Friends, Kind and Patient:
I am embroiled in the horrid process of moving... back from Rhode
Island to Colorado, again. A strange year indeed, going on two strange
years. More when my brain does surface. I trust it will... it has gone into hiding. Meantime, a thought from one of my favorite writers of strange stories:
"I care about the literary art, and I know
exactly what the Ancients meant by 'the promptings of the Muse'.
The stories which I consider to be my most successful came to me as if
dictated... The true ghost story is akin to poetry: only in
part is it a conscious construction, and when the Muse does not speak,
you cannot write it."
~ "An Essay" by Robert Aickman 1914 - 1981
To my mind, Robert Aickman was one of the very few writers to capture the genuine strangeness of dream; insinuating, inevitable and obscure.