h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What's up? Are you all right?

Yep, all good here. Thanks B'El.

Too difficult for me. May as well call it a retirement.

May the best (wo)man etc., etc.

Yes, it was incredibly difficult. I'm sure you'd have managed to come up with something, but 'something' probably wouldn't have been good enough for you.
I can't say that I know you, but I guess that you have set the standard for your own submissions to be high, so if you thought you couldn't meet your own requirements (let alone the Stretcher's), you decided not to submit anything at all.

Well, that's my impression of you anyway.

I'm very saddened to see you go - for me, the screenplay was a work of genius

I agree. It was my favourite of your submissions so far.

Thanks.

I spent more time trying to defend the indefensible than on any of the other stretches. But in the end I couldn't get anything on the page worth submitting.

In retrospect, I couldn't compete consistently with those who're left in the house anyway.

Oh, I don't agree there, but I guess you know best.

I see your Shell entry is on the FP. I don't think I've seen any of the others there yet.

This has been a long time in coming.

I tried to write about a court case which was won as I perceive against all expectations. There was a shooting which resulted in the death of a man. The shooter was trialled and I think unexpectedly found not-guilty.

As much as I tried, my fear was that the indefensible was never in fact indefensible, and moreover by definition was shown to be successfully defensible. Thereafter, I tried to look at it the other way, to defend the victim (of the shooting), as in hindight he was the adjudged to have been the antagonist (?), but I could find only bad press about him.

I wanted to paint him a better light - after all he had a life and was someone's son.

Now he's dead. But is he indefensible?

What would be indefensible would have been my efforts to condense such a serious matter to suit my own as well as The Stretcher's time constraints. Even if I could have cobbled together something 'compelling' for the reader, the loss as I saw it was not worth the gain.

Again, sorry to have been slow.

I'm just on my way out, I'll reply in more length later.
It's nice to hear from you anyway, even if it took two years or so.