Neglecting Fiction

Every day in Trump’s America the line between fiction and fact becomes effaced. Not that that’s any excuse for neglecting my fiction, in fact it seems as good a reason as any to press on with it. I’ve got a non-fiction book under contract and that keeps me away from my mistress Muse in the “fake news” world.

It’s too bad, really. I’ve got a seventh novel well under way and I’ve got a potential publisher considering one (at last) for publication. The thing is, for a man being published is about the closest you can come to giving birth. Months of gestation, after having seeds planted inside, and perhaps then you have something to say. Something that will grow up beautiful.

As someone who has written literally millions of words, I’m always amazed at how difficult it is to find others who want to read them. The internet’s a crowded place. My daily commute to and from work forces me offline for a few hours a day, and it is a bit of a learning experience to cradle a book like holding somebody else’s baby.

Since my writing time is limited, and I have a non-fiction book with a deadline, I have to let the fiction go free for a while. 2017 has been the slowest publication year I’ve had in fiction since 2009. I simply haven’t had time to get the stories submitted. They’re still coming—I wrote one just last weekend. But who has time any more?

I’ve read that the earth is slowing down in its rotation speed. I personally think it’s speeding up. My bus schedule hasn’t changed, but since last year I have even less time than I used to. I keep thinking that vacation time will come and it will stop and I’ll have a chance to catch up. Then a non-fiction contract lands on my desk.

It’s not that I’m complaining. The boundary between fiction and fact barely exists at all.

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Pacing

A criticism that I’ve occasionally received concerns pacing. The short story, which today means up to about 7000 words, is a limited amount of space to establish mood. My writing partner Elizabeth was reading a Poe short story recently and commented on how long it seemed. We’ve been accustomed, by the internet, to shorten things. Flash fiction is in. Say it in 1000 words or less. What’s the correct pacing for a 300-word story? I’ve been editing a number of my complete, but unpublished, stories lately. I’m trying to bring the word counts down. I don’t want to be thought of as a plodding writer. At the same time, I’m no action writer. My stories are thoughtful. Some time ago I started reading Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire . Dark, moody, and sensuous, this is a slow-paced novel. Focusing on subtleties and emotions, she paints a writerly picture of the inner life of the undead. If I were an editor to...

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...

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...

K. Marvin Bruce

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