I was never really a Twitter person. The format goes against my natural inclination towards wordiness and digressions. I’m pretty sure I created it for the sole purpose of entering a contest by tweeting at some company or other. I wrote about twenty tweets in the first six years.
But when I heard that there was going to be a tweet-a-long of the four Paul Spragg memorial short trip winning stories, I decided that I should dust off my account and participate.
And it was great! I like Big Finish's Doctor Who, of course, but the Paul Spragg stories are especially great. They have that perfect mix of optimism and wonder that I really want from Doctor Who. I called The Best Laid Plans the best kind of Doctor Who story, "an absurd premise taken to its logical conclusion and built upon a rock-solid foundation of emotional truth."
I liked the other authors as people too. I think there's a general overall decency to Doctor Who fans. If you told me someone was a fan, I'd be inclined to think more fondly of them. This went double for these guys. We had each written a story to honor Paul Spragg. I never knew him, but everyone said that he was boundlessly enthusiastic and endlessly encouraging. A good guy, in other words. I felt a real camaraderie with these other authors.
So when Selim Ulug (author of Landbound, the second Paul Spragg winner) suggested that we all stick around and write a story together, I was all over that! He suggested a round-robin format with one tweet a day with no discussion about where the story was going. And that's what we did!
In addition to the four Paul Spragg winners (Me, Selim, Harry Draper and Ben Tedds) Sophie Iles, Max Curtis and Lizbeth Myles also wrote for the story.
Sophie contributed art as well, which made me especially happy.
I thought that was the end of it, but Selim managed to convince Jaspreet Singh and Conrad Westmaas (the Eighth Doctor's companion C'rizz) to offer their services as a sound designer and a reader, respectively.
The story itself... If you'll forgive the digression, I grew up playing with Transformers toys. You know, Robots in Disguise. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Soundwave, that lot. There was one an obscure Autobot by the name of Sky Lynx. He was a perpetually angry pterodactyl-headed lynx with two tails who transformed into the space shuttle if he needed to keep a low profile. I don't know if he's the result of a dare or a mad lib or what, but his whole deal is even more bizarre than I'm implying.
Doctor Who: The Eighth Day is a Sky Lynx of a story, pure crazy, next-level cuckoo bonkers stuff. We didn't know where it was going when we were writing, and it's a testament to the skill of my fellow writers that the story came together so neatly in the end.
And I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the process. A few of the authors were more established than the rest of us, but there was no ego, no jockeying for position, no one trying to force their vision on the rest of us. It was nothing but the best kind of collaborative "yes, and?" story-telling from a bunch of talented people who wanted to tell a story together that our fellow fans could enjoy. Special thanks to Selim, because it was entirely due to his perseverance that we have this story.
And finally, the whole thing is in service of a good cause. MindOut: LGBTQ Mental Health Service. Please donate what you can to a very good cause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XpKH95RHOU
https://www.mindout.org.uk/
I hope you enjoy it!
