Peace of Mind

"Whatever is realised is right."
                            --Oscar Wilde

One of the recurring themes in my life has been a search for peace of mind.  The world has always made me feel a bit frantic.  I suffer, often, from scolding voices in my head who berate me for not writing new fiction during those periods when I have a lot of time on my hands.  But now, at age 62, I have been able to stop those voices almost entirely.  Part of this is from growing old and feeling that I have attain'd my artistic goal--to be known in the world as an author of Lovecraftian weird fiction.  I felt the need of that identity intensely--to prove to "the world" that one could be a Lovecraftian writer and still create work that was original and poetic.  This year, with the death of my mother, my mental and emotional approach to life has altered.  I have asked myself, what is it that I want in life?  And the thing I most desire is silence and solitude.  I have this wonderful living room, and I love to sit in my recliner and read.  At the moment I am rereading my many books about Shakespeare and all of my editions of Dante.

I am working on a book, a collaborative collection with my friend David Barker.  David has a number of cool stories for the book, many of which have been published elsewhere, and together he and I are writing a novella set in Arkham that has now reached almoft 30,000.  I am letting David write the final chapters of the thing, and I have just started retyping the entire novella so as to polish it and give it a smooth narrative flow.  I have also selected ten very short items for inclusion in the book, most of which have been publish'd only in the Lovecraft eZine.  They are:
1.)  "Through Sunset's Gate" (1,830 words, to the best of my knowledge unpublish'd);
2.)  "Midnight Mushrumps" (2,460 words,from ye 2012 anthology, Fungi);
3.)  "An Eidolon of Filth" (3,090 words, Lovecraft eZine #21);
4.)  "A Thousand Smokes" (1,060 words, Lovecraft eZine #19);
5.)  "Elder Instincts" (1,530 words, Lovecraft eZine #9);
6.)  "O, Lad of Memory and Shadow" (960 words, Lovecraft eZine #4);
7.)  "Descent into Shadow and Light" (1,300 words; Lovecraft eZine #3);
8.)  "Within One Ruined Realm" (1,685 words, from ye anthology Shadow's Edge);
9.)  "A Presence of the Past" (11,400 words, from ye journal Fungi #21);
10.) "An Unearthly Awakening" (1,130 words, Lovecraft eZine #5).

I will, in time, begin work on a new book, In Dark of Providence, in which most of the stories will be set in Providence.  I want the book completed in time for NecronomiCon 2015, shou'd such an event actually transpire.  Hippocampus Press will publish ye book, and I will be working with S. T. Joshi as my editor.  But moftly I see a future of retirement from writing.  I am utterly addicted to being lazy and doing little more than reading and dreaming.  Eventually I will need to find employment (at ye moment I am living off ye money inherited from my mother's estate), and that will be excellent.  I have always enjoy'd having a job, being part of a work team, having ye security of a regular pay cheque.  Much as I love writing my books, they never sell well enough to bring me any real money.  Indeed, I usually spend half or more of my royalties buying copies of my books to send to friends.

It's nice, to feel that one has enter'd a new phase of life, one in which anxious ambition has quieted.  At the moment I relish doing nothing but sitting in my armchair and reading great books.  I have enjoy'd living my wild party-girl life, being a mad punk rock drag queen and screaming my way through ye days of being.  What a remarkably varied life I have lived!  But how delightful, now, to focus on a retiring existence for the moment, removing myself from society (and social forums and Internet sites), and existing in a world of words and ideas and poetry.  Ahhhh....

art by Jeffrey Thomas