Skip to main content

Easy Chair

 I hope you’re comfortable.  With apologies for interrupting The Space between Atoms once again, I’m wanting to share another small success for this struggling writer.  A story I submitted to Coffin Bell about a year ago has just been accepted for publication.  Its title is “Easy Chair.”


I know many people that work in publishing.  Although many websites are in a constant state of updating, changing daily or often more frequently than that, publication takes time.  Editors I know often take weeks even to get to submissions they receive.  Those submissions have to be read and compared with others that have also arrived.


Many times a story has to go to outside readers and/or an editorial board.  These are all busy people.  And, of course, unless you’re a household name, you’ll be part of the slush pile for awhile.





I used to find that off-putting, but the slush pile is a reality of a world where lots and lots and lots of people want to get published.  I’m sure the name “K. Marvin Bruce” isn’t widely known.  Although I’ve written novels none have been published yet.


None of this, however, detracts from the good cheer of being informed that somebody likes my story well enough to publish it.  “Easy Chair” is a piece I’d been working on for at least five years.  (Not only the publication process is slow in the life of a working writer…)  It’s a revenge story.


And I’ve been busy during the pandemic.  Last weekend I didn’t even have time to post on this blog until very late Sunday night (in actual fact it was very early Monday morning).  Although I value my writing time above just about all other time, that doesn’t mean I can do it whenever I please.  I just don’t have time.


I’ll send an update when “Easy Chair” appears, along with a link.  I’ve got several other stories out for consideration, but, as ever, progress is slow.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more