The Festival

[Moeror]

Thanks for the reply, I think the passage is almost clear to me now thanks to your previous explanation and this post that definitely completes it. I'm going to read The Call Of Cthulhu now. I can't stop reading Lovecraft!

 

[j d worthington]

Thanks for the reply, I think the passage is almost clear to me now thanks to your previous explanation and this post that definitely completes it. I'm going to read The Call Of Cthulhu now. I can't stop reading Lovecraft!

And another one succumbs to the madness....

Enjoy! And by all means, join in the discussions whenever you feel like....

 

[GOLLUM]

And another one succumbs to the madness....

Hoi! Who you calling mad?....

 

[Tinsel]

Souls traveling to the afterlife, wizards, running into demons on the way, etc. It is4 in Egyptian mythology. Mother goddess is another major theme I figure but I need more evidence, not that I am currenly looking at that stuff.

 

[J Riff]

Man. If I could go back to the third day after I first read Lovecraft... knowing what I know now... I'd save my baseball cards and comics !! )

Anyway, here's my problem, a good problem to have. I've penned a SS, about a character who is a weird fiction afficianado, HPL is mentioned, but this is a modern guy, living in an apartment with a roomate etc.
This was inspired somehow, vaguely, by this forum and it's strange denizens.
I started out with a throwaway name for our hero, and then I switched it to Renfield, a bit too obvious, but there it sits.
What is the name of this king of Weird fiction fandom ??
He does, of course, get dragged itno the netherworlds, the reality of the very literature that he lives and breathes. But he needs a name and I'm coming up blank. If there's anywhere to ask, it's here first, before I start scouring the names of old towns or making anagrams or god-help me, using an online vampire name-generator or something. I usually have no trouble with names, but this character will not identify himself.
Who is this guy ?

 

[J-WO]

Phillip Ashton.

(Being the middle names of Lovecraft and Smith.)

 

[J-WO]

Oops. Its Phillips, isn't it? I forgot.

Right then, Phillip S. Ashton.

 

[j d worthington]

Or, if you really wanted to be sly about this, Horace Philter Mocraft:

You may be interested to hear of the new professional literary partnership of Molo, just entered into. [Maurice Winter] Mo[e] has long been urging me to try professionalism, but I have been reluctant on account of my variation from the tastes of the period. Now, however, Mo has proposed a plan for collaboration in which his modern personality will be merged with my antique one. I am to write the material -- mainly fiction -- because I am the more fertile in plots; whilst he is to revise to suit the market, since he is the more familiar with contemporary conditions. He will do all the business part, also; since I detest commercialism. Then, IF he is able to "land" something with a remunerative magazine, we shall "go halves" on the spoils of victory.

The pseudonym under which we shall offer our composite wares for sale, is a compound of our own full names: Horace Philter Mocraft.[...]

-- Letter to Rheinhart Kleiner, 21 August, 1919 (Selected Letters I, pp. 84-85)​

 

[J Riff]

Yes ! Thanks, J-Wo !

Phillip S. Ashton- Lives ! Perfect - amazed it hasn't been used before this.

I will search and replace and see how it looks.
So far, Ashton smokes a pipe, collects and reads rare weird fiction - that's all we know of him.
This guy, this Philip Ashton ) ... will be back. He has survived one fantastic journey and he now has a means, a portal which gives access to the other side.
Fabulous. Tx agin J-Wo.

 

[Tinsel]

It looks like "The Festival" might be based on this witchcraft cult book. I just looked at the first few pages and there are connections. A person needs this book to learn more. Not sure how far I'll get but Lovecraft must have read it, not that I'm that far into it.

 

[Tinsel]

Last comment: It does mention festivals a number of times in this book ere, and it talks about witches riding mounts. So dere it is SON.

 

[J Riff]

BTW - WHP...have finished the three stories you sent, and truly enjoyed them all.

 

[J-WO]

Yes ! Thanks, J-Wo !

Phillip S. Ashton- Lives ! Perfect - amazed it hasn't been used before this.

I will search and replace and see how it looks.
So far, Ashton smokes a pipe, collects and reads rare weird fiction - that's all we know of him.
This guy, this Philip Ashton ) ... will be back. He has survived one fantastic journey and he now has a means, a portal which gives access to the other side.
Fabulous. Tx agin J-Wo.

Don't thank me, thank this Phil fellow. And buy him some pipe tobacco.

 

[J-WO]

JD- So what happened to Horace Philter Mocraft? Was their any fruits from this partnership?

 

[j d worthington]

JD- So what happened to Horace Philter Mocraft? Was their any fruits from this partnership?

Not as far as I know; and I'd have thought that, had there been, one of the numerous sources I've read would have made mention of that fact. That's part of the reason I mentioned being "sly"... it isn't a well-known aspect of Lovecraft's career, yet is very genuine....

 

[J Riff]

Mercy. Major issues logging in to the board lately.

Anyway. I am mildly thrilled about managing to finally stick my toe into weird fiction waters.
Pipe tobacco ? who said anything about tobacco!?
Heh heh. Phillip S. Ashton - is a reader, not a writer.
He lives further north than the characters in Wilums world. I can't write like that, actually in the Lovecraft vein, so I have to invent forgotten Authors and stories for Ashton to read to suit the situation, which is a lot of fun.
Ashton hears rumors of the strange goings-on in other parts of the world, most noteably south of his location, which would be Washington state.
There are grim, determined men searching for a certain lost valley, that's as close as I would come to attempting to attach to any of the history already out there created by people like HPL, CAS - and WHP who has kept the HPL world alive better than anyone I've read yet. Onward !

 

[w h pugmire esq]

You are too kind, gentle sir. I am overjoy'd to have been some small inspiration in turning another soul toward the mad world of fictional composition! It is a wonderful madness. Just take your time and really think about your story and do you best, then put it away for a fortnight and return to it with fresh eyes.

 

[J Riff]

The first one is done- The Black Vault. It took forever for me to get around to approaching this somehow. Reading WHPs stuff was encouraging, it really is well-written for any genre, but I never intended to attempt HPL, and won't, couldn't.
I have ten sciFi things on the go, but always had a fear of horror,(!) though I've read more of it than anything. Like the Ashton character, I don't like the new stuff much.
I now have a fungus-creature lurking up north here, alive since the dawn of time, and I'm starting to wonder if I should create towns, a locale, or just leave it open-ended.

 

[J-WO]

Not as far as I know; and I'd have thought that, had there been, one of the numerous sources I've read would have made mention of that fact. That's part of the reason I mentioned being "sly"... it isn't a well-known aspect of Lovecraft's career, yet is very genuine....

Hmm... Horace, Philter and Mocraft. Great name for a solicitors practice. Will remember if I need one for a story. Cheers, JD.

 

[j d worthington]

The first one is done- The Black Vault. It took forever for me to get around to approaching this somehow. Reading WHPs stuff was encouraging, it really is well-written for any genre, but I never intended to attempt HPL, and won't, couldn't.
I have ten sciFi things on the go, but always had a fear of horror,(!) though I've read more of it than anything. Like the Ashton character, I don't like the new stuff much.
I now have a fungus-creature lurking up north here, alive since the dawn of time, and I'm starting to wonder if I should create towns, a locale, or just leave it open-ended.

Congratulations on completing the first piece! As for the last bit... my suggestion -- don't push it. Just let the milieu build gradually, on its own. Such things tend to have more substance and be more memorable, as they utilize genuine impressions and imaginative reworkings of the writer's experience, whereas "world-building" far too often has too much of conscious artifice to it, thereby making it, however interesting and and enjoyable it may be on one level, more shallow and have less impact on the reader. Let it grow from within, like a truly living thing, and that life will be much stronger....

Hmm... Horace, Philter and Mocraft. Great name for a solicitors practice. Will remember if I need one for a story. Cheers, JD.