I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a great writer, but I still hope to write some little things that others might enjoy. My work has been routinely rejected by print magazines, but I have published a quatity of work in the amteur electronic magazine State of unBeing (SoB), which was edited by my friend Kilgore Trout. Unfortunately, it seems that SoB has reached its end, but I now publish in Nameless and Damned (NaD), a new e-zine edited by my brother, Patrick, and associate edited by myself.
When I was fourteen or fifteen and first started writing for SoB, I chose two very pompous handles. I shed them for Nameless and Damned, but of course most of my SoB writing retains those names. Fiction and poetry was published under the name Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes. I wrote political and historical articles under the handle Captain Moonlight, but I disagree with most of what I wrote under that handle, and it is painful to have it resurrected. Anyone truely interested in reading such drivel can find the handle in SoB's author index, but I will only link a few of my historical pieces under that handle here.
Unfortunately, I believe that I'm beyond my glory days of writing, at least as far as weird fiction is concern. Had I written more when I was younger I believe I might have actually turned out something good, but unfortunately that never happened, as I didn't have time to perfect my writing style before irreversibly chemical changes occurred in my brain. I believe that, with the change of chemicals in my body and brain which have come with adulthood, I can no longer feel certain emotions to the extent that would be necessary to write weird fiction at my best. I don't know what these chemicals are, but I believe the end of puberty may have had something to do with the stopping of their flow, and I don't want to start taking drugs or anything like that which might facilitate altering my mood in order to write. I would very much like to hear any information anyone can offer on this. While I don't believe that the mind is entirely within the brain, I do believe brain chemistry has a role in the way the mind works.
I look forward to any questions or commentary regarding any of my works. E-mail me at mabeherec@hotmail.com
In December of 2000, I was reading S. T. Joshi's excellent work, The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft (New York: Dell, 1997). While reading, I noticed that he did not mention certain similarities I had noticed between "The Dunwich Horror" and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Terror of Blue John Gap." He also did not mention Lovecraft's use of fifteenth century demonic imagry in the form of Wilbur Whateley. I wrote an essay detailing these links, and in January of 2001 Mr. Joshi accepted it for Lovecraft Studies, calling it "important and perceptive." Recieving the acceptance e-mail was one of the happiest moments of my life, and when the magazine is published it will mark my first true print publication. It will be published in April of 2002, and can be purchased from Necronomicon Press.
In 2003, I once again began assembling old pieces and writing new ones, this time for a new e-zine to be edited by my brother. I associate edit the zine, which basically means I help recruit writers and I bug the editor. Most of what appears in issue #1 (which has not yet been htmlized -- all links are to the text edition) is old material that had been sitting on my hard drive since the end of SoB.
As I have learned more and more of the cyclical nature of human societies and how they relate to environmental changes, I have thought more and more about God's role in the human past and of why humans were not created for some 4.4 billion years after the creation of the earth. I put some of these thoughts into an article which (despite the title), as a friend pointed out to me, doesn't really go into evolution. Nevertheless, it is here, for what it's worth.
When my brother began planning NaD, I went through my harddrive and found some poems to submit to help flesh out the zine. None of them were very good, and I don't even know when they were composed. Two appeared in NaD #1.
In February 2001, I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. While I usually shun crowds, I happened to be downtown when the police decided to clear the streets during the Mardi Gras celebrations. I wrote an article about what I observed which was published in SoB in March. I was, however, wrong on one point: It is legal for women to bare their breats in public in Austin.
I attempted to write a prose-poem to bring archaeology to life and show just how passing is our civilisation. The result was not as good as the intent.
One morning as I drove to work, I composed the following prose poem in my head, about the seething irrational hatred with which I often must struggle, and how truely unjust I am in entertaining such thoughts. A few days later I wrote the poem down.
My only output for 1999 was been a little article I wrote on my visit to the Austin Hare Krishna Center. Non-Catholics or those who don't know me may get the feeling reading this that I'm a big fat bigot. Actually, though I respect the Hindus, I do disagree with them religiously. I knew that people reading this article would view it exactly the way I chose to write it: As an account of a Catholic visiting a Hindu temple. Had this been written as a summary of Hare Krishna beliefs, it would have been very different. But I felt it my duty writing this as a Catholic to point out my differences with their beliefs.
This version includes the photographs I took that night which could not be reproduced in the original SoB version.
In the article, I mention Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown." It's one of my favourite tales, and is probably one of the best American horror stories ever written. I recommend everyone read it online.
On the first day of the month of the Sacred Heart -- June -- 1998, my brother Patrick (Crux Ansata), a friend of mine, and I visited Christ of the Hills Monastery at New Sarov, just outside of Blanco, Texas. We went intending to visit the Weeping Icon of Our Lady of New Sarov. The following article was taken from my journal following that experience.
In September of '98 I wrote what I had hoped to be a mystical poem about my relationship with God.
In February of 1998 I finally published a work I had written years earlier -- in 1995 or 1996, to be exact. I realise now that I should have never published it. It was entitled "The Stars Between the Stars," in reference to a remark State of unBeing writer Howler in the Shadows once made to me. He didn't follow with the corny philosophical remark, though. I have no one to blame but myself for that.
One day, somebody at State of unBeing decided it would be a good idea if the zine's more prolific authors were interviewed in the zine. Acting on the idea, somebody invented an interviewer, who was named Noni Moon. Each of the authors who cared to then created a conversation with the fictional Noni, and published it as a faux interview. Many are full of lies. My own creation was run in State of unBeing #31. It is characteristically vain and pointless.
On 10 December 1996, my friend Jason "Jae" Darrell Winn -- or Introvert, as I knew him -- editor of the Vertigo Voice, walked onto the Port Aransas Beach with a shotgun and never walked away. He was 18. Read his obituary online. He had a major influence on us in the Austin BBS community, and my memorial, below, was one of several printed in SoB. I was mistaken in the article -- Introvert never wrote for SoB.
I wrote "In the Mirror of Her Eyes" back when I would listen to the Gin Blossoms for hours on end and thought prostitutes were all victims of the seething entity I never really defined but called "The System." That was before I read about Japanese schoolgirls selling themselves for pocket money.
Having to write an Arthurian story in High School English, I invented the character of Sir Rhisiart (Richard) and pretended I could imitate a mediaeval writing style. Then I invented the book mentioned at the end of the text. Connolly and Pearse are, of course, the same men who led the Easter Uprising of 1916. Ambrose Dewart's name I swiped from August Derleth's The Lurker at the Threshold. Then I stuck a "Sir M." at the beginning of his name to give it that added hint of authority. This story was inspired by one of my favourite Clannad songs, "The Poison Glen," which appeared on their album Anam. Part of this song goes:
Way up there in the poison glen
The sun's going down on the misty mountain . . .
Who in the valley shed the poison tear?
No one knows
An old legend of a mythical hero
And I'm watching
And wondering
Feeling something from long ago
Seriously, the song's much better than my story -- go get the album. The story also has an obvious Lovecraftian influence. I might also point out that I would no longer consider it sound theology. While I believe that horrible things are out there and will destroy people, I no longer feel that having the proper charm is one's only (or best) protection. For different reasons I don't think HPL would like the concept, as it would put too many limitations on the creatures. The concept of the Elder Sign I also stole from The Lurker at the Threshold.
My junior year of high school, my history teacher decided that I was not being challenged by his course. So he sent me and a few of my classmates to the library for six weeks and told us to write reports. They worked together; I worked alone. I turned out an article on the incredibly interesting Irish Easter Uprising of 1916, and titled it "A Terrible Beauty is Born." I turned it over at Kilgore's request for SoB. I edited the first section intensively, but then gave up in frustration and turned over the other two sections in a rough format, over a year after the first installment had been printed. I'm afraid I'm not sure if I still believe in some of the politics expressed here.
Sometime between 1992 and 1994 I wrote a prose poem about a goblin who sends out profound truths hidden in gibberish. It was based on the assertion by some societies that profound truths can only be communicated in coded form. Some people liked it. It was eventually published in State of unBeing #13.
Several of my poems revolve around the theme of death, and "Meditations on Death's Sleep" was inspired during a talk with a friend of mine about the death of one of her friends in Junior High. It was first published in State of unBeing #11 and then accidentally reprinted in State of unBeing #14.
I had hoped to win scholarship money from the American Holocaust Museum with this little tale, but I missed the deadline by one day. The story was subsequently printed in SoB #18. I couldn't decide which handle to print it under, so I called it a collaboration between Captain Moonlight and Dark Crystal Sphere Floating Between Two Universes.
I wrote "That Which Lies Beyond" based on a conglomeration of dreams I had about tunnels beneath a house in the Texas German Hill Country. These dreams were no doubt inspired by my reading H. P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dextar Ward just before bed. His short story "The Festival," as well as local rumours told to me of Satanism on a hill outside Wimberly no doubt influenced it as well. I've never been to Wimberly, but those stories took hold in my mind. From what I understand a Baptist prayer booth now sits on top of that hill, though local residents tried to stop its construction, since the hill is a local landmark and the prayerbooth is said to be an eyesore. The dreams I had were of a book I found in a rare bookstore and paintings in a house in a quaint Texas German Hill Country town. I consider this tale to be one of the best in my meagre body of work, even if it is just a bad copy of Lovecraft. It was published in my English Class Chapbook, Strange Tales and Stranger Ideas (the title of the chapbook itself being ripped off of Ramsey Campbell's Strange Things and Stranger Places). The story was then published in the 1996 edition of the Leander High School Literary Magazine, and then in State of unBeing #14. It was rejected by both Weird Tales and Cemetery Dance as too unoriginal and too long on exposition.
Several of my poems revolve around the theme of death, and "Meditations on Death's Sleep" was inspired during a talk with a friend of mine about the death of one of her friends in Junior High. It was first published in State of unBeing #11 and then accidentally reprinted in State of unBeing #14.
On 23 September 1994, Robert Bloch left this earth. His death, and that of Frank Belknap Long the same year, affected me as the passing of an era of Lovecraftian weird authors. "There were giants in the earth in those days . . . " Genesis 6:4.
In State of unBeing #9 I published a poem entitled "The Dark Mistress," which is pretty self-explanatory.
"The Inevitable" is a rather pessimistic free-verse poem about the destruction of mankind. It was published in SoB #9, and rejected by the Leander High School Literary Magazine.
Back when I thought I would know all the answers if only I could find the proper grimoire for the purpose, I wrote "The Sleep of the Gatesman" about the Roman god Janus, god of doorways and of journeys and about the beginnings of the Great Work talked of in Hermetic circles.
In my freshman year of High School I wrote "Shades," a short free-verse poem which I still consider to be my best poem in my small mediocre canon. It was also my first writing I have considered to have any merit. It was published by my High School literary magazine, and then was republished with my backlog of poems in the third issue of State of unBeing.
Around Halloween, I was inspired by a light I saw deep in the cedar breaks around Leander to write "A Light Where None Should Have Been," which was published first in 1994 issue of the Leander High School Literary Magazine and later in the third issue of State of unBeing.
In 1994 I had to write a tale about revenge for English class, so I wrote "Love is the Law." It was published in State of unBeing #12.
In my early high school years I wrote a rather melodramatic tale about two lovers whose love spanned across death. It's heavily influenced by a story in Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow. But this one's terrible. In fact, I'd have to say it's one of the worst pieces in my entire collection, which can only be described as mediocre at best. It was published in State of unBeing #9.
During my flirtations with Wicca, when I believed Wicca was the direct descendant of Celtic religion and thought the Wiccans knew what they were talking about, I wrote "Upon the Shores of Tír Na N'Óg," a tale about a lonely outcast and his ultimate reward in the Land of Eternal Youth. It was inspired by Hemmigway's The Old Man and the Sea.