say?  (Never mind the creative part, or even the fact that he’s a nice guy.)  Someone with billions of dollars we care about.  We want their story. I’m friends with a successful writer.  He said, “Never compromise.” 

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.  In the case of writing, literary nods are also forms of acknowledgment.  “O Driver, My Driver,” has just appeared at Exterminating Angel Press: The Magazine.   And it is a nod to Walt Whitman. I realized that “O Captain, My Captain,” was a tribute to Abraham Lincoln.  I understand Lincoln to be, perhaps for the last time, a president who stood for the common man.  Few after Lincoln would rise from humble beginnings to the presidency.  Soon it would become the office of the rich and high born. For many of us, life is work.  In my particular case, it is a life of commuting as well as working.  I sent this little story out to a few places that didn’t understand the pathos involved.  I make no fun of Lincoln; in fact, the drivers of my buses are in many ways literally and figuratively, my captain. Climbing aboard a bus before dawn many months of the year, a passenger cannot help but feel indebted.  At least I can’t.  On

Since those of you reading this don't know me, you'll have to take my word for it.  I'm not an arrogant person. In fact, I tend to be very hard on myself and undervalue what I accomplish.  Still, I do think a lot. I often wonder about writers who think a lot and how they make believable characters who don't.  This may be why I have trouble finding publishers—although my characters aren’t Mary Sues, they tend to be smart and tend to think things through. In my head I know that many people react on impulse and don't think of consequences.  Would crime be an issue, for example, if people thought through the likely outcome?  I have trouble turning it off though.  When my characters do something illogical it tends to be extreme. Bipolar isn't likely an accurate description, but I do tend to be depressed a lot and very happy at other times.  I find that I write better when I'm depressed, probably because it's a form of therapy.  When I'm down,