My life is made from awesome.

For a while now I’ve been making irritating references to a Sekrit Projikt and then running away. I leave you to guess whether this was fiendishly cunning marketing or a tragic inability to keep my mouth shut about something exciting I wasn’t allowed to discuss. (Hint: option 2.)

But the cat is out of the bag, the puppy has left the suitcase, the rhino has departed the napsack. I was writing a Doctor Who short for the Time Trips series, and I can say that out loud and do a little Harkawegian Dance Of Joy because this is the anniversary of the Doctor and I just got interesting enough to be asked to play in the band. And when I say “short” let it be acknowledged that I blew the word limit and however much we trim it’s going to be a bit longer than 10k words.

But, dear friend, this caused me heartache and confusion, too. Because I had to pick a Doctor, and it cannot be done without pain. Picking one Doctor entails not picking all the others. Tom Baker? But what about Peter Davison? What about… well, basically, all of them. It’s not just about who was best, or who did you love most, it’s who can you write for? And that’s not the easiest thing to know. Which Doctor is the one whose tone, dialogue, style and register work with your writing?

In the end, there’s only one Doctor who adores words, who whiffles and digresses and goofs off and has a good heart and a nuclear rage he hangs onto by his teeth, who is deeply focused on not being too focused, who plays and laughs in the face of the universe because anything else is too appalling to contemplate.

This one.