Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made Of

Journey's End has produced some fabulous fiction. I've loved getting to know all the new writers. I still have major issues shipping Ten II and Rose but I can still appreciate some of the brilliant stories I've read with that pairing. Some are character-driven and that's fine, others are compulsively and brilliantly plotty as well. And an Honourable Mention for the Journal of the Most Normal things - funny, touching and interactive role-play.

For my own part, I feel I've peaked as a writer. I've now done post-JE four different ways - one completely canonical, one basically rewriting the episode with the whole bunch of them stopping the Doctor from running away, one where Rose stays with Ten II and the Doctor gets Donna back and finally a version where both Doctors, Donna and Rose stay together. Although that's not a simple solution by any means, for me it's the only one that works, at least when I write it. That must mean that at some level I haven't really accepted the outcome of JE, because the Doctor remains alone.

There are a couple of people on my flist who think we haven't seen the end of the narrative arc yet and that the Xmas Special will bring some kind of resolution. I'd love to buy into that but I've been let down too many times. On Christmas Day I'll be on a plane to New York and I've no regrets. I thought VOTD was an overhyped pile of shite and I'm quite prepared for this year's to be no better. At least they don't seem to have a huge star name in it this year, unless DT himself counts. After all, if your run of Hamlet can sell out in three hours flat, that must make you pretty stellar.

I think what makes me sad about JE is that I get the distinct feeling a lot of the people creatively involved didn't like it any more than I did. I'm really looking forward to getting the inside scoop (or as close to it as we're ever likely to get) in RTD's new book. It didn't feel like it was written by someone who felt comfortable with it, that he was producing his best work. And we don't know what pressures were brought to bear, why it was done the way it was, but I wish it hadn't been. I think the major fault with it was there was just too much packed in, too many characters, not enough time, and it wasn't possible to do justice to the emotional whammy. It was almost as if it left spaces for fan fiction to fill.

I haven't really liked a thing I've written since "Lighten Our Darkness", which was pre-JE. I've a feeling I won't quite come to terms with the new landscape and that my best DW work is behind me. The last few stories I've done haven't engaged me emotionally or been nearly as much fun to write as my earlier ones. I'm surprised anybody liked them at all, to be honest.

OTOH I don't feel a particular urge to continue with classic Ten/Rose + Jack stuff, either. It's all a very long time ago now. What seems to have happened is a whole "generation" of new writers have been inspired, just as I was inspired by "Doomsday". I may not be enjoying writing DW fic as much as I once did, but I'm enjoying reading it more than ever before.

I rarely find the time to do this sort of thing but, would you believe, I sprained my ankle this morning! So now it's my turn to be stuck in bed and I'm not complaining.

(Copied from kalleah)

Ideas. Where the hell do they come from? Can you make those little fuckers show up?

That is the easy bit. I have more ideas than I have time to deal with. Usually they flow from thinking over a particular scene in an episode and imagining how the presence of one or more characters, or a different turn of events, would have affected the outcome. And sometimes, as in Boxing Day, it comes from reading or hearing a remark from someone involved in the show. That story all grew out of RTD talking about how the Doctor and Rose were dangerous people who expected huge sacrifices from those around them and sometimes enjoyed the ensuing chaos a little too much.

One thing I've noticed is that I tend to set up scenarios where my characters can't run away from the consequences of their behaviour, and then look at how they cope.

Wild horse-bunnies. When a story just gets pulled right out of you. Do you get them?

Absolutely, and almost always straight after watching an episode, or a scene, that really touched me. I've written some stories in about twenty minutes. "The Bigger Picture" came straight from the end of Gridlock, and my speculation on where Martha and the Doctor might go from there.

I also have vivid memories of being so moved by "Runaway Bride" that I couldn't go to bed that night until I'd written it out. It felt as if the Doctor was inside me and it was my task to write all the things he'd felt and not managed to say.

Writer's block. Have you been scourged?

Oh yes. Usually right in the middle of a really long, complicated plot when I panic and think "I can't do this!" I get out of it by writing little scenes on a more modest scale. All the stuff I'm posting now is because I'm scared of tackling the sequel to "Some are more equal". Gallifrey and densely plotted stuff freaks me out.

Clean up duty. Do you like editing?

Less than I ought to. I'm a very impatient writer and also rather a self-conscious one. Both make it difficult for me to work with betas and I should. Strangely, I have three wonderful BRs and this summer I actually met two of them. And since then I've found it much more difficult to ask them to look at my stuff. I hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Still love talking about writing with them both, however.

The ending. Is it hard for you to find the ending?

Not usually, but it can be murder getting there. In fact, I have been known to write the ending before anything else!

The title. Where do you get yours? Do you have yours when you start the story?

It varies. I have a story planned out right now that consists of a title and little else. Often, the inspiration is something a character on the show says, usually the Doctor. If there's an element of self-delusion involved, I enjoy playing with that. One title I have lined up is, "The Moral High Ground" which, of course, is from his remark to Yvonne Hartmann "You can shoot me, but the moral high ground is mine." If it ever gets written, it'll be about wrestling with loads of murky moral decisions.

Song titles are also an inspiration, as in "The Way We Were." In fact, I often use music to shift writers' block. I really loved getting into 1970s music for that story. I remember writing an entire multi-Doctor scene around the Bob Dylan song, "My Back Pages" (Okay, that's probably a 1960s song).

Plot. If you plot out your stories first, raise your hand.

Sometimes, but the most carefully plotted are sometimes my least successful. My favourite ones are where I just let the characters dictate the outcome, on the whole. Jack is particularly difficult to pin down, because he thinks with the part of his body that I'm least familiar with, shall we say.

POV. How do you choose your POV for a scene? For a story?

Oh, that fascinates me. I think it's the most crucial decision for me. In longer stories I have several POV characters. I enjoy the contrast of swopping them around.

Unlike many people whose writing I admire, I probably feel most comfortable writing the Doctor. I only have to look at a close-up of DT's face to get the writing bug because there's often such a huge gulf between what he's saying and how he's feeling. That's what I love to explore. I talked this over with my writing buddies and we came to the conclusion it's because I've suffered from depression for many years but tend to present a slightly manic, "I'm always all right," persona to the outside world. Also, it's great fun to write someone in denial being called to account for himself. Comic or tragic, it's all there. I love walking the delicate line between the two.

Challenges. Do you like them? Do they inspire you?

I'm always meaning to get a prompt table or something but then another idea comes along. I'm very much my own person with writing and tend to resist challenges, although I did enjoy doing Happy Who about a year ago.

Sex. Do you like writing sex?

Hate it, mostly because I'm so self-conscious about my fandom and writing generally. I'm afraid I feel unfaithful to my partner when I write sex scenes and I simply can't get past that. Nope, I'm the person to read when you want the Doctor and Rose arguing about who does the washing up, or whatever.

Jack is a very alien character to me. My natural progression is from intimacy to sex, but he seems to take the opposite route. At the moment I'm interested in some of Jack's hang-ups, and one of the things I think he needs to learn is that you don't have to do it with someone to feel close to them. In fact, it can be a substitute for things he needs even more.

Do you ever feel tempted to go back and improve your earlier fics? I've developed so much as a writer over the past year, and now a part of me can't face reading my early work, or the thought of others doing so. However, a lot of my stories follow on from each other, so deleting the early ones would be a bit tricky. People seem to enjoy them, though not uncritically. And the criticism I do receive is usually constructive and justified.

I just wondered what other writers tend to do - let early work stand as a monument to your inexperience, or go back and polish?

Strange, isn't it? I can write a little story in 15 minutes flat and get loads of really lovely responses. And I can slave for hours over a multi-chapter, get it BR'd twice, and get next to nothing. I'm not exactly complaining. Any positive feedback is brilliant. I'm amazed anybody reads the stuff, quite honestly. But it does make me wonder if I'm just plain better at writing fluff. Or maybe the other stuff is too long, or not canonical, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sure its absolutely nothing personal. I'd go batshit if I started thinking that.

Where do people go to post when they grow out of Time and Chips? I'm popping up on Teaspoon a bit and that seems okay, except my new stuff doesn't make all that much sense unless you want to read my old stuff first, and I can't imagine people really caring about Boxing Day any more. Life moves on and all that.

Anyway, suggestions on the back of a postcard please. Preferably with DT on the front.

And while we are on the subject, can anybody tell me how I get one of those lovely Doctor and Rose mood theme thingies, cos some aliens definitely look better than others.

I said a while back that writing fiction is like climbing a sharp edge on a mountain; it's fine if you just take it a step at a time, and focus on what's right in front of you, but the minute you look down and see what you're doing, you get vertigo and can't go on.

I think I gravitate to skits and parodies because you can hide behind them and say you weren't really trying to do anything original, just paying homage to the source. It gives you a get out.

I don't know whether borrowing characters in fan fiction increases this feeling of vertigo, or whether it's even worse if you invent your own. There's probably nothing truly original to write about anyway, at least as far as people are concerned. We're all using the leftovers from something.

I spent so much of today wrestling with my latest work and then I watched Torchwood and it all seemed to blow right out of the window - not that I've ever written TW as such but I've touched on it at times - and I just thought, how could I possibly ever have the audacity to do this?

Last week I watched because I was intrigued, I wanted to see where Jack had ended up and what sort of shape he was in, and whether he'd mention the Tardis, yada, yada. This week I watched for its own sake. It all looked a bit too stylish and sexy last week. I wasn't convinced there'd be room for any character development beneath the posing. But it's settling down now, probably because tonight's episode wasn't RTD and therefore wasn't quite so set up to shock and provoke. It was really very well made and powerful, and left me feeling I couldn't wait another week to see where these people were going to end up. Eve Myles is awsome, I can't say more without spoiling it for the people who haven't watched yet.

There is a lot of DW reference but not quite in the way I expected - it isn't just thrown in, but clearly part of the show's mission is to explore some of the darker DW themes in more depth. What would it do to us if we could see the future? That kind of thing. Next week is some kind of Cyberpeople plot. Going back and looking at it in depth, in an everyday setting, is just so compelling, and a part of me doesn't want to add to the myth, but just to enter that process and see where it takes me. Whereas with DW there is always more to be said than you see on screen, and a certain amount of comedy mileage to exploit as well.