Plots

Above, Maryanne Snyder and I contemplate H. P. Lovecraft's final home, where he lived when he wrote what is perhaps my favourite of his tales, "The Haunter of the Dark."  I'm glad I was able to stand before this house last summer, as I will never again return to Providence, travelling being so arduous for me due to increasing poor health.  I once dreamed of living in Providence, of writing my final Lovecraftian tales as a resident there; but I am far too settled in my present home, with my cats and my handsome companion, and it is here that I will compose my final books.

My next book, out next month, will be the 33,000 word novella, THE REVENANT OF REBECCA PASCAL, that I co-wrote with my pal David Barker, published in hardcover and trade pb by Dark Renaissance Books.  David and I originally wrote the novella to be part of our collection for DRB, SPECTRES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR, but our publisher decided to bring it out as a wee single volume, and so David and I have been working on two new things of length to fill the void.  I wrote a very rough first version of a thing I called "In the Gulfs of Dream" (a title Lovecraft was considering for "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"), set in Dreamland and concerning Cyrus, the child of Sesqua Valley who was abducted and taken to the dream world by Nyarlathotep at the end of my tale, "The Strange Dark One."  This new thing of mine came to 9,000 words, but it needs a lot of work, so now David is going to expand it, writing new scenes and bringing in new characters, so that maybe we can give my original another 10,000 words or so.

I am slowly writing my book of homage to Clark Ashton Smith, but it has proven far more difficult that I anticipated.  I like the challenge and am determined to do justice to CAS in my own weird way.

The next main book I am working on is my second omnibus collection for Centipede Press.  My working title for the book is MONSTROUS AFTERMATH.  It will include such things as my new 40,000 word version of SOME UNKNOWN GULF OF NIGHT, and I am spending the rest of this year writing some new original stories for the collection.  Now that BOHEMIANS OF SESQUA VALLEY is no longer available in book form, I want also to include four of its original pieces: "An Ecstasy of Fear," "Unhallowed Places," "This Splendor of the Goat" and "A Quest of Dream" (although the last named story will soon be reprinted in a major weird fiction anthology, I still think I want to include it in ye Centipede book).  "Unhallowed Places" is a prose-poem sequence, and I plan on expanded it by 10,000 words, bringing it to a total of 20,000.

So, that's what I'm doing.  I'm experiencing, at ye moment, a boring inability to write--or rather, an inability to concentrate on work.  My mind is a thing of chaos and I can't stop its grotesque buzzing and wandering.  I cannot seem to relax enough to fully concentrate on one thing.  Perhaps I will be able to settle down after World Horror Convention, during which I will be frantically busy although I am on but one panel, a Lovecraft panel with S. T. Joshi, Cody Goodfellow, Ellen Datlow and others.  The new book from DRB will have its official release at the convention, and David and I will be holding a special signing in the dealer's room at 2:00 p. m.  on Friday.  This will be my last convention ever.

Shalom, my darlings.