The Writing's the Crisis

Being a working writer means living with inherent contradictions. For fifty weeks of the year daily life involves awaking between 3:00 and 3:30 a.m., writing for half an hour, and catching a bus to over eight hours of work in New York City. Then riding the bus back home again in time for supper and bed. I’m not complaining, just observing. That’s what writers do.

That lifestyle—constantly tired, anxious, and pressed for time to get the mundane chores done (paying bills, balancing the checkbook, taking out the recycling)—wears me down like a grindstone. When the weekend comes I sleep an extra half hour or so and, although refreshed, I awake without the urgency that frames five days a week. It’s a crisis.

Every year I save up enough vacation days to take off between Christmas and New Year’s. As a former professor this is a no-brainer. In my industry (publishing) there’s no such thing as an emergency. Nobody dies if a book is released a week later than scheduled. Even so, publishers don’t get this natural caesura of the year off. My first year in the biz, I sat in the office with no one answering emails or calls because everyone else has this time off.

I save five of my precious vacation days every year to take this time off. To write, I think, to finish projects. To catch up on all the things I don’t have time to do. Then the expensive break comes and inspiration flees. I get enough sleep and can’t think of a thing to write. My half-finished stories collect at my feet. There is no crisis.

Every year’s end I come to realize that the writing’s in the crisis. The stories dwell in that frazzled mindset of never having enough sleep. The constant financial worries. The looking ahead to no retirement because who can afford retirement when the rent is so damned high? The moment I put my foot on that early morning bus, the story ideas begin to flow.

I won’t have time to write them down, though. Not until next year at Christmas. So the working writer’s life goes. They’re called holy days for a reason.

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best. When you’ve been writing for half a century, you l

Neglectful Parents

If I was a parent I’d be accused of neglect. I have to say 2017 was the least published year of recent memory. Not that I’ve been neglecting my fiction, but I had a non-fiction book accepted and I work full-time and commute to that job—you get the picture. I’ve also had a personal epiphany. If you can write, you should get paid for it. I know a publicist (not my own; I don’t have one) and she says she won’t let her authors even write an op-ed if they don’t get paid. I guess I’d never get published then. My Medusa novel had a flicker of hope for a few moments. A publisher actually wrote back asking for the rest of the manuscript. That’s never happened before. Then the editor disappeared. Even called me by the wrong pseudonym. I’ve gotta wonder about that because the second half of the novel’s even better than the first. While looking for an agent for my non-fiction (couldn’t find one of those either) I came across several who said they liked quirky ficti

Too Much Writing?

Has this ever happened to you? Have you written a story that you’ve completely forgot? Not only completely forgotten, but made unfindable? I play games with my stories and sometimes the joke’s on me. Okay, I suffer from graphomania. I write constantly. I do try to keep organized—I use a spreadsheet that has all my submissions on it. It has rejection/acceptance dates (mostly rejection). Lots of information. I decided to list on it every story, whether finished or in process. There are far too many (mostly in process). When I finish a story I often submit it. If I get burned, I’m shy about resubmitting. I often rewrite at this stage. Then, when I feel brave enough, I try again. The spreadsheet is color-coded. There, in the color that indicates finished and ready to submit is a story cryptically titled “The Password.” I don’t remember this story. I can’t recall what it was about or why I thought it was ready to publish. Looking through my electronic files,

K. Marvin Bruce

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