Three in the morning, must be time for more Torchwood

Children of Earth spoilers, though what I'm talking about is the episode they didn't write.
My writer brain cannot leave this be. It kept worrying at the threads until it found a pattern that fits.
Rewrite time.
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Torchwood is about Jack Harkness, a man with so much life he's giving it away, a man who plunges into love with a man who already betrayed him because he can see the worth in him. He faces down demons and lets them try to drink that down, and it destroys them because it is their antithesis.

Torchwood is about Owen Harper, a man who thought he wanted to die until it actually happened, stripped of all his favourite things yet going around talking suicides into realising they only need one reason to keep living, fighting death with his bare hands and showing everyone you can fight and win. And then, at the end, finding how it can also be alright, if you did good enough.

And Torchwood is about ( Read more... )

Nope, still can't sleep. angry.

Spoilers again.
It wasn't a Torchwood story, it was a story that happened partly to Torchwood. ( Read more... )

To people going around anon commenting to tell me what I really think

These things are true: Faith, hope and love; wisdom and compassion.
Everything else is poison.

While I can see how 'adult' can mean 'darker things to overcome', I do not see why I should swallow a conclusion that is poison.

Urgh.

You know those nights 'sleep' that leave you feeling more scrambled and trashed than when you went to bed?
Dreams of violence and stupidity. All bloody night.
I dreamed I got stabbed through the skull with scissors. Wasn't pleasant.
And then I dreamed something that was horrible squirmy unpleasant but for odd reasons.
Dreamed I was at a play, with lots of other fanpersons, that had been advertised in a way that sounded interesting but turned out to be a bunch of teenagers with photos for masks doing a musical. Really dire.

But the squirmy horrible bit was the Q&A after. It was like every Q&A at every convention you ever been to, but while it started with a stage full of recogniseable people, every question showed something about them that didn't match who we thought they were, and then gradually they started looking different, worn through, chapped, wrinkled, ill eyes, until they looked like random drunks out a hospital, not who we'd thought they were at all. And after every question they were giving it the 'haven't I seen you before' and stuff, and people were being giggly about how they follow them around sometimes, but the people on stage were being more and more baffled. And after every question the person that asked it had to leave. So I sat in the corner taking notes for the internet, until I was the last person there. And left on stage were two ageing wrecks who stared at me with bafflement and waited for my question. And to this 'seen you before' was added 'but this is my only job! maybe I saw you yesterday'. And they weren't anyone now. I couldn't ask a good question because I didn't know them, but I'd sat there the whole hour and what do you say? Who are you anyway?
So I tried to say something really general, about how I follow as much of the industry as I can, because I want to be a writer one day.
And they just looked baffled. Why would anyone want in to this?



I'm not at the Bad Wolf convention. I kind of wish I were. I might even have missed that 5th episode. I could be sitting around watching or even talking to the Doctor and Sarah Jane. And knowing some about the actors that played them, and what else they've been in, and being interested. And knowing it all matters, still matters, because we make it matter. It matters to us.

TW CoE: more flaws, more spoilers

It would be nice if I could stop seeing them, but no: ( Read more... )

Another view on Torchwood Children of Earth

Yeah, more thoughts. more spoilers. ( Read more... )

aaaah! Spider!!!

Really big spider! Big as the palm of my hand! Big big!
You know how fast those bastards are when they're that big?

I walked into the bathroom, sat down, then noticed the spider.
Which was up on a wall. Far. Away. And some things cannot be cut short for anything less than a major emergency, which far away spiders are not. So there it was and there I was and I suspect neither were happy.

I did not panic. I did things in logical order. I was calm and reasonable. I got the door unlocked and open before attempting spider catching. First attempt with the long handled extending floor cleaner just knocked the spider in the sink. Spiders cannot get out of wet sinks. So second attempt needed a spider bridge and some picking up. And did I mention fast? Fast!

But now the spider is OUT and the door is closed and locked and has no gaps sufficient for a spider that size. Seriously, BIG spider. Argh!

... so then I panic a bit and come tell the internet.

Spider! Aah!


... God I'd be useless as an alien catcher. As soon as one skittered or had too many legs... *shudders*

Serving the Story

I am a writer, so I read a lot of stuff about writing, by writers. And one of the lines people use that makes me wonder if my world is inside out of theirs is the one about 'serve the story not the reader'.
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A story is something you do with an audience. Or sometimes to it.

There's writers, and there's audience. A writer who ignores the audience is only serving themselves. To say 'serve the story' puts making the point of the story ahead of the impact it makes on people, especially on those on the pointy end.

Your writing, my writing, every communicating act, pushes a particular agenda, value set, choice. So do that - consciously, aware of what and who you're pushing, and how hard.


Be aware that if the reader thinks the great punch you packed in just landed on their face they're not going to be mightily receptive to whatever the idea you meant to send was.
And next time they see you writing they're just going to duck.
Aim carefully.


(Personally I prefer shooting compassion in their face. You get the warm glow of moral superiority and stuff. And it works better.)