"The One" is the loneliest number

I really shouldn't write on Shabbat. I tend to get pensive and melancholy, fearful that the words I put on paper aren't worthy of electronic worship-not that anyone is reading them anyway but a grrl can have fantasies of being discovered, can't she? We all want to be famous in some way but only by those we know will only praise us and do nothing but that. Instead, it seems most "stars" find only crazies and cameras bothering them with stupid, personal questions that only serve to boost their own worthless lives, bringing ours down with them.

But I digress..... I have called upon this medium to do what the rest of you have being using it for over quite some time...space to express the banality of my life as if it was something or somehow special. I suppose the people who wrote in diaries now used in Ken Burns specials never thought their words would echo through some strange box of illuminating lights in millions of households but who could have predicted "Glee" would be a hit?

I digress again... I am writing a short story or novel (I can't quite decide) based on the BBC television show, Torchwood. For those of you (I think there is one follower???) who don't know it, Torchwood is a spin off of Doctor Who, a long running, British TV series chronologically the adventures of an alien traveling through space and time who occasionally stops by various important periods in Earth's history and gives us foolish but loveable Humans a hands up. Like Battlestar Gallactica, Torchwood is Doctor Who "all grown up" with themes such as bisexuality, angst, and adultery mixed in with alien invasions and possessed children to spice things up. I grew up watching the originals of all those shows during the 70s and early 80s as most geeks of my generation did. I enjoy them now for the nostalgia (I no longer live in my hometown nor see any of the friends I had growing up) but Torchwoood adds a nice snog between two guys and that always puts a spark in my mind, which where all my sex occurs lately.

I digress yet again... I had fantasies about publishing this story. As usual, it is more my ego trying to find a way out of the glass ceiling I have created in my profession. Don't get me wrong. I deeply appreciate what I have achieved and have. I live much better than most, my daughter has never known financial insecurity nor lack of food/shelter as I did frequently as a child, and I have some small acknowledgement from within my community. And it wasn't fame that I sought in the first place. Yet I have realized that without it, nothing moves very far in this country. Fame gets your words heard, your ideas published and your concepts accepted. It doesn't matter how brilliant your thoughts are or revolutionary your concepts might be if there are minions to worship them. And, rightly or wrongly, I don't' have star quality.

Now, dear reader, fear not because this pity party has some merit, some truth supporting it. I have come of age and been around the block enough to admit that not only have I made decisions (or not) that have brought me to this place, but I also have to acknowledge that my ambitions outstrip my abilities. I am too clumsy and shy to do effective self-promotion. I am too obnoxious to be admired in any way other than as reality show B actor and I am too lazy to adjust the personality faults which make further success a reality. I have found my ceiling and to move anymore forward is to attempt (as many in middle management do) a mockery of the Peter Principle. I'd rather not give my critics and detractors any more fuel or ammunition, thank you, so that I may be humiliated publicly like some child chided in the middle of the playground.

Now to the point... I started writing this story because I saw a story writing contest in the "official" Torchwood magazine. I thought that it would be cool as the prize was to get your story published in the magazine with a cover title, etc. Finally, some manageable fame! Additionally, my daughter, Sweetness, has been wanting to be an author since she was 8 (she is now 15 1/2) and I have become concerned that she has made no attempts to publish other than posting fan fics using characters from the anime she and her crew read. Fine and dandy but if you wanna make cash off of it, one has to get serious. I figured she wasn't doing it because she was afraid and since is follows me like a baby duck behind its mother, I thought, if I at least attempted it, she would to.

I started writing the story with Mr. Grumpy as my muse (he's been quite helpful). Although I was not eligible for the contest (you had to be a UK citizen-those bastards!), I decided to press on. I have been doing lots of story research and adding other elements so that the flow matches that of the series and characters but carries my particular vision into it. I avoided though the fanfic stuff, seeing it as "beneath me and my endeavours" as the goal there isn't getting published. However, I did join a rather large online forum and have exchanged emails with a few individuals who have published fanfics. These folk have given me solid information on publishing and contacting literary agents. All before more than 45% of the story's initial draft has been finished.

Then it happened. While doing some online research, I ran into a Torchwood fanfic (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5456813/1/Ianto_Jones_Diary or, if I was successful, it should be posted below) that, albeit is more explicit than mine and more character focused than mine, does exactly what I want to do with my story. It is quite well-written. Why is this person not published? And if they aren't, what chance do I have? Depression set in and I've been paralyzed all day from it.

So, pardon me, phantom reader whoever you may or may not be, for serving as my momentary therapist but I guess I needed this couch so sound off on. And unlike my underprivileged clients who tend to do fewer pity parties than the rest of us whining middle-classers, I have proven myself to be the type of client I hate to treat-the self absorbed, narcissistic, fame-wannabe crying because the whipped cream on her mocha is flat.

Back to work....