Haunted by Existence

I get the feeling not many people are truly haunted. I know I am. The reason I get this feeling is that my fiction, which clearly reveals evidence of haunting, is always a hard sell. I can’t give it away, at times.

You see, some of us are haunted by life. I recently read a biography of one of my childhood heroes, Rod Serling. The biographer said he wasn’t a haunted man, he just played one on TV. Not that I want anyone else to be haunted, but I felt a little let down by that assessment.

Is there something wrong with admitting being haunted? Like the stigma of mental illness? Why are people so afraid of those who are haunted? I’ve always felt drawn to them. You’d think the internet might be where we could find one another.

Yet I had behind a pseudonym. Why? I’m afraid. I’m afraid to lose my “real job” that I don’t enjoy. Afraid that my family will find out what’s in my head. Afraid that people will reject the haunted along with the specters that do the haunting.

My fiction is what I call existential horror. Others have done it much better, I know. Jorge Luis Borges. Thomas Ligotti. Edgar A. Poe. But they found publishers. They have fans. Until you do you suffer alone. A submission for publication is a cry for help, as Ivan Klima surely knows.

Until you get a publisher nobody knows you’re haunted. It may be that there’s simply no money in it. Tell that to those who make horror films such a success. It takes those who’ve squarely faced existential horror to write it effectively. If life doesn’t make you afraid, as Grandpa said, it’s because you’re not paying attention.

So I continue my haunted existence. What else can I do? The agents and editors blithely send their lissome rejection notes. They are not haunted people. Those of us who are know each other.

Comments

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...

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. ...

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

Search This Blog