Following Instructions

I have another blog. That one, under my real name, has fewer readers than this one. Unlike the piece you’re reading at the moment, this is an occasional note. I post on the other blog daily. Interestingly I’ve had publishing professionals tell me that’s what they like to see. Funny.

Perhaps it doesn’t seem like much, but coming up with discrete, intelligent (I hope!) things to say every day, for over a decade, should demonstrate willingness to work hard. When I started the other blog I had lots of followers. Now I have few.

I know, I know! If I were in your place I’d be saying, “Maybe your writing sucks.” Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. The point is without someone willing to help we all spin in obscurity.

Someone I know online recently published a book on a topic in which I also publish. He has tons of followers. I don’t. He also has a university post and thus an institution behind him. That’s the difference, I suspect.

The idea of being a voice crying in the wilderness is attractive. To a point. By my calculations I have spent tens of thousands of hours writing. When pieces get published the editors gush over how good they are. Then they disappear.

I’m pretty critical of myself. Most writers are, I think. (Critical of themselves, I mean, not critical of me, although they could be!) We deal with rejection on a massive scale, all the while being told to believe in ourselves. We must be made of rubber.

I’ve got about six stories out for consideration at the moment. Several more are written and awaiting that rare week with two weekends in a row to get the time to send them out. I’m not even allowed to tweet on work time.

Writing’s a tough business. I spend far more money on books than I earn by publishing. It would seem that this rusty wheel is bound to turn sometime. On either blog will do.

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Working Through It

The thing about being a working writer is you don’t have time. Between working nine-to-five and trying to eat and sleep, and write, of course, the week is shot. Weekends are spent doing the errands that you can’t do during the week. I should probably have known better than to join a local writers’ group. Their meetings, although only once a month, are all-day affairs on a Saturday. I generally don’t have all day Saturday to spare. I work all week and I need groceries and the occasional Target run. And I haven’t yet learned to go a week without eating. This is actually the third writers’ group I’ve joined. One was not too far from home, but not terribly helpful. They met on Saturdays, but in the morning only. Nobody seemed interested in what I was writing, so I stopped going. The second one was about an hour away. They also met on Saturdays. Their big thing was having lunch together after the meeting. ...

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. ...

K. Marvin Bruce

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