Attack Of The 50-foot Verbose Mutant Killer Fountain Pens From Mars | Page 2

sheer choreography of this
high-power revision.
Even so, it looked tight to the deadline. These editors were tough
S.O.B.s, but the words were giving a tempestuous backchat. We were
far from clear of the verbiage yet. Truth is, those editors were in serious
danger of becoming overwhelmed by the sheer deluge of noisome
composition. I was definitely destined for somebody's bad books...
That's when the Critics smashed through the doors. You should have

been there to see it for yourself. Some piece of work. The action didn't
last long after that.
They destroyed them. Drowned them in scorn. The Fountains Pens
From Mars just withered and died under the Critics' combined vitriol
aplomb and heat-beam stares.
With the last bubbling decomposition writhing its last on the
ink-swilled floor, I crawled out from under the table. I had to thank
these guys for saving my arse from the verbiage swamp. I went up to
the nearest editor, grinning like a classic hippy with a bowel full of
good shit.
He saw me. This Heraclean Hero of the Delete Key watched me sidle
nonchalantly his way. He turned and holstered his Red Pen. Adopting a
casual stance, he rested one gauntleted hand on his hip while the other
reached up to peel off his respirator hood.
I stopped then, and stuttered a few grateful incoherences.
The Hero's mouth curled in disdain.
"Goddam passive voices," he said, "more trouble than worth."
I grinned a little weak.
He must have mistaken me for some other scribe...
Mark Cantrell, Bolton, 16 November 2004

In the beginning there was...
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Penning The Altered States
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It Just Got Harder!
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Penning The Altered States
EVERY session at the keyboard is a journey to unknown places.
My body might reside in the here and now of the physical universe, but
like the ancient shaman high on exotic herbs, my mind - or soul
depending on your inclinations - is away elsewhere.
Not to the gods. Or the spirits of animals and ancestors.
Just. Elsewhere.
To that place that somehow reaches back to this world to manifest itself
on the glowing screen or the coffee-stained paper.
It's a hard place to reach.
Some, again, we're back to shamans, have preached the wondrous
facilitator that is illegal drugs. Pop a pill, snort some neuro-chemically
interesting powder and open the doors to perception.
Others might swear by various concoctions of alcohol.
And yes, there's always the boring swot who preaches the virtues of
hard work.
They overlook something.
Not about the hard work, that's a given whatever substance you abuse
or none. And it isn't sleep deprivation either, which can sometimes be a

wonderful hallucinatory mind-swirling phenomenon for the creative
writer out for a quick nib.
No. They forget.
That writing itself is an altered stream of consciousness. The words
themselves, and the fizzing incandescent ideas they dance to represent,
can themselves open that mystical doorway to perception and
otherworldliness.
I think, drugs aside, those ancient shamans knew that little secret too.
These days they have a phrase for it. Typically boring. The kind of
label that only someone who's spent years using their mind to learn the
theories and hypotheses of what makes the brain work rather than the
mind itself could come up with.
Hey, let's take the essential mystery out of the mind, they might have
declared. Then thought even that's too scintillating and figured let's just
map the neurons and stick a few electrodes in to see how they
mechanically behave.
They call it the hypnagogic state.
It has different brainwave patterns apparently, quite distinct from
phases like REM or deep sleep, or various neurologically and
experientially interesting substances.
I suppose as writers we forget this too. We just say we are on a roll.
On a whole roll of flying carpet, maybe.
Because that's when we're flying.
We've got there without chemicals. Only the most powerful drug
known to man: words.
Opening the door might be hard work. We might stare at the keyboard
or at the paper for ages. Frustrated. Grumpy. Wondering why we bother.

And then the idea detonates in the head, or else we get 'back into the
flow' and suddenly we're there.
Not at the table or the PC. Not in the cafŽ. But out there.
In whatever world we're struggling to create.
Once we're there, the outside world, this mundane place, is gone. It's
beyond our perception, because - temporarily at least - we have moved
on to a higher plane of existence.
So sure, it exists only in the mnemonics of words, but mathematicians
express the entire complexity and beauty of the Universe in the
mnemonics of