K. Marvin Bruce

Those of us who write are quite mad.  In more lucid moments we know it, but most of the time our reality is skewed.  There are any number of examples.  If you write, you know it to be true. I recently read a study of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.  Dick had drug addiction issues throughout his life, but he also experienced severe abandonment issues as a child.  As an adult he had mystical experiences that sound quite, well, mad. Whitley Strieber, who is still alive, has been subject to fits and mystical experiences throughout his life as well.  Some of his fiction is bizarre, but not as strange as his non-fiction.  The list could go on and on.  Writers see the world differently than others. We write and find that others don’t share our point of view.  We die and, if we’re lucky, then we become famous.  Those who made great statements in their fiction often began, and ended, obscure.  Poe was pilloried in h...

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had unsolicited advice from a couple of sources suggesting that my writing expectations are off.  Aim low, they advise, and even then don’t expect much.  That I already understand.  It’s the next bit of advice that gets to me: Don’t write what you want to write.  Write what sells.   One way they suggest doing this is to become a ghost writer.  People who have the profile to sell books but who can’t write often want someone with talent to tell their story and give them the credit.  It is accepted wisdom that this is a standard way to break into writing. I don’t doubt that they’re right.  Nobody’s heard of K. Marvin Bruce—he’s never been a major athlete, political figure, or entertainer.  Why should they care what he has to say?  (Never mind the creative part, or even the fact that he’s a nice guy.)  Someone with billions of dollars we care about.  We want their story. I’m frien...

There is, I’m told, a natural progression to dating.  If a girl doesn’t like you on the first date, it’s over.  A second date is a hopeful sign and, barring unforeseen circumstances, a third date is likely. Don’t take my word for it.  I was never a proficient dater, and the girl I married was one I never dated.  My first girlfriend entangled me in a tragic relationship that strung over two years and came to define my senior year in college. No, this isn’t a dating advice column—you wouldn’t want to read one by me!  It’s a metaphor.  You see, I used to think getting published was like dating.  Once you found an editor who “got” what you were doing, you’d be able to move forward.  Progress. I think of H. P. Lovecraft, who is now being taught at universities, and how he really only found one magazine that liked his work.  I thought maybe I’d found that magazine in Danse Macabre , but then they started to be less-than-enthusiastic ab...

It may be that I didn’t pay attention in school—but my grades seemed to indicate otherwise—but I don’t recall learning about genre.  Of course I recognized science fiction and horror and western and romance.  What about those that fit no category? This used to be called “literary fiction” but those who publish literary fiction don’t like elements of “genre fiction” and won’t generally consider them.  Thus I fear to submit. My story collection, Empty Branches , submitted to Tartarus Books, received the quick Band-Aid treatment. Three days from submission to rejection.  They prefer, I suppose, straight horror.  I write something that defies genre.  It is the kind of thing that lurks in my mind. This followed on the heels of a slow, six-month rejection for a single story that is very much in the Lovecraftian mode.  In times such as this, I remind myself that Lovecraft had great difficulty getting published.  Today Poe would have a hard t...

I try to be patient, but, like Morpheus, I’m well aware that time is against us.   Since I write obsessively, manically, even, and each day reminds me I’m aging, I find waiting months for publishers to be very trying.   Time to take the red pill. Along with my daily efforts to produce new content, I’ve also been working at packaging.  That is to say, putting together a collection of stories to try to farm out to someone who understands me. There are publishers who still do short print runs of collections of short stories.  I own several such collections, and when a novel is too long for the time that I have, I turn to the short story to fill the space.  I’ve written several, and have had thirteen published.  There are many, many more that have offended publishers across the internet. Since the time of finding sympathetic editors seems to have passed, I’m thinking it might be time to put a collection together.  Problem is, I write in severa...

So, I sign into my gmail account yesterday to post my piece only to discover a rejection letter in my inbox.  When a journal called Down and Out rejects you, you know your work must suck. I’d be lying if I said I’d forgotten how many rejection notes I’ve received.  I actually do keep track.  (45 different journals, if anyone’s wondering.)  It’s a practice I recommend.  Not because it’s good to keep depression in your back pocket, but because it’s good to know who likes your work. For a long time only Danse Macabre seemed to find me worth publishing.  Jersey Devil Press took a couple of my stories, but a change of editor resulted in a stream of rejections.  Even Lovecraft had Weird Tales . Then suddenly five journals accepted pieces in quick succession.  Since then, nothing.  Feast and famine.  Love and hate.  Life and death. In this era of internet publications, finding an editor who “gets” you is the best yo...

A few years ago my writing partner Elizabeth pointed me to the website “I Write Like” ( iwl.me ).  As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t emulate anyone in particular, but, like most writers I pick up some traits of those I read. Back when I first tried I Write Like, it was hardly surprising that its first answer was H. P. Lovecraft.  I’d been reading a lot of Lovecraft at the time, and I sent in a sizable sample of my writing.  Oh, and it also suggested Stephen King. Elizabeth tried it and also came up with Stephen King, despite the fact that her writing was, at the time, young adult and geared towards talking cats.  Perhaps Mr. King has written so much that it is hard not to sound like him? I’ve written thousands and thousands of words since I last visited the website.  Not really sure I’d still find it available, I was pleased to see it there.  I’ve been experiencing a reading malaise, and I needed to recharge my dry cells. Copying seve...

An equation, by definition, has two sides.  Each side ultimately balances the other.  Being a writer is not an equation.  Being a published writer is. I recently had lunch with a friend who is a published author; I’ll feature his book in a post shortly.  As we talked about the long process it took to get his book into print, it dawned on me that I may be a writer, but I still need to play the publishers’ game. As writers we write what we want to express.  We are literate, intelligent, and full of emotion that finds satisfaction only in the written word.  Publishers represent the other side of the equation if we want to become published writers. Publishing is a business while writing is a creative enterprise.  As a writer it is easy to think that we don’t need to please anyone.  Our thoughts are our motivations and our souls are laid bare on paper.  Anyone should want to buy such valuable material. The publisher has to g...

“The writing is good,” and that's half the battle, no?  If I have to get rejection letters, then those with helpful advice are better than those who don’t say why.  Usually I assume my writing just sucks.  The latest letter, however, said the writing is good.  Only the pacing sucks. I’ve always struggled with pacing.  I like to build a mood; too many hours spent with Poe, Lovecraft, and Bradbury.  Never paying close enough attention to my masters.  Thing is, time moves on and tastes change.  I’ve learned to imitate the passé.  Although I’ve had a dozen or so acceptances in my life, each rejection still hurts.  In fact I check my email before leaving for work only.  At least my thankless job dulls the pain from an early morning pinhead letter.  Compared even to my pacing, work is dull. I recall reading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.  I read it before I saw the movie.  I think of the scene where the ve...

I write for mood.  This was an epiphany I had this week.  I started writing long before I started reading about writing.  What I wrote reflected who I’d been reading—mostly Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury. Contemporary writing gurus indicated that we should cut to the chase.  The modern attention span isn’t comfortable with the building of mood.  They keep a finger on the mouse at all times, my friend, ready to click off your page if a yawn even starts. And this sickness has infected editors.  We want the quick fix.  Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.  Literary foreplay is so twentieth century.  And the millennia before that.  The earliest recorded stories, like the Gilgamesh Epic, are repetitive and build to the action slowly.  We don’t have time for that any more. Many hours of my childhood were whiled away behind a Ray Bradbury collection of stories.  Some were little more than prose tone poems, but they were beautif...

Writing keeps me sane.  Writing drives me insane.  Often the only stability that I have in a tortured world is my writing.  Of course, writing doesn’t pay.  Long ago I made myself a note inside the cover of my commonplace book: “whether published or not, I am a writer.” A factor that is difficult to include in this equation is depression.  Like many writers I live in a miasma of low-grade depression much of the time.  It even fuels my art.  I write my most humorous material when I am despondent.  There is a depression that is debilitating, however, and even causes writing to become a strain. “There is a wisdom that is woe,” Herman Melville wrote, “but there is a woe that is madness.”  Yes, Herman, I have been there with you.  At times it is so dark that I can only glimpse Poe or Lovecraft as my guides, distantly ahead.  In the twilight we find each other. Since being released from my contract with Vagabondage Pre...