Went from my last place to the beginning of "Shelob's Lair," and despite Faramir being a sweetie, there's only one thing that needs to be said about this entire section of the story:

Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in ( Read more... )

These two reading sessions covered, uhhh... from "The Uruk-hai" chapter, where the Merry-Pippin-Ents narrative starts, to somewhat into book four, in the middle of the Dead Marshes. I'll probably read more later, but right now my back would appreciate a break from sitting. We managed to fit in a trip down to SoCal and back this weekend - that's ( Read more... )

Didn't get to do any reading today because of the backache from hell, which was probably caused by all the reading I did yesterday, as I was determined to get to Lorien before giving up for the night. When will I learn? It's a good thing I'm not trying to do a thorough commentary, though, because I just know that the minute Saruman comes on- ( Read more... )

This is my third reading of Lord of the Rings, I think. The first time was just after high school, so about... let's not say how many years ago, shall we? The second time was in 2006 for the class "Lord of the Rings as Epic," in which there was a lot of essay writing and many geektastic in-class discussions about which character deserved the ( Read more... )

While I hate to disappoint, this isn't going to be image porn of awesome notebooks. I figured I'd get that warning out of the way right up front. Not that a post like that wouldn't be the best thing ever and probably about as useful as anything else I write here. It's just, you know: bad lighting right now, and I need the instant gratification ( Read more... )

That is, I'm wondering if there is a difference. And I believe the answer is 'yes,' but you also can't copyright ideas, as they say, and it's perfectly possible for two writers on opposite sides of the country, who have no connection to each other, to send the same kind of story to the same magazine. So where do you draw the line between using ( Read more... )

There's this bit of advice I've been thinking about. I can't remember where I found it or heard it; could've been in a conversation with my husband, in one of the many books on writing I clamp down and read when I'm feeling rudderless-- who knows. But it goes like this:

Ask yourself what you write; not what you want to write, or what you think ( Read more... )

A little while ago, mark_asphodel wrote up her fanfic tier list for the Kaga-era FE games (1-5), and said something about Minerva that made me think. Bolding is mine:

"Minerva. A very clear character with some bizarre inconsistencies under the surface. Deceptively easy, in light of FE11. Rather difficult in light of FE3. Maybe fans, including me, want her to ( Read more... )

Reading led to writing, for me. After reading stories I wanted to write my own. The most obvious consequence of this was fan fiction; whenever I like something enough, I want to write about it, and if what I like happens to be someone else's story, that's my (mis)fortune. I mentioned in the last entry that I used to write blatant ripoffs when I ( Read more... )

This is a weird, sort of embarrassing post. I almost never show my outlines or story notes because they're an awful mess. Also, the ideas I start with aren't often the ones I end up putting on paper, even in my crappier stories; whatever you see in print on the fic journal was preceded by a more cliche/hackneyed idea that even I couldn't stand to ( Read more... )