... and puts on a different pair.
yep, folcs, it was i.
did i fool you?
here's how i did it:
first of all, when i got the idea, i knew i'd need to set up an email address, both for boards registration and for proper interaction. i'd planned to use one of the comics-related domains available from [http://www.comicbookresources.com]comic book resources,[/url] but when i tried to set up an account, i found out that they're not accepting new registrations.
instead, i did a web search for free webmail companies and then looked through the available domain names. i found a few sites that had multiple domains to choose from, but settled on
my own email, which offered the starplace domain. i figured that was about as close as i was going to get to a star labs domain, since starlabs.com and similar addresses had already been registered.
once i had that set up, i tried to figure out how to hide my IP address, since i knew that would be the first thing people would look into. i remembered that there were free ISPs available for those who were willing to put up with an ad banner, but when i looked into them i discovered that a lot had changed. some had closed and most of the ones that are left now require at least a small fee. juno and netzero have merged, and now put a limit of 10 hours a month on free accounts. user reports also indicated that the free service wasn't reliable and that people who actually used the free accounts were quickly labeled "heavy users" and forced to log in during the middle of the night.
then i remembered that my father still has his AOL account. i've had to remove AOL from this computer, since it was causing all sorts of problems, but i have a working copy on my old computer. since i've been using earthlink (which, btw, is far more reliable than AOL) exclusively for the past several months, i figured that would throw the administrators off my trail.
then i realized that my writing style might be recognized. i decided the best way to change that (and to remember to write differently) would be to use UK spelling and grammar. i drew on my experience as a reader, GE, and BR to get that right (those arguments over "gotten" vs "got" and proper use of semicolons and suchlike came in handy) and loaded a UK dictionary in my spell-checker ("and why should the people listen to you?" "because, unlike some other clark kents, i can post with an english accent!" - clark kent, man in tights). unfortunately, the program i have with a UK spell-check only works on my new computer. so, to use it, i had to write on this computer, spell-check, save the file to a USB disk (can't seem to keep blank floppies handy...), boot up the other computer, switch modem cords, plug in the USB disk, etc.
i also made sure not to use some of my favorite words (like "anyway") and to rewrite anything that looked too much like any of my other idiosyncrasies. i feigned ignorance of more techie things like the quote function, the hyperlink function, graemlins, and chatspeak acronyms (such as "otoh" and "btw") and also wrote "FoLCs" as "FOLCs," figuring that would be a good rookie mistake. beyond that, i made sure to be meticulous about spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. i figure using capital letters and using spell-check made a big difference.
i did make a mistake in registering. first, i forgot to change my AIM privacy settings so that no one would see that i was online (instead, i just closed the buddy list. i'm still not sure if that did anything). second, i registered at 1am.
anyway, the night before my first post, i made sure to casually mention to at least a few folcs that i planned to be in NYC (and thus AFK) for most of the following day. i posted at 4pm, just before i left for the city. when i logged in to IRC that evening (using my brother-in-law's computer), i found people speculating about "altclark's" identity. i made sure to join in the conversation with a few vague suggestions ("canadians use UK english, too..."). nobody mentioned me as a possibility, which made me grin, but the admins knew that i was in the US, using AOL, and was on eastern time (they were actually speculating that someone from the UK was working with someone from the US). i noted that and made sure from then on to always post around 6-7pm on weekdays, when someone on EST could reasonably be expected to be home from a 9-5 job but when it also wasn't unreasonably late for someone in the UK (since there are many boards members who aren't on IRC, and thus didn't know that i was from the US). that's also a time when i'm not usually online.
so i kept posting, but replies were slower than i expected (even including the reply i posted as myself). so i posted the comments folder to check and see if people were actually reading and if it was worth all the trouble. see, i was spending most of my free time between posts trying to figure out things i could add, what i should say in the next response, and what else i might need or be missing.
comments poured in, which quickly boosted my confidence. but then i overheard some folcs on IRC talking about how bad it was that i had broken character. as i've said before, i don't blame them in the least. i understand where they were coming from, they were only speaking their minds, and they didn't even know i was there. still, it hit me pretty hard.
i left things alone for the rest of that day, and woke up ready to take another crack at it. that's when i found alt-lois's post. again, i don't think that she meant to hurt me (though i certainly wondered when i first saw the post). it probably felt worse than it otherwise would have coming so closely after the aforementioned "overheard" conversation.
i was on IRC when i saw it and i felt the need to talk it through. so i opened up a private window and confessed to wendy that i was altclark and that i was about ready to give up. she offered sympathy, we talked, and the conversation got me going again. i came up with the idea of bringing wells into the picture to explain that they were from different universes. i hadn't been working with wells and i still don't know what, if anything, he intends to do with the nick. i hope i haven't ruined any plans by pointing out his registration. must say again, though, that his posts were really amusing.
anyway, that night i ran into kathy on IRC. she'd just gotten back from a vacation and was catching up. i'd noticed that she'd posted feedback mentioning that she knew who one of the posters was. i was curious and asked if that was altclark. she told me it wasn't, and then asked if i knew. i confessed that i did, and of course she asked if i was going to tell her. i considered saying no, that i should keep the confidence, but decided against it. i'm just too much of a kathy fan.
her response was just what i needed... laughing and enthusiastic and just loving it. i soaked it all in and suddenly found that i was ready to have more fun with altclark than ever before. to do that, of course, i'd need to deal with the altlois situation. i thought about it a bit more and realized i could take care of the universe thing just by having clark not find the right things.
so i got back to plotting and having fun, and i even overheard a few good comments, mostly from saskia (thanks, sas!
).
then i woke up to find the second attempt to end the story. you already know what happened with that.
oh, except that i emailed andrus that night after the first andrus post failed to work. alicia and i were both on irc at the time. i watched her get it, listened to people talk about the ideas i'd given her ("he's really thought this through, hasn't he?"
), and helped her refine the post in chat. in the process she figured out that i was altclark. to my knowledge, she's the only one who figured it out.
then again, someone might have caught my mistake at the alt-kerths (btw, i always use the hyphen. clark never does). i was juggling a lot of windows, especially during clark's speech, and accidentally pasted the winner's name with the wrong nick. i panicked and logged clark out earlier than i'd meant. i think it could have been fun if he'd stayed. sorry to anyone i disappointed. otoh, we were a bit worried that altclark would distract too much from the ceremony.
so i guess that's about it. i started out knowing that lois was a private detective (going by either lola dane or linda king... i didn't choose until almost the end), that tempus was responsible for keeping her in the congo, that lex was dead, that clark had been forced to leave his job at the daily planet due to complications with people knowing ck=sm (that detail never made it into the story, btw. i hinted at it in my first post and in clark's profile, but no one asked), and that he was using a special star labs computer. the rest i made up as i went along, adding details as i needed them, thought them up, or worked off the replies.
sam lane's bioluminescent xmas trees were an idea i had several months ago. it just popped into my head, but i didn't have a sam lane story to go with it. so i kept it in the back of my mind that the next time i wrote sam into a story, that's what he'd be doing. i remembered just in time to work it into the story.
so, thanks again, everyone. i had a lot of fun, and i hope you did, too.
Paul
I'm glad you enjoyed the ending. I was a bit worried it would seem out of the blue. Thanks for letting me know it worked for you. Also, happy Father's Day. 
I spent half an hour just now scrolling through the file and removing chunks at a time, and I got through... um... about ten percent. 