Third Person SPEC

I'm beginning to think that I can't keep my Reminiscences chapter all in first person. Helen's point of view keeps me from saying anything about what Holmes and Watson are doing when alone, such as when Holmes wakes him in bed that morning, when they're alone in the Crown Inn (presumably taking a nap without any sleeping attire), when Holmes keeps whispering to him on the lawn and in the room, and when they discuss the case the following morning. It really hampers the slash overtones.

BBC Radio SPEC

I'd forgotten that Bert Coules does not adapt all of the BBC Radio Holmes series; many stories are dramatised by other staff writers, who do not always make the same radical changes that Coules does. (For example in BLUE, Coules inserts scenes of the plumber John Horner who was falsely accused of stealing the carbuncle, and Holmes and Watson actually go get Horner released from jail in time for Christmas. Holmes also for some reason is in a bad mood throughout the case, and unable to say anything other than "Wait" until Watson invites himself to dinner with Holmes. Can't even say "Happy Christmas" or "I miss you" huh?)

Anyway, SPEC was done by Vincent Mc Inerney, which I only learned with difficulty, as the damn file would not play despite a dozen attempts. It's not often that I get mad at Apple, but fuck iTunes! Or rather some glitch in my iPod that I could not fix even by reformatting it and resyncing all the files on it twice. The SPEC file would play in iTunes just fine, all the way through, and it would appear to load on my iPod at least some of the time, but it would never, ever play on the iPod. Still don't know what's wrong, because the other Adventures that I downloaded (FIVE, TWIS, and BLUE) played just fine in both iTunes and the iPod.

Court upholds Prop 8

Crap! California just doesn't come out with any good news, does it? And after we'd seen so much momentum lately with other states legalizing same sex marriages...

At least they kept the already performed marriages valid, so that we can still refer to Ellen and Portia as wives, and to George Takei's husband. But still, it's crap. No point in rambling on to other expletives.

Radio and TV Holmes

I finally watched all 39 episodes of the Holmes TV show starring Ronald Howard and H. Marion Crawford, and I'm sad to come to the end. I also listened to the radio theatre plays on the Sherlock Holmes Society of London website, and found that two of them were dramatised by Chris Drake instead of M. J. Elliott. I finally managed to finish reading The Sign of Three semiotics book, then gave my poor head a rest with a simple children's book about Holmes and the Irregulars called The Fall of the Amazing Zalindas.

More Radio Adaptations

Remember how I said I like the radio adaptations by Bert Coules, but I don't like Clive Merrison's Holmes? Well, I've found a radio Holmes that I like better, Jim Crozier (I hope I spelled that right) in the Old Court Radio Theatre Company.

updated Understudy sketch

Readers of my old Holmes/Watson website will remember that I had a section entirely of sketches and unfinished stories. One of those items was a sketch called "Understudy" in which an actor impersonates Holmes after the presumed death at Reichenbach. (This was inspired by Sherlockians who claimed that the post-Return Holmes acted too differently from the pre-Return Holmes.)

Well, I recently had occasion to add to the original sketch. I put in a new beginning, fleshed out Holmes as an asexual to add a shade of gray to his actions, and had him apologize to Watson. I also was apparently inspired to include Vaseline in this, as I did in the DIM love scene after REIG.

Sherlock Holmes trailer

The trailer for the new Holmes movie is online. My first impression is that it reminds me of two period Johnny Depp movies, From Hell and Sleepy Hollow.

Reminiscences, part three

"Snakes do not drink milk, Mr. Holmes."

Something we've all wanted to say since reading SPEC, right? So I put the words into Helen's mouth at last. The thing is that I'm having more trouble rewriting parts 1 and 2 of "The Reminiscences of Helen Stoner," so I'm posting part 3 first. Odd, I know, but it gives the flavor of why Holmes is awed by Helen Stoner. She's constantly surprising him and throwing him off kilter. This is my version of Helen Stoner, part way between a damsel in distress and a Mary Sue. I will try to tone down the Mary Sue when I finish the full rewrite.

A Strange Brief Affair

Earlier, I posted my sketch about Holmes and Watson in REIG. This is an expansion of their fight following REIG, and their initial love scene. I am not sure how explicit I want to be in the novel, so I may edit this back to vagueness.

I also mention Francois le Villard here, assuming that he was one of the policemen who worked with Holmes during the Baron Maupertuis case.

My story on Feedbooks

I just posted a short story on Feedbooks. It's a very old piece that I wrote years ago in college. It's original characters, not fanfic, and I'd say that it's rated about G. Well maybe PG, for the mention of a traumatic car crash in the past.

Rohase Piercy's "My Dearest Holmes"

I finished reading Piercy's book, and it was excellent. Had I known that it was this excellent, and so easily ordered from Alibris, I would have got it years ago. But for a long time I just couldn't find it at my local bookstores and figured that it was too much trouble to hunt down something so obscure elsewhere.

This is the book that deserves to be cited by every damn Sherlockian, not Townsend's book! By citing gay porn instead of true slash, they are deliberately giving a skewed view of what Holmes/Watson fans are about. Piercy's book only obliquely references sex at all; instead it is seeped in angst and love and affection and arguments and finally sweetness, as great romance should be.

Hiatus fic, with drawing

One of the bits of my novel that I previously posted on my old website was set during the Hiatus, when Holmes is hiding out with Struthers after accidentally faking his death. (To his disappointment, he did not die and managed to recover from his cocaine withdrawal again, and now he's depressed and feels lost.) She suggests that he start drawing, to relieve his obsession about Helen Stoner, and out of guilt Holmes starts imagining again all the things that he thought he deprived Watson of.

I have revised this bit significantly to incorporate Watson and to remove the inappropriate references to Mary Morstan. I also rewrote Struthers's responses so that she is not falling in love with Holmes yet. I prefer to leave the romance until EMPT, after she and Holmes have spent the full three years of the Hiatus travelling together.

Interlude at Stoke Moran

To cleanse my palate, here's a story about Helen and Julia Stoner. It's set on the same day that Watson reads Holmes's "Book of Life" article and learns that he is a consulting detective. I may include this fic as part of the chapter covering STUD, or I may hold it back as a flashback/memory that Helen has after SPEC, because she feels guilty about not believing Julia's suspicions about Dr. Roylott.

I have given Helen a middle name of Enid, because that is her name in Doyle's 1910 Speckled Band play. Also, I should note that I previously made up a backstory where the twins were 12 years old at the time that Roylott beat the native butler to death, and that Julia witnessed it. Helen ran away in fright, the mother (whom I named Fidelia) ran to call for help from the police, some male servants tried to get Roylott to stop, and a maid forcibly tried to drag Julia from the room. Julia refused to go or to have her eyes covered. Instead she fiercely yelled at Dr. Roylott as being a horrible monster, nothing like her real (long-dead) father. Roylott almost came over to beat her too, but returned to the butler because the other servants were trying to take him away. Roylott then savagely bashed his head in. Julia watched in horror, then fainted, and since then her hair grew white in a patch above her right temple. Roylott was convicted and served a long prison sentence in India. But he made excuses to his wife about his inherited temper, and promised that he would never do any harm to her or the girls. Then a dozen years later Roylott was released from prison and the family moved to England, so that Roylott could try to start a practice in London. But Fidelia died in a railway accident in 1875, and Roylott immediately brought the girls to Stoke Moran. They would have been 24 at the time, and eligible for marriage.

More Sherlockian writings

I bought and read the script for Charles Marowitz's 1984 play Sherlock's Last Case, and it was pretty disturbing. I guess it could be called black comedy, though what strikes me the most is the tragic part of it, because I feel so damn sorry for Watson. It's quite put me off making Helen Stoner a redhead, too.

(I have long envied redheads, and have tried to dye my hair that color, but on my black hair it always turned brown, if it showed up at all. I had wished to make the Stoner twins redheads too; Watson only says that Helen's hair is shot with grey, not what color it is naturally.) In the play, Holmes apparently has a weakness for tall, bony redheads, which makes him attracted to Liza Moriarty, who claims to be the daughter of the dead professor. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say I don't want Helen to remind me of this play. I suppose I shall have to go with some form of brown hair, as blonde hair would not show grey easily. I'll have to decide on a shade of brown that still differentiates Helen from the chestnut locks of Violet Hunter. But anyway...