The Space between Spaces

An external disk crash is a tragedy. You see, my computer doesn't have much memory. The little it has is claimed by the increasing size of the operating system at each update. I back my files up on a WD terabyte drive.

The drive failed this week. Although I hope to get the contents recovered, the remaining chapters of The Space between Atoms reside on that drive. In fact, the thousands of pieces of my writing yet unpublished do.

I don't trust the cloud. How can you trust something where your files, like a Heisenbergian electron can't be precisely traced? I like to know where my files are. Right now they're nowhere. The silly drive whirs and ticks like an electronic idiot, but it doesn't show where the files are.

Data recovery, I've discovered, costs eight times the cost of a disk drive. The lesson? Buying half a dozen backup drives is cheaper. If one disk fails your files are still somewhere.

Months of my life went into writing The Space between Atoms. Experts with dollar signs for irises tell me that the data are recoverable. Ah yes, for a price. Because of the pandemic you have to mail it in. I won't know where my files are. Ironic, isn't it?

You might suggest tracking. This past holiday season I had a package "delivered" according to the Post Office. Only it never was. I called my local branch. "Joe's usually pretty good about that sort of thing," they said.

Ideas are perhaps inherently unstable. I awake very early in the morning to write before work. I've been doing so for years. I've accumulated stories—many ready for publication—now gone. My laptop can run the latest system, but it has no room for all my work.

Does all of this make me trust the cloud? Not at all. There are spaces between atoms, and hopefully I'll be able to continue posting them soon. If they can recover my data. If not, we'll all have to live with the space between spaces. Tech is, after all, our friend.

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa kept his manuscripts in a trunk and became posthumously famous. Will the same ever happen for those who keep their thoughts in the cloud?

Comments

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. ...

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...

K. Marvin Bruce

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