Happy [Belated] Birthday, Tolkien!
I am a day late on my toast because, as circumstance would have it, I was busy at work yesterday and then busy in my free time finishing up the SWG newsletter. While evidence of my membership in the "deplorable cult" would likely not please Tolkien were he alive to know my reasons for being late, I wish him a happy belated birthday nonetheless,
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I had never heard of fan fiction, although I was a decades-long Tolkien geek, until after the movies. My friend Gandalf's Apprentice told me she was writing Tolkien fan fiction--OMG! I was lost! I read a mountain of the good, the bad, and the ugly over the next three months and was ready to write the epic Tolkien novel from my heretic's POV. (I still am! Hope springs eternal!)
I always assumed you had been reading Tolkien from childhood. I forced it down my kids' throats. They took it nicely and share my love. The PJ movies were an annual family event for us, as were the CDs if the extended versions when they came out. Alex is the third generation, starting with his mama reading him The Hobbit and now seeing The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey he calls it in a very self-important voice. So far he has only seen The Fellowship of the Ring of the LotR movies.
(I even shared an intense love of Tolkien with both of my ex-husbands--it was probably a deal breaker for me. Only sort of kidding.)
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I didn't grow up in a family of readers. My mom took me to the library each week, but I was sort of left adrift to find and try things on my own. I usually picked based on subject; I read anything with a horse in it, for example. Had I picked up TH or LotR as a book read for fun and not a schoolbook, then I probably would have gotten into them sooner. It took me until The Scarlet Letter in 11th grade to realize that one was allowed to enjoy the books one read in school! :) But there was no adult in my life either to even know who Tolkien was much less recommend his books to me.
My first forays in fan fiction, as a reader, were more inspired by my amazement that such a thing existed and, omg, it meant I could read more about the characters and that was so cool!!1! :) After a while, I became a little more critical and discerning, of course, but did read through everything I could find on ff.net first! :D I'd already written my Feanorian play and started "The Election Farce of Nargothrond," but I thought that was just a private indulgence, nothing that others got up to. AMC was my first piece once I was conscious of the existence of fan fiction, and that was a huge step to take for me, my first explicit rejection of the literary writing culture I'd been taught to embrace as an undergrad.
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