K. Marvin Bruce

The search for an agent continues.   As a working writer, my time is often limited to weekends.   Jobs, as many of you surely know, expand to fill the time between Sunday evening and Saturday morning.   They’re showing no signs of slowing down. I was excited that I had an entire weekend with no plans.   I was going to spend it redoubling my agent search, and writing up yet more stories.   I’d run into an agent’s page that actually asked for other finished works, published or not.   I would’ve thought all agents would be interested in how prolific prospective clients might be. Then I woke up sick on Sunday morning.   I don’t get sick often, and this wasn’t head cold sick.   It was a profound dizziness and nausea that happens to me from time to time.   The only thing you can do is hold your head still and try not to move your eyes.   Not very conducive to looking for agents. Of course this had to happen on what was on...

So, it’s the last day of 2019.   I awoke this morning to find a rejection letter in my inbox.   I say “good riddance” to this past year, although it had a little publishing success.   It was better than 2018 in that regard. I’ve got a young writing partner.   She hasn’t published anything yet, but she’s one of the natural best writers I know.   We encourage each other when the going’s rough.   She ended up in the hospital in 2019, and when visiting her she got me to submit some stories again.   Facing an illness will do that to you. Of the stories I sent in during 2019 two were accepted for publication and one won honorable mention in a contest (but alas, wasn’t published).   I sent out a bunch more late in the year and this morning’s rejection may be—it’s too early to tell—the last of blessed 2019. I don’t let my failures stop me from writing.   I’ve got a fourth nonfiction book under contract and nearly ready to ...

I seldom get sick.  I’ve been told this is one of the boons of middle age—the maladies of childhood pass and it take more to bring you down.  A swift-moving bug, however, recently caught me and kept me awake all night thinking the end had come. Ironically, I associate being sick with writing.  I was  a sickly child.  Skinny and frail I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and actually missed a large portion of seventh grade because of recurring bouts of illness.  I attempted to write my first novel in such a febrile state. A science-fiction fan, I began scrawling about a ship at sea attached by some weird creature.  My novel didn’t have much of a plot and my skills were, well, juvenile.  A couple more false starts accompanied me through high school, but few people beyond my two closest friends, knew I wrote. Of course, I don’t have to be sick to write.  In this workaday world, however, a brief illness affords an opportun...