Will Write for Money

I suppose I should get over it. I feel mercenary about writing for money. Almost as if I’ve sold out. What a strange way to announce my first story accepted for publication for pay. Don’t get me wrong—I’m absolutely thrilled. I’ve received prize money for my writing before, but getting paid to have someone publish it is new.

This past week two bits of good news arrived on the same day. My story “Meh-Teh” was accepted by The Colored Lens, and they’re a paying venue. Simultaneously my story “Creative Writing Club” received honorable mention in Typehouse’s second biennial short fiction contest. I literally had to go for a jog after opening the emails just to clear my head.

You see, I’ve been writing fiction for forty years. I sent my first story in for publication a decade ago. It won a contest. Then the rejections began rolling in. I’ve lost track of how many there have been. Indeed, in this latest batch of stories I’ve sent out, I’ve already received multiple rejections. Two acceptances on the same day was almost like going to the miracle store.

Not only that, but two of the three stories recently accepted are Breck stories. Long before I knew that Stephen King had made up Derry, Maine, I had invented a town called Breck, in New Hampshire, where many of the weird things in my stories happen. I have maps of Breck and a list of well over 50 characters who live in the town, all of them in stories I’ve written. (I have a tremendous backlog.)

I’ve always wanted some of these Breck stories to see the light of other people’s eyes. It’s a kind of affirmation for the world-building I like to do. The laws of physics don’t always strictly apply in Breck. Monsters live there—inhuman, some of them. In fact, the narrator of my novel lived there.

A certain cynicism attends being paid for writing. Like an artist has sold out. Still, considering the many thousands of hours I put into my writing, it seems like a little pay is only fair. Besides, I still write what I want to write, whether anyone pays me for it or not. I guess I’m not so mercenary after all.

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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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