L for Lloyd

They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but yesterday at the splendid SWALC do run by Si Spencer, I got to meet David Lloyd - artist on V for Vendetta.

While he drew a portrait of V in my battered, beloved copy of the book that I bought when still at school, I told him that I'd once sat next to a pretty girl at a party who'd explained a point by saying, "It's a bit like in V for Vendetta". I few years later that pretty girl was my wife.

Gracious and engaging (I had to battle to buy him a pint), we also nattered a bit about politics and his new venture Aces Weekly, which is just £7 for a subscription and well worth your investment.

Artist David Lloyd kindly defacing
my copy of V for Vendetta

My copy of V for Vendetta
kindly defaced by David Lloyd

I also got to natter to Matthew Graham too, and compare notes on how cold it was at the filming of The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People. There were lots of other fine people, too. And ale. And sausage rolls.

Thanks to William Potter for suggesting such grand day out. Here's to the next one. See also my great long essay on the alternate present in V for Vendetta. 

Doctor Who: 1969

Episode 236: The Seeds of Death, episode 5
First broadcast: 5.15 pm, Saturday, 22 February 1969
<< back to 1968

"Patrick Troughton was very good at looking scared"
The Seeds of Death, episode 5

I love The Seeds of Death, and tried to match the tone and feel of it when I wrote my Second Doctor audio story Shadow of Death.

I also got to make a short documentary that went on the Seeds of Death DVD, "Monsters Who Came Back For More!", where wise Nicholas Briggs said:

"One thing that used to scare me as a kid was seeing how scared the other characters were on television. Which is why [I remember] the Second Doctor stories ... with such fondness because Patrick Troughton was very good at looking scared. And that's what kids respond to. They respond to cues. You say to them "this is scary" by doing that and they believe it."

That nicely follows on from what I said last time about Doctor Who's scariness being a big part of its appeal. We'll come back to the importance of cues to the audience another time...

Sadly, we'd didn't get commissioned for what may be my favourite thing we ever pitched:

"Attack of the Bubble Machine
CBBC’s Ed Petrie and Oucho recreate the cliffhanger of The Seeds of Death episode 5, showing us how it was done. First they build a giant bubble machine. But it’s not just the physics of how the machine operates, they also need the all-important sound effects (added later). Ed and Oucho create their own sound effects (perhaps with the help of Dick Mills). Then, the most important thing: the actor selling the effect with studied realism i.e. Ed trying to replicate Troughton larking about and corpsing in the bubbles. If budget allows, we have Ed being saved by Wendy Padbury, who explains she couldn't stop laughing last time."

But something a little like that worked really well when Dick and Dom discovered the genius of Delia Derbyshire (bother: it's just been removed from iPlayer).

Next episode: 1970

"Wizard" starring David Warner, a new film by the Guerrier brothers

Wizard is the fourth film by the amazing Guerrier brothers (i.e. me and the baby brother). It's been shortlisted in the Hat Trick / Bad Teeth "Short and Funnies" competition 2013, along with 10 other daft shorts. It would obviously been splendid if you watched it lots, liked it lots and sent it to lots of your friends.

Merlin - David Warner
Stephanie Woodhams - Lisa Bowerman
Paula Wright - Lisa Greenwood
Warren the Warlock - Adrian Mackinder
Luke Kiely - William Hughes
Narrator - Matthew Sweet

Assistant Director - Natasha Phelan
Visual Effects - Alex Mallinson
Sound Recordist - Håvar Ellingsen
Sound Design - Matt Snowden
Mix and additional sound design - Matthew Cochrane
Colourist - Otto Burnham

Thank to Ben Woodhams

Written by Simon Guerrier
Executive Producer - Martin Kerem
Directed and Edited by Thomas Guerrier
Produced by Adrian Mackinder, Simon Guerrier and Thomas Guerrier
(c) Mackinder / Guerrier brothers 2013

The Psychology of Power

Prompted by wise Matthew Sweet, whose radio programme on the life of Alex Comfort, Stop Calling Me 'Doctor Sex' is still up on iPlayer, I've been reading Comfort's Authority and Delinquency (1950) - that link takes you to scans of the entire book, though I've also bought one off Abebooks.

It's packed full of interest which I shall endeavour to blog about another time, but given Eastleigh and the AAA rating this week, the following rather chimed:

"One very characteristic - indeed, defining - character of persistent criminals is their baffling ineducability by experience, which leads not only to a repetition of the crime but of the details which led to their detection and arrest. In other words, their behaviour is compulsive. There is an analogous ineducability in government, among the advocates of 'strong' policies. Experience and argument did not prevent successive British 'strong' men (not all of one party) from repeating in Palestine, Cyprus, India and Suez the identical attitudes and errors which lost them Ireland, not Marxists from repeating the aberrations of the Czars. The reasons are identical in the two cases - these are examples of stereotyped behaviour, the actions are performed for the immediate emotional satisfaction they give not for their supposed purposes; other characteristics are unjustified self-confidence, total disregard of others and the substitution of vague objectives such as prestige or revenge for concrete gain, which, even if unelevated, is at least reality-centred. Long-term objectives - national advantage or the victory of an ideology nearly always give place in the event to the overwhelming cathexis of 'strong' action for people in office - the policy is then doggedly persisted in to maintain the illusion of purpose, under the guise of maintaining law and order. To the 'strong' man, as to the persistent thief, it is pointless to argue that crime does not pay - it is the act, not the policy or the thing stolen, which is the true motive. He will 'show them', regardless of whether it pays or not."

Alex Comfort, Authority and Delinquency - A Study in the Psychology of Power (1950), pp. 29-30.

My first ever rejection letter

Excitement! I have found my first ever rejection letter, received in April 1992 from Gary Russell, then editor of Doctor Who Magazine. I was 15 at the time, and it was just a few months since Gary's interview with novelist Paul Cornell (in issue #181, December 1991) had made me realise that being a writer was something I might actually do, not merely something to dream of like being an astronaut or pop star.

I sent Gary a terrible short story in which the Fourth Doctor and Romana land somewhere and, er, that's it, and surprisingly the response was a form letter:

I've had a lot of form letters since. They're the usual response to unsolicited on spec submissions. It took me a long time to realise that collecting rejection letters - forms ones, then form ones with notes on your submission, then ones with notes on your submission that invite you to try again - is a big part of being a writer.

I mustn't have been too disappointed by this first response as I sent Gary more stories. You can see how much better they were by the response I got six months later:

At the same time I also sent a script for a Judge Dredd story to 2000AD, and the form rejection letter I got back wasn't even signed (though someone had asterisked the paragraphs I should pay attention to).

Over the next few years, I continued to send things to Doctor Who Magazine and 2000AD, and also sent in proposals anywhere else I could think of. My first rejection letter from the publisher of Doctor Who books in 1994 was so detailed, generous and encouraging that I probably owe my career to it.

I finally got commissioned by Doctor Who Magazine at the end of 2001, with a two-part feature published in early 2002. Later that year, I also got commissioned to write a Doctor Who short story, in Big Finish's Short Trips: Zodiac. That was edited by Jacqueline Rayner, overseen by Gary Russell. That led to me writing lots for Big Finish, and a couple of years later I helped Gary write form letters in response to submissions.

2000AD turned me down, again, with a form letter just last year.

(Thanks to Gary for permission to post these.)

Defined by my Coasters

In the summer of 2000, when dinosaurs still roamed the streets of south London and there were only eight Doctors Who, I hefted my possessions from my sister's flat and moved in with Nimbos. To help us chase the estate agents working on our behalf, I signed up for my first ever mobile phone - a chunky grey thing with a flip-open cover that made me feel achingly trendy. My trusty pager, with a handy clip attachment for fixing to my belt, was never seen again.

I worked for a internet start-up and the bubble hadn't yet burst, so for the first time in ever I had money in the bank. As well as showing off to my new girlfriend and taking her for meals in Pizza Express, I also bought an hilarious set of items for my new home with Nimbos.

Six coasters showing the roundel from the title sequence of Mr Benn.

I'd never owned coasters before and I still don't really see the point of them, but they were the pride and joy of that flat. They really tied the room together. People would call by our flat and comment on those coasters and we'd beam magnanimously back.

When I left that flat to move in with the Dr a year later, I took the coasters with me. People still commented on them, but more in the way on enquiring how long the Dr would put up with my all dorky nick-nacks. And then something very odd happened indeed. People started thinking of me as a Man With Coasters, and went and bought me more.

The above picture shows just a small part of my collection. You'll note the six Mr Benn ones aren't included - they're in a cupboard somewhere, along with the set showing specimens of ancient Greek sculpture and ones with quotations from Winston Churchill. You can see the thought that's gone into the selections: booze and Daleks suit me rather well, and designs by William Morris and the Greek stuff goes down well with the Dr. Those ones of buildings were hand illustrated by an architect chum and are really rather lovely. It would be churlish to be anything but grateful to have such thoughtful and generous friends.

And yet.

If I am defined as a Man With Coasters, it's because I already have them.

Coming soon: Wizard, a film by the Guerrier brothers

A team of hardened professionals assembled in central London earlier today to make Wizard, the fourth short film by the amazing Guerrier brothers - coming to an internet near you in April, I should think. In the mean time, here are some jolly exciting pictures of people in an office, with helpful links to them on Twitter.

AD Natasha Phelan and director Thomas Guerrier film David Warner, Lisa Bowerman, William Hughes and Lisa Greenwood.

Matthew Sweet behind the camera with director Thomas Guerrier, filming Lisa Bowerman, David Warner and Lisa Greenwood.

William Hughes photobombs the hirsuite Adrian Mackinder.

AD Natasha Phelan and director Thomas Guerrier with David Warner and Lisa Greenwood/

Lisa Greenwood demonstrates how to correctly sit on a  spherical chair.

Sound recordist Håvar Ellingsen, distracted from his Queen and Country.

David Warner and co-star.

The actor Matthew Sweet.

Director Thomas Guerrier and Lisa Greenwood preparing the all-important kitchen scene.

Adrian Mackinder and AD Natasha Phelan ready for a take.

Adrian Mackinder, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Adrian Mackinder and his moves, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

David Warner and ready meal, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

David Warner and director Thomas Guerrier attempt to make sense of the script, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Matthew Sweet all eyes and teeth, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Matthew Sweet grills David Warner, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Matthew Sweet and David Warner, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Matthew Sweet and director Thomas Guerrier, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Director Thomas Guerrier and AD Natasha Phelan.

Team Wizard: Lisa Bowerman, David Warner, Adrian Mackinder, AD Natasha Phelan, sound recordist Håvar Ellingsen, Lisa Greenwood, director Thomas Guerrier and William Hughes.

Lisa Greenwood.

Director Thomas Guerrier and David Warner.

Team Wizard part II: Adrian Mackinder, sound recordist Håvar Ellingsen, David Warner, AD Natasha Phelan, Lisa Greenwood, me, Rabbit, director Thomas Guerrier, Matthew Sweet and William Hughes, photo by Lisa Bowerman.

Shadow of Death and Logic

More of me that you can buy in shops. Next month, Doctor Who: Shadow of Death sees the Second Doctor and his chums on a remote world orbiting a pulsar. Frazer Hines is, as ever, utterly extraordinary at playing both the Doctor and Jamie, and narrating, while the magnificent Evie Dawnay plays a character I named after my GCSE astronomy teacher.

Then, in August, I have another Blake's 7 adventure: Logic. It's about Pol, an ordinary woman living an ordinary existence inside the domed city on Earth… until she is visited by strangers who bring chaos to her life. I'm thrilled that as well as starring Paul Darrow as Avon, Sally Knyvette as Jenna and Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan, my chum Louise Jameson stars as Pol. I wrote it with Louise in mind, and the nice people at Big Finish agreed she'd be perfect. Hooray!

Excitingly (or terrifyingly), Logic is part of a box-set so you'll also get Blake's 7 stories by Una McCormack and James Goss, too. 

"The Bank can never 'go broke'."

Splendid chums Nyssa1968 and Nimbos popped round yesterday for a contest of Doctor Who Monopoly, which I received for Christmas. The Dr won, quite spectacularly, with some loss to her leftie credentials. I'd forgotten quite how aggressive a game it can be, as you struggle to bankrupt your friends.

I was also much taken by two rules, both of such prominence to be included on the "Set it up!" spread. First,

"It is important that the Banker keeps their personal funds and properties separate from the Bank's."

After all my time transcribing debates in the House of Lords, I wanted to point out that something being "important" is not the same as it being a requirement, and that perhaps we should leave out, "It is important that", and change "keeps" to "must keep". (There could then be an hour-long debate on the legal precedent on "must" versus "may", which is always a favourite.)

Secondly,

"The Bank can never 'go broke'. If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on ordinary paper."

A cynic might say that this is exactly what got us into our current economic snafu. But perhaps I'm still reeling from John Lanchester's "Let's call it failure" in the current London Review of Books, which explains in plain and gossipy style just how bad things are:

"In June 2010, in his first budget, Osborne said the structural deficit was 4.8 per cent, and that with three years of reduced spending, the figure would be down to 1.9 per cent. ... If you reverse the creative accounting and add the interest from the quantitative easing back where it used to be, as a Bank of England asset, it adds 0.6 per cent to the structural deficit. That takes it back up to 4.9 per cent – higher than it was when the coalition came to power."

My next big thing

Paul Magrs started a thing of getting people to talk about their next big thing. Last week, Joseph Lidster did it and nominated me. So here is my response.

What is the title of your new book?
Instead of a book, Joe “Makes His Own Rules” Lidster talked about his episodes of Wizards Vs Aliens. So my next big thing is also not a book but the short film, The Plotters, which you can watch here:


(The Plotters is also on YouTube.)

Where did the idea come from for the book?
My brother Tom and I have been working together for a few years – him as a director, me as a writer / dogsbody. We made a series of documentaries for the old-skool Doctor Who DVDs, and then last year completed our first short film, Cleaning Up, a thriller starring Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson.

Since then, Cleaning Up has been playing film festivals and getting us in to see agents and productions companies. At Shortcutz in April (where we won Best Film), Nik Powell – director of the National Film and Studio School – advised us that there was a demand for strong comedy films, and we were keen to show our range by doing something different.

We knew the deadline for the Virgin Media Shorts competition – to make a short, self-contained film of no more than 2 minutes 20 seconds – was coming up. But I also knew from experience that comedy is not necessarily my strongest area. So we looked around for help.

We’d already worked with comedy writer and producer Adrian Mackinder on another short, Revealing Diary, so took him out for drinks. Tom and I both suggested ideas for a comedy short, and then Adrian mentioned an idea he’d already been working on a while back with writer Hannah George, about Guy Fawkes and the Plotters. We thought it was brilliant, so – with Hannah’s kind permission – Adrian unearthed their script and we went from there…

What genre does your book fall under?
Historical comedy.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Adrian stars as Guy Fawkes. The rest of the cast was made up of good, comic actors Tom and I already knew: Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg (who I knew from Doctor Who things: they play Daleks on TV); Anthony Keetch and John Dorney (who I knew through production company Big Finish); my friend Will Howells who’s a rather good stand-up comic; and a number of fine fellows Tom knew. I also played a policeman at the end.

The first cut of the film was well over four minutes, with some amazing comic turns from the actors. They were brilliant. So it was agonising having to cut so much of that to fit the time.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?Remember, remember... who are you again?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
We posted the film to the Virgin Media Shorts competition website, and in September it was one of 13 films to make the shortlist – you can see all 13 at www.virginmediashorts.com. As a result, it’s now playing in more than 200 Picturehouse cinemas around the UK, in front of main features, as well as on Virgin OnDemand and Tivo. That’s all very exciting in itself, and then tomorrow (8 November) we find out which of the 13 films wins additional prizes.

Tom and I are not currently represented by an agency, though we’ve had some promising meetings with agents in the last few months.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Adrian provided me with his and Hannah’s original script on 24 May. My first notes followed that same day, and then we knocked it back and forth between me, Adrian and Tom. I provided them with a nearly-there draft on 2 June and we had a locked version on 9 June, although that was still titled “Five Eleven”. The next day, a friend pointed out that that joke had been done in an episode of Mongrels, so instead I, er, pinched the name of a Doctor Who book by my friend Gareth Roberts.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 
If I had no humility at all, I would say Monty Python, Blackadder or Horrible Histories.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Tom is a fierce and pitiless tyrant of a boss. We also had a limited budget and amount of time to make another short, so the competition deadline and Adrian and Hannah’s idea all fitted perfectly. There was about six weeks from deciding we were going to make the film to delivering it.

But the gag of the film is based on the famous picture of the plotters in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection:

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605
National Portrait Gallery #334a

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
This handsome, behind-the-scenes picture:

I now have to tag five writers to continue this thing and answer the same questions on Wednesday next week. They are: Ben Aaronovitch; Scott Andrews; Niall Boyce; Andrew Cartmel and Una McCormack.

Doctor Who day at Blackwells, London this Saturday

Blackwells bookshop on the Charing Cross Road are celebrating the release of the splendid book, Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects with Doctor Who antics this Saturday.

Full details and book tickets from the Blackwells blog.

At 2 pm, I'll be interviewing authors James Goss and Steve Tribe about the book, then joining Joseph Lidster and Mark Morris to talk about writing novels, audiobooks and episodes, and then there's a fiendishly difficult Doctor Who quiz. Why not come along?

"Frankenstein Meets Dracula" by Donald E Glut

Yesterday, m'colleague Web of Evil presented me with two fine volumes purloined from a second-hand bookshop. The first was Doctor Who: Nightshade by Mark Gatiss, now 20 years old and which I have previously blogged about.

The other volume is The New Adventures of Frankenstein: No. 4 Frankenstein Meets Dracula by Donald E Glut (who later novelised The Empire Strikes Back), published by New English Library in December 1977. The cover seems to show Boris Karloff's Frankenstein meeting, er, Mel Brooks' Dracula:

It's a slim bit of shlocky horror - 140 pages for 80p - but a joy to behold. I've only flipped through it, thrilled by the adverts at the back for the most intriguing titles:

And look at the books listed under "General":

Sadly (given the three books before it), The Long Banana Skin turns out to be an autobiography of a Goon. So I flipped back through the novel looking for a random page which might give a flavour of the story. The words "Burt Winslow's Journal" caught my eye - there's surely no more spine-tingling name in all of horror - and the prose that followed is a pretty damn perfect:

Robert Shearman interviewed by me - podcast

Listen to Robert Shearman read a new short story in a special podcast. Rob was the guest of the British Science Fiction Association in September, where he performed "The Dark Space in the House in the House in the Garden at the Centre of the World" and was then interviewed by me.

Hear the podcast at http://thedoctorwhopodcast.com/upload/RobShearmanBSFA.mp3 WARNING: the podcast includes adult themes and language, and is not suitable for children.

Special thanks to Tony Cullen and Tony Keen at the BSFA, Tony Whitmore for recording the evening and James "Tony" Rockliffe at thedoctorwhopodcast.com.

Come see me interview Robert Shearman for the BSFA on 26 September

The British Science Fiction Association is holding a free evening with writer Robert Shearman on 26 September. Rob will read one of his strange and scary stories, and then I shall interview him within an inch of his life.

You can buy Rob's books and Doctor Who CDs from the Big Finish website. And you can follow his epic quest to write 100 stories for people who bought a special edition of his last book.

The evening will start at 7pm, though you can turn up earlier if you wish. There'll be raffle for sci-fi novels, too. Location: Cellar Bar, The Argyle Public House, 1 Greville Street (off Leather Lane), London EC1N 8PQ. Map is here. Nearest Tube: Chancery Lane (Central Line).

The BSFA run events like this every month. On 28 November, they'll be interrogating Paul Cornell. See the BSFA website for details.

Three new CDs you can buy with your money

I have some more product out with which you can swap you hard-earned cash.

Doctor Who and the Uncertainty Principle is out this month. The Second Doctor Who and his companions Zoe and Jamie investigate a strange death and - long after she's stopped having adventures with the Doctor - Zoe continues her struggles with the sinister Company. It's performed by lovely Wendy Padbury, with her daughter Charlie Hayes returning as Company lawyer Jen.

• Top fact: the first time I met Wendy, she asked me to explain what Torchwood was (she'd been out of the country when it was on) and the more I told her, the less she believed me.

Blake's 7 and the Magnificent Seven is also out this month, as part of the Liberator Chronicles Volume 2. Jenna and Avon meet another band of rebels who are also battling the Federation - and might be doing it better than Blake is. It's performed by Jan Chappell and Paul Darrow.

• Top fact: Jan Chappell starred in straight-to-video coolness Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans in 1994. It was trying to follow up the success of that which led producer Jason Haigh-Ellery to set up Big Finish Productions. Big Finish later gave me my first gig writing fiction and I am slightly in love with them.

Doctor Who and the Empty House is out next month. When the TARDIS materialises in rural England in the 1920s, the Doctor and his friends Amy and Rory discover a crashed spaceship nearby. It’s the beginning of a nightmarish adventure for them...

• Top fact: Raquel Cassidy, who reads the story, played a space-wasp for me in The Judgement of Isskar - something she was kind enough to remember when I interviewed her on behalf of Doctor Who Adventures at the filming of The Rebel Flesh.

Cleaning Up icon

Mr Jackson (Mark Gatiss)
from Cleaning Up,
art by Red Scharlach

Delighted by this artwork from the amazing Red Scharlach showing Mark Gatiss as Mr Jackson in my short film Cleaning Up. (Red also made me a badge of it and one of Archibald the space pirate badger for my birthday.)

Cleaning Up plays as part of "I wasn't expecting that!" at the East End Film Festival in London this Wednesday at 8.30 pm.

You can also watch my short film Revealing Diary free and online. And the amazing Guerrier brothers have shot a third short film, The Plotters, which I will tell you more about when it is finished.

How How the Doctor Changed My Life Changed My Life

Alex Mallinson's beautiful cover for
Doctor Who: Short Trips -
How The Doctor
Changed My Life.

Five years ago today, on 19 June 2007, the BBC's official Doctor Who site announced the winners of a short story competition that I'd judged. The winning stories, all by first-time fiction writers, were later published by Big Finish as How the Doctor Changed My Life.

I wrote some general feedback on the more than 1,000 entries received, which might help would-be writers of Doctor Who stories.

The book we produced is now sadly out of print - and commanding a small fortune second-hand. But I'm really proud of it, and the hard work the writers put into it.

Anyone could enter who'd never been paid to write fiction before - they might have been paid for non-fiction and/or they might have written fiction for free. My hope was that it might encourage people who'd always meant to write to actually do it, and might even act as a springboard for writing careers. (My own first paid-for work of fiction was in Big Finish's first Short Trips book, Zodiac, in 2002.)

So what have the 25 authors been up to since?

Our overall winner was Michael Coen. Soon after HTDCML, he had a short story, “Ivory”, accepted in the Pantechnicon Book of Lies - but that book sadly never saw publication. “I’m still writing,” says Michael. “I’ve finished one ‘genre’ novel which I’ve sent to a couple of publishers with ‘open submission’ windows and I’m working on my second which is more mainstream. I still get a tremendous thrill from being a published author and haven’t given up on making some sort of breakthrough in the future.”

Simon Moore writes the world's leading 14 line rhyming review portal (as recently featured in the Guardian), and his historical murder mystery was in the long-list of 20 in the CWA's Debut Dagger competition for new writers. Simon tweets at both @asimonmoore and @sonnetreviews.

Mike Amberry's Doctor Who short story “Trial by Fire” was published in Doctor Who: Short Trips – Indefineable Magic (one of seven HTDCML authors to appear in that book). “Oyun” was published in the Mythmakers collection Pseudoscope. Mike has also written a novel “which I will be polishing up this year in the hope that I might interest someone with it. My current project is a short ghost story, even though I've so far failed to get the previous ghost story I wrote published!” He is on Twitter as @mikeamberry.

Stephen Dunn's Doctor Who story, “Once Upon a Time Machine” was published in Indefineable Magic. “Being published again proved - to me at least - that the first story had not a complete fluke. At the moment I am trying to in-doctor-inate my 20 month old daughter Anya Charlotte Eloise in the ways of Who. I have lots of Doctor Who short stories in my head, which I will be sharing with her when she is a little older.”

Bernard O'Toole was a winner of the BBC writers' room “Sharps” competition in 2008, which led to a couple of script commissions and helped get him an agent. He's reached the offers stage for radio drama a couple of times and has a feature script in development. “I constantly write spec scripts and pitches and still apply for competitions,” he says. “In recent years I’ve reached the final stages of competitions like Red Planet, the Alfred Bradley Bursary Award (BBC radio drama) and even Writers' Academy but haven’t landed the top spot. That said, every little victory keeps the moral up and the ideas flowing. It’s still good fun at the end of the day. HTDCML was a major thing for me. Like all of us brought up on the Target paperbacks, which during my childhood meant everything to me, to have a few pages of published Doctor Who prose was a major ambition. I glance up at it now on the book shelf as I type this and it always makes me smile. Good times indeed.”

LM Myles had a short story, “Missing In Action”, published in the e-zine Reflection's Edge, and another one, “The Better Part of Valour”, in the Bernice Summerfield anthology Present Danger. Her essay “Renaissance of the Fandom” was included in the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords and she is co-editing Chicks Unravel Time – Women Journey Through Every Season of Doctor Who, due out in November. She is also on Twitter as @LMMyles.

Michael Montoure has written two anthologies of horror stories, Counting from Ten and Other Stories and Slices, and is co-writing the web series Causality. He's on Twitter as @Montoure.

Tim Lambert's story “Automatic Head Spin” appeared in online sf, fantasy and horror magazine, Allegory in 2011. “This has definitely given me a renewed sense that I must be doing something right,” says Tim, who's continuing to send out stories.

Richard Goff had not, at time of writing, responded to my email.

Caleb Woodbridge's Doctor Who short story, “Blessed are the Peacemakers” was included in Indefineable Magic. He is currently seeking publication for his first novel. He's an editor of the Impossible Podcasts and also writes A Journal of Impossible Things, a blog about fiction, fantasy and faith. He's on Twitter as @CalebWoodbridge.

Chris Wing says his next bestselling novel now has a tentative name - The Secret of the Spires – but “still needs to be written”. He is also writing Doctor Who stories exclusively written for his kids. He says that “Doctor Who and the Missing Girl was a hit amongst the two-strong audience a few bedtimes ago”. He's on Twitter as @chriswing1977.

Mark Smith, uniquely of the HTDCML authors, employed me – commissioning some articles for the Herald.

James C McFetridge's novel Unendlicher Tod is published in Germany this August, and his agent is currently pursuing publishers in the UK. It was also shortlisted in the To Hell With Prizes Award 2011.

Einar Olgeirsson has, at time of writing, not responded to my email.

Matthew James's Doctor Who short story, “Hiccup in Time”, was published in Indefineable Magic. You can read more of his stories on his website. Matthew says: “I have had a little more luck with short film scripts which I've put together for student film projects. I've done three of these and they've been fun. I'm now working on a theatre play which is proving interesting but difficult! Inspired by the student films I'm also putting together a short of my own but time to work on these projects and earn money in the 'real world' mean progress is slow. But thank you Simon, Neil Corry and Big Finish for giving me that one break! Lack of success has never stopped me writing before or since, but it is wonderful to know that some tiny piece of it is out there, published, in the best of all places - the Doctor Who universe.”

Violet Addison has been published in Faction Paradox: A Romance in 12 Parts, as well as the Mythmakers anthology Pseudoscope. This year, she appears in the World's Collider anthology, and has her first original audio piece, Walking with Dragons. She says she is “pitching like mad and entering every competition I can find. I'm still getting about ten rejections for every one thing that gets through though.”

Andrew K Purvis had a short story, “Go Fourth”, published and promises to finish a novel this year.

Nick May had, at time of writing, not responded to my email.

Steven Alexander has written a 100,000-word novel and taken part in more writing competitions. He's also writing for the Planet Skaro Audios.

JR Loflin's “Breath of Echoes” was published in the Mythmakers anthology, Pseudoscope.

Mike Rees' Doctor Who short story, “The Science of Magic”, was published in Indefineable Magic. His novel Broken Heroes is available to buy as a print version and electronic version, and you can preview the chapters at http://brokenheroesnovel.wordpress.com/.

Dann Chinn continues to write. The most solid evidence of this can be found at the recently-revived Misfit City music blog. He's also on Twitter as @dannchinn.

John Callaghan's story, “Have You Tried Turning It Off and Then Back On Again?”, was published in Indefineable Magic. He is currently touring in the two-person comedy musical We Won't Rock You and says his main creative focus is his solo music – such as featured in this video. “I'm finishing the new album I've been working on, on and off, for at least five years now,” says John. “I've assembled all the musical parts and now it just needs mixing. I'm not accustomed to being so busy, so I'm having to fit it in between rehearsals for Brighton and doing the odd remix and live solo show.”

Arnold T Blumberg's Doctor Who short story, “Mardi Gras Massacre”, was published in Indefineable Magic. Arnold has set up his own company, ATB Publishing, whose first book will be Red, White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America.

Anna Bratton has collaborated with Brittney Sabo, on a young adult graphic novel, Francis Sharp in the Grip of the Uncanny! “We received a Xeric self-publishing grant in 2010 and released Book One the same year. Currently, I am writing Book Two and noodling around with upcoming Doctor Who-related projects.”

The Doctor Who Short Trips books came to an end a year after the publication of How The Doctor Changed My Life, but production company Big Finish continues to produce audio Short Trips, and has run a number of writing competitions since I ran this one.

Tales from the TARDIS

Out in shops now is Ace Adventures DVD box, with two Doctor Who stories featuring the Seventh Doctor and his friend Ace. Among the jam-packed jamboree of extras, there's The Doctor's Strange Love, in which me, Joseph Lidster and Josie Long rabbit on about what we like about the first of Ace's stories, Dragonfire. Thrillingly, we got to shoot it out in time and space...

Me, Josie Long and Joe Lidster in the TARDIS.

The photo Joe took.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning..."

"What are you young people doing in my TARDIS?"

Whacky Lidster, thumbs aloft.

Our "Radio Times" shot.

Gillane and James, who made our wish come true. Plus my knee.

I look really bald in this one.