Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

This has been a month of complete non-productivity. It doesn't feel like writer's block, but rather like I don't know how to find a new path for fictive expression. In the past, I have had the easy out of compiling books for which, for the most part, most of the work entailed merely a rewriting of old works. I can no longer do so, for all of the old stuff is now to be released in the forthcoming updated editions. Being here, among you, and seeing all that there is in horror fiction that is original and unusual, had fill'd me with a keen desire to write the kind of fiction that I have never before attempted. This is perhaps the main reason (there are so many) why TLO remains my favourite site (indeed, I rarely visit the other horror sites these days, whut are little more than social gatherings) -- that here I can find the discussions of writers I wou'd never otherwise have encounter'd. I also really enjoy that there are so many other writers here, and that you post your works in ye Library.

I'm hungry to read modern horror authors, but so much of the new stuff is so boring. When I first started having professional success, I decided I needed to become a part of the current "horror scene," and so I join'd HWA and the Leisure Book Club. The club was a huge mistake. Too many of the novels were these mundane suburban horror novels about life in suburbia being corrupted by tired old daemonic cliches. I don't find any of that here -- thank Yuggoth. One book that I've order'd and am really looking forward to is MR. GAUNT AND OTHER UNEASY ENCOUNTERS by John Langan, whut I learned of from bendk's mention of it in ye Book Recommendations thread. I've since found an ad for the book in the last issue of WEIRD TALES that I've received from my subscription, from another favourite author, the fantastic Elizabeth Hand: "With these tales, John Langan has achieved a sort of literary trifecta: he's written works that celebrate supernatural fiction's antiquarian and visionary past with as much eloquence and acuity--and terror--as they explore the dark heart of the 21st century." Sounds dead rad. I've got a feeling that the rest of this year will be time spent in trying to find the really great and unusual masters of modern horror -- and I know that the one place I can depend on to find such writers is here at TLO.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Don't worry, Wilum, about a month's worth of non-productivity - the forces of the Muse are simply regrouping, I am sure of it.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Wilum, If I dry up in one aspect - say, DFLery fiction - then I wander over to publishing 'Nemonymous' (9th issue coming up this year)

- and if both of those aspects fail, I review other writers' works: (some of your reqired forthcoming modern great horror writers are included here I trust):
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/rec...oks_by_dfl.htm

- and if all those three aspects fail, I write my blog and/or fill discussion forums with my pearls(!) of wisdom.

- and if those four aspects fail, I mow the lawn, as I will today. :)

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I've just noticed these newer posts -- thanks, guys. It always comes back to me -- I think I've just burned out from the craziness of completing three new books since October. Getting online and this new keyboard panel really made writing so much easier. I worked like a daemon when Jerad said he wanted to do a collection of my stuff -- the idea of my own Centipede book was unreal. I couldn't eat or sleep for two weeks, I revised or completely rewrote almoft everything that was to be in the book, then wrote like a wild thang the new original work. I was obsess'd. Then when S. T.'s THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS came out, it increas'd my desire to write a new totally Mythos collection, so I put together the new book, WEIRD INHABITANTS OF SESQUA VALLEY, for this new press, Terradan Works. It's just amazingly cool to be able to stay home and write full-time, and the situation that has made it possible is unreal, like something from Elizabethan or Victorian times -- having patrons who love your work enough to say, "Girl, stay home and write, we'll support you." That's also a part of the block, I think. It puts a mental pressure on me not to slack off -- if they believe in me enough to support me, I can't stop writing. It's an extremely weird yet delicious situation.

I've noticed a lot of people online who write books seem totally reluctant to "talk" about their writing in posts or threads. I don't understand that at all, especially when one writes for the small press -- small press publishers don't have much talent for promoting their writers, so it seems. And if you're in a forum under an inventive user name, how the hell are people gonna know who you are or what you write if you don't inform them? There's a guy who calls himself "Al Smith" who just posted at alt.horror.cthulhu that he's been supporting himself for 30 years writing, but he's too modest to mention his books online. My philosophy is:

Modesty is such a bore,
I'd rather be a whore.

I love it when y'all talk about your work and post new work here. Love it!

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

What Johan said -- Like I keep tellin' ya! !!

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Non-productivity is actually a good thing. Most artistic work is interior in nature anyway and productivity is greatly over-rated. It is best to let the artistic process take its own course rather than subit it to a timeable. When the time is right the work will flow naturally and be a lot better than anything done in response to a schedule but not motivated by artistic need.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I think I have this voice in my head (it's my father's voice, really) about laziness and failure. If I'm not writing, I'm slacking off. I'm relaxing about it, and your comments help, thanks. I'm obsessed with having this new chapbook collection finish'd by October so that I can have it in my publisher's hand when I see him at WFC in San Jose. But the built-in stress of wanting to write and not being able to concentrate is keeping me from work, so maybe if I just chill and read and dream, it'll start. I have an opening paragraph to the new story that feels right. It's inspir'd by Henry James's "The Aspern Papers," and to increase my mood and imagination I recently got that tale on audio cd and I bought the Oxford pb edition, whut publishes the New York Edition text, heavily revis'd by James, that I have never read. So, I'm still "working" even if I'm not producing.

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

I think that's a good point you make there, Mr. Pugmire. Working is not the same as producing--a distinction many people seem to forget (or quite simply doesn't know about or understand, perhaps?).

Good to hear you're working;-) But even if you are not, don't sweat it. Some time off is always healthy, and can be exactly the recharge of the imaginative batteries that is needed!

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Fret not, Dear One, they come as "They" like. They have their own voice and needs. Yes we meet them in the shadows, walk w/ them for a time, but it is they who lead, they who roll the bones . . . The tide may have gone out, but it will come back in. Rest. Breathe . . . I hear them now. They're coming for you . . .

Re: W. H. Pugmire
 

Yes -- I sense their approach as I sink into the pages of Henry James, and as the reading of his magnificent story, listen'd to as I lay in bed last night, spill'd into my dreaming, so that the voice of dreaming became James's late style. Yes -- I sense their form in the mist of dream -- an undulation of spectres compos'd of language & syntax & motif, those delicious ingredients. Let me take my psyche straight razor and split open my soul, so they may be nourish'd on ye madness that churns therein -- the madness of Art.