Not Necessarily the Way I Do It! The True Confessions of a Ka Faraq Gatri not just written for the money when trapped on a primitive planet and needing cash to buy parts

Not Necessarily the Way I Do It! The True Confessions of a Ka Faraq Gatri not just written for the money when trapped on a primitive planet and needing cash to buy parts, or simply Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!, was a book published by Boxwood Books in 300 AGB. It was written by the Doctor under the pseudonym Snail about their prior adventures and was, supposedly, not written for the sole purpose of obtaining enough money to buy parts with which to escape from a primitive planet.

Chapter 9 detailed a "sticky business" involving William Shakespeare, Kitty Marlowe and Psionovores from Neddy Kelley's old scrying glass while the Doctor recalled a fond encounter with Zodin in another section.

A later part gave an in-depth account of the Doctor and Shakespeare's "most awkward misadventure together" which the Doctor identified as the time their eighth incarnation introduced him to some of his own characters including Cressida, which happened to be the name adopted by the Doctor's former companion Vicki. The Doctor described how he, Charley and a young Shakespeare had encountered a local upon leaving the Ship who took them to his encampment where, to the Doctor's embarrassment, he found that Vicki and her husband Troilus were in charge. The Doctor realised that Shakespeare was due to write the play Troilus and Cressida in a few years and that unless he was careful this meeting would be what inspired it, thus complicating Shakespeare's history further by causing a paradox. He also became concerned that Vicki, who had previously seen the adult Shakespeare on the Time-Space Visualiser, would let slip information about his future if she realised the young boy's identity. The Doctor reasoned it was vital for the "tidiness of the timeline" that Shakespeare was prevented from learning about Troilus and Cressida's background, ideally in such a way that he forgot as much of their present as possible too. The Doctor was initially pleased that Vicki had not seemed to notice the anachronisms of their clothing or that he was her old friend but learned after sneaking a peek at her diary that he had underestimated her and that, not knowing of regeneration, believed him to be the younger self of his first incarnation and was trying to protect him from foreknowledge.

He, Charley and Shakespeare were invited to dinner that night, with the Doctor reviewing the experience unfavourably in their book, calling the taste of the wine "awful" and the food "not much better". Proceedings took a turn for the worse when half-way through the meal Vicki signalled for an attack to begin and lunged at his chest, tearing at his waistcoat. In fact, Vicki had planted her diary for the Doctor to read in order to conceal the fact that she believed him to be a Dalek double of the kind she had once encountered. Vicki and the other assailants eventually stood down, allowing the Doctor to explain that he was actually the same man Vicki had known while Charley was his latest companion and the boy was a young Shakespeare. As they reflected in the book, the Doctor decided in the end that "honesty was the best policy and that as long as everyone knew the full facts, and swore not to be influenced by them" then the hole in causality probably wouldn't show. The Doctor wrote that they looked like "a Charlie" after explaining their actions; Troilus and Cressida was not a story invented it by Shakespeare as Geoffrey Chaucer had told it years before and Cressida ended up with Diomede not Troilus, with the Doctor being forced to admit that he had never actually read the play.

Historiographic Speculator Anctloddoton cited excerpts from Not Necessarily the Way I Do It! in his essay A Suggestive Correlation of The Cressida Manuscripts with other Anomalous Texts of the Pre-Animarian Era as proposed for Collective Consideration. (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium ^[+]Loading...["Apocrypha Bipedium (short story)"])

Behind the scenes

It is never specified which incarnation of the Doctor it is who wrote Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!. They recall an adventure from the Eighth Doctor's travels with Charlotte Pollard.