HERE WAS ONE OF MY FIXED POINTS

There were two guides given us to start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak, there could be no question at all. Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen.
"That was there when your Ritual was drawn up?" said I, as we drove past it.
"It was there at the Norman Conquest, in all probability," he answered. "It has a girth of 23 ft."
"Here was one of my fixed points secured."

As with many Sherlockians, I have an inordinate fondness for the Sherlock Holmes statement to Watson from "His Last Bow": "Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age." We know what Holmes means by this. Watson does not change (much), he can be predictable (most of the time), he can miss the point (not always), he can be trusted (always). Holmes depends on Watson to be that fixed point, and so do we; as Holmes said elsewhere, "You always keep us flat-footed on the ground."

Holmes also speaks of fixed points in "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual," meaning the patriarch oak of indeterminate age, and the "old elm" already taken to the ground by lightening.  I like the opening part of this fixed point identification because Holmes says, "There were two guides given us to start with..."

I was given two guides when I first joined in the Sherlockian world, one local (the patriarch oak) and, later, one distant (the old elm, struck down too soon). First, the oak: David Haugen, President-For-Life of the Sound of the Baskervilles. I first met David in 2007 when I ventured out to my first scion meeting. I knew nothing about being part of a Sherlockian society. 

He had been president of the SOBs for about twenty-five years at that point. He was (and is) a kind, compassionate, generous and dependable man. He taught me how to be a good member of a scion and he taught me a great deal about Holmes and Watson. His faithful leadership has kept the SOBs flat-footed on the ground for more than 40 years. 

In 2013, Don Libey, the founding "Buttons" of the John H Watson Society, came into my virtual life. Buttons was a gregarious, brilliant, funny and generous man. We became instant friends, emailing almost daily until his premature death in 2015--the old elm, struck down too soon.  Buttons gave me the encouragement I needed to step out of the comfort of my local group and to engage with other parts of the Sherlockian world. He taught me an appreciation for Sherlockian scholarship that I did not have prior to our friendship. The scholarship had been a distant thing that I vaguely knew existed. He taught me to seek it out and to apply it to my Sherlockian thinking. I still miss him very much.

I often think of him this time of year because the anniversary of his passing falls on March 15. Concern for my other guide weighs on my mind right now as well.  This past Sunday was the SOBs 43rd anniversary; it was the group's fourth in-person meeting since resuming in-person meetings this fall after an almost three-year hiatus. We were excited; we ordered celebratory cake. Sadly, David was not with us. He has been unwell. I can only hope he is able to return to us soon. David is, for me, an institution in my Sherlockian life, somewhat as Watson was for Holmes:

He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable.

The Sound of the Baskervilles is my home in the Sherlockian world, the existing fixed point representing the other more ethereal fixed points of my Sherlockiana: John H Watson, Sherlock Holmes, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I think of them as Caesar thought of himself (well, actually, as Shakespeare imagined Caesar thinking of himself):

But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.

Constant as the Northern Star. I like that. The word constant makes me think of what Stamford told Watson :

"You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,' he said; 'perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."

Oh, Stamford, trust me on this one: the constant companionship of Sherlock Holmes and his people is always in demand here.

  'WELL, WELL, WE HAVE MADE A BEGINNING.'

Yes, I've used a quote from "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" and an illustration from the opening of A Study in Scarlet, an odd mixture of time and temperament, but the two together seem to fit my thoughts today. Beginnings and combinations are on my mind. I've been working on a Sherlock Holmes pastiche for a week now.  Due to the story being set over a few days in March prior to the ill-fated trip to Switzerland, Watson's participation must be minimal if the mixture of time and temperament is to align closely enough with the beginning of "The Adventure of the Final Problem." 

The final problem for me, then, becomes how to tell the bulk of the story without Watson but still have Watson involved in some way. The Canon has two fine examples of this with "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" and "The Adventure of the 'Gloria Scott'" but I want Watson to have a little bite of the action, something he does not get in these two examples.

I decided to write the story backward. The story opens as Watson comes in at the very end of the case (at Holmes's request) to play a part in the exciting bit, and then we retire to Baker Street for Holmes to explain all that came before.  The exciting bit practically wrote itself. It works. But, the what-came-before explanation is proving to be a challenge. The old maxim of "show, don't tell" becomes very important to make this part work well and I would like to avoid a long stream of double quote marks.

Last night, as I sat at the desk without a clear direction for my story, I was thumbing pages in the Canon (looking for inspiration or, failing that, to be entertained) and I thought about something the wonderful Bob Katz said yesterday at the meeting of the Crew of the Barque Lone Star. He mentioned that when he prepares a story discussion, he always looks closely at the very beginning of the story because so much of what really matters can usually be found there. 

As it happened yesterday, the entire twenty minute discussion period for "The Adventure of the Three Students" focused on the very beginning of the story, and the discussion could probably have gone on for another twenty minutes. I found it fascinating how he separated out the opening elements of what is not generally considered to be a very interesting story and made those short paragraphs worthy of a lively discussion. 

I wondered if I could find unexpected treasure in the beginning of a story that I don't particularly care for. As I dislike "The Mazarin Stone" the most, I started there. In my memory, there was only thing of value in that entire story. Holmes tells Watson:

 "And you will, for you have never failed to play the game."

I love that line and keep it close to my heart. I wondered what else might be there in the immediate beginning that I have not given enough thought to or appreciated?

OK, maybe this: the part about being pleased to dine at "Seven-thirty, the day after tomorrow" is funny and memorable. (Although my memory somehow wants to put it with the "By Jove! my dear fellow, it is nearly nine, and the landlady babbled of green peas at seven-thirty" in 3STU.) 

The Watson-never-failing comes in at about the 1850 word mark. It is a little far out to be considered part of the very beginning of a 6280 word story. The pleased-to-dine charmer is at the beginning, only 240 or so words in. In between (about 520 words) we have the wonderful line from the "young but very wise and tactful page" about Sherlock Holmes: 

 "Mr. Holmes always knows what there is to know."

Even with these three lines, I still don't find much to be interested in. I don't think I could talk about the opening for twenty minutes. Once Holmes joins the conversation three paragraphs on from the page's clever remark, the story's down-hill trajectory picks up speed, aided by the stilted dialogue and ridiculous prank staging. 

Bob Katz could make something interesting of this opening. I don't think I can. Perhaps if the story had been narrated by Watson it might have been more readable. Maybe. On the bright side, I was reading the story within Klinger's "The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library," and the notes are well worth reading again even if the story itself is mostly unpalatable. 

The time was well spent even if it didn't result in any movement forward on the beginning of the end of my own story. Today I will read MUSG and GLOR again to study how Arthur Conan Doyle structured a flashback story, and I will read LAST again to study how he structured a good  story (as opposed to MAZA) without Watson or Holmes as narrator. 

Mostly this brings me back to a quote from Vincent Van Gogh that I always keep by my writing desk where I can see it:

"I keep making what I can't do yet in order to learn to be able to do it."