It took my time over the writing. It’s been revised, proofread and tweaked. I showed the story to three or four people for comment (none so far). So what do I do now?

For the time being, I’ve picked about a dozen more people from my address list to show the story to. Ultimately, I will probably publish yet another issue of my “one-shot,” The Baloobius, and publish it for a slightly larger audience. But, for the moment, I don’t feel up to publishing another fanzine. Maybe around Christmas or in the New Year. I ought to add some drawings, and – in a way – that’s why I’m so unenthusiastic about drawing. I would need to create time to undertake new drawings. This year, I’ve so done very little drawing at all, and most of the starts I’ve made were never finished. Maybe next year will be better? (Could it be worse?)

The story is Heroes and Villains, a 17,500 word story that I think is fairly lively, and should not be difficult to read. The major difficulty with finding readers is the nature of the story itself. Between serious writing and humorous writing there is a grey area I call “whimsy.” It is not entirely either, and some readers seem unable to, or unwilling, to read whimsy. However, whimsy is precisely where the nature of Fraggle Rock most comfortably lies. Heroes and Villains involves two Fraggles named Kiki and Darl, as well as the entire cast of characters that were brought to live during the Jim Henson television show. Kiki is a rather more intelligent that usual Fraggle who became lost outside in what Fraggles call “Outer Space,” and where she made friends with a “Silly Creature” who lived there. During the events of a story yet to be written, turnabout becomes fair play, as “Darl” becomes lost in Fraggle Rock. The events that follow this beginning are long and complicated, touch up on tragic ... and discover magic instead, when Darl takes up a new life by becoming a Fraggle himself. This must sound like the most painful cliché in history, but you have to bear with me. For now, accept that Darl – whose Silly Creature name is mangled into “Darl” by Kiki – faces daily challenges in order to adapt. Hopefully, you will be able to follow all this without too much eye-rolling.

Writing these stories has been a pleasure, and a source of new experiments. It is a mistake to stray too far in the direction of either serious writing, or in the direction of humour, without striking the wrong tone. There is a lot of silliness in Fraggle Rock, but on occasion there are issues of life and death. I’ve chosen to err a little further in the direction of making Fraggle Rock into a real sort of place – there are rules for not dirtying the water in the Fraggle Pool, for example, and Fraggles do eat more than merely radishes and “Doozer sticks.” It’s all well and good that Boober Fraggle likes to do laundry, but it was necessary to explain where clothes come from in the first place. Also, how do Fraggles make a fire, or tell the time? At one time or another I’ve tried to provide explanations. (Not all in the same story, of course.) But if there can be danger in Fraggle Rock, or sometimes anger, it will not be in my mandate explain where babies come from in any detail! In that direction lies unwanted “serious” writing.

It’s hard to say how many of you will read any of this – I understand that many people have been unable to read the first chapters of Lord of the Rings, since it is too saccharine at the start, and are unable to read and of their darker, more frightening events that follow. At least I can assure you that boogie men that appear in Heroes and Villains are somewhat less formidable.