K. Marvin Bruce

Writing is kind of like sex.  It feels wonderful, but it is really difficult to manage with someone watching you.  I live in a small place, with a partner.  I have to get up very early to write, before my significant other is awake. Even if someone is not paying attention, but is in the same room, I can’t perform.  Writing is a solitary activity.  Tricky for those of us who can’t afford a house, or at least a large apartment. My writing partner Fantasia asked me recently if I have a special place.  Ever since reading Little Women many years ago, I’ve often thought about the habits of writers.  I’ve never had enough money to afford a domicile with a special place.  I don’t have a study or den.  I have a chair that I favor in the living room. This chair affords me a view of all other rooms without doors in my apartment.  I can see if anyone else can see me.  If a door is open.  If I am not alone.  I really want...

I admire the courage of anyone who publishes fiction.  As a sometime writer of the same, I know that, should anyone read my paltry offerings, I open myself to criticism and critique.  It’s a bit of me on each page I scribble. Still, often I read material that makes me cringe.  Tips from writers who succeeded tell us what to avoid, yet some fiction writers still seem unaware.  Novels full of cliches, telling—not showing, and telling yet again, over-written and lacking subtlety make their way into my hands.  I want to bury my eyes in a box of salt. But there are virtues in such reading.  Perhaps the greatest is that poor writing reminds me that I don’t know how my work appears to others.  I recently read a novel that tried me sorely.  I realized as I read, however, that I was learning on each page. Many of us learn to write by reading good writers.  If we read enough, we take on the successful habits of our idols.  Their caden...

I add posts to this blog too infrequently.  The reason: distractions.  The largest one, without question, is work.  Day-to-day routine is hardly conducive to a truly creative life.  Still, its often on my mind. Number two distraction: the world-wide-web itself.  It used to be that writing came in paper form.   Even in hardcopy, though, you had to sort the signal from noise.  There were choices to be made.  When I was a child Ripley’s Believe It or Not featured a man—I can’t remember who—that was the last person to have read every printed book. Well, I kind of doubt that.  Maybe he read every printed book available in Europe.  Other languages, such as Chinese, had been printed from an early time.  In any case, that period is passed.  All reading involves a choice. Talking with my writing partner Fantasia, I once asked about how a story she was working on was coming along.  She admitted to having been distracted...

My best friend ever has gone away.  As a writer, I lead a lonely existence—often it means spending hours isolated with my thoughts.  I know that my fan-base is tiny, my voice unheard.  My best friend listened, encouraged, and provided inspiration. Recently she moved away and when I awake it is now later than my consistent 3:30 a.m., bursting with ideas.  Now I find it hard to rise by 4:00, and the ideas are like a visit to the dentist.  I want Fantasia back, but I know that can’t happen.  Where does the forlorn writer go to find inspiration? Like Willy Wonka, my work lately has been suffering.  I limit myself to editing since new ideas just can’t be conjured.  Writing means that free time is largely spent alone—not the best way to make friends.  I certainly don’t influence people.  Yet, I can’t stop trying. Writing, as rational and heady as it is, is a matter of feeling.  I try to express my complex and troubling...

I used to belong to a local writer’s group.  Frustrated at my inability to figure out how to get published (I had written three novels and couldn’t get the attention of any publishers in this crowded market) I dutifully spent a Saturday a month with a group of strangers, trying to figure out what was wrong with me. One of the benefits of this group was their ability to pool the membership fees and bring in experts.  We had people from the publishing industry come and tell us about the realities of trying to get noticed in an over-crowded room.  And esoteric knowledge sometimes came our way. It was here that I learned from industry professionals that some best-selling authors no longer write their own books.  I was floored.  I write because I have to write.  It isn’t something I learned and it’s not in any sense optional.  The ideas come, unbidden, as I walk down the street.  The turns of phrase.  The slashing wit. Some Big Names...

In a recent chat with my friend Fantasia she asked how to write about something that doesn’t really catch your interest.  That’s a head-scratcher.  It seems to me that many young writers face having assignments that don’t flow because they are someone else’s idea. Ideas are seldom in short supply.  At any one time I have three or four potential writing repositories on my person, ready to capture any thought that I can cage.  Still, the ideas—often the ones that feel like the best—come when writing or even recording is not an option.  In heavy traffic.  In the shower.  In the dentist’s chair.  At a faculty meeting.  Just before sleep hits in earnest.  (The last two may occur simultaneously.) Life is too full of ideas to have to cater to some instructor’s whims.  Nevertheless, I had to admit to Fantasia that writing what you don’t want to is good exercise.  All writing is good.  That’s not to say that it is all goo...

From the earliest days writers have invented words.  Two of the masters in this art were Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss.  I should, of course, add Lewis Carroll.  Those who live by the word, die by the word.  It seems only fair that they should help create their own means of execution. My writing partner Fantasia and I like to discuss words we’ve invented.  I pepper them into my stories, and since publishers tend to eschew truly creative works, most of the heat is felt by me alone.  It’s truly sad, because, in the most modest way possible, I like to think that some of those words add flavor as well as heat. Some time ago I began keeping a list of invented words I’d used, or intended to use.  Since my stories are about as likely to see publication as the Whig party is to win in 2016, it seems fitting to share a few of my favorites.   One class of made up word I use is the modified real word. An example of this occurs in my story “Ini...

While The Passion of the Titans will be my first published novel—something about which I’m very excited—it is far from the first novel I’ve written.  It comes in at number four.  Nestled between my master’s degree and doctorate was my first completed novel.  Written while I was largely unemployed, trying to help my new wife make ends meet, I plunked out a clunker that I only ever very briefly considered sending out to publishers.  I’ve still got a copy somewhere. I find that it is important to keep copies of even failed writing attempts. My first attempted novel dates back to about seventh grade.  I was a sickly child and while home from school with one bout of flu or another, I began writing a somewhat developed, multi-chapter story.  As a somewhat more mature writer, years later I ripped the pages in half in embarrassment.  As an even more mature writer, years later I taped them back together. I began work in ernest on a novel while teachi...