RLLauthor@outlook.com and @RLL_author GO TO AMAZON KINDLE STORE AND TYPE RLL. YOU WILL FIND MY BOOKS.

Monday 24 September 2012

UNBLOGGING.

You cannot unblog that which you have blogged. Better to say, perhaps, you cannot kill that which does not live. A blog can be shut down. Left, mouldering, with a stake through its heart. Pull the stake out, and Blogula Lives!
   I’ve been staring at my electronic version of the blank page for a few minutes. The duration of a song playing in the background. Windows Media Player tells me I’ve been staring at the blank screen for a 4:06 chunk of my time on this world.
   Valentine Heart, by Tanita Tikaram. (From her debut album, ancient heart.) Eclectic doesn’t mean special. It means you are all over the place in selecting sources of inspiration. Those sources are quite meaningless.
   Blogger and Twitter changed my plans. I have a Zombie Apocalypse story to write. Why couldn’t I use that as a source for inspiration? Time plays its part. I had thoughts, in the dim and distant. Two novels. I’ll write these two novels. First, I’ll write other things. Become a decent writer.
   Kept two stories in my head for years. Then I kept more and more stories in my head for years. The two that sat side by side were untitled. One was the skyscraper story. The other was the Quaich story. They were novels waiting out in the street. Not waiting in the wings. They’d have to work up to that.
   I became a better writer. A feat that wasn’t hard. All I had to do was stop writing utter crap. Let me know how I’m doing. No. Don’t. Looking back, every twelvemonth, I sense improvement. And room for improvement. Your future self is always your worst critic. My future self will pour scorn on that last sentence.
   Events in 1993 and 1995 altered my views of what would be possible in writing the skyscraper story. By 1995, the Quaich story had become slim*thriller. I was a world away from these novels. Other stories concerned me. Stories I was writing down. In 1998 I may have written a note about coinage for slim*thriller. Coinage seemed important to me. By 2000, I must have started plans to write the book.
   Music plays in the background. Sometimes that’s a source of inspiration. I also take photos, or scan images from a wide range of sources. My archive is shot to hell. Migrating from one computer to another screws up the dates. Files are absorbed into other files. Occasionally, only the content of a file screams the original date of creation. All the statistics and properties are out of whack with reality.
   Still, I dig. There are some gems. A few images with intact dates attached. I must have made notes in early 2000. Before I laid hands on the coinage I sought. There are prototype scanned images with year 2000 date-stamps. Once the coins were in my hands, I set up plans for my novel in early 2001.
   Then I turned away to other things. I had a plan, and the plan didn’t involve the skyscraper story or slim*thriller. By the end of 2001, the skyscraper story was dead. I’d lost one. Yes, I’d lost short stories before. I’d vapourised an appalling novel, too. But now I’d lost an unwritten book.
   I am outraged amazed now that I’d advanced all those stories in my head after taking few or no notes. The Quaich story only just started to appear in files after a little over a decade in my head. Alongside the skyscraper story, the Quaich story burbled away at the mercy of traffic. One wrong step in front of a bus, and worlds are destroyed.
   My plans for slim*thriller were set aside in favour of other tales. At least I’d made a start. I returned to the prospect in late 2004. An arcane note concerning coinage became the chapter I’d always meant to write. The Quaich story became the book I’d always meant to write. Had the World Trade Centre not been destroyed, the skyscraper story would have been written. Knowing me, I’d have dropped a few slim*thriller references in there for readers.
   Stories stay inside my head for years. This is true of the Zombie Apocalypse book. Only a few years, in the case of the zombies. Preparing to publish books in the autumn/winter period of 2011/2012, I started to have ideas for something…new.
   Gasp. What am I thinking? That I’ll keep a story in my head for a few months and then write it? Not let it stew for years, forming part of the production-line. Just throw it out there? Of course not. Let it stew. Do the Zombie Apocalypse story.
   Then I remembered that I’d wanted to try something different, related to the zombie story. It would be good to throw a story out there. As a source for inspiration. I don’t mean to go all Japanese on you. As though I’m in a rock garden, poised over a parchment, waiting hours to strike. Creating the perfect poem.
   No. I’m far from that image. No rock garden, for starters. I write rapidly. My ability to edit is powered by the Dark Side of Publishing™. Many Ewoks died to fuel the process. So why haven’t I written a bajillion books? Life gets in the way.
   Ideas stay in my head as they aren’t ready for the world. I’m not saying learn to edit in your head. That may not be for you. To concoct stories, and conversations within stories, and keep them unwritten. Adding to them. Elaborating on the chatter. All that stuff might poison your mind. Doesn’t seem to affect me as I throw another Ewok on the fire.
   Plans change. But I don’t unblog that which I have blogged. Yes, I’ll still do the zombie story. It is easier to turn to fresh material lacking illustrations than to tackle the technical minefield that is slim*thriller. So I tackle short story collections, and blog compilations, novels in the backlist that constitute unfinished business, and…new ideas.
   My fiction factory is full of things I’m tinkering away at. Special projects. Not-so-special projects. The whole while, I’m looking at the business of business and not worrying too much about things that drag other people down.
   So many people out there get sucked into the need to advertise. I do short plugs for my books on Twitter, and leave it at that. It doesn’t cost money. My advertising budget is ZERO. You may be shocked. Well, I’m darting around my factory, seeing to fiction.
   Yes, I will put out a book called Clanjamfrie. It’s proving a tricky customer to nail down. Without getting into it, the problems are technical, plot/character related, and not for public consumption. My personal carer, Dr Anton Phibes, sees to that.
   Nurse, the screens!
   I resolved some Kindle-oriented technical issues over my not hamlet adaptation, and hope to bring that to a semi-suspecting public one day. What do I have in mind, as I type? REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE as a blog collection featuring a giant space cockroach. Clanjamfrie, Clanjamfrie Tales, not hamlet, slim*thriller once I fix the pictures, REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE as a blog collection featuring a lost story I’ll recover from memory, JUST ANOTHER ZOMBIE STORY, and assorted volumes of Neon Gods. (Including a short story collection which will house The Chalice in the Snow.)
   Oh, and other stuff besides. How long will it take to put all this material out? It takes as long as it takes. Life gets in the way, remember. I’d like to spend a mad weekend bringing all this stuff to the boil. Then, on the Monday, I’d hit the big red button on the end of the machine and watch e-books roll out at a frightening rate.
   Mm. I wanted to write a story, rapidly. Not on the backlist of books. Nothing that constitutes unfinished business. Material I’d thought over, at the start of the year. Oh, I’m constructing a new story in my mind. How long will I let this stew in the old brainbox?
   Not long, I decided. The world has gone digital. Immediate. I could rattle this out as an example of how to do things. Yes, I’ll do that for Kacey Vanderkarr. And show her how easy it is. That was wrong of me.
   For starters, I’d already shown her that she had to confront her fear of publishing. No need to bludgeon her with a book. To finish on, I should be writing a book to write a book – not to help out a single named individual. What was I thinking. Clanjamfrie has a delicate mechanism at its heart, if I choose to wind it up and link it to the heart. I must tread lightly.
   But I see that I am walking close to the edge of the room, where visitors from the outside world pass by. There, my personal carer, Dr Anton Phibes, stands ready to foil my plans of discussing my plans. One day, someone will get at him. Without knocking me out of action, for he has radio-linked his heartbeat to mine.
   I just wanted to waffle in a blog post about my works in lack of progress. They all proceed in dribs, in drabs. Even though I write quickly. Something technical comes up, and my writing day is shot to hell resolving it. For the technical must be resolved. As must the writing.

NEXT BLOG: SPAM ALERT.

Monday 17 September 2012

A STUNNING BRUNETTE BLOWS ME A KISS, AND I SELL A BOOK ON A RAINY STREET.

Is that strictly true? Not strictly true, no. Oh, brunette? Yes. Stunning? Certainly. Then the story falls apart on that pesky kiss detail. Let us examine the build-up to that non-blown non-kiss. This is something of a non-prelude. There are people I come into contact with relatively rarely.
   (After reading that last sentence, I could only laugh.)
   I came into contact with one of those people today. A nod in the crowd, and conversation was had. So we chatted, on a rainy street within a stone’s lob of a supermarket. What happened to so-and-so? Have you seen you-know-who? You’ll never guess, no, you’ll probably guess what happened to insert-obvious-candidate-here. We veer into a sub-plot about alien probes. Genteel readers, look away now.
   My wildly flailing fingers couldn’t control that last sentence. Genteel readers, leak away now. Well, if you have to empty your bladder at the first sign of an alien probe, perhaps that’s for the best. Gradually, the conversation turns to me. I can’t think why. What have I been up to? Am I still writing?
   (Are bears still Catholic? What’s the Pope doing, in the woods?)
   A powdered white periwig is dropped atop my head. The sundered cherry tree is planted in the background. I am no Presidential candidate, and the George Washington story is nine-tenths hogwash to one part baloney. Still, I am left staring at the bloodstained axe now in my hand. I cannot tell a lie. (Untruth is a separate issue.)
   So I admit to this wanderer in the desert that I am published. This leads into the fantastical land that is self-publishing. How different authors deal with the prospect of writing books then publishing books. I drop technical details in there, indicating the (frankly, scary) lengths I’ll go to when editing a book.
   (The week before, to someone who knew I was published, I let slip that I’d written the book in eighteen days. Cries of astonishment told me that I shouldn’t get into technical discussions with civilians. Readers grow flustered when faced with facts. They prefer to think elves crawled downstairs in the night and left the manuscript on your kitchen table. The book sparkles, wrapped in a scarlet bow made from unicorn satin, sprinkled with Rainbow’s End™ icing sugar.)
   Real rain threatens the landscape. Precipitation is ready to turn our entire world grey. Out comes the other guy’s Kindle. He shows me the electronic shop. Types RLL into the machine. My books pop up. I’ve already explained the concept of KDP sale days, when the book will be available free. So I could make the book free, just for him. Before we get into that, a purchase is made.
   He doesn’t even check the price. Just clicks the book, and a transaction occurs right before my very knees. A double-check on the book shows that it has travelled through the atmosphere intact. I look at the clouds.
   Past.
   In the past, it’s early in the morning. I rise and walk to town to take the train to the big city. There I wander the streets until I reach the temple to books. I am on an expedition. Floor after floor. Packed with books. I go in search of fiction and non-fiction.
   There’s always an operating budget on the day. I don’t exceed it. Sometimes I have a list. Once, I even arrange to order a book, knowing it will take a second expedition to pick the thing up. Expeditions in rain are commonplace. In the past.
   Wandering a massive bookstore, I see my people. Readers. They stepped in out of the rain to browse books. What do they do? They buy coffee. Sit down and enjoy the atmosphere. Expeditions…are no more. Fun while they lasted, they’ve been replaced by other things.
   Present.
   I’m standing in front of a supermarket, watching as one of my books is sold. It’s a bit freaky, but not that freaky. The future is now, and has been for some time. People used to go on expeditions for books. Some of them still go.
   The book is bought. Rain falls. I am staring at the typical customer. The user of a reading device. Isn’t the ink concept amazing on a Kindle? Yes, it is. Two parts of the equation meet on a rainy street. Someone, somewhere, writes this stuff. Remember that. Someone, somewhere, buys it.
   Rain ends the meeting. The purchaser is reminded that, knowing me, it is poor form to review my book on Amazon. I walk in out of the rain, marvelling at the notion that the book fell out of my brain over the course of just under three weeks. And that it was purchased in seconds, spilling across the Kindle interface for me to see.
   Reader and author meet on a street, and I’m one book up in the statistics. The Kindle is a magnifying glass hunting for books. It is a librarian, of sorts. And the bookstore. In a sense, it can be the helpful assistant, recommending a book on the basis of what you bought before. It is also the library. And the book itself.
   This chain, with author inches from reader, or thousands of miles from the reader, is electronic. No paper is involved. I think about the paper. When I sought a paper publishing deal, I printed excerpts. But when I created a Kindle book, very little paperwork was done.
   I filed a few sheets here and there for tax. That was about it. I pressed loads of buttons in creating the book. Did that more than a million times. (Not an exaggeration – I checked the file.) My customer hit a few buttons and the book was sold.
   On close examination of the device, I see it is called kindle and not Kindle. Perhaps to make it easier on the eye. Yes, I’m contemplating ease-of-use. I contemplate that as I sweep through the supermarket. In vegetables, I fly past a stunning brunette. Always on the lookout for characters, I wonder how I’d describe her. (My customer, well, he’d probably be typecast as a pirate. I’d be a Dark Lord of the Sith™.)
   Description. Brunette. Stunning. White top. Let’s not get too fixated over every piece of clothing. Sometimes it’s important for your story. Often, it’s not important at all. I don’t even really need to say much more about her, except…stunning brunette. And you have an image, depending on what you think of as stunning.
   Yes, spider legs emerging from the lower torso would be classed as stunning. I’d like to think I’d include important details like that in my narrative. Unless I’m in a mood to surprise readers. I’m not quite sure what happens next.
   Let’s be generous, and suppose that she ambushes me. I could waffle nonsense about her ability to teleport ahead from vegetables to the meat counter. Okay. Let’s try that on for size. She teleports ahead of me to the meat counter. There’s no other possible explanation.
   Well, that’s not true. She might be twins. Or triplets. I may simply not be all that observant, lost as I am in thoughts of Kindle and where in the world publishing is going, having come from the Dark Ages. I look at shelves. There’s a woman in front of me now.
   I must whirl around her. She comes the other way, deciding to whirl around me. From a distance, it appears that we are engaged in a dance routine. I whirl around her as she whirls around me. At this point in proceedings, she pouts and moves her head in contemplation of foodstuffs.
   As I move around, it looks as though she is blowing me a kiss. Momentarily, I wonder if she’s at it. No, it’s just the optical delusion provided by our movement. This reminds me that I find characters when shopping. Could she be one? The incident might fill a few paragraphs in a blog. ;)
   I emerge from the supermarket and make my way through Blade Runner rain. Through Frank Miller’s Sin City rain. I cling to the belief that Frank Miller was a character in an E.C. comic book. My wildly flailing fingers italicised Frank’s name instead of his work’s title. What was I thinking? Maybe Sin City wrote Frank Miller.
   How hard is it to sell your book? Well, I talked someone into it on a rainy street. Converting a semi-suspecting public, one punter at a time. I am not tempted to ambush people as they nervously clutch Kindles to their chests.
   Curious note? The guy I sold the book to served as inspiration for one of the characters in the book. Beyond that, he was present when I took the photo that served as the book’s cover. Those weren’t selling-points. Just coincidences.
   This blog’s title is the wrong way round. I SELL A BOOK ON A RAINY STREET, AND A STUNNING BRUNETTE BLOWS ME A KISS. For some arcane reason, I seem to have placed primacy on the brunette’s activities. Must be a reason for that.

NEXT BLOG: UNBLOGGING.

Monday 10 September 2012

COLLEAGUES.

What use are colleagues, to someone who writes alone? I write alone, though publish as part of a community. The blog posts you’ve been reading reflect that. Some of my musing to colleagues was recycled for use in these blog posts.
   Other thoughts come to me in the night, and I fictionalise those by turning to characters Darth Sinister or Sergeant Jock MacBastard. I should have another character do that in the COLD WAR struggle with social networking, but nothing springs to mind. Hmm.
   I don’t look for consensus, and I’m not here to set down the law. Blogging is part of writing, and writing is about learning. In chatting to other authors, I bump into contrary views rather than consensual ones. These interest me greatly. The best example being that provided by…
   Kacey Vanderkarr. Coach Vanderkarr. Baby Seal. Young Vanderkarr. Potentially, Darth Vanderkarr. Crippled by writing fear. An alien specimen, this one. Studied under the microscope, she displayed unusual behaviour. I treated her as though a baby seal, ready for bludgeoning on the ice.
   Yes, I was a bit rough on Kacey. For those of you who don’t know the story, I’ll repeat it here with some amplification. I spent months researching Amazon Kindle in 2011. Self-publishing was for me. During the summer of 2011, I discovered there were writers out there scared of publishing anything. Yes, publishing anything. Ever. Aliens. These people were aliens, to me. I never found any of them. Kept reading about people who used to be like that. Not quite the same thing.
   Cut to early 2012, and one of these aliens follows me on Twitter. I’ve published twice, and am set to publish a third time. Anyway, I hike back to her blog where I discover she is an inspirational person in several areas of her life – just, not in her writing. She can write. But she is scared. Wife, mom, hospital worker, High School coach. Scared writer.
   I take the night off editing a book, and I write 5,000 words to her. To me, that’s a medium-sized e-mail. I try to get her to see that she should be scared of NEVER being published. She takes the advice and faces her fear. This is beyond odd, as I NEVER give major advice and she has a problem TAKING major advice from anyone. On top of that, I NEVER give major advice on WRITING.
   Somehow, the universe aligns and we put up with each other. She describes me as having given her the biggest lecture of her life. One she sadly needed. That’s how Kacey Vanderkarr and I started chatting about writing.
   You can’t mix those two views in a flask! There’ll be an explosion! A universe-shattering detonation. He doesn’t give advice. She won’t take it. He treats writing as an arcane alchemical art. She’s scared to go near the unexploded bomb of her own work.
   Tape off the area and mark the scene DOES NOT BODE WELL.
   I had the courage to send her that e-mail. She had the courage to act on it. Kacey faced her fear. What was I going to face? For my part, I felt that I couldn’t use critique groups, groups for writers, or Beta-readers. In all my time writing, I hadn’t even heard the term Beta-reader or the phrase critique group until I did my research last year.
   Now, come on. That doesn’t make me a bad person. I just didn’t move in that world. Kacey dragged me along to the BLOGVEL so that I could meet other writers and join in writing a story by committee. Viewpoint? I don’t write stories by committee. But if I can make Kacey face her fear, she can make me face mine.
   First, I have to find out what BLOGVEL means. A BLOG NOVEL. I turn up. The list is handed out. I see that this is about writing a story and about blog-exposure. Social networking. So this is what I do. I look at every single blog on the list. If a contributor is on Twitter, I follow that writer. That’s what BLOGVEL is about, surely. Not just writing the story.
   This is also about writing a story, based on a theme beyond my control, to a deadline, and with a word-limit. I act as caretaker during the assignment, and have the responsibility of handing the tale to the next writer in line without utterly screwing the whole thing into the dirt at the speed of sound.
   My personal carer, Dr Anton Phibes, wouldn’t hear of this social networking nonsense. Which is why he was put off the trail. It’s quite clear to Dr Phibes that the transitory distraction of Nazi shark documentaries was a vicious ploy allowing my artistic freedom to flourish unchecked. Once he realised I’d been collaborating with authors behind his back, the equipment was deployed.
   I am writing this by the old pen-to-mouth technique which bypasses even the strictest straitjackets. The finished text will be typed up by my unseen accomplice. Dr Phibes has administered a jumbo-sized syringe of the green liquid, and I feel the effects hitting my kidneys as I scribble.
   His job is to bar my discussion of unpublished plots. To that, he has now added the function of preventing further communal silliness in the form of BLOGVELS, Beta-readers, and critique groups. There’ll be no more handing out pre-edited slices of fiction to people on the far side of the globe. Not on his watch.
   It may be some time before I venture near that territory again. If there were a way to bump Dr Phibes off without serious injury to myself, he’d be gone. Alas, given his penchant for spooky biological experiments, he has radio-linked his heartbeat to mine.
   The BLOGVEL experiment was for the benefit of others. After offering to compile short stories with several writers, I couldn’t then turn Kacey down in a stunning act of hypocrisy when she made the counter-offer. She was right. I had to participate in the BLOGVEL. Even if only to discover that awful thing…
   I worked out my part of the story in my head, based on a photo I took. This, I considered research. The whole idea was to read chapter one and build my thoughts on whatever I found. Plants. The woods. An evil brother. Right. I’ll look at that park I went through on a mock-train.
   The photo jumped out at me. I’m going to invent a story based around that. All I have to do is wait for the first few participants to do their chapters. Provided no one introduces the brother, I’m set for action. After reading chapter four, I slapped my attempt down on the night and seized the introduction of the evil brother for myself.
   Yes, it was great to write. I distracted Dr Phibes and sent the initial copy to the next author, Cat Woods. And I sent a copy to Kacey in advance. To let her see the initial piece. After that, I edited. So that Kacey would gain something from seeing the published version. Almost the same as the one I wrote on the night. Well I did that for Kacey, as she has problems with editing.
   Write your story. Edit your story. Publish your story. Sending the unedited work to a relative stranger was a way of giving added warning to the next person in line. Cat Woods might have found my stint as storyteller jarring. Or events could have conspired against her, with life taking over. So, I gave her as much time as possible to write her own piece.
   Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t do that. If I wrote a piece of fiction for my blog, I’d read it. Edit it. And then my blog’s readers would be the next to see it. I wouldn’t usually hand over the goods to colleagues.
   (I have done so with some blog entries, as I had to clear permission on a few points. Also, I’ve written e-mails that I later plundered for blog entries. Generally, though, I won’t preview a blog posting by touting it around fellow-scribblers first.)
   Yes, I could use critique groups and alter my writing. But then I wouldn’t be me. It’s still one step too far for me. Only one step. But a giant leap, where I’m standing. I hope that my 0.75 readers won’t be disappointed by the sense of failure that I’ve taken away from the BLOGVEL.
   Part of me, open-minded, says that I tried – and that doesn’t count as failure at all. The same part of me says…maybe next time there’ll be a sense of achievement. There could be a next time. And one day, there might be a critique group too – especially after all the plans I made in that direction. I just didn’t flip the switch. The circuits are still in place.
   I feel my writing is floating somewhere in the 19th century, where I’m not chasing after the latest fad. History has passed me by, but the passing of it is of little import. I just do what I do, and try my best to be me.
   BLOGVEL verdict. I think there was a sense of a letdown. Of letting my colleagues down. That awful thing…I’m here to learn, yet the BLOGVEL didn’t teach me anything. It’s shocking to feel that I didn’t learn anything from participating. But that’s what I carried away from it.
   Kacey would have been more disappointed had I not tried something different. Yes, better to try, to fail, than not try…never know. I’m left feeling unsure. As though, perhaps, I had to move a little way forward in a new direction this time out. And that I might make it that way once I’ve had time to get used to it. Even though I feel I did little more than tread water.
   Tennyson comes to mind. Ulysses. The closing lines of his poem.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

   This stirs in the wake of the sentiment that it isn’t too late to seek a newer world. So I’ll strive to seek, and hope to find. Convinced I’d learn something from the BLOGVEL, I walked away from it surprised to learn that I hadn’t learned a thing. If you call that learning. We’ll see if I can ditch Dr Phibes one day. Not today. But, even so, take this from my musing. Failure to learn doesn’t halt you in your tracks. Don’t give up. I’ll do my best not to yield. You should do your best not to, too.

NEXT BLOG: A STUNNING BRUNETTE BLOWS ME A KISS, AND I SELL A BOOK ON A RAINY STREET.


Monday 3 September 2012

DARTH SINISTER VERSUS DR ANTON PHIBES.


Wicked self-publisher Darth Sinister, out on day-release from the Bide-a-Wee Rest Home, wonders where in the universe he parked his spare DEATH STAR. Concluding that his own imagination is more powerful than he could possibly imagine, he simply conjures the key-fob out of thin air.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Throw another log on the fire. It’s decidedly chilly in here.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Certainly, Your Munificence. And may I say, the quality of the dinner-party has improved a thousandfold since the days of YKW.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Who?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: His Darthtastic self. The last boss.

MOFF HOFF: I think I’m in the wrong spoof.

MOFF KARLOFF: My boy, I’m offering you a career of Shatnerian proportions.

MOFF HOFF: I think we’re both in the wrong spoof. Let’s move one spoof over.

MOFF MIFFED: Slight misunderstanding. Evening Bungeerang. News just in. Darth Sinister’s at the front door, and he’ll be looking to warm that seat. Or, knowing his backside, chill it.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Oh my stars and garters.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: The Emperor’s coming here? But, but. I heard he’d turned to the Light Side™ and everything. Even went to a party. Swapped stories. Told jokes. Had a sing-a-long with Young Vanderkarr. Traitor.

MOFF MIFFED: Apparently, that was all merely a cunning ploy to use Young Vanderkarr as a cheap escape pod.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Crap. Oh, ah, hello boss. Didn’t see you there. Just breaking in the old throne for you.

DARTH SINISTER: Ye-es. You have done well, Darth…er…

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Bungeerang.

DARTH SINISTER: Darth Bun…

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Yes. Bungeerang. We’ve been running low on suitable Darth names. All the top ones are taken. Darth Satanicus. I put in for it. Darth Creosote. There was a fight over that one. Darth Polyunsaturated. Not forgetting Darth Binraker. He keeps himself busy. Darth Dracula. No one takes him seriously. That’s why he’s so effective. Only works night-shifts, though.

DARTH SINISTER: What of my Former Apprentice™, Darth Biozarre?

MOFF MIFFED: Darth Biozarre is racing to take command of the new STEALTH STAR, Milord.

DARTH SINISTER: Better for all concerned that I’m in charge of this spare DEATH STAR. The STEALTH STAR would serve me well, but I’m not a fan of the mileage. Instruct the Commander to set sail for deep space. I foresee a rendezvous with Young Vanderkarr.

MOFF MIFFED: As you wish.

*

DARTH SINISTER: My spare DEATH STAR. Life has come down to this. Look at it. Not even one Light Year on the clock. The main attack ray computer runs on Windows 3.1. And two of the loading bays are coal-fired for so-called aesthetic effect. Shameless. If Darth Fiscal hadn’t embezzled the slush-fund…

MOFF MIFFED: Star Destroyer Vapid Response announcing arrival of a Jedi prisoner, Your Darthness.

DARTH SINISTER: Rapid Response?

MOFF MIFFED: Er, we had to make some cutbacks. Even our Evil Empire feels the economic pinch. The prisoner was transferred from Star Destroyer Detergent.

DARTH SINISTER: Deterrent.

MOFF MIFFED: As I said.

DARTH SINISTER: Have Young Vanderkarr brought before me.

MOFF MIFFED: With some pleasure. We’re rationing that.

*

YOUNG VANDERKARR: So. We meet again, Your Evilness. This time, I’ve come armed with an entire novel.

DARTH SINISTER: A brave, if misguided, notion. Young fool. Only at the last, do you finally understand.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: That’s pretty much how novels work. You reach the end when you’re at the last bit.

DARTH SINISTER: It was folly to suppose I’d truly turn back to the Light Side™.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: You participated in communal writing, and the world didn’t end. Thought you might like to see my novel. You know. Get a bit of diversity going. Here.

DARTH SINISTER: This misguided attempt at banter…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Bantha?

DARTH SINISTER: …has placed you in my clutches. Your manuscript is lost. Soon you will see sense, and turn from the Light Side™. Now prepare to taste the true Dark Side of Publishing™…edit at will, Commander.

DEATH STAR COMMANDER: With pleasure

YOUNG VANDERKARR: That chapter is defenceless! It has no weapons! I’ve already cut the travelogue material to the bone. We need that flooded car sequence. You’re gravely mistaken…

DARTH SINISTER: Oh, no, Young Vanderkarr. It is you who are mistaken. About a great many things.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: It is…you are. That sounds as though it’s in need of editing. But I’m unsure…

DARTH SINISTER: Voice your concerns. Air your fear. Waver and vacillate.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I…can’t. Er, how’s that for wavering?

DARTH SINISTER: My former Young Apprentice™ Darth Biozarre betrayed me and stole my even-more-secret secret weapon. Darth Woodward took the original DEATH STAR back to Canada. I hear she’s working wonders with local government. And her fast food concession. Which brings us to you, Young Vanderkarr.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Why not turn to the Light Side™?

DARTH SINISTER: You must know by now that it is too late for me. Participating in a Soviet-Era writing commune taught me that. Even I, a Sith Lord, answer to a Higher Power…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: WTF?! But…who the Eff could that be?

DARTH SINISTER: My personal carer, Darth Phibes. Whenever I feel like unleashing an unpublished plot to an audience, or discussing my work ahead of the game, he steps in with the pills, the nurse, and the screens.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: But you shared your BLOGVEL chapter with me in advance…

DARTH SINISTER: He was distracted by a boxed set of wildlife documentaries. Shark Experiments of the Third Reich. Narrated by the other Attenborough.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Then we haven’t much time. You must flee. Run away. Hide where Phibes could never find you…

DARTH SINISTER: Only those armed with the powers of the Dark Side of Publishing™ could ever hope to even contemplate defeating Darth Phibes.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Is that a secret ploy to make me turn all Darth?

DARTH SINISTER: Well…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: I suppose I could turn a little darker. That’s the effect of the hair-dye. Which we’ll now gloss over. Didn’t hear that from me. Yeah. I could waver, morally, for an afternoon. Team up with Darth Biozarre. Bring Darth Woodward back from her restructuring of local and national government. Announce a Darthtastic conference, at which I am crowned Darth Vanderkarr…are Darths crowned?

DARTH SINISTER: Generally, we are Darthed.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Then, when Darth Phibes steps in to offer congratulations, we strike. Though, in a room packed with Darths, there’s liable to be a bit of double-crossing. After all, I did attack Darth Biozarre.

DARTH SINISTER: She’s more machine now, than man. Or woman. I forget which…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Well, it was a Wednesday. Or wasn’t a Wednesday. So she was back to being her, er, usual self.

DARTH SINISTER: Mm.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Er.

DARTH SINISTER: Well then.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Quite.

*

MOFF MIFFED: I told him to stop phoning me. It wasn’t the heavy breathing, more the timing. Three in the morning.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Yes. He’d call me up and all I’d get was hiss-rasp, hiss-rasp. I thought he just wanted company. Turned out he’d fallen asleep.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Incoming message from Darth Biozarre.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Could you take it along? The boss is in a bit of a mood. I don’t think he likes me.

MOFF MIFFED: He’s a Darth. They don’t like anyone. You should be thrilled. Hey, you’re a Darth.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: I quite like Cheryl from Accounts.

MOFF MIFFED: Which one’s she?

DARTH BUNGEERANG: The blonde in the Moff uniform. She’s not entitled to wear it, but no one in Accounts seems to mind. They’re holding a Welcome Back Darth Sinister party in twenty minutes. We’re invited. He isn’t. There’d be killings. He hates accountants.

MOFF MIFFED: I’ll take this along then. Ah, no. He’ll want me to hang around while he fries some Ewoks. Crap.

DARTH BUNGEERANG: Send a droid.

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Oh my!

*

DARTH SINISTER: What is it?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: A message from Darth Biozarre, Your Worshipfulness.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Why don’t you take a holiday, and let her run the Dark Side™ of things?

DARTH SINISTER: Let’s see what she has to say.

DARTH BIOZARRE: Darth Sinister. Years ago you roamed the galaxies as an idealistic young Jedi. (Is there any other kind?) Gradually, you turned to the Dark Side™. Then you betrayed everything you sat for. Nice. Which brings me to Young Vanderkarr. I see a time in the future when she will betray you, as I betrayed you. Darth Vanderkarr must not be allowed to learn editing.

DARTH SINISTER: She’s quite chipper for a hologram with a mismatched mechanical arm.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Pale lemon wouldn’t be my choice. What’s she worried about? I can leave editing to other people, and need never learn the dark satanic arts.

DARTH SINISTER: It’s a devious move on her part. If you refuse to learn editing, relying on others, for a sense of communal spirit, then you would be unlikely to turn to the Dark Side of Publishing™.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Whew.

DARTH SINISTER: Leaving Darth Biozarre More Powerful than you could Possibly Imagine™, when she kills you and becomes even darker herself.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Excepting the pale lemon mechanical arm.

DARTH SINISTER: Killing her own child…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: We never did get to that swab, for DNA.

DARTH SINISTER: …may just grant her the depth of darkness required to defeat my own personal carer. He holds a Doctorate in Darthness™. Wrote his thesis on Chlamydiachlorians. The primitive life-forms which grant a Jedi powers.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Ew.

DARTH SINISTER: With Darth Phibes out of action, I could discuss plots with Darth Biozarre in advance.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Then, with the two of you plotting so freely, that would mean the end of publishing as we know it.

DARTH SINISTER: As you know it, my Young Apprentice™.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: So if I refuse to turn to the Dark Side™, Darth Biozarre will kill me, grow stronger, defeat Darth Phibes, then pretty much inherit the universe. And if I turn to the Dark Side™…

DARTH SINISTER: Our combined might will defeat Darth Phibes in any case.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: What if Phibes wins…

DARTH SINISTER: Perhaps he should.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Don’t talk like that. You can share plots with other writers ahead of the game. Dish out samples. Participate in BLOG NOVEL sessions. Shoot the breeze, not the messenger.

DARTH SINISTER: I just don’t know. Darth Biozarre believes that Dr Phibes must die. You saw the T-shirt in her hologram.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: DR PHIBES MUST DIE! Yes, I think she was trying to send you a message in that T-shirt. Maybe it’s an anagram…BREASTS HID MUD PIE!

DARTH SINISTER: There’s no A.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: He’s Anton. That starts with A. Have to hand it to Darth Biozarre. She’s a sneaky cove when it comes to anagrams. But…what does the message mean?

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: Pardon me, Your Worshipfulness. I am effluent in over six million forms of communication…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Of all the belaboured puns…

DROID ESS-H-ONE-TEE: I believe the statement should be…MUD PIE HID BREASTS. A reference to a certain muddy planet which, when viewed from the DEATH STAR in a particular orbit, conceals twin moons…

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Darth Biozarre is giving away the top secret location of her STEALTH STAR. But why?

DARTH SINISTER: To lure Darth Phibes into a trap. Or to pass the time until Biozarre’s Morbidly Obese Twitter account loads in.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Just turn to the Light Side™. That would solve 80% of everything.

DARTH SINISTER: I left my shades in my other cloak. It’s too light for me. I see grave danger ahead.

YOUNG VANDERKARR: Overcome these obstacles. It doesn’t have to be about you and the blank page.

DARTH SINISTER: Oh but it does, my Young Apprentice™…

NEXT BLOG: COLLEAGUES.