Gothic Inspiration

The finest inspiration for any writer is other writers. I keep these two passages stuck to a message board near my desk.

“Those who are neither the living or the dead; -- those dark and shadowless things that sport themselves with the reliques of the dead, and feast and love amid corruption, -- ghastly, mocking and terrific.” --Charles Robert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” --Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Sometimes just reading those short passages of moody prose is enough to set my imagination pattering down tunnels, blood-dark and dangerous, where fantastic beings interact (for good or ill) with mortals.
Just reading over those paragraphs changes the tone and feel of my writing. Of course, often the rewriting and editing process requires that I splash a little beige over the purple patches of the writing these passages inspire. That's fine. I'll still take the inspiration whenever I can.