It was going to begin with an exciting pre-credits sequence, and then the title, and then a candy-striper named Andrea in 1999 New York City, looking at a patient’s chart. He’s covered in third-degree burns with a body temperature of 61 degrees Fahrenheit, but he’s not dead. Included on the chart is a note that the patient has a strange heart murmur that creates the illusion of a double-pulse. There’s just one problem: the patient in the bed is a petite, Arabic-looking woman with no burns on her whatsoever. However, when Andrea touches her, her skin is deathly cold, and she has a double-heartbeat. The only conclusion she can reach is that they are the same person. The patient wakes up, looks at her hands, and, speaking in an Irish accent, quizzes Andrea on her own appearance, particularly worried about the size of her nose. She recognizes Andrea from “that coffee house in Lincoln, Nebraska, with the on-the-nose name.” “You mean The Coffee House?” But the only remotely British person she ever met there was a dude with a buzz-cut and an awesome leather jacket. Suddenly, a monster would attack, and the woman would introduce herself as the Doctor. Later, they would head for row of porta-potties, and the Doctor leads her to a really classy, wooden one labeled “Police Box.” When Andrea enters, she sees it’s bigger in the inside than it is on the outside, and her reaction is, “Whoa. Cool outhouse.”

Thus begins “The Tyranny of Occam’s Razor,” the first of my Doctor Who fanfics. I had an overarching plot in mind, which would bring them to America more often than usual, and the monsters would be based on American folklore, including a wendigo, a herd of melonheads, and the men in black. There would be no sonic screwdriver. (As a lifelong Doctor Who fan, I kind of loathe the sonic screwdriver.) I have lot of great gags (“What did your sonic screwdriver do?” “Loosen screws, pick locks, scan things, disrupts a Cyberman’s breathing apparatus, like a regular screwdriver, I reckon.” Also, Andrea, as an American, calls them “Darleks.”) I have done tons of art of the characters, and I even made a logo. I’m going to continue to draw and paint them, but I’m not going to write it anymore.

Since I’ve been making comics or sketching full-time, I haven’t had much inspiration to write. I quit in the middle of a lesbian romance, the seventh book in my YA series, a from-the-ground-up revision of my assassin-that-doesn’t-use-guns-or-martial-arts novel, and the Nth Doctor Adventures short stories. I’ve decided I’m going to box up Who. I loved the concept, I loved my Doctor, I loved her companion, I loved the loose plots, I loved the fan service (one of the pre-credit scenes features a couple being rescued by the Eleventh Doctor, and I think I really nailed his voice), I loved coming up with descriptions of the TARDIS noise (someone driving a power drill through a bucket of fruitcake, an accordion in a dishwasher, a flock of geese flying through a cloud of helium, etc.) but the stories are not good. I made it through three-and-a-half of them, and I just ran out of steam.

I think I’m going through phases. Eight years ago, I was a voracious reader. Five years ago, I was a writer. A year ago, I was transitioning, and now I’m almost exclusively artist. I can still write, but only about a page or two at a time. (I’ve illustrated up to page 5 of MortalMan, and I only have 9 written.) I might go back to being a writer again, who knows? But while I still pull out Exile Book 7: The Unkindness of Raven, The Principles of Magnetism, or The Sass in Assassin and tinker at them, I think I’m going to leave the Nth Doctor Adventures in storage for now. Doctor Who, after Newcastle, is the love of my life, and I’m going to give them all the attention they deserve.

In the meantime, as I mentioned above, I’m going to keep illustrating the Doctor and Andrea. The Doctor is in a a necktie again, and Andrea has access to infinite outfits in the TARDIS, so she decides that, if she’s exploring the universe, she should at least wear a suit.