Eldritch Nights - revisited

While I was writing Eldritch Nights, I was living in my first year with a group of people I didn't really get on with. Words burst from my mouth I had no control over. The worst possible thing at the worst possible time. I had been cooped up with my family for two years prior, and that hadn't been particularly pleasant, so when it came time for university, I was essentially unleashed onto a minefield of social interactions that would be difficult for any individual. And I managed to make the worst of it.

It's for this reason that writing Eldritch Nights wasn't a good time for me and I was surrounded by people I didn't really get on with at the best of times. That said, I had one housemate who, while I disagreed with her on most things, she did have one view of life that I've toyed with ever since. That of getting, "SMASHED EVERY NIGHT" (her emphasis not mine). Ironically, I was like Gretchen and she was like Daphne. But, I've often thought about that and wondered what kind of life it would be -- true anarchy, etc.

These days I do feel some nostalgia for the utter anarchy that surrounded me when I wrote Eldritch Nights. That said, in my late twenties, realistically, it doesn't have much relevance for me. Even things that graciously remind me of it, like Charli XCX's excellent BRAT album, I see as Eldritch-Nights-coded.

The truth is I'm not a clubbie and never really was one; hence why the club in the book is seen as a place of shadows, non-consensual sex, human sacrifices, murder, etc.