Omigod!! My Muse has returned!!!
*Once more Aearwen pokes her head out of the sands of lurkerdom*
Evidently a conference at the local Theosophical community of Halcyon was what my writing muse needed to really kick it into gear. After being completely deluged with musical obligations - from piano/organ duets to giving a talk on "Harmony and Spirit" to being the accompanist for a musical review program (which included two pieces of Joplin ragtime played by yours truly) thrown together at the last minute because the play being prepared was woefully behind schedule. Thank the Universe the musical review we had done in August, and we were able to mostly remember what we did and how we did it well enough to be presentable. However, the four-day conference gave me a much-needed respite from all things writing and Internet-related.
Although, to be honest, I'd been writing already - just not in the LOTR fandom...
For the last couple of weeks, I've been dipping my toes into the Doctor Who fandom, up to and including beginning to post a multi-chapter piece that's been brewing at the back of my head for a while. For those not familiar with that fandom, the "main" fandom-specific archive is known as A Teaspoon And An Open Mind, and that's where I've posted the first three chapters of my story.
However, comma...
The conference seems to have re-awakened my LOTR Muse, and she is once more willing to work with me on trying to finish I Dhaerlend Dadui, which is the keystone novel of an entire series of drabbles, stories and other novels that are already written and posted. I have so many novel-length WIPs for LOTR that are in varying stages of completion, that I'm honestly grateful to be back working in a much more familiar landscape.
My Dr. Who addiction, I will readily admit, is limited to what the fandom considers "Nu-Who" - or the three Doctors that comprise the stories broadcast from 2005 onwards. I blame my daughter Squeek for getting me hooked. She came down from OR to visit last September and brought me episodes to watch - and made me watch the one that really caught my attention on how to play with time in a "Timey-Wimey" manner.
Some of the issues of LOTR that fascinate me the most are also present in DW: the contrasting lifestyles and mores of immortals vs. mortals being the biggest and most important to me. My LOTR stories have always focused on a cross-cultural contact between immortals and mortals, so I guess the moment I realized that was a big part of DW too, I was hooked. It also doesn't hurt that I'm an afficianada of soundtrack music, as I believe it to be the way in which classical music is still present in our modern-day world, and Murray Gold has written some spectacular music to go with the new television series.
With the return of my LOTR Muse, however, I'm hoping that my 10/Donna story for DW doesn't end up languishing. I'll admit that a good deal of my trepidation in writing in that fandom is that I'm NOT British. My language usage and spelling betray me as a Yank with very little study, and I'm still learning some of the slang. Believe it or not, I find trying to evoke a British accent in my writing a more daunting task than working with both Quenya and Sindarin Elvish. I can fake the latter two, but not the first one.
Anyway, the sum and substance of this is that my Lizard Council friends will hopefully have something new to chew on from me after nearly six months of silence. And those who have read my DW story at Whofic will hopefully not be left hanging for too very long.
Now, all I need to do is organize my time so I can keep up my piano practicing too - with perhaps a little harp along the way? That isn't too much to hope for, is it?
Evidently a conference at the local Theosophical community of Halcyon was what my writing muse needed to really kick it into gear. After being completely deluged with musical obligations - from piano/organ duets to giving a talk on "Harmony and Spirit" to being the accompanist for a musical review program (which included two pieces of Joplin ragtime played by yours truly) thrown together at the last minute because the play being prepared was woefully behind schedule. Thank the Universe the musical review we had done in August, and we were able to mostly remember what we did and how we did it well enough to be presentable. However, the four-day conference gave me a much-needed respite from all things writing and Internet-related.
Although, to be honest, I'd been writing already - just not in the LOTR fandom...
For the last couple of weeks, I've been dipping my toes into the Doctor Who fandom, up to and including beginning to post a multi-chapter piece that's been brewing at the back of my head for a while. For those not familiar with that fandom, the "main" fandom-specific archive is known as A Teaspoon And An Open Mind, and that's where I've posted the first three chapters of my story.
However, comma...
The conference seems to have re-awakened my LOTR Muse, and she is once more willing to work with me on trying to finish I Dhaerlend Dadui, which is the keystone novel of an entire series of drabbles, stories and other novels that are already written and posted. I have so many novel-length WIPs for LOTR that are in varying stages of completion, that I'm honestly grateful to be back working in a much more familiar landscape.
My Dr. Who addiction, I will readily admit, is limited to what the fandom considers "Nu-Who" - or the three Doctors that comprise the stories broadcast from 2005 onwards. I blame my daughter Squeek for getting me hooked. She came down from OR to visit last September and brought me episodes to watch - and made me watch the one that really caught my attention on how to play with time in a "Timey-Wimey" manner.
Some of the issues of LOTR that fascinate me the most are also present in DW: the contrasting lifestyles and mores of immortals vs. mortals being the biggest and most important to me. My LOTR stories have always focused on a cross-cultural contact between immortals and mortals, so I guess the moment I realized that was a big part of DW too, I was hooked. It also doesn't hurt that I'm an afficianada of soundtrack music, as I believe it to be the way in which classical music is still present in our modern-day world, and Murray Gold has written some spectacular music to go with the new television series.
With the return of my LOTR Muse, however, I'm hoping that my 10/Donna story for DW doesn't end up languishing. I'll admit that a good deal of my trepidation in writing in that fandom is that I'm NOT British. My language usage and spelling betray me as a Yank with very little study, and I'm still learning some of the slang. Believe it or not, I find trying to evoke a British accent in my writing a more daunting task than working with both Quenya and Sindarin Elvish. I can fake the latter two, but not the first one.
Anyway, the sum and substance of this is that my Lizard Council friends will hopefully have something new to chew on from me after nearly six months of silence. And those who have read my DW story at Whofic will hopefully not be left hanging for too very long.
Now, all I need to do is organize my time so I can keep up my piano practicing too - with perhaps a little harp along the way? That isn't too much to hope for, is it?