Even though I wouldn’t have gotten along with H.P. Lovecraft on a personal level—his feelings about racial purity and his fear of non-Aryan immigrants have creeped me out ever since I read the Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft in the ’70s—as I move deeper into the first volume of Essential Solitude: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, I find more and more points on which we agree, at least as far as writing is concerned.

Here he is on May 16, 1927, addressing the choices we all have to make to put food on our tables and keep roofs over our heads:

An author really ought to be financially independent, so that he need neither cater to the commercial field in his writing, nor expend his time & energy on other pursuits. However, of the two evils, catering & outside work, the latter is by far the lesser evil. That at least does not impair the artistic sincerity of the small amount of writing one does do. I have more respect for an honest plumber or truck-driver who writes to please himself in his spare time, than for a literary hack who extinguishes his own personality in a service acquiescence to the puerile & artificial demands of an ignorant herd.

We’re in agreement there. One reason I’ve always held day jobs was to prevent economic issues from influencing my artistic decisions.

Lovecraft continues in a similar vein on May 22, 1927:

The best policy for an author is to forget the fashion altogether & write what is in him.

So far, so good.

We part company, however, on October 14, 1927, when Lovecraft advises Derleth not to be worried about a fallow period:

The best way to produce fine work is not to give a hang whether you write or not. Then, spontaneously, you will occasionally sit down & reel off something of poignant merit—because it will represent the natural crystallisation of a store of authentic images which actually demanded expression.

I’m afraid I can’t approach my writing as lackadaisically as that. I have to keep the gears of my writing machine oiled by plugging away every day, so that when the great idea occurs, I’m not rusty. If I wait for inspiration to hit, I won’t be up to its challenges when it occurs.

Continuing kudos to editors David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi for assembling this collection. Order your own copy today!