K. Marvin Bruce

Maybe you’ve noticed it too.   You finish a story and you’re impressed.   It came together better than you had imagined it would.   You might’ve even surprised yourself with how nicely it fell into place. Excitedly, you send it to publisher after publisher.   In their various polite ways of writing pinhead letters, you know you see something they can’t.   You start rewriting.   Changing things.   Some carpentry here.   Some cosmetic surgery there.   Better now? Once again they yawn and say no.   This just doesn’t interest or excite them.   They’re looking for something you just haven’t got.   Meanwhile, you’ve marred your original piece, the one that spoke to you in a way that made you certain you had something to share. After a while you turn to other things, leaving it in your drawer of unpublished gems.   I read a biography of L. Ron Hubbard once—don’t worry, I’m not a Scientologist.   Hubbard...

“The Last Train from New York” is a story I wrote while working for a New York publisher.  Being unemployed was on my mind, and the story is a metaphor for a loser trying to find his place.  This past week I heard the glad news that “The Last Train from New York” has been accepted for publication in Corvus Review .  This makes eighteen stories published, and also marks another literary magazine that seems to think I’m capable. That may sound gratuitous on my part, but I assure you it's not.  Like many writers I suffer from lack of self-esteem.  All the advice givers say to take rejection lightly, but as someone who puts a lot of effort into each piece I decide to send out, how can I not take rejection personally?  When I do get a hit, it makes my day.  Week, even. Only a writer understands how publication is validation.  Someone who has a louder voice than me—a longer reach—says yes, this guy has something interesting to say.  Pa...

If you’re like most working writers, finding time to practice the craft is a major issue.  Between working and commuting and eating breakfast before and supper after work, about 19 hours of the day are taken up.  Not much time left for writing (or sleeping). Many years ago I realized that if I was going to get any writing done I’d have to get up pretty damned early.  Most days that’s just before 3:30 a.m.  I try to write while eating breakfast.  Ideas come like a furious January snowstorm, but most remain scribbles in my notebook.  When does a writer have time to write? When I was young I had plenty of ideas for stories.  I read constantly, and when I wasn’t reading or watching television, I was writing.  It wasn’t until college, though, that it became an obsession.  After my master’s degree, working in a retail chain, I spent my time off work writing a novel. After I got married and time after work was occupied with other things...

Writing is an activity with implications.  Many of us jot things down on a regular basis—reminders, tweets, stories, dissertations; people are frequently writing.  While letter writing may not be the practice that it used to be (although some of us still regularly write and mail letters) we know that the sacred code is that what we put in that envelope is private.  It is, guaranteed by the government, our own business.  That’s what makes a recent story of a trove of undelivered letters such an interesting tale. The postmasters of The Hague in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, kept a truck of undelivered mail.  Now academics are using high tech scanning devices to read the letters without opening them.  You can’t slander the dead. I do wonder, however, about private words.  Most of what we write on our computers, I suspect, will simply vanish some day.  Internet fame seems like it must be temporary.  Still, writing ...

I have friends who are writers.  Almost all of them have other jobs, and most of them aren’t published.  Writing, however, is what drives them.  You can tell that about a writer. Our society has condemned itself over and over again, and one of the ways in which it continues to do so is by blocking writers from publication.  Even many of those “successful” in the art will say it was a matter of luck.  They found the right person at the right time in a threadbare saga that nobody would publish these days. Meanwhile, our society makes it increasingly difficult to get published and the real writers muddle through careers that are, in reality, just jobs. I’m not talking about weekend warriors here—people who write on the spur of the moment and try to get attention for it.  Writing is living for writers.  People who have the immediate response of “I should write about that” to even the most mundane thing that can be made extraordinary with words...

My writing partner Elizabeth has started a writing club in her local community.  I am really thrilled, since having others to share the enthusiasm for the craft is one of the most fulfilling aspects of life that I can imagine.  Talking with fellow writers has been my panacea and placebo for many years. In a pique over my own lack of progress, I followed up on the many places where I’ve submitted material and have heard nothing in return.  Perhaps a dozen literary magazines regularly reply when you submit something.  The rest will just leave you wondering. As I was crawling over websites looking for any evidence that my submissions might still be alive, it occurred to me that I write for myself.  As another friend once said, we write what we can’t find anybody else writing.  I do it knowing that most of it will never be published. There is a difference between writing for personal fulfillment and writing for publication.   My writing is...

Most writers give this advice to those of us who wish to join the guild: read.  Read lots.  Read constantly. While it’s not always possible to read all the time, I do spend at least a couple hours most days behind a book.  I know not everyone likes to read, but I read a tremendous number of books.  Of course I don’t keep count, but the total is in the thousands rather than the hundreds. When you read, you learn.  Yes, I read for entertainment, but I also learn at the same time.  I learn how to write.  And how not to write.  I learn what works, and what doesn’t.  I love to read. An ethical issue has been nagging me.  Aren’t those who read required, if so enabled, to give something back?  If there’s anything I enjoy more than reading, it’s writing.  I could write until I drop dead with no regrets. It is my obligation, is it not, to offer back some of what I’ve taken?  I’ve borrowed ideas, thoughts, and dream...

Do writing groups really help?  I believe they can.  Indeed, they must.  At work someone has started up a creative writing group.  I went to a meeting.  I felt old. Like dirty old man old.  I mean, shouldn’t somebody my age already know about publishing?  Shouldn’t I put up or shut up?  What was a guy old enough to be the father of everyone in the room to say? I’ve been part of writers’ groups before.  I joined the Liberty State Writers Group once upon a time.  I felt lost.  There were so many of them, and they all knew each other.  I’m shy, like a writer, and soon felt lost.  I stopped going before my dues ran out. I still remember one girl there.  I never knew her name.  She shyly smiled at me and said “hi” a time or two.  I bet she wrote the kinds of thing I do.  I’ll never know. More recently a joined a mostly male writerly group.  Males tend to be more aggressive, self-i...

Free samples attract customers.  Amazon offers way for authors to give away copies of their books, and although it is counterintuitive, it is, I’m told, a great way to gain attention.  If I ever get published, I hope to try it out. Meanwhile, authors sometimes send me their books to mention on my blog.  That’s a nice freebie.  I love books and I’ll read just about anything.  But there’s a price to this free material. You have to write a review.  I can say this with the protection of a pseudonym: I’ve been disappointed in just about every free book I’ve been sent.  It’s usually pretty obvious why they’re being given away.  And yet, the author has given it to me.  Don’t I owe a positive review in return? I am a softie.  I don’t like to hurt the feelings of others.  It probably comes from growing up in an emotionally abusive situation.  I want to say something nice.  Sometimes it’s very difficult. Especially ...

There are two schools of thought regarding bandages (Band-Aid, as it turns out, is a brand name): those who advocate swift removal, and those who prefer slow. Each method has its merits as well as demerits.  The swift method is painful but gets it over quickly.  The peel method isn’t as painful, but lasts longer.  It reminds me of submitting stories for publication. After screwing up my courage for weeks, I finally submitted a collection of stories to a publisher.  This is a combination of some twenty-one weird tales, only eight of which had been previously published.  To me they looked, in turn, impressive and pedestrian.  Since I have a storehouse of unpublished pieces, I was able to make substitutions until I finally got what I thought was a moody collection. Tom Petty’s song “The Waiting” has always had a special poignance to me.  The question is, would I prefer a swift jerking off of the bandage or a slow peeling where I can feel each...

A writer I know—an actual, published one!—once said he’d never write a sex scene.  I can respect that.  Plenty of classics have, at best, innuendo.  Still, other texts, going back to the Bible and beyond have sex scenes. I read about writing.  Experts say that readers want stories that will help them cope with issues they face.  We all face sexual issues, whether we face them as asexuals, curious sexuals, or hyper-sexuals.  Many modern novels have sex scenes to make them more realistic.  Or lucrative. Although much of my writing is a kind of horror, the stories often involve sexual insecurities.  There are few other areas in life where we make ourselves so vulnerable.  A lot of people, I think, get hurt. There’s part of the dilemma of the sex scene right there.  It reveals an awful lot about the writer.  I grew up as an asexual.  I didn’t date until my junior year of college, if you can even call what I did then da...

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...

So, I've been thinking about how writers write.  A colleague who just published his first novel said that he planned it out in detail.  Each chapter was driven by what would have to happen in the next chapter to reach his final resolution.  The final result was a fun read. Some famous writers, I've been told, write by the seat of their metaphorical pants.  They sit down and begin to write with a vague idea of where the story should go.  They, like many of us, discover their characters have minds of their own.  Hopes, dreams, and plans that conflict with those of the author. I often write in snippets.  Great phrases come to me and I think, "that would make a good story."  I write them down.  A notebook is never more than a few inches from me at all times.  I used to have a waterproof note board in the shower.  Some of the best ideas come when I'm driving. When I can catch these snippets, I write them down.  My digital file...

Some things I just take for granted. My friend Steve, for example, is an editor. Although he works for a non-fiction publisher, he still knows a few things about the publishing process. He suggested that I share some of it with the struggling writers out there. Most of us dream, I suppose, of getting a book published.  I know I still dream about it.  How does it happen?  With traditional publishers, it begins with a query. Editors are, for the most part, very busy people.  Publishers are the ones who give credibility to writers, and to get published, you need to work with an editor.  All editors work with a “slush pile”—submissions that come in unsolicited.  Until they get your query, editors don’t know you exist, and your submission ends up in the slush pile. Slush piles do get read, but they don’t have the priority that a known author or a repeat author with the press earn.  This can take a surprisingly long time. Many editors requir...

As a kid I used to wonder why some books were sold so cheap.  In the occasional bookstore I’d see big, expensive-looking books for unbelievably low prices.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, I’d discovered remaindered books. A friend in the publishing industry explained it to me.  Publishers have to project how many copies of a book to print.  This is becoming increasingly difficult to project.  Reprints are always possible, but as in most industries, buying in bulk is cheaper, so publishers try to project sales for a first print run. In the case of a famous author it’s okay to overprint.  Better to have enough stock on hand to meet initial demand than to risk the public losing interest.  Despite technology, publishing is a slow industry, compared to the world the internet has created.  But what it you print too many and public interest never rises to the bait? First you offer such books at a discount, hoping the reduced pr...

The success of a friend felt personal.  Well, perhaps “friend” is too strong a word, but I feel a natural camaraderie with other writers.  He’s a guy I know from work.  We occasionally share projects, and I had no idea that he was a fiction writer.  Until his novel published. As I sent him a congratulatory email, a strange thought occurred to me.  We rely on publishers to get out hard-won efforts out to a reading public, and yet, the relationship often feels adversarial. It’s almost like the publisher is the enemy to writers.  We who seriously write know that we have something to offer.  We pour ourselves into our words, laying ourselves naked for the world to criticize.  And we’re told not to take rejection personally. Is it possible to stand naked before someone only to have that person turn away and walk out and not to take it personally?  Editors and Judas Iscariot.  What a team. As a writer, I read a lot....

Sometimes I have to remind myself that whether or not I’m published, I am a writer.  I know this because writing has been a lifelong avocation, and, although I’ve never been paid for it, apart from biological necessities, it is the only thing I do every single day. I’m really sensitive about my writing.  It often takes me days, weeks, or even months to gather the courage to send anything out for publication.  As a result I usually send a bunch of things out at the same time—I try to avoid simultaneous submissions—and then I’m met with a hailstorm of rejections in an equally short time. What’s trickiest are those that don’t reply soon.  I have stories, presumably not accepted, as submissions to publishers that have been out for over three years.  A year is not uncommon.  Several months goes without saying.  Waiting is part of the game. My novel, Boeotian Rhapsody , was under contract with Vagabondage Press.  Unfortunately no kill fee w...