K. Marvin Bruce

 Did you ever have one of those years?  You know the kind I mean.  The kind of year when your best laid publication plans get shunted aside by the specter of life itself. Many months ago I began posting a novel I've written here ( The Space between Atoms ).  The idea was simple enough—it gave me a regular source of material for weekly posts on this blog, and it might provide a chance for a reader or two to be drawn into the story.  One of the characters actually appears in my published story, "Friday before Senior Year." The disc drive that holds all my files has gone bad and although it happened months ago, I haven't had the time to send it to a disc repair place.  Many files were lost and I simply haven't had time to recover them.  How do you find time for publishing in such a situation? In December of 2020 I prepared eleven stories for publication.  I only sent out two and they've both been rejected already.  I haven't had time to send them back out aga

  My second completed novel—never published, of course—is one I still think is pretty good.   A little long, I admit, but well written.   It actually had three readers who agreed with both points: too long but well written.   One of them said I needed a good editor. I’ve read many overly long books.   Just this year alone I’ve read four novels that reached, nearly reached, or went over 500 pages.   One of the standard chestnuts of writing advice is “write short to write long.”   That only applies to some of us. Life has been so busy lately that I haven’t even been able to send in my damaged disc drive with The Space between Atoms on it, let alone try to get some of my completed stories published.   Some of it has to do with Covid-19, which, I think we’re all glad to see, seems to be releasing its grip on the United States. I submitted a book of short stories to a contest with Press 53 late last year.   It didn’t even win honorable mention, among the very complementary words the judge

  Don’t believe everything you read.   You know, when I started sending out short stories for publication over a decade ago, I checked Poet & Writer for the best fiction publishing venues to get noticed.   I got rejections from all of them and now I’m noticing the ones that’ve disappeared. Literary agents, they said, paid attention to places like Glitter Train and Tin House .   The former closed and the latter now only accepts submissions from agents.   So it is in the fiction publishing market.   It’s best to find an editor who likes your work and stick with her. I have this spreadsheet.   It lists every submission I’ve ever made.   It’s really handy because sometimes you forget even the rejection letters.   I look through it when I have a few days off work, to remind me of where I’ve been. Maybe it’s happened to you.   You find the perfect mag on Duotrope and you craft your story just for them.   Follow their specs, get a sense of what they like.   Writing doesn’t happen overni

  While I’m awaiting word whether the remainder of The Space between Atoms can be recovered, I’m pondering the correct strategy for publishing.   Like most struggling writers, I follow success when I encounter it.   Right now the biggest struggle for me is whether to focus on fiction or non. You see, under my real name I have had four nonfiction books published.   The problem is they’re academic books, expensive and obscure.   Yes, they may rest in the Library of Congress after I’m gone, but I doubt I’ll be joining Poe on Bradbury’s Mars.   Nevertheless, I know how to get such books published. My true love has always been fiction.   I’ve been writing fiction since at least 1974.   I really only attempted publication in 2009.   Although I’ve earned less than $40 from fiction, I’ve managed to have nearly 30 stories published.   My novels have had no success at all. If I were to follow “success” I would go after nonfiction.   My nonfiction earnings amount to well under a thousand dollars

  While I wait and pray for data recovery—as I mentioned last week, The Space between Atoms was lost with the crash of a WD Elements drive—I didn’t want to neglect this poor blog.   Since I’m a struggling writer, I’ll note how editors like to kick you while you’re down. Even while I’m waiting to see if my files can be recovered, I received my weekly quota of rejection letters.   A really good story submitted to a carefully chosen journal, and a collection of stories submitted to a contest.   They all say the same thing—your work is good but there’s so much out there that’s so much better, in my opinion. You see, I know editors, and it’s those last three words that are the killer: in my opinion.   Editors have likes and dislikes.   They’re the gatekeepers for publication success. Early in my fiction publishing attempts, I kept submitting to the same publication— Danse Macabre —because I seemed to have found a sympathetic editor.   This relationship continued until one of my stories was