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rambles and half-essays

Tag: writing advice

  • following up and nonfiction

    KM Brunner

    I learned a lesson last week and that was to follow up with publications if they haven’t responded to your submission in months. I had a piece accepted (“Sellout,” link on my works page) by a small digital magazine and they just…hadn’t posted it.

    That’s on them, of course, but it was nice to get an acceptance in my inbox, even if I had to remind them of the piece.

    If I’m being honest, it was a throwaway; I wrote it off a long time ago, and I’m flattered they decided to give it some attention.

    I’ve returned to nonfiction (and a bad romance novel, which has been fun) since I completed it. It’s not a reflection of my current work, but it feels like a time capsule, in a way. And so I enjoy it.

    It’s also flash, which helps. Not much to be insecure about when the piece is around 500 words.

    I feel weird about my return to nonfiction. Part of me feels bad, like I’m invalidating my years of writing fiction (during which I got nowhere), and another part of me is excited. It feels like a homecoming. I likely needed to write fiction for a while so I could see nonfiction for what it is: storytelling in community.

    If you tell a real story, it usually involves people. People-ing usually involves friends, family, coworkers, etc., and so in the act of telling a true story, you must write about an ecosystem of people rather than just your “subject.”

    My years of studying communication, philosophy, and circulation theory haunt me.

    Writing in community is thrilling. It’s frightening if your subject is still alive, but I find it easier to write about systems and stories and big questions when the narrative is tethered to reality. Does that make me a fraud? Because I’m definitely not a journalist, nor am I a memoirist.

    What I am is up for debate, but a friend recently outed me as a historian to myself. If you spend hours – weeks – researching a subject because you’re consumed by it, create spreadsheets and reach out to archives, really immerse yourself…you’re doing historian stuff.

    You’d think I would clock that but I often surprise myself.

    My immediate reaction to the news was embarrassment. I used to think of historians as people who studied war, a subject that I find upsetting. But they’re not just that; of course they aren’t. They’re doing what I like to do: tell stories about systems.

    Again, I’ve nothing to leave you with but a reminder to check in with any mags who haven’t responded to your submissions, and a little recommendations list.

    Podcast: Behind the Bastards, hosted by Robert Evans

    Things:

    • Been into drawing more lately and I like soft pencils. This is my favorite.
    • Got a new air conditioner and it’s been a revelation.
    • I’m into plants now and really want a moonshine snake plant. Here’s an example. There might be one at Home Depot and I’m planning to go liberate it on the 3rd.

  • change, distraction, and worry

    KM Brunner

    I have a problem. It’s not a big problem, but it is one that’s taking up a lot of space in my brain:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    I worry, probably several times a day, that there’s something missing from the novel I’m working on. I think, unhelpfully, that I should be pursuing one of my other projects. I think maybe, just maybe, I should be writing nonfiction. I used to write nonfiction. I was rather good at it.

    It wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as fiction, but it was something I felt comfortable with.

    Then I step back and think: that was the problem with nonfiction in the first place. I wasn’t challenging myself.

    And so I go back to the book and the short stories but then, there, I have the same problem:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    It’s a fun thing, to have lots of ideas. It’s an enviable position, but I need to focus – and if I’m going to use the ideas, I need to whittle. I am trying to concentrate on the novel, but I want to submit a story once a month, so I always have a short piece I’m working on alongside the book. Sometimes that piece is fun. Sometimes I think it might be better than the novel.

    How can I know that, though? I can’t! I absolutely can’t. I’m a few chapters into a first draft and those are notoriously bad! Regardless, I’m hitting a pretty significant rough patch. Things are working, mostly, but I’m concerned about a few characters, I worry I’ve made the story too big, that the plot is too niche to be relatable – and worst of all, sometimes I think it might be boring.

    Is this what impostor syndrome is? I’m not worried about being a writer – I feel paralyzed because I am one.

    It’s enough to make me want to scream but I can’t give up writing. I know I’ll work through it. I’ll show up, every day, at my stupid little keyboard. Writing is an awful, sometimes parasitic, thing. It compels. It’s worse than music, and that’s saying something.

    Anyway.

    Here are some things I’ve liked over last month:

    • Song: Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan. She’s blowing up, and she deserves it. Vocal chops like nobody’s business and actual musical, catchy, pop. They use real instruments and the mixing isn’t all flat like most pop these days. It’s just…good music.
    • I don’t drink, but when I’m craving a beer, I reach for an Athletic. I’m into the Hazy IPA lately.
    • I got a noir piece published. It’s called Apartment 11A.
    • I found my writing workshop group on Meetup. I’d recommend it!
    • St. John’s Seminary, the seminary attached to Boston College, is full of nice people and very, very interesting classes. I’m going to take Moral Theology next semester. I never thought I’d be taking a course with Catholic undertones but here I am. I’m just interested.