For those of us who didn’t manage to submit something for their “pitch us a Fifth Doctor done-in-one audio drama” thing recently (I had a cracking idea for a claustrophobic thriller, until Julian pointed out that it was basically The Rescue underwater), Big Finish have offered yet another call out to frustrated writers. It’s The Return of Short Trips!

Big Finish are proud to announce a new series of short-story collections starring the Doctor and his companions. Each CD will feature eight brand-new adventures, read by  well-known actors and written by…

… you?

Submissions please!

Exciting stuff. The story needs to be under 2,500 words, can use “any of the first eight Doctors… any of the classic television companions (up to and including Ace) and any of the Big Finish companions”, and needs to be submitted by 29th March. Which isn’t a whole lot of time to write a full story (as opposed to a simple story pitch), but on the other hand, it is only 2500 words. I’ve managed 7% of that just by writing up this blog post.

Hey, I wonder if they’d like a story about an annoying fan of a sci-fi show writing pithy blog updates? It could be Whizz-Kid! Whizz-Kid’s Adventures in the Blogosphere! It’s easy, this writing lark.

Den of Geek have taken time out from writing some things with ascending numbers next to them to interview Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes creator Matthew Graham.  This is what he say:

“I’d love to come back. I went to see Piers Wenger and Steven Moffat last year about doing a two-parter for the series that they’re shooting now. And I contacted them and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea for a Doctor Who. Can I talk to you?’ And they were, ‘Yeah, yeah. Brilliant.’ And I just couldn’t make the time work, with going to the States and Ashes gearing up again. But I’d love to go back and do some more.

I want to do one with monsters. They owe me monsters!”