Attack Of The 50-foot Verbose Mutant Killer Fountain Pens From Mars | Page 5

boil
in the dreamscape. Completely untamed.
For the moment, we writers remain hunters, tracking the spoors of
inspiration - if only we dare to follow the trail to its phantasmagoric
conclusion.
October 1998

Dance With The Muse And Write To Dissent
ACCOUNTANTS and management gurus are the Commissars of
Capitalism, and they make for extremely bad muses. Likewise, the real
muses have no time for balance sheets and cost accounts. They don't
care about the bottom line. All they want to do is sing.
Writers are - or should be - addicted to this sweet melody of inspiration
that magically transfers raw thought into crisp prose. Without it, the
writer is frustrated and grumpy, as if a lover has developed a
predilection for headaches.
The muse is a fickle lover at the best of times.
Yet aspiring writers will eventually encounter advice to shackle their
muse in commercial chains. They must develop an intimate knowledge
of the markets, it states, and think in terms of commercial viability. To
write something deemed uncommercial is a sin. The bottom line is all -
writing is a business, just like any other. If it cannot be quantified in
financial terms then it is considered irrelevant.
Of course, at its most fundamental level, there is some sound advice
contained in the market sermon. To send a romantic story to a publisher
of hardcore horror is foolish and a waste of time. So it makes sense to
nurture a knowledge of markets as pools of potential readership: to
know who is publishing what.
The danger exists that this can be taken too far, until the 'business'
ethos takes over. The question ceases to be: "Where is the best portal to
reach my audience?" To become: "How much money can I make, and
how do I maximise my earning potential?"
The markets lead, the writer follows. Eventually, the muse wanders off
in search of a more appreciative amour. The writer has become a hack,
churning out endless reams of formulaic dross tailored specifically for
some market, as quantified on an accountant's spreadsheet. It may
produce functional, competent, even moderately entertaining prose, but

hardly anything inspiring. A pot-boiler to kill an hour or two, not a
shared vision that sears through the mind like lightning.
Good writing sneers at such narrow commercial considerations and
mocks attempts at empirical calculation. After all, how can vision,
imagination and flair be truly quantified? They cannot. They exist
beyond the slide-rule.
Artificial constraints should never be placed upon a writer's
imaginative horizons. A piece of good literature (in the broadest sense1)
not only stretches the imagination, it is also capable of expanding the
markets and breathing a little life into the drab existence of Capitalism's
commissars.
Had Tolkien, for instances followed the diktats of market forces, then
the Lord of the Rings would never have been written. Nor would many
other novels that grace the shelves of bookshops and libraries. The
market knows nothing about the quality of literature, and therefore is a
poor guide to follow. Far better, to trust in the muse, our writers'
instincts, and those of the readers.
AT the end of the day it is the shared vision between reader and writer
that makes for good fiction. Whether this touches a handful of souls or
a million, the words are merely a delivery system. A means to trigger
imagination and emotions. This is a process the writer can never fully
control. The readers bring to each work their own subtle nuance of
imagination, experience and emotion. Together these facets of the soul
effect the way in which the audience read between the lines.
Our readers' response to our words is as individual as the people
themselves; a process that is far more engaging than viewing a
flickering screen of visual hackery. The visual medium tends to be
passive in that we merely observe. Literature is active for it involves us.
We, the reader, experience the characters. We see and feel and
experience ourselves through that character.
This is the world of the muse; from where she reaches into our hearts
and minds. Through the writer she crackles into the collective human

brain and down through the ages, growing and ramifying in our
consciousness like a glorious oak.
How can the markets come to terms with that? What can the balance
sheet really tell us about the quality and worth of a piece of literature?
Nothing. Follow such narrow horizons, and writers will inevitably
sever themselves from this great flow of human vision. At the end of
the day, human beings are creatures that dwell in dreams. These are
what compel us to crawl from our beds in the morning and motivate us
through our lives - the urge to put flesh on our dreams, no matter how
great or