If you'd be so kind as to bear with me as I engage in a bit of holiday fluff, your reward will be a glimpse into one of the more ridiculous corners of my mind. Sometimes—perhaps often—I think about things that have no obvious value and make no recognizable contribution to the betterment of life on our planet. One recurring theme in this pursuit puts me in the hypothetical position of God. Or the most famous movie mogul of all time. Or a highly sought-after record producer.

But what does all this empty brain work accomplish, you rightfully ask? I'll tell you. It results in such things as the list you are about to encounter. A list of pairings, in this case, that should happen, or should have happened. Perhaps would have happened in a slightly more agreeable world.

So allow me to walk you through a handful of idle fantasies. This one's for anybody who's ever read fiction when reality might have been a better instructor, who's cried over the fates of on-screen characters while ignoring the needs of his neighbor, and favored the music of men over the symphonies of nature. We are the heretics, and our suffering will be legendary, even in hell.

Let us begin.

Clive Barker and Matthew Barney:
Since I've flagrantly stolen the "suffering will be legendary" line from Mr. Barker already, I might as well start with him ... and the equally strange Matthew Barney. What might these two flares of creativity collaborate on? Hard to say. Could be some kind of multi-media art piece. Maybe a film. Probably some combination of the two (scored by Björk, of course). Whatever the medium, it would probably lobotomize its audience. This isn't ordinarily the outcome I seek from art, but in this case I think I'd be willing to take my chances.

Boris Karloff and Bette Davis:
Maybe this wouldn't have worked as well as it does in my imagination, but what an experiment it would have been to roll these two like a pair of dice onto the same film set and call for action. It could have been kind of a who's-the-actual-bad-guy storyline, along the lines of Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Oh, the possibilities. Those voices! Those faces!

Stephen King and David Lynch:
Sticking to cinematic pairings for a moment longer, how about these two? I remember King saying something about wanting to work with Lynch many years ago. I wonder what the hell happened. Doesn't he get everything he wants? He should. Maybe he didn't want it badly enough. But could you imagine King's brand of middle-America half brains running amok in one of Lynch's idealized yet horrifying universes? I say bring it on!

David Lee Roth and Nuno Bettencourt:
Can't figure out why this one didn't happen during Gary Cherone's stint with Van Halen. A David Lee Roth album featuring Nuno on guitar would have been the perfect answer to Van Halen III. Roth had an impressive lead-guitarist pattern going for a while: Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Jason Becker ... Why not Nuno? It was the logical next step, dammit!

Yngwie Malmsteen and Ronnie James Dio:
Well, it doesn't take a neurosurgeon to puzzle out why this musical marriage has yet to transpire. Dio would unleash the fury of Malmsteen, and Yngwie would liberate Dio's dragons. The recording studio would become the scene of a cataclysmic battle between arrogance and conceit. But if they managed to lay down a record's worth of tracks, it would all be worth it. My advice to Dio would be to let go of the musical reins so that Malmsteen could work his magic. Yngwie I would counsel to leave Dio alone to stir the lyrical cauldron. Abracadabra!

I trust you either get the picture by now or gave up several paragraphs ago, so I'll stop. But don't think it means you've seen the last of me. As long as there are answers in need of questioning, I'll keep coming back for more. While there's the possibility of truth at the bottom of the sea of complacency, I'll continue to dive for it. If there's more to my wandering than foot sores and breathlessness, may some of it be found here, within the walls of the Prison.

I've been reading A Christmas Carol every holiday season for a number of years, and of course I've seen most of the film versions. The good ones capture some of the charm of the original tale. A couple even convince you that the Scrooges of the world might not be beyond reclamation. But there's one aspect of Dickens's great tale that only comes through in bits and pieces in the adaptations: It is a tale of terror.

So why not shoot it like one? We'll never have the likes of George C. Scott's Scrooge again, or Albert Finney's. But by god, we should be able to do a better job of casting the role than giving it to Patrick Stewart and Kelsey Grammer! There, that's a start.

Then, for the love of the holiday's namesake, shoot it like a horror film. I've got the perfect director in mind, too: Stuart Gordon. If he loves the story (I have no idea whether he does, but who doesn't?) and could dig into the same childlike admiration for the strange that he conjured so skillfully in Dolls, the results could be amazing. And there are other so-called horror directors who could tackle the project. Most of them probably worked alongside Gordon on the too-short-lived Masters of Horror series. Wouldn't A Christmas Carol have been a daring episode for that program! Though granted, "A Madman's Manuscript" might have been the better choice of Dickens material for Masters.

Or maybe you insist that someone from yonder side of the pond would be a more apt choice for our film. Fine. Let's bring in Mike Leigh. No complaints from yours truly.

But what about casting, you press? I don't know. Anton Lesser couldn't be a bad choice for Scrooge. And though no one is likely to give us a better Bob Cratchit than the inimitable David Warner, why not make David Thewlis an offer? Okay, this thing is taking shape now. Maybe we can bill it as Thewlis and Leigh, together again.

Now for some things that have yet to be done right and really need to get knocked out of the park in our hypothetical horror-film version of the Carol:

1. Jacob Marley. He's the only proper ghost in this story (the others are spirits of indefinite origin). There's no excuse for making him cute or daffy. He scares the pajamas off Scrooge; he should probably at least make us shudder and wince.

2. You think you can write better dialogue than Charles Dickens? You're wrong. Cut it from the book and paste it into your script, thank you. Also, can we please get all the action and character relationships right? No mucking about with the essentials of the story. Dig?

3. The children named Ignorance and Want. These wretched urchins, whom the Spirit of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge from beneath the folds of his robe, need to make for the most horrifying vision in the entire film. Maybe when you put this thing on as a play for your high school drama class, smudging some fake dirt on their cheeks will suffice, but not in our film. These two need to be so repulsive we wish we were watching The Exorcist.

4. The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come does not need to be as difficult to look at as the aforementioned children, since his face is shrouded from view anyway. But he needs to be terrifying, maybe a little Charon-like. No ridiculous wooden fingers poking out of black drapery. And this is not the time to spare expense by casting the key grip. Hire a proper actor with an appropriately imposing build. Kane Hodder, for instance!

I suppose all of this is just a long-winded way of saying we can't expect any movie version of the Carol to sound the same rich human chords of the actual story. Anyone who has a favorite movie version but has never sat down with the staves of Dickens owes themselves the treat. It's like having a friend at your side, guiding you through a difficult time because he knows the outcome to be satisfactory. But be prepared to plumb the range of human sorrow and regret. Be prepared for a journey whose breadth and scope belie the slender size of the volume. And above all, be prepared to see yourself on every page.

As old CD himself remarks in the inscription to the Carol, "May it haunt [your] house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."

A good friend recently asked me a perfectly reasonable question. Why do I merely link to the magazines and anthologies in which my fiction appears, as opposed to offering up some stories online, maybe even a chapter from my unpublished novel? Little did he know what a kettle of carp he'd pried the lid from. There is an answer of course, but it's not a simple one. Actually, there are several.

First, I don't believe people read fiction with the same intensity on a computer screen that they do on a page. Also, many editors consider a work to be previously published if it's been posted to the Web. These editors usually have little or no interest in publishing reprints. So that's a simple explanation for why nothing previously unpublished appears on my site.

Plus, I've worked really hard to get into print, and the editors of print magazines and anthologies work really hard to bring them to their readers. I think the process is worth a few shekels and a little effort. Also, I subscribe to the radical notion that writers ought to get paid for their work. Granted, it puts people like me in a tough spot. I don't submit to non-paying markets, and I don't submit to online-only markets, so it narrows my options. But I'm okay with that for now. This is my rationale for not posting any of my fiction that's currently available in print form.

Which leaves only the out-of-print stuff to be considered. So far, that only amounts to one or two of my stories, so I see no burning need to address the issue. Maybe "defunct" stories will one day appear on my site. Who knows? It's a possibility. Maybe I'll even dream up an excuse for the existence of this blog.

But let's return to the notion of posting previously unpublished fiction for free. There's much to be said for the editing process, it seems to me. I realize I'm swimming upstream on this as well, but there's way too much unedited verbiage floating around online and getting self-published. Editors are a vital part of the whole process, it seems to me, if you don't just want to be read but read at your best. I've seen what a good editor can do with work that's already strong, and it's pretty impressive. I know, not all editors are created equal, and not everything that gets published deserves to be, but these are age-old problems that need not complicate the current discussion.

Honestly, a lot of this probably comes down to the prestige that comes with flaunting print-publication credits instead of just throwing words directly onto a Web site. I mean, quite a few things have to fall into place for a story to travel from the chambers of one's mind to the pages of a print magazine that someone holds in their hands and reads. Someone has to decide that your story is worth investing financial and natural resources in. Wow! Maybe it was never meant to be easy. Generations that grow up reading from screens will be more sympathetic to electronic forms of publishing. We're seeing that already. But I grew up reading books and magazines, and that's how I still read all my fiction and poetry—unless I'm trying to remind myself of a specific line of verse or something. My love of books and magazines plays a major role in motivating me to want to publish. There's just something about a bound volume. You know it's true. (When's the last time you smelled an e-book, huh?)

So, there you have some of the reasons I don't make any of my fiction freely available on this site. The blog will have to stand in its place. Even this is a break for me, philosophically. I've written film reviews, articles, and news pieces for the sibling sites Filmfodder and Fearfodder over the years, but even there my contributions are overseen by an editor. I've always enjoyed knowing that he could swoop down at any time—though he never does, bless him—to suggest fixes for my posts. I like that he has (loose) rules, and that he gives people a forum for writing about things they care about. Here I can make as much of a fool of myself as I like, but there's no protective arm around my shoulder, either. I'm warming to the freedom, but I approach such paradigm shifts with caution.

I digress. My friend went on to suggest that I try writing fiction specifically for my Web site, that such work might fall into an entirely different category than fiction I submit to paying markets. His concern appeared to be that my site doesn't show enough of who I am as a writer. A thoughtful response, to be sure. But my question back to him was this: Why should there be a difference between the two types of fiction he proposes—unless that difference lies in the quality of the fiction one puts on a personal Web site versus the quality of the fiction one submits to legitimate markets? It's like Arianna Huffington admitting to Jon Stewart recently on the Daily Show that blogs should be written much faster than other writing, that blogs should in fact be more like first drafts than finished products. Poppycock!

Well, This might have been the end of the exchange between my friend and me, but he then posed an even more tantalizing question. How do I reconcile all the free music on my Web site with my stinginess regarding the fiction?

Oh, my.

Though some obvious comparisons can be made between putting music online and putting fiction online, there are also significant differences. Music stands apart from the other arts, I think. It's like the brooding kid on the playground. You can't quite tell if he's trouble or just weird, but he's clearly not one of the pack. Music makes editors of us all, if you will. You need no special training to judge it, but judge it you will. You are either moved to turn it off within seconds of hearing it, or moved to some degree of elation. But moved you are, because you become attentive immediately to the sounds that are often only remotely human, if at all.

Yes, music can be massaged by a producer, the way fiction is massaged by an editor. And I was fortunate to work with two such folks on all of the recordings so far posted to my site. Unlike the fiction I list, the music isn't available anywhere else, and I don't see any clear path to an alternate reality on that front. So I've posted it here. I want people to be able to hear what I've had to say through music over the years. Would I rather have had a record deal? No doubt. But so far that door hasn't opened for me. I'm probably not even in the right building.

To be incredibly broad for a moment, I think fiction is less accessible than music. Not everyone tries their hand at it the way they do with music. How many people own guitars but can barely choke out three chords, for instance? Storytelling is as important to us as music, but it's not as immediate. It demands more work from the recipient at the outset. Most of us can listen to a complicated symphony and get some enjoyment from it. But you can't just look at or listen to a novel. (No, listening to the audiobook is not the same as reading the book.)

So, abandon all hope, ye who have read this far. Your reward is slender, I fear (maybe an editor would have come in handy). But know that I'm out here thinking these thoughts, tempering reason with madness. For if I don't strive to justify what goes on within these walls, who in the hell will?

Till next time, y'all.

Fiction writers are a superstitious lot, it's been noted. We all have our little peculiarities, our habits. Things have to be just a certain way or else the writing process cannot take place. For Thad Beaumont, nothing less than a Black Beauty pencil would do (though I'm not sure we want to make him our model). And I understand Jim Lehrer can't lay down the first sentence of one of his novels without being clad in S&M gear. Okay, I made that up, but just try to rid yourself of the image. Go ahead, try.

I find these rituals interesting. Not only because I have my own idiosyncrasies to compare against those of other writers, but also because I think they point to larger aspects of sitting down to write fiction. We copiously devour books devoted to the craft of writing, especially those written or edited by writers we admire. But how many of us ever steadfastly apply the techniques and bits of advice proffered in such volumes? Oh, some do, I have no doubt. But is that the real purpose of such how-to books? Do their authors really want or expect readers to adopt their work habits in minute detail?

I think not. I suspect that the reason such books remain instructive and continue to sell is that the best of them plant seeds that grow into a unique set of good habits for the most perceptive readers. I could never work the way Dean Koontz does, for instance, but there's value in knowing how he works, because it obviously works very well for him. To the best of my memory, he rewrites as he goes, tooling and re-tooling a page until it's done, then moving on to the next one. No second draft is required by the time he reaches the end. I think only a certain type of mind can write that way. I seem to recall that Robert McCammon does something similar. Is it worth noting that both writers have published in very similar genres? Probably not, but posing the question makes me feel perceptive, like I may be on to something. The important thing here is that knowing how careful such writers are at the sentence level makes me more conscientious in my own word-smithing, though I may never pursue their exact methods in cobbling together a work of fiction, or in mixing metaphors.

Me, I write all my first drafts in longhand, which I feel gives me a closer connection to the creative process than working on a machine cluttered with all sorts of distractions. A handwritten first draft also allows for a fairly painless second draft to emerge in the process of typing it up, so that's useful.

Still, why should you give a rip about anything I have to say on this topic? I've so far published a handful of short stories, and I've written only one novel, which has yet to be taken through its final draft, let alone sold. Well, allow me to remind you that every library in the country can open a window onto the suggestions of thoughtful and experienced professionals. What I offer you here is the childish raving of a comparative neophyte. I'm here to bring balance to the more reasoned opinions of others. And there will be more of these little bull sessions. I promise.

Please, do check back.

My name is Pete, and I'm a special-features addict. But I also have a few bones to pick. For one thing, commentary tracks need to be banned. Seriously. There are only two possibilities here. One, the commentary is so illuminating that it threatens to mar the mystery of the very film it proudly expounds upon (Mike Leigh's commentary track for Naked falls into this category). Or two, it quickly dissolves into pointless navel gazing (there are too many worthy examples to narrow this one down, but commentary by film scholars and the like is always deserving of a pass).

So, that's the rule. Here are a couple of exceptions. William Friedkin's commentary for The French Connection is amazing, not only for his astute observations of his own work, but also for the trivia that pours out of him as though he made the film yesterday instead of decades ago. For comedy, Steven Soderbergh's interview with himself throughout the entire commentary track of Schizopolis ranks about as high as they come.

But here's why the commentary track is my least favorite of all special features. Films are already less personal and absorbing than, say, books. To this day the medium struggles (and most often fails) to be as relevant as written fiction. Well, no amount of literary criticism is going to detract from the power of Dickens's David Copperfield or Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. But to have someone gab incessantly over the images of a motion picture is, at worst, to cheapen the film. At best, it's like having a critic at your elbow while you're trying to read A Christmas Carol. Either way, it's an intrusion.

Of course, you don't have to turn on the commentary track. And you can always turn it off if it annoys you. But is the world so lacking in noise and creative output that we can't do without these insidious time killers in the first place? People, think how many more movies you'll be able to watch in your lifetime if you never bother with another commentary track as long as you live. Think of the time you'll free up for family, sport, leisure! Surely our pods and palms and cells and laptops are capable of draining enough of our life force. Do we really need the added opiate of the commentary track? Come on.

Blogs, on the other hand ... Never a waste of your time. Not this one anyway.

As Kathleen Wilhoite famously remarked in Witchboard, TTFN.