K. Marvin Bruce

What is it about the viewpoint of a young girl that draws me into a novel?  As a middle-aged man, my experience is so different than that of the young, female protagonist that I can’t help but wonder what her experience is. This was very clear in my recent reading of Peter Rock’s My Abandonment .  This was one of those titles recommended by GQ that I mentioned a few weeks back.  (Yes, advertising works.)  I suspect the word “haunting” in the description sold me, and I didn’t realize a young girl would guide me  through the strange world that awaited. I won’t be giving any spoilers, but this was a girl’s coming of age story with no sex, no romance, and that inherently ambiguous relationship between a girl and her father.  The writing is spare, and beautiful, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road .  How a middle-aged man captures the voice of a young girl is a source of wonder. The story is strange, yes, but naturalistic.  Nothing in the sho...

One of the greatest challenges I face as a writer is dwindling inspiration.  Those days when the Muses play coy and I feel like writing and have the time to do it, but the ideas just don’t come. I’m the kind of person who looks for causes.  Unapologetically.  I’ve discovered, I think, a few.  One is change in sleep patterns.  I had a few days off and, feeling perpetually sleep deprived, slept in a bit.  This immediately impacted my writing.  I need a schedule, and I write early. Another factor is my writing depends on what I read.  I’ve been reading a book which, although entertaining, isn’t really inspiring.  I draw so many ideas from what I read that having a long, nondescript book in hand can set me back ages. A third factor is lack of encouragement.  When it has been months since I’ve had something accepted for publication, it begins to feel like I’ve lost the touch.  Everything I read seems better than that which I...

Those of us who write are quite mad.  In more lucid moments we know it, but most of the time our reality is skewed.  There are any number of examples.  If you write, you know it to be true. I recently read a study of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.  Dick had drug addiction issues throughout his life, but he also experienced severe abandonment issues as a child.  As an adult he had mystical experiences that sound quite, well, mad. Whitley Strieber, who is still alive, has been subject to fits and mystical experiences throughout his life as well.  Some of his fiction is bizarre, but not as strange as his non-fiction.  The list could go on and on.  Writers see the world differently than others. We write and find that others don’t share our point of view.  We die and, if we’re lucky, then we become famous.  Those who made great statements in their fiction often began, and ended, obscure.  Poe was pilloried in h...

After a story is rejected from a literary magazine—a rather frequent occurrence—I always revise it.  For stories rejected half a dozen or more times—a rather frequent occurrence—the stories can shift substantially.   In a version of the old saw that “this is the axe used by George Washington to chop down the cherry tree; it has had five new handles and three new heads,” I wonder if the story is the same after such revision.  I write in the flush of inspiration.  The story comes to me roughly complete. The literati say “no,” and I assume the fault must be my own.  I knuckle down and start trying to revise to their liking.  The action changes.  The ending changes.  The characters change.  Is it the same story? Is the fault that my addled brain seems to have trouble telling a story someone wants to read?  Is it the curse of an internet that makes writers of anyone with fingers to type?  I started writing fiction four decad...

There are two types of writing, or maybe three.  The two I’m referring to are the writing that I plan out and the writing that comes to me.  The latter is the best.  The possible third is a combination of the two. I sometimes think I should enroll in a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program.  I have friends who’ve done it and they seem to have less trouble finding a publisher.  After all, credentials mean something.  I don’t have thousands of dollars to spare at the moment, so I’m trying to figure out what I can teach myself. An MFA program is one where you pay to write.  You meet other writers and maybe study with someone renowned.  They tell you, I imagine, how to craft stories.  Plan out writing.  Type number one. No doubt this works for some.  I had a writer I barely know call me out of the blue.  He’d studied with Harold Bloom and knew Jane Smiley as a student.  They were in a writing program together.  B...