K. Marvin Bruce

  While I wait and pray for data recovery—as I mentioned last week, The Space between Atoms was lost with the crash of a WD Elements drive—I didn’t want to neglect this poor blog.   Since I’m a struggling writer, I’ll note how editors like to kick you while you’re down. Even while I’m waiting to see if my files can be recovered, I received my weekly quota of rejection letters.   A really good story submitted to a carefully chosen journal, and a collection of stories submitted to a contest.   They all say the same thing—your work is good but there’s so much out there that’s so much better, in my opinion. You see, I know editors, and it’s those last three words that are the killer: in my opinion.   Editors have likes and dislikes.   They’re the gatekeepers for publication success. Early in my fiction publishing attempts, I kept submitting to the same publication— Danse Macabre —because I seemed to have found a sympathetic editor.   This relationship con...

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...

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...

As a self-taught writer, I frequently second-guess myself.  (Funny phrase, second-guess.)  I don’t know what’s normal, so when I receive a rejection note, I suppose the problem must be with me, not with the place I’m seeking to publish. I have a friend who is an editor.  He tells me that if a work has promise, he’ll advise the author to revise and resubmit.  This shows that there’s something worth pursuing, and it is only if it fails to impress the critics two times around that it is passed altogether. In the fiction publishing world, I’ve received a revise and resubmit suggestion only twice (both from Jersey Devil Press ).  The first time the editor really like what I was doing and worked with me to get it into the form he wanted.  The second time they turned down the revised piece and haven’t published me since. It is my usual practice, after a piece is rejected, to rewrite.  As my writing partner Elizabeth says, in a byte of inter...

Like most Americans, I don’t understand cricket.  I do know there is a batter and what we would call a pitcher who “bowls” a ball to try to knock down wickets behind the batter.  If the bowler knocks down all three wickets with successive balls, it is called a hat trick. Hat tricks are, by definition, rare events.  According to the venerable Oxford Dictionaries on the somewhat less venerable Internet, the bowler was given a hat to commemorate the feat, thus making it a “hat” trick.  Now any three unexpected successes are called by that moniker. I’ve been submitting to many publishers from my copious backlog of short fiction for about five years now.  For the first four years of my efforts I only found two online magazines willing to put any of my stories out there ( Danse Macabre and Jersey Devil Press ).  Over forty other mags turned me down. Then, out of nowhere, a hat trick.  Three submissions accepted in a row.  I don’t expect th...

My first story in Jersey Devil Press was about literary wish-fulfillment.  The idea was that, if someone loved literature enough, it would literally come alive whenever a book was opened.  As someone who has always wanted to have a published novel, this was the most guilty pleasure I could imagine. For those of us who write, everyday reality can often be painful.  We work jobs whose sole objective, on most days, seems to be to crush the very creativity from us.  I awake inspired every morning, and return from work each day completely emptied and dispirited.  Life, but not as we know it. “Literary Ops” was a story of profound hope.  Although the protagonists awake each day to various, historic world empires attempting to destroy their home (let the reader who has eyes to see understand) they may rebuff attacks by knowing just which author calms the marauding hordes.  In my dreams, life is that simple. In today’s business-driven world, the...

One of the few things that truly cause me happiness has just occurred.  I’ve seen my most recent story published.  I’m so happy, I’ll use an exclamation point! Those of you who’ve tried writing know what an accomplishment this is.  You’ve spent your life reading stuff that’s not as good as what you do, and then end each day with a pile of rejection letters so tall that you need a ladder to reach the top.  Just a moment of vindication, and you’re ready to start all over again. My first story published, “O Tannenbaum,” appeared in the online magazine Danse Macabre in December of 2009. It won an award for most macabre Christmas story that year.  Danse Macabre has since become my main squeeze for getting published.  They get it. Recently Jersey Devil Press joined the exclusive club of those who don’t automatically reject whatever I submit.  “Good for the Gander,” the story about a troubling goose attack, appeared this week.  You can r...

After lurking around the fringes of the World Wide Web for several years, I’m pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of my novel, The Passion of the Titans with Vagabondage Press next summer.   The Passion of the Titans is the story of Medusa, told from her own point of view—if you want to know how that’s possible, I urge you to read the book!  I’ll give you a hint, though.  Rock-and-roll did not begin with Little Richard, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Presley.  It started a long, long time ago in a land far away. For those of you who’d like a little taste of the my other work, I’d point you to the excellent online magazine Danse Macabre .  My first piece published there, “O Tannenbaum,” won the 2009 prix d’écriture de Noël in Fiction for the magazine.  Unfortunately, in this age of impermanent servers and services, the piece has disappeared into cyberspace.  My second story, “Hide and Seek,” appeared and disappeared in the same journal...