Fan Fetishisation

My novel started as fan fiction. I wanted to write horror stories and I was seventeen and I didn't want to do the leg work to actively create my own character from scratch. But I knew of a character, quite low profile, not as well defined to modern audiences that I thought I could make "mine". What were originally going to be the adventures of John Constantine, Hellblazer became Doctor Occult due to a scheduling error at the fan fiction website I posted at. I was told I couldn't use Constantine-- even after having a cover done up!-- so I had to come up with a last minute replacement.

And Doctor Occult would do.

So yeah, I, like many before me, started writing in the creative favela of fan fiction. I wrote 35,000 words, and I loved it. This was me writing what I wanted to write: Horror. I hadn't been fully able to do so before but I thought this was pure and unadulterated. I did things I always wanted to do with the genre. And sure, I was influenced by Supernatural and, of course, DC Comics-- so there were cameos from The Shade, The Spectre, Madame Xanadu-- but it was mine. I did things with the character that hadn't been done with him before. I told a whole new story in the context of him.

... Which isn't exactly right, is it?

I mean, I wanted to become-- and I still do!-- a serious writer. A writer on the up and up. And I always thought that fan fiction was something to look down on, and yes, I think it still is, but E.L. James is a millionaire for her Twilight fan-fiction trilogy Fifty Shades..., and all she did was replace vampires with bondage. I mean come on, honestly? Honestly? So my roots in fan fiction aren't the stigma I always thought they were. Yes, they're a bit embarrassing, but so what? My closest friends know I did it, and they were just "yeah, okay, moving on," about it, so I can't fault that reaction.

I tried getting back into it at the tail end of 2011. It was what actually energised me  into writing original content. I wanted to wrap up some stories from a few years ago (I took a massive hiatus after starting my new job) but the excitement petered out. I started strong, wrote like a beast... but then the enthusiasm died. I didn't want to write about Green Lantern. I wanted to write about... something for me.

When I was in America, travelling via trains from Point A to Point Z to all Points in-between I had a journal I was scribbling furiously in. This was... 2010. 2010, a year that was both horrifically unkind to me but also the start of a lot of new, too. I was building a world in my notebook, and a name occurs again and again in my notes. Richard Faraday. And there weren't mentions of his wife Scarlett, she was a later addition, but this was the man I could write stories around. He was a mix of the Winchesters and The Doctor, horror and science fiction rolled up, all my favourite kind of adventures just waiting for him to experience. I wrote about all the characters you find in Books One and Two, you find everything out. He's there. He was whole. And all I had to do was write him. Come 2012, I did just that.

So anyway, if you've read my blog this year you know I just committed to writing. I did what I wanted, and I did it well, I think. 

The stories started out as horror, pure and simple. But as I wrote I found things changing. It became a homage, perhaps a pastiche, to my childhood, and maybe to yours. There were no capes or superpowers. There were spectral private detectives. Odd, numerically inclined mystery men. Every other character was based on the shows of the sixties that had a short revival during the mid-nineties during reruns and have now found a home on ITV4. I'm talking, as you well know, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Prisoner, The Professionals and so much more. Book Two is full of it. Department S, Jason King, Captain Scarlet... it's insane. And you probably won't see them like I do. You'll maybe recognise a name. You might feel fleeting familiarity with one character. But everyone has their origins somewhere. And I've taken them and I've twisted them and placed them within the context of my mythology, and I love it. Book Three is going to be even worse. My novel has become a place for my influences to come out and play. Supernatural, Night Stalker, Doctor Who, Angel, The Wire, The Man from UNCLE, Fringe, Moonlight, True Blood, et al, just dancing wildly to the beat of my drum. Their stories become something new, and then the question is asked... what next? Where did Illya Kuryakin go? What next for Patrick McGoohan's Number Six? Whatever happened to Jason King? And things get bigger and bigger until what can really threaten them other than the end of reality?


I have a plan now. I know where the novels are going, loosely. Getting Book Two out there is the most important thing at the moment, but I want to think beyond that. So, the plan. Three novels-- potentially four-- published by Summer 2013. A pitch in the hands of Image Comics by the same time, based on my novel series. I'm already talking to an artist. I want this stuff to be in the hands of people who come from the same place as me, that's always been the goal.

Wish me luck.

Charlie's Massive 2011 Blow Out Post

I've rather quite abused this blog the past year or so. I always want to commit to working on it, having some kid of through line of consistency, but I wasn't able to keep that due to other commitments. Whatever, life is hard, etc, etc, but wishful thinking and all that.

Back in January of this year I wrote my statement of intent for 2011 (check it out at No Future For You; 2/1/2011) and I look back at it now and I realise I failed in a lot of things. I wanted to do 5 things over 12 months, and I packed all but one of them in pretty early, I think. Those five things, to sum up: 1) Get Zenith out 4 times a year. 2) Self publish first novel, finish second and third. 3) Make Zenith! viable across the board, not just as a hobby. 4) Work harder and 5) Move away from home.

Well I fucked all those up, don't you think? Zenith! is cancelled. Rajiv moved to Dubai, and sure, we've been talking about bringing it back, and we got to talking in December, but it took me two weeks to respond to an email about the name of the magazine, so how on Earth am I going to be able to commit my time to the project? Hopefully, fingers crossed, I can come back to it down the line, but what's the point?

I can't even get my novel out and done, I don't even want to go through self-publishing it (because isn't self-publishing almost like admitting defeat before you've even fought the battle?) so how am I going to co-ordinate a bloody magazine. Shameful, maybe, but I need to have enthusiasm, I need to be able to get something done, and I haven't been able to do any of that. I haven't even finished all the fanfare required around the first (chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, more on that later) let alone got my second and third in a position to start... damned irritating. I've worked hard. I know that. I worked damned hard. Again, more on that later.

And... I still live at home. That's not a bad thing. That's not terrible. I'm saving to move out, but it's slow going. I got a raise (two raises!) this year, so I'm happy, I'm able to save, I'm going to be able to move out soon enough. Just got to keep my head above the water.

So I made some faux-resolutions. Framed them by saying "I won't make resolutions, I'll make plans and just do these!" and then I didn't fulfil them at all. I don't believe in resolutions, like I've said everywhere. They're just promises you make to yourself that you don't feel bad breaking. I want to move out by the end of the year. I probably won't be able to by the end of 2012 but I'm saving toward it.

I'm working on the others that I can. I'm going to keep working hard (no reason not to, and I enjoy my job, so why wouldn't I? I want to go far) and I'm going to keep chipping away at novel things. I kind of need to there. (Again and again, more on it later). So, Charlie, the plan is: Don't make plans. Try your best. If you do that then you're not letting yourself down. Eh. We'll see how it goes.

This year has been hard, but at the same time, it flew by. I started a new job in November of 2010, and I'm still there, still doing well (I hope) and still promising to get better. It feels like home more than the cinema ever did, and not only does it feel like home, it feels like there's a future there. I like that. At the cinema... you just kind of wasted away. Did the same thing again and again. Managers had a go at you for some perceived slight, you took it, you accepted it, and you did the same thing again and again. Horrible existence, and I'm sorry to all my friends still there. But I'm out. I got out and I got others out at the same time, so that's all right, I think.

I wanted to do some kind of grand summing up of the year, but thinking about it, I don't know if I can. I'll just keep talking into the wind and see what happens. The problem, I guess, is that I don't know where the year went. Work was insanely busy for the most part, and this whole "9 to 5"-esque mentality (which was in fact 8 to 6 most nights) took me completely by surprise. It was good though, don't get me wrong, I worked like a dog, and I enjoyed very minute of it, but a year went by like nothing else before it.

And now it's New Year's Eve. A day (event, some might  say?) that I absolutely loathe. NYE is a night that you should have someone there for you. The worst feeling, the most horrible feeling in the world, is to be surrounded by happiness and not having it for yourself. And sure, that sounds selfish, whatever, but when the clock strikes 12 and the crowd has finished shouting down "10, 9, 8..." and everyone embraces and you're just... stood there... God, I've lived through that enough times to know that I don't need to. I'll be at home. Sure, it doesn't help that I've acquired some kind of awkwardly timed end of year cold, but I guess I'm lucky like that. Now I have an excuse: 1) I hate NYE. 2) I can't stop coughing and my voice sounds like my throat has been accosted by a cheese grater.

What did I do with my year? I finished the blasted novel. I got it into a place where I just had to say "no more" and separate myself from it. Then I did the story synopsis and then the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. Then the shit hit the fan:

1) The editor I met in May at a party who had been quite receptive to my emails and my asking of advice didn't respond to an email. Now, this could be for many reasons. a) She might not have received my last email, and she's at this very minute waiting to hear back from me. b) I wasted her time. We met in May, I got the thing into a shape in, what, August? So I don't blame her. c) She wasn't a real editor. I think it's probably more the middle option than than the former and latter. I took so long to finish the bastard thing that she stopped caring because I kind of stopped caring too.

But I digress.

2) I lost the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns. I spent a fevered night doing them. A blurb of every single event in the novel, broken down by chapters. I did it, was ecstatic. Finally, I thought, real progress. And then when I opened them up a couple of weeks later... I found that I had overwritten them with the bloody time-line I had started writing to keep track of everything. So I lost all that, and I need to do it again. I couldn't leap back into it straight away. It's heart breaking to lose progress, it's absolutely soul destroying, because you've poured yourself into words and typed them out/written them down, and then they're gone? God, I don't know how anyone else can do it. I break.

In the end, it helped, I think. I started adding to the narrative, coaxed about the word count over 100,000 (which amazes me, because I didn't think that was even possible) and then I got it to the place I was happy with. I could keep writing the thing for years but I don't know if that would make it better or if it would just make it bloated, so there came a time I just thought... No. I'm done with it now. All I need to do is commit the time to getting the chapter-by-chapter breakdowns done and then I can work myself up to actually sending it off to publishers. Why not? It's done. I want to make a career out of this. Better to put myself out there then just kind of... waste it.

I need to own this poster.

I was considering doing some kind of "Top Ten" countdown of things from 2011 but I can't really be arsed. That said, if you were to see any film in 2011, it should have starred Ryan Gosling, who was just amazing in anything he decided to be in. Drive was my favourite film of the past 12 months, it had me gob-smacked and speechless by the time the credits were rolling. It was beautifully shot, and the level of sublime photography lulled me into a completely false sense of security for when the explosions of violences took place. Gosling was amazing, Carey Mulligan was as good as she's ever been (Mulligan is consistently one of the best things in the films she's in. I remember her in Doctor Who, way back when, "Blink", and she was brilliant). Everything came together, visuals, soundtrack, score-- the work by Cliff Martinez was inspiring, I thought-- everything, and I have never been happier with such a sad, dark film. You really happy to see it.

I didn't read enough this year. I read comics, sure, but no one counts them, even if they are something amazing. I feel like I should have read novels, epics, something to keep the brain sparking and going, but there was nothing out there that really piqued my interested. That said, I had my annual American Gods reading, which  is always rewarding, and I picked at other things to. I believe that my lack of reading impacted my ability to write this year. I had long periods of being unable to do anything, no inspiration, no ability to write anything. When I read, be it an Encyclopaedia of the Supernatural, be it American Gods or others, I wrote like nothing else. The two go hand in hand. You want to write? Read. Simple. I started plotting a grand old story, something that would work brilliantly as a television show. I was chipping away at that, but really, I think what I was more interested in was the potential of it, the stories that could form around the concept, so I spent more time staring at a blank screen than writing the actual stories, but separate from that, I spent more time writing ideas down to come back to later. It was fun, but not really effective, I think.

 I have tried to get my life in order these past few months. Removed myself out of situations that might be toxic to me. But this hasn't even worked. If anything, it's like I've amputated aspects of my social life, but the problem is... and I've said this before and I've said this elsewhere... I don't meet new people. I don't get to right now, due to the nature of my work and the hours inherent to that, so if I meet someone new I enjoy it very much, but because I don't... well, I don't. Life goes on.

I thought I would have more to say but I guess I don't. 2012 should be good. I hope it is. I don't want to make any promises to myself, but I'll try, none the less, to make it better. I'm writing this-- and have been writing this since the morning-- as more a statement of the year. It went no where, which is unfortunately. I guess as posts go, it could be worse. And as "end of year" posts I've read worse (no I haven't, I haven't read any)...

Screw it. Happy New Year. We'll be back here at the end of 2012, but until then... let's make the most of what we can.

There is one quote that I keep close to my heart and in my head at all times. I'm considering getting it as a tattoo some day, but where? And why? Tattoos, in my mind, should be something eternal and resolute, and I don't know if I could handle having something like this on my skin forever. Not that I don't love it, not that I don't adore it, but... have I ever been one for tattoos? Nah.

"Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end."

--From "American Gods", by Neil Gaiman

Exeunt!

The Doctor is back so... Let's Kill Hitler

This was to be the beginning of a weekly feature on the website Infinite Ammo but due to clashes with the editor there I've had to step away from the site and set shop up here again. It's frustrating really, but sometimes these collaborations aren't a good fit. Eh. Check it.

On 27th August 2011 Doctor Who returned to our screens after a Summer-long hiatus to-- we hoped-- wrap up loose ends from the mid-season finale A Good Man Goes To War; fill our bellies with the time-travelling antics of the last of the Time Lords, the Girl Who Waited and the Last Centurion*; and generally be the show we expect it to be. The question is... did Steven Moffat, show-runner and head-writer, deliver?

This entire feature is littered with spoilers, so be aware, I'm not pulling any punches!

PREVIOUSLY, ON DOCTOR WHO...

In A Good Man Goes To War, The Doctor and Rory Williams are searching for Amy Pond, who was kidnapped by the mysterious Madame Kovarian before the season had even started! For six exciting adventures The Doctor and Rory had been running around on adventures with a "flesh avatar" of Amy-- her mind, her heart, but not her body! With the truth revealed and the flesh avatar destroyed, we discovered that Amy was pregnant, and in the words of Kovarian... "ready to pop!"

Cut to a month later, and we're introduced to Melody Pond, Amy and Rory's daughter, and to the asteroid base known as Demon's Run! The Doctor calls in a spate of favours from across time and space, and lays siege to Demon's Run in his own imitable way, and the day is apparently won! Husband is reunited with wife, The Doctor begins to pick apart the plot against him, and everything seems like it's going The Doctor's way when, whilst looking at Melody's DNA, The Doctor and some of his allies realise that the baby is half human/human Time Lord, having been conceived in the heart of the Time Vortex aboard the TARDIS itself! So after that shocking reveal, we're given enough-- Melody is revealed to be a flesh avatar and Madame Kovarian has already escaped with the real baby during the chaos!

In the aftermath of that harrowing moment, River Song, who claims to be The Doctor’s future wife, arrives on Demon’s Run, and she finally answers the question of her true identity. With this knowledge The Doctor vows to find Melody and boards the TARDIS to begin his search. Amy demands to know who River is and what she said to The Doctor to make him leave, and River tells Amy and Rory that she is in fact Melody Pond. “It's me… I'm Melody… I'm your daughter.” An amazing moment foreshadowed in the episode The Doctor's Wife when the TARDIS, who had been put in a human body, declared: "The only water in the forest is the river."
On that, the mid-season hiatus begins. Rough times, right? Fast forward to now, Summer has passed, so Let’s Kill Hitler!

*The Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams, obviously! Keep up!

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I was initially thrown by the opening of the episode, it was a lightning fast reintroduction to our protagonists as Amy Pond and Rory Williams rush around a cornfield for some unknown reason (though I cottoned on quite quickly) and then nearly slam into the TARDIS. The Doctor is quickly reunited with his companions, and after they reconnect after months apart, we’re hastily introduced to a new character, Mels, Amy and Rory’s childhood friend. She knows about The Doctor from the stories Amy used to tell when they were kids, and so she pulls a gun and demands they get in the TARDIS. What next? Isn’t it obvious? “Let’s kill Hitler,” she demands.

Cue theme music!

The character of Mels is an instantly loud, grating presence that thrusts us into what we think is going to be the main plot of the episode but it’s a great feint on Moffat’s part. He draws us in with a really striking premise: The Doctor versus Adolf Hitler. What could be better? But her suggestion of “Let’s kill Hitler” is soon dismissed as we’re soon reintroduced to the overarching plot point of: Where is Melody Pond? What happened after The Battle of Demons Run after A Good Man Goes To War? We get some answers but typically more questions are asked. I like to think that Moffat actually cleared the board a bit with answers before introducing more questions. A problem I had with Series 5 was the fact that so many questions were left unanswered.

It's revealed in an astounding scene that Mels is Melody is River-- Amy and Rory have been best friends with their daughter their entire lives. So they did give her a childhood after all. They named their daughter after their best friend after their daughter. What. What? Ow. Mels as a character was thoroughly sociopathic through their childhood, but if you don't think about it you just think she's a trouble maker. But her behaviour is psychotic, unrelentingly so. Her actions too, the theft of a bus, the theft of a car. Of course she's going to grow up to be River Song. It's a proto-River through-and-through.

We’re treated to a lot of Caitlin Blackwood this episode, a brilliant young actress who plays the young Amelia Pond; firstly in the flashbacks with a young Rory— who is the ultimate punchbag when it comes to the games of young Mels and Amy— and then secondly as the Voice Interface in the TARDIS which is a wonderful little sequence which features “cameos” from Rose, Martha and Donna. That whole scene put a lump in my throat as the TARDIS hologram Amelia flatly insists "I am not Amelia Pond, I am a Voice Interface." But there’s a hint of her in the voice, in her actions, and the line “Fish fingers and custard” killed me dead. Any scene with the young Amelia in is simply wonderful and I’m always left wanting more.

"Hello, Sweetie!"

Alex Kingston is the MVP of this episode. She’s a tour de force throughout the episode, wringing every emotion she can out of the script and her turn as pre-River Song River Song-- and as a complete and utter sociopath-- is brilliant. This is what happens when you’re kidnapped by a group of villains intent on killing The Doctor. Bad things. The duelling Time Lord-vision between The Doctor and River post-Regeneration was a lovely knowing wink back to The Eleventh Hour. The Doctor sees all and knows all-- apart from when he doesn't! They play it absolutely wonderfully, and it was just one of the many moments of artistic flair through the episode.

The main thrust of the plot involves the capture of the biggest war criminal of all time-- Melody Pond. She's being hunted by the Teselecta, a man-sized space ship with a pint-sized crew, and it looks very rough indeed. They're initially in Nazi Germany 1938 because they too had the thought "Let's kill Hitler", but they arrived too early-- as a time travel authority of sorts, they only insert themselves in the timeline near the end of a war criminal's life, to "give them Hell," says the captain of the ship. Which looks, to be honest, to be an absolutely harrowing ordeal by the special effects that enrapture Melody. The whole concept is intriguing, and the horrible, tentacled "Antibodies" that float around the body are pure Moffat. So polite! So deadly!

"Welcome. You will experience a tingling sensation and then death. Remain calm while your life is extracted."

Rory has consistently been a bit of lightness since his introduction, and I’m reminded again and again why he makes such a great foil for Amy. Way back when I remember asking myself why is Amy marrying this guy? but he WAITED. He waited thousands of year for her while she was inside the Pandorica, and this episode he’s throwing quips every which way, and rightly so. I love him a bit more every time. As much as I obviously fancy Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill plays the not-Doctor with such aplomb! Case in point:

Rory: "Miniaturization ray." Amy: "How would you know that?" Rory: "Well there was a ray, and we were miniaturized."

I could go on and out about how I loved the ending, how I loved the nods and the winks, but I think I’ll leave it on this. The episode is a great reintroduction to the series, and it doesn’t seem to slow down from the opening. I loved watching it and it felt like a lot of ground was covered in a tiny amount of time; I blinked and the episode was over but my head was filled with so many questions, a load of which you’ll find hidden below… but you know what? One last thing. I love how the stakes are raised now. Every episode has the potential to feel like a Season Finale, you know?

OBSERVATIONS & QUOTES:

"Shut up, Hitler." I loved how everyone was really dismissive of Hitler. And rightly so, too?

“The Silence is not a species, it is a religious order or a movement.” I thought they were a group of mouthless memory-wiping creepy-faced bastards! Interesting how things change, I guess? Or were we wrong off the mark? From what we've seen of them already, kind of makes them out to be cosmic Jehovah's Witnesses, right? All suits and what not.

“...What is the question?” “Unknown.” I think you’ll find they’re an academy apparently. The Academy Of The Question? That was a bit obvious, Steven. I wonder how this will play out.

"Never knowingly be serious." Oh, Doctor. Matt Smith just owns this role right now. I'm liking him more than David Tennant with every passing episode.

"At least I'm not a time-travelling, shape-shifting robot operated by tiny angry people, which I've got to admit, I didn't see coming."

"Time is not the boss of you, Rule 408." Loved The Doctor’s rules. Very NCIS.

"Sonic cane!"

"You're dying and you stopped to change?!"

"Never run when you're scared, Rule 7."

"Who is this River? She's got to be a woman, am I right?"

"The Doctor says... I'm a child of the TARDIS... what does he mean?" Oh, wow.

Loving, absolutely loving, the new Regeneration effects. They're so much more beautiful than before. Which MATTERS.

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Hopefully see you next week! Mark Gatiss is writing a story about giant dolls in a kid's bedroom, which is just... horrible sounding. Yay!

Hmm...

I want to write some Doctor Who, like, quite hard, but I'm concerned that my attempts would meander into the fan-fiction-y realm, and that it won't actually be any good. I'm not talking prose, I'm talking about actually running full pelt into script mode, and just do something different. I know the story, sort of, involving a character called "the Blind" from some of my earliest horror stories that might fit perfectly into the mythos of Who. I wonder, is it actually worth any effort at all?