K. Marvin Bruce

I write both short stories and novels.  This is not unusual for a writer because different ideas play themselves out at different lengths.  Indeed, the division is artificial.  Edgar Allan Poe famously opined that a short story should be unified by mood and short enough to read in one sitting. A novel is a long-term commitment.  Or at least an affair that lasts more than a one-night stand.  Your characters have time to get to know one another “on screen” and the tale might get very complicated. It is difficult to come off of a novel into a short story, I find.  Going the other way around isn’t nearly so much of a let-down.  A story, after all, may develop into a novel.  Few novels can exist in the few words allotted to the short story. I’ve been working on my Medusa novel.  I’m about to start sending more letters of inquiry, and I’ve pretty much finished with the current round of polishing.  During my daily writing tim...

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...