How'd I do that again???

I just wrote a particularly inspired chapter in my fanfic called Grief.

It was one of those things that just popped into my head and wasn't in my outline but I just had to write it.

Anyway, it was something new, very smarmy, very touchy angsty, dramatic, romantic...and people loved it and holy cow, how in the world am I going to do that again???

The funny part is, I now know that a great bulk of my audience is female, since the reviews are better when the chapters are about Tom--the male lead. They love seeing him suffer (don't all womenkind) and pine for her. The sadder he is, the happier they are.

We are all sadists in our own way.

So here I am again, in a stump. Wondering how the hell I'm going to top this one, or if I'll mellow down before letting my readers take on a next wave.

I did realize one thing: if you keep them in suspense long enough, they turn on you and just leave. It's almost like a TV show, if they don't like what they see in one or two episodes, or you leave them hanging in suspense for like--forever, they will never come back.

...Unless you left them at a really good place and they feel they'll die if they don't know.

As it is, my readers are begging me for the next installment. I am half-tempted to say "Uh, sorry, beause of this unplanned and wonderfully inspired piece, I have no idea what to do next"

I now know--in a severely smaller scale--how the writers of the X-files felt during their fifth season...and maybe even their seventh.

The fourth season had most viewers hooked because of Scully's cancer, so it was the arc that kept them more than stand-alone eps. But the fifth season produced some of the best eps there were, with the contents ranging from comedy to drama or just straight supernatural--they were brilliant! They made very few strikes in their 24 ep line-up.

Then came season six, and the behind the scenes war with David Duchovny. I won't say that he destroyed the show, but more of...the writing just went...BAD. With David threatening to leave and the writer's pressured into making the best of out the situation, it just didn't make for good writing conditions. Plus, they introduced the idea of Mulder's ex--Diana Fowley (played by Mimi Rogers)--right after X-Files: FIght The Future, where the fans were bouncing on the walls because of the aborted kiss. Which was, btw, never mentioned in the coming season.

Either way, billions of fans worldwide were setting up virtual bonefires, flaming the Chris Carter, but particularly the writer's and their parantage.

Their names appear on the credits, i'm sure one or two of them shed some tears while reading some personal reviews on the net. I know I would have.

...I'm beginning to sound like the total nerd, aren't I?

The X-files, don't I just MISS it. That thing was with me when I went to high school and ended when I left college. I don't know how that show influenced me, except that I got really hooked into fanfics and I thought David Duchovny had a really HOT HOT body. I don't think I walked away with anything educational or even remotely inspiring...but hey, I was entertained

I'm going through this phase where I'm taking inspiration from anything--just about anything just to get me moving on my book, notes for next weeks workshop script, another episode idea???

I haven't checked on what's next with Enterprise, since we're still on Season 1 in here in Asia and the states is just wrapping up season 3. Season 4 should prove to be interesting, since Star Trek usually brings in the "relationships" at this time. I've given up on an Archer and T'Pol pairing. It seems like starship captains should remain unattached so that they can sleep with strange aliens. Even Janeway and Picard had some interesting flings, and we all know that Kirk fucked every skirt in the galaxy.

He's like Rizal, in that respect. Brilliant womanizer elevated to the status of hero.