A/N: Hi all! This is something I've thought vaguely about doing for awhile. I think most of us who write probably take an interest in seeing how our fellow authors do it, or getting glimpses of the unfinished stuff that was part of the process. My own writing process tends to involve a whole lot of reconceptualizing and rewriting, which at the end of the day usually leaves me with five to six discarded scenes for every one that makes the final cut. Often there's a lot about these scenes I really like, but for some reason or other they just weren't working in the bigger picture. So, with a certain amount of embarrassment, I present to you The Chopping Block. It's intended to be a sort of home for those irregular bits and pieces that won't make it into any of my completed works, but which might be of interest if you've enjoyed them. What goes up here will not be polished to a high shine (hence the embarrassment, but this is probably good for my perfectionist streak), and the posts will be irregular, whenever I find something that I feel deserves a slightly better fate than consignment to the excerpts folder on my laptop. :)

Up first is an alternate take on a portion of Chapter 13 of Meet the Skywalkers, in which Vader suffers a medical emergency due to shock from seeing his mother's journal. The finished scene is written from Piett's POV. I had gone through probably a dozen rewrites, revisions, and nitpicky edits on the chapter, but I felt that the conversation between Vader and Piett in the second half wasn't quite working. I decided to try writing the critical scene of the chapter from Vader's POV instead. Doing that gave me the grasp I had been looking for on the heart of the scene, and what had been a frankly boring conversation about repentance, love, etc became a much more natural exchange of family stories. So the moral of the story is, many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view ;)

From Meet The Skywalkers: Chapter 13, Alternate POV

He stared at the battered old recorder for an endless age. He felt that he was on the rim of a black gap in the floor which might turn out to be a patch of mismatched paint, or a chasm plunging directly to a hell he'd never climb out of. Terror, or hope—he couldn't tell them apart any longer—held him frozen at the very edge, thumb hovering over the activation key. So long as he didn't—so long as he didn't he could tell himself it was of no consequence, wasn't from her, probably didn't even work, certainly wasn't worth his time…

But his conscience, poor beaten-down thing that it was, struggled to its feet, and it had Leia's voice, Leia's eyes. You promised. You promised to accept whatever I gave you.

He had expected death, disgrace, humiliation, contempt…not this.

Whatever I gave you.

He pressed the activation key.

It was the worst and best thing that had happened to him since Endor.

His mother, young—she looked so young—and whole, was frowning at the pickup and muttering to herself just the way he still did when trying to unravel some thorny glitch in a prosthetic. "…this thing is still not working."

Her voice, her face—something was wrong with them, they didn't look or sound the way he remembered—why—he felt a sick panic inside—had he forgotten? Had he failed her, all these years, in something so simple as remembering what she'd been like—

"What are you doing, woman? I told you to clean my shop. Memory chips, you clean at home."

The image jumped away from his mother—Watto, and he didn't look right either—colors wrong, voice wrong, though that suspicious scowl was exactly correct—what was wrong—

"Where did you get this? Is it yours?"

"I bought it with my memory-chip earnings. I thought—"

"Maybe I should sell it for disobeying me, eh?" The image rolled like a podracer crash; Watto was turning the journal over, examining it like he did every piece of junk he'd called merchandise. "But it's not worth much, I think. Back to work, or I will."

The image winked out.

That couldn't—that couldn't be all! It wasn't enough—it wasn't nearly enough—

Text flashed up: ENTRY 2. Hope and terror sprang back to life, and then she was there again. No Watto, no junk shop—just her wrong-colored face and the stars behind her in glorious array, with that maddening reddish cast the mask always—

The mask.

It was the work of half an instant and no thought to rip it off. His wrecked retinas couldn't focus except at point-blank range, so he held the recorder close to his face, so close it was nearly like having her with him. There was no red filter now, no tinny, distant cast to her voice.

"You might enjoy something to remember Watto by, so I left that as entry one. He's not so bad, as masters go, and I do believe there are times when he truly misses your mischief…"

He closed his burning eyes and wished to gods he could cry for her. He had not forgotten. He had changed so that he barely knew himself, but he had not forgotten.

"Ani, this diary is for you. I know you'll be gone a long time, and that you'll be very lonely at times. So will I. This diary is so that when you come home someday, you'll know you were always in my heart. But your destiny lies in the stars. You will achieve great things in the galaxy, Anakin. I have known that from the moment you were born…"

Something, distantly, was burning and screaming. It might be his lungs or an alarm on the suit or both. He could not be bothered to find out. He wanted nothing at all but to listen to her voice, to be with her, whatever got him there. He pressed the repeat key on the recorder to start Entry 2 over again—and again—and again. His knees went out from under him awkwardly and he crashed to the deck, but he hadn't lost his hold on the recorder and that was all he cared about.