Though I conduct my fictional affairs with a good bit of handwavium and a helping of deus ex machina, because that’s the nature of the beast, still, I’ve railed against such use in the past. And I was probably right, then.
Context.
Heh. Yeah, right, you say, and rightly so.
But boundaries, fuck ’em. I was wrong, plus it’s addictive…to be unleashed, to not worry about what hard-sf fans are gonna say, or what plot twist came straight out of tvtropes. To just tell the story as it occurs to you. Er, me. Because pov.
That’s a fun plaything, too. Perspective.
Just tell the damn story. I was good at that when I was young. I would just write until I was done. Wrote a 67,000 word novel in one day, on notebook paper, in pencil(s), longhand. It was awful. Only three people have even read part of it. They’re all on Facebook. *ducks*
Another time I wrote a book of poems in a week. I put the poems (on notebook paper) in a binder, and painted the cover in acrylics. Abstract faces, just blobs really, and a stylized house and a path and a white picket fence thing. I suspect it was satirical — I don’t recall my intent.
I had a typewrite back then, but I wrote the many first drafts in longhand.
Two of my existing songs are built on lyrics from that book, and they’re all that remains.
I am notorious for trashing huge swathes of my writings. I could write it all down again, if I had to. It’s all in here (cracks skull like egg, removes double handful of dripping gray-and-red matter). I am also an unreformed cannibal. An obsessive. There are maybe three major themes in the things I write. And I do multiverse. Everything is part of the same continuum, the conceptual continuity, if you will.
CAUTION: SHIT DEEP HERE.
And it’s all modular. Stories cycle between volumes, enjoy strange intersections there at the borderlands of science fiction and horror and dark fantasy. Somewhere in there is a war between science and magic, being waged mostly in the Dreamlands of HP Lovecraft, and that informs some of the occurrences, the outbreaks. But just some.
Long ago, Philip Jose Farmer opined that all fictional universes intersected at some point. Not all of that is public domain, so there are a few tales that I can’t justifiably put in commercial product. Those will find homes on my website, currently in development hell. Heh. Not really hell, just development.
Little playgrounds, mashups. Fear and Loathing in Innsmouth is one of those. It took me years to write out all the parts I cribbed from HST and HPL, and still keep the scenes recognizable. I have another in which Carlton Davits goes to the Lake of Hali and tries to capture the inhabitant. Another mashes up the Dunwich Horror and romance novels.
Even those get caught up in the continuity event horizon, because war between science and magic.
Nothing if not methodical. Just some thoughts, apropos of nothing.
The Happening World, to borrow a phrase:
The GoFundMe campaign is doing very well. Some unbelievable personages have shared the link on their various walls and timelines, and the campaign reached its goal in one day. More batteries are a good thing, so I’ll keep it open, but I’m not going to spam anyone.
GoFundMe. There.
Most of the folks that donated will get a copy of the ebook form of an unpublished story, The Forgotten God, originally written with the intent of submitting to Scott Jones’ Cthulhusattva. But I got excited by the premise and wrote 10,000 words too many, and couldn’t lift and separate in time to submit for the anthology.
I am mad at myself. I really wanted to do that. Wanted to take the shot.
But anyway. I’m red-penciling that piece. Getting it ready for Friday, when I’ll make a little ebook and distribute it to the kind folks who’ve contributed to the GoFundMe drive. Should end up around 10-12k.
If you’re reading this, and you’ve contributed, remember to get me your email address, so that you can receive your rewards. You can reach me at moderanathotmaildotcom.
The paperback edition of “Before Crazytown” is just waiting for a couple of words and a spruce-up. The copy’s already been passed.The linkages and order are a little different, and there is an introduction and an afterword instead of the interstitials. That’s the edition I’ll be sending out. You can get the first edition at Smashwords.
I’m adding a story to Nightmare Grove, then I need to re-submit. And that‘ll be out there. Can’t wait for people to see it.
Also. Letters from Outside. In beautiful black. Around the corner.
New music. Cheers.
RetroGrade A 