K. Marvin Bruce

Life is plenty complicated without writing.   Life’s impossible without writing. You see, I’ve got tons of fiction here.   Well, it be tons if I printed it out.   I’ve been writing every day for decades now.   Long past the limit Neal Stephenson once told me, the 100,000 words you throw out before calling yourself a writer.   The problem is, life’s complicated. I happened into a New York City bookstore.   On the same shelf paperbacks by the aforementioned Neal and Robert Repino.   I know them both.   I returned home and fired up the laptop.   Hundreds of stories.   Half a dozen novels.   Amid all of this, just one story of mine that one small journal thought was worthy of actual ink.   It won third place in a contest. There’s no way to count pre-computer writing.   I was born before the advent of the household CPU.   Before electronic calculators.   We thought the TI-30 was a big deal,...

There are those who might rightfully suppose, like Mark Twain or Paul McCartney, that K. Marvin Bruce is dead.   The fact is that Marvin is engaged on two books of non-fiction that are actually under contract; fiction presses seem less friendly to my brand of writing. Also, I haven’t been submitting much fiction because, well, I have books under contract.   That’s why I’m pleased to announce that “In the Night” is up on Exterminating Angel Press: The Magazine .   You can find it here: EAP .   The title come from the theme of this quarter’s publication—Things That Go Bump. The story, as usual, predates the theme.   Quite some time ago I was struck by how religious authorities used to—and in some places still—have the authority to punish believers.   Believe it or not, in many parts of the world this includes the death penalty.   Civil authorities are unable to change their theological minds. “In the Night” deals with such a s...

Writing is all about habit.   I recently moved house and with the move I somehow left my old writing habits behind.   Or so it seems.   The fact is I’ve had two non-fiction book assignments in a row and my true love has had to wait. My house didn’t come with a writing nook.   It was a tough market this year and finding some kind of suitable domicile before my apartment lease was up proved a trick for which I wasn’t prepared.   I thought there would be lots of choices, but instead it was catch as catch can.   Writing nooks weren’t in this year. Still, my usual chair was still available and I settled in to try my morning writing.   I had a story accepted for publication—the first time in over a year—and I realized that what I was missing was the drawing in of new material.   I need to see how other people live. There’s a bar within walking distance.   A trendy one that serves only local brews.   There I noticed the be...

Jo March had her red cap (before such things were tainted) and writing nook.   Those of us who write also have our habits.   Thing is, circumstances change. For the first time in over a decade I’m moving house.   Most specifically, I’m moving from an apartment into a house.   I’ll keep my day job, but I’ll be telecommuting—whatever that is.   Here in my apartment I awoke very early in order to accommodate public transportation.   My writing time has been very early. Weekends have taught me that sleeping in disrupts writing.   Indeed, my freshest time is way before dawn.   My mind is sharp and alert.   I’m productive.   I’m energetic.   I’m also not as young as I used to be.   One of my more self-indulgent activities is to allow myself to sleep until 5 a.m. on a Saturday. I wake up groggy, uninspired.   I sit down to write, weary already.   Only with great effort can I shove the pen.   I real...

Maybe you’ve noticed it too.   You finish a story and you’re impressed.   It came together better than you had imagined it would.   You might’ve even surprised yourself with how nicely it fell into place. Excitedly, you send it to publisher after publisher.   In their various polite ways of writing pinhead letters, you know you see something they can’t.   You start rewriting.   Changing things.   Some carpentry here.   Some cosmetic surgery there.   Better now? Once again they yawn and say no.   This just doesn’t interest or excite them.   They’re looking for something you just haven’t got.   Meanwhile, you’ve marred your original piece, the one that spoke to you in a way that made you certain you had something to share. After a while you turn to other things, leaving it in your drawer of unpublished gems.   I read a biography of L. Ron Hubbard once—don’t worry, I’m not a Scientologist.   Hubbard...

In the never-ending quest to be published, I’ve turned to nonfiction.   In nonfiction, you see, all you have to do is convince someone you’ve got an idea nobody else has had.   It took me a few years to figure that out, but then I’ve always been a slow study.   Even doctorates don’t help. I keep working at my fiction.   It’s where my heart is.   I just finished reading a book, World War Z , by Max Brooks.   Now, I know it’s a matter of taste—this was on the New York Times Bestseller list—but I didn’t care for it.   It wasn’t that well written.   Yes, it was a new idea but so is the one I’ve been trying to get published for a decade now. What happened here, I wondered.   Then I looked closer.   Max Brooks is Mel Brooks’ son.   Yes, History of the World Part I Mel Brooks’ son.   Blazing Saddles Mel Brooks’ son.   I was reminded of a bit of advice from Writers’ Marketplace back when print books still exist...

Writing’s my retirement grease.   If I have to explain the concept to you, obviously you’re not up to date on the Simpsons.   Well, come to think of it, it’s been a few years since I’ve watched it myself. Willie, the groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary is saving the grease from the school kitchen’s traps for his retirement.   Homer, on one of his get-rich-quick schemes, has been collecting spent grease to supplement his income.   When he targets the school, Willie spies the truck sucking up the goo and cries out “My retirement grease!” Daily work is not only non-satisfying, it’s also time-consuming.   I sit at work thinking how there’s little to do and I could be getting so much writing done while I sit, staring at a screen, waiting for an email to pop up.   I don’t make enough money to retire.   My plan had been to die on the job, but then I realized, if I could make money on my writing, I’d have some grease. Right now ...

Being published because you’ve managed to string some words together and bought a publisher’s interest with your money doesn’t make you an author.   I once read that Donald Trump has written more books than any other president.   Really?   A functional illiterate is an author? We struggling writers know better.   Writing is a lifestyle, an outlook on life.   We carry around notebooks, slips of paper, or electronic devices that are crammed with thoughts and observations.   We spend quite time either scribbling or typing.   We create meaning. Books are a commodity.   There was shock in the publishing community when an Amazon spokesperson referred to books as simply another form of merchandise some years back.   Publishers blanched.   Books are so much more than paper and ink.   They are miniature universes, cheap.   Anyone can afford to be a god of a secondhand cosmos. Trump has been famous for many years and famous ...

As a writer of horror (and the greatest horror is in trying to get published) I watch horror movies.   Part of the fun is that some poorly made movies can be quite good while some studio productions can be awful.   The difference is in the writing. I’m sure we’ve all seen horror films that are dashed together startle scenes and gory with no plot or storyline.   Good escapism they may be, but they leave you hungry.   The mind craves a story to follow, even in horror.   Especially in horror. I’ve recently entered the market for buying a house.   I’m a first time buyer.   Probably it wasn’t a good idea to binge watch the Amityville trilogy.   The first film is okay, being loosely based on the book.   The second film is more disturbing than scary and that’s because of an evil father.   The third is pure tripe. Amityville 3-D has plot lines raised and dropped like fire bombs over Dresden.   So spare in its writing that acto...

If I was a parent I’d be accused of neglect.   I have to say 2017 was the least published year of recent memory.   Not that I’ve been neglecting my fiction, but I had a non-fiction book accepted and I work full-time and commute to that job—you get the picture. I’ve also had a personal epiphany.   If you can write, you should get paid for it.   I know a publicist (not my own; I don’t have one) and she says she won’t let her authors even write an op-ed if they don’t get paid.   I guess I’d never get published then. My Medusa novel had a flicker of hope for a few moments.   A publisher actually wrote back asking for the rest of the manuscript.   That’s never happened before.   Then the editor disappeared.   Even called me by the wrong pseudonym.   I’ve gotta wonder about that because the second half of the novel’s even better than the first. While looking for an agent for my non-fiction (couldn’t find one of those either) I cam...