For the Fun of It

I have already mentioned in this blog my brother, the writer. If you don’t want to go back and find that entry, the story is that my brother worked for 30 years for CalTrans and rarely picked up a book that wasn’t a technical manual. Now that he’s retired, he’s decided he wants to write mystery short stories like his little brother.

He is a fan of Sherlock Holmes, so he’s not completely clueless. (see what I did there?) He decided to start writing when his first grandchild was born. He gave his detective the same name as his grandbaby.

To my surprise and horror, his stories are actually pretty good. I say “horror” because I’ve been slogging for 50 years trying to get this right.

He publishes his stories on the family blog, The Bruce House, under the tag “The 88th Street Stories.” His detective, Professor McKenna, is just a little like my own fictional character Minerva James in that she uses logic and deduction to solve the crimes and is not some flighty fictional female that far too many mysteries feature. (I always wonder why there are no flighty males in mystery. God knows, I’ve met enough of them in my practice.)

As I said, his stories are very good for a beginner. He has a good feel for the puzzle and his characters are interesting. To be publishable, he would have to do a lot of work and revision, but I think that could be done. I think someone, somewhere would appreciate his old-fashioned detective stories.

I told him so on the phone the other night. He said, “no, I wouldn’t want that.”

“I would start to worry about whether a story is going to be accepted, and what’s going to happen with it and all that stuff.”

“That’s true,” I said, thinking of my own angst when I get rejected.

“So I’d rather write for the fun of it.”

The fun of it? Are you insane? Why would you spend the long hours writing and revising and agonizing over plot and language and character for the fun of it? Do you work at a factory for the fun of it? Do you pay your taxes for the fun of it? Do you serve on a jury for the fun of it?

But my brother has found his bliss. He doesn’t do any of that stuff. When he gets an idea, he writes the story and puts it up on his blog. Then he writes another one when he thinks of it. He doesn’t write every day. He doesn’t even write every week.

In a way, I envy him. I, too, started writing for the fun of it. I loved sitting down at night (I seem always to write at night) and delved into a world of my own making, characters I wanted to hang out with, stories that were interesting to me. That’s when I was a teenager.

Of course, I dreamt of being published. But I didn’t start working on getting my novels to agents and publishers until I was much, much older. And the novel thing hasn’t happened yet (other than a few self-published things on Kindle, which you can find if you look at the page on this site entitled “Writing by Mark Bruce”))

For the fun of it? What about bleeding for every word? What about the long hours spent revising and polishing the work? What about the spiritual pain of constant rejection which, I’m told, is part of every writer’s life?

Just for the fun of it? You must be mad.

But he loves it. And more power to you, my brother. I’ll just be over here agonizing over the next 2000 words in my 80,000 word novel. Don’t mind me.