Fine fannish friends,

I used to claim -- rather arrogantly, I might add -- that my aim in writing fanfiction was to paint on Sorkin's canvas, and I could dodge any curve ball he threw my way. I figured there were only two things he could do that he could do that would render my Turningverse series irrevocably alternate-universe: one, bring Sam's ex-fiancée Lisa, who had only been mentioned once in a single episode, on as a character (since I'd already created my own version of her who played a pretty unique role in Sam's life), or two, start dealing with the subtext between Josh and Sam overtly, as a part of the storyline.

On January 1st, 2002, I woke up with a hangover, stumbled to the computer, and read the spoilers for the upcoming episode "100,000 Airplanes." On State of the Union night, they read, Sam is being trailed by a magazine reporter (Traylor Howard) who has a history with Sam-- they were once engaged. Happy New Year, Jae, and welcome to AU-land. After spending a couple of weeks grumbling about how if he was going to render me AU anyway, at least he could have done the *other* thing, the episode finally aired. And there she was, in living color, Sorkin's very own Lisa.

I figured I had three choices after that. The first one would have been to just throw in the towel and decide to stop writing Turningverse stories at all. I considered that for about five minutes before rejecting it on the grounds that ... well, I'm having too much fun! The second would have been to quit trying to conform to canon and just send the Turningverse stories off into complete AU territory, but that really wasn't what I wanted, either. So that left me with the third option, to sidestep into AU-land and explore what the episode would have been like with my Lisa, and then continue writing canon-based stories afterward. I wrote a silly parable parodying my intentions after that decision was made, and then a few months later, after finishing "The Decay of Lying," I wrote "Hymns to the Earth and the Air." It's a Turning-universe retelling of the events of "100,000 Airplanes," keeping the overall plot and character arcs as close as possible to those of the original episode, while at the same time replacing Sorkin's Lisa with my own and dealing with all of the changes that necessarily result from that.

Since I was already writing an AU, I also took a few very minor liberties with the episode that I don't usually let myself take. I moved the polling on the night of the State of the Union to the West Wing, and I had Leo be the one who calls everybody in to talk about Bartlet's cancer cure announcement instead of Toby, both for timing reasons. I also fixed the editing problems in one of the scenes in the office with Toby and Sam, because I didn't relish the idea of making Toby eat paper or conjuring himself some popcorn. (Although Luna offers up a fascinating explanation that involves a stint for Toby at Hogwarts, I didn't think that would quite fit into the Turningverse.)

It's not the best story I've ever written, and it's certainly by far (and by design!) the most unoriginal. But it is pretty much how the events of "100,000 Airplanes" would have gone if the person hanging around the West Wing on the night of the State of the Union had been my Lisa Seppala, and it's the story I knew needed to be told before I could go back to painting on Sorkin's canvas.

I tell you, though, if Sorkin decides to run with the *other* thing he could do that would send me off into AU-land, all bets are off.

Jae