I recently read a post on this site that touched the deepest regions of my heart and led me to create my own. First, writing and imagination is a gift bestowed upon a select few. Those with the imaginative faculties have the beginning tools to write; what and how they go about toning them are their own matters. Today everyone has an opinion, telling every writer how to write and what to say- the proper way to write is this, do that and not this. To me it is very disheartening and sad. Of course there are universal laws in writing that must and should be upheld, but it takes its toll on the writer because a lot of writers (Don't peg me because I know not all fall in this specific category) are sensitive people and want acceptance. So what do they do? They follow society and what they tell them a good story is? Writing is an art, yes? And art comes from the soul- not dictated by others. Art for arts sake is, I feel, the true heart of a writer, the golden rule I guess you could say. Not always easy. Poe knew this, Lovecraft knew this, CAS knew this as well as all of the other masters. They poured themselves out on the page and in the way they thought was right, keeping the universal laws of writing in tact of course, and they blossomed. Nothing happened to their tales years down the road after they were but cold corpses in the grave, our perception, the human perception has changed. If a person, I feels, disgraces themselves by becoming a slave to anyone or a company just to get published has done a dishonor to themselves. Are peoples opinions, friends and fellow writers important, yes. This is how we grow- learning those universal rules. Now this is coming from a guy (I turn 26 on the 30th of January) who always wanted my work to be accepted and would constantly be a slave to "What is the correct way to write" as I have grown I've learned a great deal about myself. If I can't get down what I have to say in a manner easy, yet elequent, way I have failed myself.

Poe had it, Bierce "The Truth is the greatest horror" he said, had it, Lovecraft had it, CAS had it, REH had it, Barlow had it, Dunsany had it, M.R. James had it, William Hodgeson had it, all of em wrote from their heart and attained the pieces of a story from their imagination. I don't think all writing is the same in todays society, in my opinion I think we write to please and do ourselves a diservice. As Dr. Farmer pointed out in that post, the school system "Politically Correct Bull" is to blame, partly, for leading people into the trap of being followers instead of leaders or individuals. I may be just a fresh, learning amaeutur, learning everyday the Universal rules to the written word, but I know I have a gold mind of imaginative ideas and what I say may sound cleche or trite or old school but that makes me happy. To be an individual is why we were created and the feeling, once attained, "Stephen King can you hear me, you used to be so good. What happened? lol" is so refreshing and a nod to the human spirit.

Thank You,

It seems to me you have it backwards. With the exception of Barlow and James, all the authors you mention wrote for a living. They were commercial writers, not artistes. Several of them wrote for pulp magazines, a medium that accepted only formula fiction of the most narrowly defined kind. So you can be sure that instead of creating freely whatever the muse prompted them to, they in fact labored under the severest restrictions.

Spot on but you must admit there are some holes in that to. The editors accepted these tales after some reluctance and the writers were not happy in the process- writing for a formulaic, hackneyed heard. Others ran the news papers or magazines and published their own. So I admit I was a tad off on some but others not so and the unhappiness factor was there and they did believe in art for arts sake.

I mean Bierce was a strong advocate for that and loved the short story as opposed to the novel and a time during when following the norm was considered, well, normal. Bierce hated it and even humoursoulsy said, "A novel is a long, drawn out short story". He was against the novel and we all know how Lovecraft and CAS felt.

Some people write only for markets, such as E. Hoffmann Price, who was always arguing with Lovecraft about HPL's non-commercial attitudes. Price was the total professional, as was Derleth. Both are mostly forgotten to-day. This raises the question of why does one write? I know that I cou'd never put pen to paper for some bleedin' market. Commercial success means nothing to me -- yet "critical" success means everything. I want to feel that I have added something solid to the genre. Like Lovecraft, I am fill'd with doubts about the quality of my work, and I guess I depend of reviewers whom I deem intelligent and knowledgeable about the field to clue me into the worth of my work. And yet they too mystify me. S. T. Joshi thinks my Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror (1999) is my finest book, and I think it's my worst (which is why I've rewritten everything for ye forthcoming revised/expanded edition). I write because I go insane when I do not or cannot write. It's a compulsion, not a career. The idea of writing as a "job" is repugnant to me. I was honed on ye example and ye attitudes toward writing of H. P. Lovecraft, who remains (along with Ligotti) my supreme Gawd of Weird Fiction.

(Hmm, seems ye underlining/italics thingie is daemoniacally possess'd & doing it's own thing. If this post looks odd, please excuse.)

"I'm a little girl."
--H. P. Lovecraft, Esq.

I completely agree with that. Just like when you said you loved my poem. I didn't hold those views and rewrote it (might put it on here in place of the current version some other time) but right now I'm in the middle of a new short story. All of us are our own worst enemies. But in the end we want nothing more than to know we've said everything, and have said it clearly so that people understand us, which we've harbored inside us before we go to our graves.

Amazing thing is is that everyone who reads our stuff is touched someway- be it good or bad. Lovecraft, CAS, Barlow, all of them felt good when the other thought highly of their current story but still continued to think badly of their abilities as a whole. Just the nature of the beast.

Wow, to be complimented by St. Joshi is a feat in itself. I hope to one day catch the eye of someone (be it I'm a 25 yr. old amateur who has yet to publish or do anything big except one or two magazine appearances) or see my stuff in print and bought by anyone at all. See, I think completely out of the box. I make the weird look normal, lol.

Would love to read some of your stories dude. I will trace your book because anything on Lovecraft I devour quickly.

And thanks for your wonderful comments about my poem.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems to me you have it backwards. With the
> exception of Barlow and James, all the authors you
> mention wrote for a living. They were commercial
> writers, not artistes. Several of them wrote for
> pulp magazines, a medium that accepted only
> formula fiction of the most narrowly defined kind.
> So you can be sure that instead of creating freely
> whatever the muse prompted them to, they in fact
> labored under the severest restrictions.

I am not so sure of that. Lovecraft wasn't a professional pulp writer; he didn't rewrite because some editor told him to. His primary income was ghostwriting and revising other people's stuff -- in that respect he was bound by the demands of others.

Also, even though Dunsany earned considerably more money than Lovecraft from his writing, he doesn't strike me as a commercial writer either. He wrote pretty much what he damn well wanted to write. He had to resort to vanity publishing on his first book alone; all the others sold themselves. And I've been told by a friend of his family that he had no qualms about telling an editor to go to hell. On one occassion, an editor had made changes in a story by Dunsany; that magazine never published a Dunsany story ever again.

A few thoughts on this interesting thread - the conflict between being "true to your art" and commercially viable is a relatively new source of Angst. Among the early Irish Bard, you and your retinue were supported wherever you went, your host risking becoming the object of satire if he failed to treat you well. Shakespeare's art supported itself, Milton and Spenser had "real" jobs and writing was on the side.
Yet the Bard had put in a 16 - 20 year apprenticeship, and the others were the products of the first two hundred years after the printing press made reading and writing a skill accessible to ordinary folk. In modern times, financial success has killed a number of writers, and in more than one case by providing them unlimited access to cases of booze - Dylan Thomas once wrote in a little piece called "Irreverant Preamble" how he loved how "the lovely money rushed lushly in..."
Do not be a writer unless (as indicated in your posts) you cannot help it - it is as necessary as breath and heartbeat.
But fellows, let me urge you not to throw away any of your stuff - as you get older, you may become mentor to some younger person or inspiring senior colleague, and, the public may want examples of early efforts, even failures, to know your mind -- even as CAS gave me his juvenile writings only 5 months before he died. However bad something may be, or seem to be, it could be a treasure that later generations will wish they had -- do not deny your spiritual children and grandchildren in a fit of pique.

Martinus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lovecraft wasn't a
> professional pulp writer; he didn't rewrite
> because some editor told him to. His primary
> income was ghostwriting and revising other
> people's stuff -- in that respect he was bound by
> the demands of others.

Yes, that is right; Lovecraft earned his living, such as it was, writing. He had no other job. With the exception of his juvenile writings, everything he wrote was published.

So many of Lovecraft's clients were slow in paying him for his revisions work that one can barely think of it as a way in which he earned a "living." He had family money, but was extremely destitute near his end of life. He seems to have often looked for work in New York, and there are stories of him working as a ticket-seller in a cinema house in Providence.

Lovecraft liked to pose as one who did not care what people (especially editors) thought of his work, as a writer who wouldn't alter a comma under editorial constraint; and yet he was forever sending his new MSS to correspondents for their remarks; and in some cases those remarks engaged him enough to get him revising portions or complete stories. Some of Derleth's comments were extremely harsh, such as when HPL sent Augie "The Dreams in the Witch House" and Derleth told him that the story sucked ichor. Derleth's harsh view led HPL to refuse to submit the story to any market; but Derleth made up for his harsh comments by secretly submitting the story to [i]Weird Tales[i] without HPL's knowing it, and Wright bought the story -- which surprised and delighted Lovecraft. His art-for-art's-sake pose was often deflated and exposed by the absolute delight he express'd when a story sold.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28 Jan 09 | 07:24PM by wilum pugmire.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Martinus Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lovecraft wasn't a
> > professional pulp writer; he didn't rewrite
> > because some editor told him to. His primary
> > income was ghostwriting and revising other
> > people's stuff -- in that respect he was bound
> by
> > the demands of others.
>
> Yes, that is right; Lovecraft earned his living,
> such as it was, writing. He had no other job. With
> the exception of his juvenile writings, everything
> he wrote was published.

Not while he was alive. Several stories appeared only posthumously. And while he did rewrite "The Whisperer in Darkness" after having got feedback from Bernard Austin Dyer, I can't at the moment recall other instances where he went back and rewrote something after having had it critiqued by others (no... wait... there's a hazy memory that he did so with one of his early stories...). AFAIK, he didn't revise "The Dreams in the Witch House" after AWD dragged it through the dirt.

I think his response to severe criticism was to stop writing fiction and to stop submitting fiction rather than trying to rewrite something that someone slagged. This, for me, is the ultimate tragedy in Lovecraft's life, if he went to his grave thinking himself a failure as a writer. The idea of that makes me miserable, which is one of the reason I'm so obsessed with staying Lovecraftian as a weird fiction writer and paying loving tribute to HPL with mine own weird tales. All of this makes me itch to re-read Joshi's biography and the SELECTED LETTERS. I saw that two volumes of the Selected Letters are still available from Arkham House. I wish AH could afford to keep those letters in print -- but we can now look forward to the, what, 25 or 27 volumes of Lovecraft's correspondence coming in handsome hardcover editions from Hippocampus!

I must say I agree with you all the way. The sheer thought of people knocking him and pissing on his work is nothing less than a tragedy. To not only him but to the fact in general that people, by nature, are not nice. I just finished reading a few pamphlets I recently acquired (some published in 1943 and 1946) where such people as Murial Eddy (C.M. Eddy's wife) and Samuel Lovemen. In it I truly saw the character of H.P.L emerge as, digging past his so called "Pose" to his heart; a loving, caring individual who gave all of himself to people and did not expect anything in return. I know it is trite, as S.T. Joshi, not knocking him, or any of the current Lovecraft Biographers, have already told us, but to read it in the words from the persons who have sat down with him, shook his hand, walked to a favorite house of his, my god there is nothing like it. Did you know that so many people joked him behind his back about his features: Lantern jaw, pale skin, fiendishly skinny, as a ghoul or freak. Reminded me of a school boy getting picked on by the bully but unlike that old scenerio, I felt as though I personally knew him. And that had brought me to tears, literally. He was truly a lonely soul and dead inside but where he got that "Grandpa, gentlemen" aspect and lived it to the very end, I do not know. My life is a bit like his and his character in the face of a trouble which he knew would never leave, how he remained so positive is truly someone to look up to. I wish I could be that strong. And to think Derleth knocked him, talked smack about him after he died but, like a thief, took all of his money (not literally) but through Arkham house, and the letters I have of Augusts', clearly show a devilish side of him. Its injustice and how little hpl was thanked. If you look clearly into HPLS' character then a remarkable man emerges, especially reading it from his very close friends. The personal account I read from a book dealer who talked with an over active R.H. Barlow; gosh, how Barlow talked of him shows how much he meant to him. H.P.L, taken out of his fiction and letters and examining the person through the eyes of people who knew him has given me a rejuvenated respect for HP and if he can be himself to the end, why can't all of us be.

Thanks to the new material I have acquired (not to mention scarce and obviously out of print for like 60 yrs and counting) I will write and show the world who I am, loved or not, till the very end. Lovecraft the man, though popularized as "His Fiction" is a bit off, not entirely, but a bit off to the ones who actually conversed in person with him and should be viewed as a hero. Now if we could all view one another in that way, break down literary barriers of who is better than who, the world, at least in the literary sense, would be a much better place to live.

I am usually the last to defend Derleth, but it cannot have been a pleasure for Derleth to have read the various unflattering remarks (e.g., "self-blinded little Earth-gazers like Augie Derleth") that Lovecraft made about him in his letters to others, once those letters came into Derleth's hands. That Derleth would on occasion respond in kind is not hard to understand.

On the other hand, Derleth didn't see those letters until after Lovecraft died, so obviously couldn't respond. And Lovecraft did offer constructive criticism on Derleth's stories in a very helpful and tactful way (usually anyway; I've done no more than skim the HPL/AWD correspondence).

By "respond", I simply meant the less-than-kind remarks by Derleth that OConnor, CD referenced. I did not mean that Derleth literally responded before Lovecraft's death to comments that Derleth obviously could not have seen before Lovecraft's death.

I assume that OConnor is referring to comments made by Derleth after Lovecraft's death, and that Derleth may have made at least some of these remarks after Derleth had seen statements made about him in Lovecraft's letters. These assumptions of mine may or may not be correct, and I leave the verification to others.

OConnor,CD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He was truly a lonely soul and
> dead inside

"Lonely"? "Dead inside"? All the evidence suggests that Lovecraft was one of the happiest people who ever lived. His was certainly not a successful life by conventional standards, but this does not appear to have bothered him at all---after all, he managed to realize the dream of becoming an intellectual recluse that he had first conceived at age 4 or so! There is nothing in his writings or correspondence (what I have seen of it) that indicates that he was depressed or psychologically troubled in any way. Odd, yes, but by all accounts a content, charming man who inspired many others with his enthusiasm.

lol, no I didn't mean it that way jo jo. What I meant was that he often wished he could be more than what he was. He even says it in his letters. His letters were his way of talking like any two people on the street do. But was he happy being an intelligent recluse? Yes and No. Its a difficult question to answer fully. Most of it points to positive but a small amount also leans toward the negative to.

In any case, it seems likely to me that Lovecraft never so much as dreamed that the letters (with the negative comments about Derleth) would have made their way--even posthumously-- into Derleth's hands. (Let's remember also that he seemed to be counting on being alive for a few more decades at least.) Otherwise, he never would have said what he did. Indeed, I'm sure he would have been greatly put out over the mere thought of wounding someone (let alone a friend) on a personal level.

And I think the truth lies rather somewhere in between "lonely" and the "happiest person who ever lived."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 31 Jan 09 | 03:21AM by Dexterward.