Hello, everyone. In the past month or so, I have been getting into TARDIS Eruditorum, both the blog and the books. They really have inspired me to tackle some of the early Hartnell and Troughton serials again; I started off with The Rescue, and I have already gone through The Romans, The Web Planet, and the Space Museum.
“Zarbi! Ech! Ech! Ech!” The Web Planet is really funny once you think about it. The first two or three episodes were pretty great for me, but then it did sort of go downhill, with some of the over-the-top metaphors and religious talk. The Planet of the Ood, or ‘Ood Planet’ is a really much better version of the Web Planet in my opinion.
They cover some of the same bases, like the Animus and the Ood brain, the Ood singing about DoctorDonna, and the webs of light that the Menoptra will weave about the Doctor and his crew…yeah. I also checked out what ‘About Time’ had to say about this serial, and they mentioned several points at which Ian Chesterton/William Russell probably decided to leave the show, all of which made me laugh.
I plan to watch The Chase, The Time Meddler, The Gunfighters and The War Machines after that. I’m also scattering some Tom Bakers into the midst of these serials, like I had to watch The Brain of Morbius after The Web Planet, to kind of relieve the stress/ache The Web Planet had caused. That was a great plan, The Brain of Morbius really is as great as I remember it being! I watched that, and the special features, straight through in one night! Yay! It really is a perfect serial.
So as you can tell, this summer is my Doctor Who summer, basically, of watching as much Classic Who as I can stomach, and rewatching some serials that I might have seen once, but years ago online. Watching a Doctor Who serial on the computer doesn’t really compare to watching it on the telly, as it was made for the telly, really. I have a shorter attention span for watching videos, generally, when I am on the computer. I also just got a smartphone and I’ve been streaming some Red Dwarf, which I haven’t seen in awhile, and I’m getting into Black Books–I laughed to see Martin Freeman as the doctor in that first episode!
Anyway, I suppose that’s enough about fandom for now, back to my work. I’m already working on the third book of a series for which I haven’t published the final, definitive version of the first book. I know, I get ahead of myself sometimes. I did try to submit my work to several agents, hoping that it could be republished in its new revision, but no replies yet and usually they reply within 6 to 8 weeks, so if there’s nothing in this next week or two, then I shall indeed resort to using CreateSpace once more, probably with a smaller book size, 5×8 or something like that.
I just don’t know if I should pay for the editing. I may try the review service they offer, although I don’t know what that might be like, and then I might get a Library of Congress Number, especially if it’s the final definitive version. I’m also wondering about publishing former drafts, like the ‘2003/2008’ versions of my work, as they are quite different from my current 2013 version (as I’ve dubbed it), which fleshed out some minor characters a bit more and had more backstory. But the 2003/2008 drafts might be decent enough books on their own as a simpler version of the narrative. I don’t know, it might be excessive, but it could be something to explore in future.
Coe Baba: Life and Love 