65 replies to this topic

[clinkeroo]

Ah, dear Hitch, drunken bumping is a good bit of what Bond is about .

[Hitch]

Nice one, Clinkers.

Sorry about the drunken self-publicising. Alcohol + ego + idiocy = me.

[Trident]

Dear Hitch!

It's been two and a half years now since you finally published 'To Whom It May Condemn' and the same time has seen me owing you a decent review. My only apology and explanation for taking so long is that in November 2005 I felt the first stirrings of something under my belt that was to become my own mediocre effort at crappy fanfic and made me temporarily steer clear from another writer

[ImTheMoneypenny]

Darn you PDF files! Windows Vista you as well! I don't know how to use the FoxitReader to open PDF files. As poor Hitch knows, I'm so very very blond and my Vista hates my Adobe so they refuse to get along. I can't read any of those wonderful stories everyone else have been enjoying.

Joyce Carrington was kind enough to send me a Word version of Off Balance which btw I'm enjoying a good deal. I've been able to read tdalton's new one, and some of the others who are doing serialised stories. Hitch himself has tried to help me understand these funny things called computers as well, with no success.

Does anyone else happen to know how to work FoxitReader? I do use Firefox as my browser does that make a difference? I cannot open the PDF with Adobe, my Vista warns me they are incompatible, and I use my computer to make money so I can't take risks of upsetting it.

because they don't have a blond emoticon I'll use dizzy.

[Hitch]

I don't think I've ever been quite so embarrassed while still wearing my trousers.

Trident, thank you very much indeed for taking the time to write so much about TWIMC. I'm touched that you should make the effort, though I realised some time ago that CBn is a community where such goodwill and generosity is commonplace. And regardless of whether your review was approving or otherwise, any fan fiction writer will tell you that length is everything, as the actress said to the bishop.

However, your review was so wonderfully and ego-inflatingly complimentary that I must advise you to lay off the benzedrine and champagne cocktails. Reading it, I squirmed in my seat in a Casino Royalesque fashion at the possibility that the professional writers who frequent CBn might read it too. I'm an amateur who writes amateurishly and is well aware of the gulf between fiction for fun and fiction for the market. This forum really should be viewed with a Q Branch pair of rose-tinted spectacles because the “stories for free” aspect can sometimes cause excess (though very welcome) enthusiasm amongst the readership. Having said that, I am absolutely delighted that you enjoyed my story so much – such praise means a lot coming from someone who loves Bond so thoroughly.

I did not set out to write a story fit to be compared to anyone else's effort: I wrote a sentence, then another, and then a paragraph because it was such fun to try and ape Fleming's style and because of the frisson of writing the words “James” and “Bond” in the same sentence. There's hardly a sentence in TWIMC that doesn't contain some sort of solecism, error, misjudgement or cliché. Ho hum.

It is not false modesty to say that my story is not on a par with the Bond continuation novels. It is not – it's absolutely nowhere near. That's a fact. TWIMC is full of flaws, mistakes and misfires – far more than any publisher would be willing to accept. But even writing such a sentence makes me deeply uncomfortable. I'm just a fanboy who wrote fanboyish stuff because it was fun, and posted it at CBn because I thought the members here would overlook its myriad crappy features and mine it for the Bondian good stuff – much as we do with our least favourite Bond films.

Fleming enjoyed the success of his novels and the early films. I'm sure he would have loved the global reach of 007, although he might have raised a Moore-ish eyebrow at some of the films. However, as a man who craved literary approval and had to settle for commercial success, I'm absolutely sure that he would have been deeply touched by the enthusiasm and dedication shown by the staff who maintain websites about James Bond and his inimitable world.

He would have been no less fond of people whose love of Bond prompts them to write lengthy posts about pale imitations of his stories – as long as they bought his latest 007 adventure.

I wrote To Whom It May Condemn because Fleming has given me so much fun. It seems that I have somehow, through a glass darkly, passed that fun to you. That's the biggest (and most unexpected) compliment I could possibly receive. Thank you again for taking the time to write about my crappy fanfic.

(I would have loved to bore you with a much longer post, more in keeping with the effort you made in reviewing TWIMC, and discuss the points you raised, but I'm under the weather at the moment. Should you need further boredom, please ask a question or gird your loins and read Lazenby880's grilling of yours truly, at the end of which you'll be sick of the word TWIMC.)

Oh, and one more thing:

Finding a newly metalled stretch of the Dover Road prompted Bond to shake the dust off his newly refurbished Bentley. The nodding heads of Kent's oast houses watched the gunmetal grey "Locomotive", as he and no-one else called it, hurtle towards the tumbling stacks of cotton wool hovering over the horizon. He closed his left eye and wondered how on earth Tommy Armour had managed to win a U.S. Open after losing the sight in his left eye courtesy of a mustard gas attack during the Great War. The lack of depth perception was most disconcerting. Bond opened his eye just in time to judge the oncoming bend. He'd need both eyes open when meeting his contact in Stuttgart. Trident was currently paying taxes in Germany, though that could mean anything in these days of jet travel. And was he still consorting with models from the salons of Vionnet and Mainbocher?

Bond eased back into third at the sight of temporary traffic lights changing from green to amber, then thought of something Armour had written and decided to gun through the narrow lane created by a row of traffic cones. He caught the irate shout of a workman holding a "Stop/Go" lollipop and grinned at the apple orchards flashing by on either side of the road. He'd be in good time to catch the Calais ferry. He might even be able to visit a bookshop and pick up a copy of Armour's How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time. It was full of pithy advice, some of which he might give to Trident, if necessary. Should his contact demand more than the agreed fee it might be, "There's no such thing as a break on a two-foot putt." But if things got difficult he might resort to: "The longer you delay the hit, the more power you can apply whacking the hell out of it with the right hand."

[Trident]

Finding a newly metalled stretch of the Dover Road prompted Bond to shake the dust off his newly refurbished Bentley. The nodding heads of Kent's oast houses watched the gunmetal grey "Locomotive", as he and no-one else called it, hurtle towards the tumbling stacks of cotton wool hovering over the horizon. He closed his left eye and wondered how on earth Tommy Armour had managed to win a U.S. Open after losing the sight in his left eye courtesy of a mustard gas attack during the Great War. The lack of depth perception was most disconcerting. Bond opened his eye just in time to judge the oncoming bend. He'd need both eyes open when meeting his contact in Stuttgart. Trident was currently paying taxes in Germany, though that could mean anything in these days of jet travel. And was he still consorting with models from the salons of Vionnet and Mainbocher?

Bond eased back into third at the sight of temporary traffic lights changing from green to amber, then thought of something Armour had written and decided to gun through the narrow lane created by a row of traffic cones. He caught the irate shout of a workman holding a "Stop/Go" lollipop and grinned at the apple orchards flashing by on either side of the road. He'd be in good time to catch the Calais ferry. He might even be able to visit a bookshop and pick up a copy of Armour's How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time. It was full of pithy advice, some of which he might give to Trident, if necessary. Should his contact demand more than the agreed fee it might be, "There's no such thing as a break on a two-foot putt." But if things got difficult he might resort to: "The longer you delay the hit, the more power you can apply whacking the hell out of it with the right hand."

LOL! Hilarious!