Writer's Block

I don't really know how it happened. I'm actually quite embarrassed that it happened at all – I have an ingrained distaste for such cheap literary devices, myself, and it is mortifying to admit that it happened to me at all, much less by accident, but there it is. The truth of the matter is this: sometime last night, as I lay tossing and turning in the throes of insomnia, I fell into my own imaginary realm.

Yes, just like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. Only worse, because lately my private fantasy realm has been somebody else's, technically speaking. All this fanfic writing seems to have hardwired my creative impulses in a single direction, mired them firmly in a galaxy far, far away. So when I fell into my own imagination, I landed in a Star Wars story. One I hadn't quite written yet. Just half-formed images and inchoate plot bunnies, literary flotsam.

How did I know? That was easy. One minute, I was lying in my own bed, covers all twisted round me, finally drifting off into elusive sleep…feeling floaty, detached…drifting off….and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in somebody else's bed. Waking up in somebody else's bed with no recollection how you got there is awkward at the best of times. Waking up in somebody else's bed in the Jedi Temple with no recollection how you got there is beyond awkward.

I froze, eyes frantically raking over the all too familiar surroundings. When I say spartan appointments in a story, I'm apparently understating the case. There was nothing in the room except a really hard, flat mattress and some pale, pre-dawn light filtering through a slatted window. Oh, and a lightsaber tucked under the pillow. I could feel it through the ridiculously thin fabric or foam or whatever they use to stuff pillows on Coruscant. Needless to say, I didn't touch it.

I was just cautiously sitting up and racking my brains for any faint shadow of a notion what to do next , when I heard it. In the next room – just through a narrow doorway- I could make out two sounds: running water, and somebody singing. The steady spattering drizzle of hot water on tile is something you can easily recognize, even in another galaxy. It's an everyday, run of the millnoise. That voice, on the other hand…damn. Let me tell you, that man has a beautiful voice.

Who knew? Even Jedi sing in the shower.

I realized that this was my chance to get the heck out before the regular occupant of these quarters discovered the unexpected trespasser on his privacy. I dashed for the door. There was a blinking control panel set in the wall. I touched it. I fiddled with it. I pushed on it. Nothing happened. With a lurch I realized that the thing could only be manipulated with the Force.

"Kriff," I said. Only that's not what I said, but I'm translating here to keep it clean.

And of course, that's the moment when the Jedi chose to come sauntering out of the 'fresher. I spun guiltily on the spot, only to be greeted by the image of Obi Wan Kenobi wearing nothing but a towel – one sagging just low enough on his hips to be completely, mind-numbingly distracting. I forgot to avert my gaze.

I am not normally at a loss for words. But in that moment, I could only stutter and grasp at the tattered shreds of vocabulary, at the fragmented scraps of intelligent speech littering my stunned mind. The only halting words that formed a coherent phrase in my mind were ones I borrowed from Shmi Skywalker, in a completely different context: Now my life is complete.

That's about all I had time to think, though, because a half-second later the lightsaber had flown across the room into his outstretched hand, and I found myself looking down about a meter's worth of humming open-arc plasma blade. Now, I truly enjoy writing about lightsabers: you know, thinking up florid poetical metaphors for the way the weapons blaze and thrum and cleave through the air, etc etc; but let me tell you, a lightsaber up close and personal is just plain scary poodoo.

"Sith witch."

Yep. That's what he called me. If I squeaked in indignation, it was drowned out in the saber's persistent growling hum. Sith witch, can you believe it? Of course, having watched most the current season of the Clone Wars, I can understand why he might be feeling a little edgy. You can't really blame the poor guy. But insulting a complete stranger, for crying out loud. There are limits even to my admiration.

"I am not a Sith!" I cried out, taking a page from Richard Nixon. "I am an author!"

Have you ever had one of those lucid dreams in which you suddenly realize – without waking up – that you are inside your own imagination and have some modicum of control? My own angry words had that effect on me. I'm an author, I thought. This is my imagination. I can handle this. I decided, using my authorial prerogative, that the door behind me would conveniently open and that I would roll backward over the threshold, just as the panel slammed shut again and conveniently jammed in place.

It worked. And there I was, sprawled inelegantly on my backside in some anonymous corridor in the Jedi Temple. I was just scrambling to my feet and rubbing my bruised posterior when a terrific spitting noise jolted my attention back to the door. The blue saber blade was protruding straight through the metal, and melting a nice red-hot trail down its length. I'm a fan, so I knew what came next. I hightailed it out of there.

Breathe. Think. Use the Force, I admonished myself. Come on, you're the author. Find a way out of this mess. Well, what would Star Wars be without ventilation shafts? They always pop up at the most convenient times and places. So I conjured one up directly overhead.

Which was a mistake. It's a good thing I've been working my rear off at the gym lately – otherwise I don't think I ever would have been able to shimmy and grunt and strain and heave myself up into that opening. But adrenaline and desperation made up for what I lack in physical skill, and at last I found myself safely ensconced in the labyrinthine tunnels of the air ducts. All I could think was, thank the stars! I'm safe from Obi Wan.

I know. Strange thought. I was beginning for the first time in my life to have a little sympathy for Asaaj Ventress.

So now that the initial adrenaline rush was wearing off, I was thrown back on my own wits. And let's face it, I'm no Jedi Knight. I'm an academic. And what people like me do when we're in a fix is this: we go to the library and do research. Well, actually, we stop by the coffee cart first, add an extra shot leave room for cream, but I had a bad feeling that there was no espresso to be found in the Temple precincts so I skipped that part and went straight to the Archives.

Once within the hallowed and quiet sanctuary of learning I felt a little better. And somebody had left his or her cloak carelessly draped over a chair, so I borrowed it to conceal my glaringly anachronistic loungewear. Faded yoga pants and a T-shirt that says "Han Shot First" would not help me blend in around here. The cloak was long enough to drag on the floor, concealing my bare feet, too, so that was an extra bonus. I wondered to whom it belonged, and now that I think about it, I'll bet you ten bucks it was Obi Wan's. In case you haven't noticed, he is always dropping his cloak all over the place and never picking it up. If any housemates of mine did that with their clothing, there would be hell to pay.

Anyhow, a library is a library even in the GFFA. I quickly divined that these people didn't use the Library of Congress filing conventions, but the database was very user friendly and fast, and the voice-responsive feature enabled me to bypass my ignorance of the Aurebesh writing system. Millenia of wisdom, gathered under this one roof. It was like Alexandria had never burned. I was getting heady, giddy with it. And then it all came crashing down around my head. This huge repository of knowledge had absolutely nothing of relevance to me.

A gnarled hand settled on my shoulder. "May I be of assistance, my dear?"

Holy chisszk. Jocasta Nu, in the flesh. I looked up at her lined face, her sparkling way-too-intelligent-for-her-own-good eyes, her incredibly tight bun of white hair with that fantastic chopstick thingy stuck through it like a Sith impaled by a lightsaber, and I stammered out some polite refusal or another.

"Now, now," she chided me. "I can feel your distress. Perhaps I can be of help."

My own grandmother – you know, original Rosie the Riveter material – could not have been more insistent. So I swallowed and started improvising. Well, okay. Plagiarizing. "Um…yes," I said. "I 'm looking for a particular planet, called Earth. Or even California would be good. Or Los Angeles. But I can't seem to find any record of their existence in the Archives. Is there any chance that the records have been tampered with?"

Jocasta leaned over my shoulder and stared at the datascreen intently for a few moments., then she gave me a soft, pitying look, as though I were a brain damaged crecheling. "I'm sorry," she sniffed. "But if it's not in our records, then it doesn't exist." And off she huffed.

Right then I was feeling pretty glum. In a nicer imaginary realm, like OZ, all I would have had to do was click my heels together three times and say," There's no place like home." But I knew darn well that I was not in Kansas anymore, much less Califormia. This was not OZ. This was a galaxy where people get their home planet blown up right in front of their faces, even if the aforesaid world is inhabited by a peaceful people who have no weapons. Panic was beginning to claw inside my belly. I needed a way out.

And I needed a cup of coffee. I can't think straight without the stuff. In a pinch, I'll settle for really strong tea, Earl Grey or bitter Oolong or something like that. And Qui Gon Jinn is always chugging down tea in the Jedi Apprentice books. I know, questionably canonical, but tea is universal. It's archetypal. There had to be some here, somewhere. My focus narrowed to this one thing: caffeine fixation. And since focus determines reality, it wasn't long before I heard a young female voice declare – in a very cultured accent – that she needed some tea and would see her companion later.

And then Barriss Offee came trotting out of the stacks and headed for the main exit. Barriss has pretty nice taste in clothing. I groove her hippie-style belt, almost as much as Luminara's double criss-cross version. Those Merindian girls know how to work Jedi robes to their advantage. Jocasta Nu always looks fantastic in her embroidered tabards, too. And Shaak Ti is gorgeous, any way you look at her. But my reflections on the sartorial superiority of these admirable ladies were suddenly brought to a crashing halt by the appearance of Barriss' friend, who slipped out of the same aisle and headed for the exit.

"Ahsoka!" I exclaimed.

Oops. She turned and looked at me with those huge, manga-illustrator-gone-Sithly eyes, definitely looking guilty, like somebody who has not turned in her term paper and is wildly fabricating a lame excuse. I realized that the hood was still up over my face, so I dropped it and offered her my most sisterly smile. I'm not quite old enough to be her mother, I'd like to think, so we'll settle for sisterly. That's pure gold, even in the GFFA. We of the fair sex have to stick together. Especially when Obi Wan Kenobi is trying to kill one of us.

As soon as she realized I wasn't one of her professors or whatever, we were BFF's or close enough to it. "Hi," she said shyly.

I like Ahsoka. I feel slightly maternal toward her –I mean, sisterly. And when you care about somebody, you give them real honesty. "Ahsoka, " I told her. "You look sad. Burdened. What's wrong?"

Everybody knows that all Jedi teenagers are emotionally repressed. They are just longing for somebody to give them an ear, some judgment free listening time and some real-world advice. I don't know how we know this; it is simply established fact. Ahsoka is no exception, and for stars' sake the closest thing she has to a mentor is Anakin Skywalker. Don't get me started. Plo Koon must not have been in the Temple at that point in time, because she looked as though she was fairly ready to explode with hormally induced melodrama.

"Nobody respects me," she lamented. "I'm a failure. Master says not to care what anyone thinks, but everyone respects him."

I rolled my eyes. "Honey, listen. You can start by respecting yourself. For one thing, you can ditch those sleazy leggings and the mini, and get some real robes. Like Luminara. Or Shaak Ti."

She blinked as though this notion had never before occurred to her. "But … but…I think Lux likes this outfit. I was wearing it when we met."

Now I needed caffeine more than ever. I thought I was in the GFFA, not some tween romangst flick. I looked over my shoulder, half expecting the werewolves and vampires to come hurtling from behind a pillar or between the stacks. What I wouldn't have given for a lightsaber, then. But blessedly, no such undead apparitions violated the solemnity of the Archives.

"Look, Ahsoka. I need your help, woman to woman. I need a cup of caff and a speeder."

She grinned and gave those montrals a sassy swing. "I can handle that," she said, and the next minute I was following my Togruta guide through the Temple's rambling halls like I was born and bred to it. Pretty good authorial negotiating, eh? Well, don't congratulate me yet – my troubles were far from over.

We were passing along an upper level concourse, the one that overlooks that big central hall – you know what I mean, it's all strewn with slain younglings when Yoda and Obi Wan go back into the sacked Temple in RotS - when I heard Mace Windu's gorgeous deep voice rumbling down below. I kept the hood well up, believe me. And over the balcony railing I could see the Korun Jedi talking to Yoda, who is even smaller than he looks on TV, and a few other Jedi, and you-know-who. By which I mean Obi Wan, who by this point in time had managed to get dressed except I thought his hair looked a bit mussed up still, which would have been incredibly yumm-o! if he weren't out to kill me.

"We must scour the Temple for this intruder," Mace was saying. Yeah, just like that, I'm an intruder. I'm the author, damn it to the nine Corelian hells!. "She could be after the holocron vault, just like last time."

Ahsoka and I were almost out of sight. I was fairly certain that my hammering heart could be heard even down there in the lower level.

"I don't think so," Obi Wan said. "I sensed a more…personal…interest."

"Revenge," Yoda piped up, in that reedy, rasping voice of his. "Escape she must not. Find her you must, Obi Wan."

"Yes, master."

I've never been more relieved to get to a coffee cart in my life. They do have one – it's an enormous machine outside the refectory, and words fail me. These people have hyperdrives and a communication system that can instantaneously project holographic images across a whole galaxy, so you know something like an espresso machine is child's play to them. It talked too, rather like C3PO, which was annoying, but I didn't care at that point. I ordered a triple Rodiano no whip.

No sooner had the first hot swallow drizzled down my parched throat than I felt emboldened. This is what a Jedi feels like when he draws his strength from the Force. It's like that first sip of coffee, every time. It has to be. "Let's go," I told my adolescent guide, and off we went , straight to the nearest hangar bay.

Things got complicated there. The Temple's hangar bay looks like a premium car dealership during its Fall Madness Sales Event. Gleaming speeders and small starcraft are lined up in neat rows, fueling lines and magnetic anchors and the widgets and gadgets that move them out of docking onto the launch pad line the ceiling and the decks, droids are rolling around underfoot…I was a bit dizzy. "Do they have anything with an automatic transmission?" I whispered to Ahsoka. I never learned to drive a stick shift. But that wasn't the main problem. Right in front of us was a starfighter, and right under the starfighter were a pair of legs and a huge pile of tech parts and a toolkit.

I had no idea what any of those parts or tools were called – I can't even find my way around a pedestrian terrestrial Jiffy-Lube station – but I recognized the boots, and started to back up. Right after Obi Wan, the last person I wanted to run into right now was his former Padawan.

"Master!" Ahsoka peeped.

"I'm busy, Snips," Anakin growled from beneath the chassis. Ahsoka isn't the only repressed one in the Temple. Judging by his tone of voice and the fact that he was disassembling this elaborate piece of engineering, I guessed that Padme wasn't on-planet at that time, either. You would think that people who have enough medical savvy to replace an entire lower body with prosthetics – like Darth Maul – could do something about human hormonal exigencies. But what do I know? I started to tiptoe toward a likely looking vehicle, a little red and white number with a nice winged flame paint job on the hood, something I thought I might be able to pilot without crashing. I hoped it had a coffee-cup holder inside the cockpit. Ahsoka winked at me. She would distract Skyguy, I would make a getaway. Good girl. Did I mention that I actually like her?

"Have you heard the news, master? There's an intruder in the Temple."

"Again?" He sounds bored. "…Well, I'm sure Obi Wan can handle it. Now that he's on the Council, and omniscient and omnipotent."

Ooooh. Jealous. I might have misjudged his motives for taking apart the starfighter. I made a mental note to write a story about Anakin's envious reaction to his mentor's promotion, and slipped into the pilot's seat of my chosen vehicle. It didn't have a cup-holder so I tossed back the rest of my Rodiano in one gulp and gripped the controls.

It took a little more than authorial ingenuity to navigate Coruscant's air traffic. I have to admit that if I hadn't cut my teeth on the nightmarish Los Angeles freeway system, and then honed my deadly skills in San Francisco for all those years during grad school, I would never have survived. But road rage is road rage, no matter where you are, and I channeled the Dark Side just a little in order to make it to my destination intact, or at least with only a few scratches. Anakin would have been proud. Obi Wan would have been snarking and screaming at me. The thought was cheering.

Speaking of the Dark Side, you are probably wondering where I went. I'm hesitant to tell you, but I guess this narrative won't really go anywhere unless I do. So let me preface that revelation by explaining my thought processes. 1) I am an author, but I had somehow ended up entangled in my own imaginary realm. 2) I needed advice from a peer, someone who would understand what it feels like to be caught in a tale of your own weaving. 3) The mysterious Sith lord manipulating all the events behind the scenes etc. pretty much sounded like the closest thing to an author inside this universe, so that made him my professional colleague, personal feelings notwithstanding. 4) Palpatine also has no love for Obi Wan, who was at that moment bent on killing me, and I needed some help in that department too. So please don't gasp in horror when I confess that I went to see the Supreme Chancellor.

His office is creepy posh, like the house of somebody who only keeps their furniture and artwork for show and doesn't really live in it. I had to wait in the antechamber for about a zillion hours, pretending to be a very reserved and venerable Jedi master. The robes really helped with that. The rest is just body language and staying out of the way. There were some nice protocol droids who provided me with another cup of caff, and I got to meet a few important people, though I couldn't say much without blowing my cover. Bail Organa is a nice guy, very amiable and principled. It's too bad he gets blown up on Alderaan in Episode IV. Orn Fre Ta is just disgusting. Mon Mothma has a great sense of style, and I think at that point in time her hair was naturally red – she must have been dying it in the Original Trilogy, but I figure if you stick to your natural color that's nobody's business. Padme did not look pregnant yet, so we weren't at the end of the war quite. There were other people too but it would be tedious to go into detail. Finally, finally, when that second cup of caff was wearing off, I was ushered in to meet with the man himself.

I decided not to play coy. He is the Dark Lord of the Sith after all, and I doubted my flimsy disguise would fool him. So I merely sat down in one of his comfy chairs and crossed my legs. "Good afternoon, Supreme Chancellor," I drawled.

"You are no Jedi," he sneered back at me, "But you speak with the arrogance of one."

I raised an eyebrow. "I am an author, and you would do well to remember that there is a lovely thing called AU." He's not stupid, so he knew what I meant by that. Up until that moment, I had never written any AU. But I had dallied with the notion, if you know what I mean. Before that time I had always thought it would be nice if Obi Wan could cut off Palpatine's arms and legs and leave him burning on the molten shores of Mustafar. Now, of course, I was having second thoughts about Obi Wan and that lightsaber of his, but Palps didn't need to know that.

To my surprise, the threat had no effect. He chuckled a little, his pale watery blue eyes sparkling, and he offered me that same avuncular smile that Anakin always falls for. "You are no author, either," he said in a silky voice. "You are just one of those fanfic snivelers." He sighed. "Alas, you have no real power. You did not make up this world, and it is much, much larger than your feeble mind can comprehend. It takes a million or so of you to sustain the popular demand, and even then the people are always clamoring for more. No, my dear, I do not think you have anything to boast about."

That's when I had the disconcerting realization that I wasn't talking to a figment of my own imagination, not exactly.

"I am an archetype, my hoity-toity young pupil. You have no idea what I am capable of." His eyes looked like burning coals, embers from the edge of a hellish bonfire.

"I'm not your pupil!" I barked.

"But you are. You want my knowledge, don't you?"

Have you ever felt sick to your stomach from too much coffee? I think that's what hit me right then, but I'm not sure. "What are you talking about?" My knees hit the floor.

He grinned, and he has never looked so terrifying. "You want to go home. I know how this may be accomplished."

"Can I learn this art?" I begged.

"Not from a Jedi," he smiled down at me, where I was melting into his crimson hued carpet, a puddle of dread and longing. I couldn't believe that I was about to make a pact with the Prince of Darkness, just to get home. But it was the only way. There wasn't another choice.

"Rise Darth Ruthless. You know what must be done. You will go to the Jedi Temple at once. We will catch him off guard. And when you have slain him, then I will share with you the power to Go Home."

So off I went, not exactly full of zeal for my new commission, but desperate to fulfill its terms, so that I could get back to reality and start in on that AU piece with a vengeance. I stopped by the protocol droid's desk on the way out and nipped another cup of java. Any day in which you have to face Obi Wan Kenobi in mortal combat is a day for three coffees at the very least. Darth Maul was abstemious and look what happened to him.

I don't remember much of the return journey. My entire mind was consumed by the knowledge of what would be waiting for me when I arrived. Because no matter what Palps said, I know my way around a basic plotline and we were getting down to the wire at this point, way overdue for the denouement and the classic end-of-the-story duel. There are rules in this universe, and at the end, it's always a one on one conflict of light vs darkness, preferably with lightsabers, and somebody is gonna lose an arm or worse. You can bet your podracer and your favorite slave boy on it.

I wasn't wrong, either. I had barely docked my lithe little speeder back in its assigned spot – pretty decent parallel parking skills for a newbie, I must say – when I noticed that I had a personal welcoming committee of one waiting for me on the decks. Great, I thought. We're having our ultimate showdown in a glorified garage. No stunning backdrop of fiery fountains for me. Just grease spots and dull durasteel. Nice.

Still, I managed to keep my chin up. I am an author. I decided not to tolerate this kind of treatment from a mere character. Even if it is Obi Wan. He already had his 'saber up in that Soresu opening stance, the one that looks like a weird kung fu –tai chi hybrid, the one that says I am going to carve you into tiny pieces with absolute passionless detachment and look good doing it. I completely lost my temper.

"Put that thing away!" I hollered.

"I don't think so." He is ridiculously attractive, by the way. Some people think he looks a lot like Ewan McGregor, but it's actually the other way around. I was having trouble thinking up snappy one liners to throw at him.

I fell back on the classics. "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can imagine," I warned him. Hoping it was true in some weird, mystical way.

"I will do what I must," he tossed back at me, cool as a cucumber or whatever bizarre blue vegetable plays that role in their universe.

"You underestimate my power," I shot back, advancing on him with every ounce of authorial potency I possess. I have injured, tortured, deprived, tormented, and driven this man to his limits time and time again. He has no idea what I am capable of. He has no idea what the next story might contain. I am the author!

"Don't try it," he begged me.

But I tried it anyway. And …well….yeah. He cut me in half. It really hurt. It hurt so badly that I lost cognizance of my surroundings, of anything but the sheer agonizing pain. I felt like I was falling down an endless shaft, like a melting pit in Theed, and I felt like I was thrashing around, twisting and groaning and …and… sort of tied up in a knot of blankets and sheets, back in my own bed.

My own bed! I have never been so glad to see my own humble, sloppy abode. I could have kissed my laptop computer, still sitting there on standby with a blank page all pulled up on the word processor screen. I pulled up my Han Shot First T shirt and marveled at the smooth skin. There wasn't even a scar. Bacta might be good, but a reality check is even better. I collapsed in a near-swoon of pure relief. And a little resentment. I mean, Obi Wan cut me in half, for Force's sake. He is out of control. More people need to know about this. About him and his neurotic habit of chopping people to bits on the slightest pretense.

And that's why I'm writing this piece now. To get the truth out there, raise consciousness, that sort of thing. The fact that today is April Fool's Day has absolutely nothing to do with it. At all. I swear it on my new podracer and my favorite slave boy.

FINIS