The Writer's Dilemma

Do you admit that you’re a writer? If it’s in your job description I suppose you do, but for many of us being a writer presents us with a dilemma. Do you admit to your boss that you’re hoping to get paid for what you do off the clock?

I have a friend in the publishing industry whose employer has strict rules about such things. Any “employment” that takes away from work time has to be declared in written form and sent to the office that investigates conflict of interest. If you’re a writer who’s paid to do something else you can already see where I’m going with this.

Inspiration doesn’t obey time-clocks. In fact, it almost always makes a mockery of them. When you’ve arrived at work and punched in (i.e., booted up your PC) does that story idea obediently bed down until 5 p.m.? Of course not. Even after you’ve dug into today’s business, it’s probably playing like muzak in the back corridors of your gray matter. It sometimes can’t wait until the lunch break to burst out.

What boss would be glad to hear that? Doesn’t it sound like a recipe for unproductive employees and incipient laziness? Boss’ll say “make bricks without straw,” and you’ll be basking in that metaphor. But those of us who write have a secret. We know that simple binaries aren’t half the story. We can do more than one task at a time.

Still, it’s dangerous to admit to the boss that you write. More often than not, the thought will be there that you could be using some of that “fluff time” for working a few extra hours. Make more money for the company. Take one for the team. That’s the way a non-writer thinks.

The writer has the dilemma: to say or not to say? We also have a bit of insider knowledge. Taking that few minutes offline during the course of the work day doesn’t hurt our performance. As writers know, it only enhances it.

Comments

Patterns

There’s a pattern I’m noticing. For fiction publishers. Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle. Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers. The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in. That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested. I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns. This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses. I check many lists. What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic. It’s literary but it’s weird. Publishers don’t know what to do with it. If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered. Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...

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. ...

Maybe Okay

A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers. I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks. As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying. Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine. And it’s likely true. But the stories: “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing. JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher. I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology. Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game! A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast. Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted. It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...

K. Marvin Bruce

Search This Blog