Manic Submission

Every year about this time I begin to panic. The myth of perpetual growth suggests that each year should lead to more publications than the previous one, and by November it is clear that I’ve started to slip from my previous lofty goals. I have reached a total of 18 published stories now, in a total of eight different venues. Have I grown as a writer?

September saw the panic start. Some journals, particularly those run by college or university departments, only open for submissions with the start of the school year. A family crisis the first week of September set my plans off kilter for a couple of months. Now that I’ve regained my footing, it looks like I’ve fallen behind.

Over the holiday weekend I was able to send out five of my multiply rejected stories for yet another sortie against the established publishers. I’ve been working on building my Twitter following in the meantime, but my fiction writing has been suffering. Every now and again I need a bit of good news to buoy me up.

The election of Donald Trump feels like a blow against the creative lifestyle. We artists draw our inspiration from unorthodox sources sometimes. Shuffling about in depression for two weeks also takes its toll on the ability to string words together in an ambience of muted optimism. It looks like a long way until we’ll be able to be openly creative again.

Spending the day anticipating a feast can mean many different things. I know simultaneous submissions are the way to get ahead but it still feels slightly unfair to me. I’d like to think that my work would be accepted on its own merit. Not only that, but there seem to be few places that publish my brand of whatever it is I write.

I’ve missed a couple of weeks posting on my blog. Now I’m back and as manic as ever.

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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