My short story Signs and Hortense is now out in Arkham Tales #4. So as usual, here’s the story of how I came to write it.
For a couple of years now, the Slacktivist blog has been reviewing the Left Behind End Times series; blogger Fred Clark is a liberal evangelical who strongly disagrees with the beliefs expressed in the books (and the quality of the writing) and he’s been dissecting them piece by piece (the latest installment is here). In the comments section, someone wondered what the Rapture would be like in HP Lovecraft’s universe and that got me thinking …
In the original draft of the story, Hortense was a judgmental twit in the style of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady. However, as I started to work and develop her character, she became more sympathetic: I’ve always had an attraction for emotionally withdrawn, repressed protagonists, and she was both. And from jokes about the Sane Behind books (because when the Old Ones rapture you, you leave sanity behind) became part of a broader idea, of the insane Lovecraftian cults existing as a mainstream religion.
Storywise that worked, but when I’d finished it I realized … it just wasn’t funny, excep right at the end. So I went back and rewrote the rest of it until it all seemed funny—and apparently Arkham Tales agreed.
So go and download. And if you’re coming here from reading my author bio, you can check out more of my stuff at the What I’ve Written link on the right.
