K. Marvin Bruce

Last week I posted about a list on GQ of books you’ve never heard of, but should read.  Like most curious folks, I looked up one or two on Amazon.  It was then that the power of media struck me. Amazon’s feature “Frequently Bought Together” listed another of GQ’s books next to the one I was searching (Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe , from 1952).  Just coincidence?  I scrolled down. There, in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section, no less that four of the other books on the GQ list showed up.  I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but it was clear that people were going through the GQ list and buying up the books.  I searched for one on BookFinder. By the time I clicked the link, it was gone. I’ve often felt that people who have an institution behind them (even be it GQ) have a built-in way of succeeding as writers. My own mention of Sherlock Holmes compels me to mention The Hound of the Baskervilles .  I recently read this ...

It’s unfair, really.  I live in a world with so many good books but in a society that gives me no time to read.  Of course I can read on the bus, but is that quality time with my literary children?  Hardly. A number of websites have recently taken to suggesting books you should’ve read but may never have heard of.  That’s the way the publishing industry works these days—those that are bound to become classics will not be published by the Big Five.  You’ll need to ferret them out from smaller houses.  Then try to find some time. Civilization, which gave us the writer, is also what is taking her away.  More and more time is demanded by work.  They get away with it because they can.  When’s the last time I really took a lunch break?  Sat on a park bench and read? I found a list, on GQ of all places, citing forgotten books that should be read.  Despite it being GQ, I don’t doubt it for one second.  Here are authors wh...

I spent about six months of 2015 writing a creative non-fiction book about my experience of commuting.  Amusing anecdotes from my time on the bus were sprinkled in among accounts of my youth, which, in retrospect, involved commuting too. Like most of my writing much of it was “getting the job done” writing—telling the story.  Not every sentence can sparkle.  Amid the prose, which I hope was lively, were some very clever bits, if I have to say so myself.  And likely I will.  I gave the manuscript to a friend to read. By her guarded response I could tell the book really didn’t work.  I’d spent my precious writing time for half a year pouring, polishing, and preening.  All for naught.  If even your friends don’t like it, there’s no point in sending it out to be eviscerated by strangers. Depression sank in.  I’d already imagined finding an agent for it.  Accolades coming in on my wit.  What I had only rhymed with wit. T...

I used to write a lot of poetry.  Over the past few years my writing has mostly been prose, a mix of creative non-fiction and fiction.  Once in a while, however, poetry can be used to say what prose cannot. I found an old notebook that had old material in it.  The old material was embarrassing, and in pencil, so I decided to erase it.  In the process I realized I was creating a palimpsest.  A palimpsest is a document that has been erased so the paper can be reused for a new project. This seemed to cry out for poetry.  Erasing my life so that I could reuse it.  Recycling myself.  I began to write short poems over the older work.  My palimpsest. Maybe I had been bottling it up, because the poetry kept flowing.  It felt like a day of a thousand poems.  The reality was more like a dozen, but that’s a lot of poetry for one time.  Instead of intentionally crafting poems like some writers do (notably Poe was meticulous in...

One of the tropes rife in the editorial world, regarding non-fiction, is “this should be an article instead of a book.”  This is a very disappointing thing for an author to hear.  After all, s/he spent years developing an idea into something long enough to be called a book, only to have it suggested s/he should cut it down. I write fiction, and I love to do so.  Once I’m in the  world I’ve imagined, it is difficult for me to break away.  In my day-job, however, I have written, and continue to write, creative non-fiction.  I recently managed to get one of these pieces up to 60,000 words so that I could call it a book.  A friend suggested maybe it should be an article instead. This is the dilemma of the writer seeking publication.  You have to meet the expectations of a publisher.  Nobody knows the piece as well as the author, and it hurts to cut organs away—body parts that your mind organically grafted into the body of your work. ...

That little coordinating conjunction always spells trouble.  I used to be a professor, but now I’m an editor.  I read many, many student papers—and now read many books—where the author doesn’t write well.  I write well, but… I ponder this as I have just received a nice rejection letter, this one from Two Dollar Radio.  My writing is good, but not exactly what we’re looking for.  My stack of such letters teeters over my head.  Well, it would if I printed them out.  It is easy to say no over the internet. In a world where good writers have trouble publishing, what does that say about the publishing industry?  I’m reading a novel right now that’s very interesting.  On the literary front it can’t be called great, but it is a good book.  The writing is good, but… In publishing, the choice comes down to fit and money.  You’re supposed to research your potential publisher—as if you’d have any time between working twelve hours ...

I do most of my writing early in the day.  Generally between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m.  This isn’t really a matter of choice; I commute, therefore I am.  I take what little time I have to write. Not that I’m complaining.  My advice to my writing friends is always the same: find a time and try to stick with it.  It takes the brain a while to settle into writing mode, of course, and an hour is never long enough.  There’s a hidden danger here, too. Since I spend my waking hours wishing I was asleep, I tend to allow myself a little latitude on weekends.  Maybe I’ll sleep until 4:00 or 5:00.  But that extra hour’s snooze has its cost.  I wake up and my usual writing time’s gone. Sure, I can still write.  I don’t have to be to work, but like most commuters I find weekends incredibly busy.  It’s the only time I have to get things done.  In other words, waking up later means there’s less time to write before everyday concerns sta...