K. Marvin Bruce

  Sometimes life’s too busy to be leading a double life.   My fiction writing has once again been suffering because of nonfiction.   Funny how that goes. I have my fifth nonfiction book coming out this summer and a sixth written in draft form.   The real problem, however, is the nine-to-five job.   As a professional, it’s expected that the eight-hour day be more like ten.   And what with basic survival, and social time, writing both fiction and non can be a challenge. In a spate of optimism I submitted three or four stories back in the summer, with predictable results.   I finally got brave enough to submit my Medusa novel again.   This one has quite a history, starting with being under contract in 2012. I’ve had a few nibbles since the publisher pulled the plug after an editor left.   Hey, as a professional I know that’s not a very professional thing to do!   Publishers that don’t live up to their obligations, well, let’s just say they ...

I’ve been thinking that this blog could use a little attention.   My problem is—well, one of my problems—I lead a double life.   I write fiction under a pseudonym because my real nym is tied to a respectable job.   So it goes. One of the solutions to my double life is that I could start putting some fiction on this blog.   Good idea or no?   I have a novel on which I’m working and it won’t likely find a publisher, so I could start pasting it here, in serial form. On the other hand of my double life I have a nonfiction book under my nonfiction name that is currently due at the publisher’s.   I need to spend time on that too, and I have a job.   And the lawn isn’t going to mow itself. So I’m thinking that instead of neglecting this poor, but truly loved, child of a blog, maybe I could feed it fiction.   That would at least keep it alive.   Right now it’s like a cactus, getting water only a few times a year.   Is that a mixed m...

My, is this thing ever dusty!   The problem with dual identities is that they’re, well, dual.   The working writer has to make a living.   Making a living interferes with being a writer. It’s no secret that I write under a pseudonym.   In certain professions writing is discouraged.   The only way I can get away with writing the fiction I do is by saying “It’s not me!”   I know I’m in good company here.   The average person can’t identify Samuel Clemens. No, I don’t mind the nom de guerre per se, but I resent a work life that doesn’t value the writer.   It’s not just editors, either.   There was a guy in my company who wasn’t an editor.   He quit to become a writer and the general attitude to his leaving was a smirk. Yes, it’s difficult to make a living as a writer.   Unless you get an agent you won’t make much in royalties.   You can’t quit your day job.   And aside from the many hours sapped from yo...

An editor once told me, “sometimes the story of the author is more important than the book.”  Of course, he meant that for sales, the story of the author may be more compelling than the book itself. Many authors’ stories are fascinating.  Today it may be less so, since anyone with a keyboard and wifi access can style him- or herself as a writer.  Looking at Amazon and their number of self-published books, I wonder about the compelling stories. I read authors’ biographies from time to time.  Some are fairly conventional “so-and-so always wanted to be a writer, etc.”  but many are not.  People like Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Rice Burroughs struggled  with personal demons all their lives. Experience comes through in stories. My best advice to authentic writers is not to major in English.  If you major in English you may learn how to publish and how to craft conventional stories.  My advice: major in life experience. Wit...

Confession, they say, is good for the soul.  So I’m over fifty and haven’t broken through to the paid writers’ club.  I write under a pseudonym.  I love taboo topics. To be a writer, I’m told, you have to get out and promote your stuff.  I wonder how you do that with a false identity.  Mine is a matter of necessity.  Although I’m half-a-century on, I have family members way ahead of me.  They don’t know what I do with my free time. My family tend to be conservative Christians.  There are some words I’ve never heard uttered in my humble homestead.  Words that, if you want to be a realistic writer, you’ve got to use.  Not to mention the ideas that the Bible strictly forbids. I live in my head.  My daily existence is unremarkable.  That’s one reason that I write.  The other day I was reading about some people, in real life, stranded in an isolated location.  They had to do what they could to survive.  A...