Future Writing

Some have been concern'd because of ye rumour that I am planning to stop writing.  I will never stop, but I need to slow down a wee bit.  I have found it extremely difficult to write this year--it's not so much a writer's block as writer's boredom and apathy:  I just can't be bothered.  I no longer feel that keen compulsion that lures me to ye keyboard with an ache to create.  I'm certain that part of this is linked to the weariness I've felt because of my boring ill-health, but I am also feeling utterly uninspired.  It may be, as I have suspected, that I have written too much over these past few years and have "burned out".  

I had planned to work, this year, on a new collection of Enoch Coffin stories with Jeffrey Thomas, and on new stories for a forthcoming second collection for Centipede Press.  I have put both projects on hold--indefinitely.  I'm not going to waste my time trying to write when ye inspiration is so obviously not there.  I am also going to be extremely selective in any future anthologies I may write for.

This weariness is not linked to being tired of writing Lovecraftian weird fiction.  Indeed, my need to write Lovecraftian horror stories has never been keener.  As an author, I identify with Lovecraft more and more, and want to create more weird fiction in which I pay homage to his genius.  When I write Lovecraftian stuff, I am myself absolutely--it is who I am, entirely, as an artist.  H. P. Lovecraft clutches my aesthetic soul as never before.  I've been reading, slowly and aloud, volumes II and III or S. T.'s Variorum edition of Lovecraft's fiction.  Last week I finish'd reading At the Mountains of Madness, and it thrill'd me as never before--to ye point where I want to read it again, immediately.  This morning I began my first reading of it in THE NEW ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT.  And it never fails--the more I read Lovecraft's excellent fiction, the more Lovecraftian fiction I want to write.  I have told myself that I want to experiment with writing some non-Lovecraftian work, especially for the second Centipede Press book; but moftly, all future work will wear ye Eldritch Taint of Providence.

But I've not stopped writing.  Last week I wrote a new story for a proposed tribute anthology that S. T. is co-editing.  Yesterday I got my copies of Spactral Realms 2, and it is so amazing that it fill'd me with an ache to work on more poetry.  

Of course, I will have gobs & gobs of stuff publish'd throughout this year, so those who enjoy my work will have an endless amount of it.  I have stories in about five or six forthcoming anthologies, new stories and reprints.  Next month, Dark Renaissance Books will publish a huge new collection, written in collaboration with David Barker, IN THE GULFS OF DREAM AND OTHER LOVECRAFTIAN TALES.  The book will include 13 stories written on my own (including my 11,600 word Sesqua Valley version of HPL's "The Lurking Fear" in its first book publication), plus two new pieces written in collaboration with David, one of which is a wee novella of about 23,000 words entirely set in Lovecraft's dreamland.  Then, in August (or sooner), Hippocampus Press will publish my third collection for them, MONSTROUS AFTERMATH, and that will include my new revised/expanded 40,000 word version of "Some Unknown Gulf of Night," ye text of which will be followed by a reprinting of the entire sonnet cycle of H. P. Lovecraft, Fungi from Yuggoth.  So, my ducks, there will be so much Pugmire wank for ye to feast on this year.  

David Barker and I are slowly writing a novel set in Lovecraft's dreamland, to be publish'd next year.  

The new Enoch Coffin and Centipede Press books will happen, in some dim future time.
Shalom, my loves.