Skip to main content

After Atoms

 Well, I fooled myself.  I thought there was one more chapter to The Space between Atoms, but I was wrong.  All 67 chapters have now been posted.  Now I wait.


I have a YouTube channel in my real name.  It has only a handful of videos on it, but the other day one got a comment.  I happened to glance at the stats and saw it’d been viewed 80 times.  I haven’t had time to add any videos over the past two or three years.


The point is, even while I’ve been doing other things, some people have been finding what I’ve already done.  Perhaps that’s how one gets recognition?  


There comes a time when three years can pass without anyone noticing.  Except the reaper.  I started publishing fiction in my late forties.  That was about a decade ago.  I’m still waiting to get my first novel published.  I’ve written seven.


I’ve started on a new novel but I’m reminded of just how much work they entail.  Not that I shy away from work, but sometimes I wonder how much time I’ve got left.


Sorry to sound gloomy.  It comes with being a horror writer, I suppose.





Over the past year I finished about six more stories and I’m trying to find the time to send them out.  Nonfiction has been eating up that time because, well, I can get nonfiction published.  I actually have people asking me to write it.


It seems funny to me that you can get fairly easily published in nonfiction venues, but agents and editors don’t believe in your ability.  How many more years of prolificacy until someone notices, if ever?  I will write anyway.


My true love has always been fiction.  The Space between Atoms was, as all stories are, slightly autobiographical.  Writers who claim otherwise have some problems with facing the truth.  Our stories are ourselves.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.   ...
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