Classes started again — which means waking up at 8:00AM again — which means a lot of coffee! I’ve rewritten these opening lines three times so far, which should tell you the current state of my writing. Still, that’s why I’m here. I’ve been fussing over a new project for the better part of a month now, and it’s finally time to breathe some life into it. It’s an idea that I’ve actually been kicking around for over a year, but I was so busy with The Names We Chose that I never really got to put the thought into it.

Recently, in the midst of Draft 2 of The Names We Chose, I realized that I needed a break from that. I felt like I was circling and circling the same parts of the story, having the same issues. I need some clarity on that, the kind of thing you can only get from space and time. So, it seems I have time to finally work on the piece that’s been stewing for so long!

So now I’ll announce it: coming soon to a blog near you (this very one), I’ll be doing a serial story. Every Tuesday, you’ll be able to come and read a new chapter in a (short) ongoing piece. It will be a sort of prequel to the book I’m currently working on. I have so many ideas for this new book, and a lot of things I want to express that happen before the initial events of the book. I’m hoping this will give me the chance to work out those ideas and see what comes from them.

I suppose you want a little more information on what this story is about. At least, I hope you do, because I’m really excited to tell this!

The serial is going to take you through four points of view. The four central characters to the new book. They are: The Minstrel, The Friend, The Brother, The Soldier. All of these pieces will reflect on one central event. The storming of an island known as Skhal; the men who went there (640 present and living at the time the first ship touched sand) and those who came back (Well — let’s leave that number for you to find out later). Skhal is a place of dark intrigue to these men. As often as men go, no one can ever be prepared for what they see in war for the first time.

At its heart, it’s the story of two brothers in a strange land and a strange war. It’s about a soldier who doesn’t respect himself, but has to trust his men when he’s forced to pick up the captain’s battered helm. It’s a story about the people who go to war and what changes them.

That could be said for the entirety of the book, but I hope that this upcoming serial will at least give you a glimpse into the kind of story I want to tell.

I’ll be starting this Tuesday (9/14) and I hope to see you all there!

I’ve moved in with my girlfriend since last I posted! A process which occupied most of my thoughts and time. Like they say, moving is never as easy as you think it might be — no, especially when you’re moving in the middle of the summer in Florida, i.e., “the swamp,” i.e., “hell.”

After back-breaking work, sweating like crazy and eating takeout for days on end, the move is over! The settling in process starts. It has been a crazy ride, and a fun one, but I think I’m finally settled in enough to get back to being around the great big ol’ Internet — oh, and writing. Writing is a thing that I do.

At the moment my mind is a little too muddled to process getting back into work on the novel. I’m trying to do it in stages. Opening the document every morning, going through a paragraph at a time and refining what I have until I’m ready to jump in and make massive additions again. It’s a process. You have to approach slowly so as to not spook the book! Or maybe that’s just an excuse because right now I feel that I simply can’t process working on a long, complex work.

Instead I’m back to editing and writing small stories and working on the Word of the Day again.

Oh, and still needing to hang things up in the new apartment.

But hey, I’m alive!

It’s been a while, wouldn’t you agree? How are you doing? I’ve been doing quite well, as busy as I’ve been. Spring break rolled into Draft 2, and I was lost in the work load between school and rewrites. I want to go into it in more detail, but for today, I want to get us back up to speed on the current topic in my head. Revisions.

I want to talk about the importance of revisions. I’ve often read that revising/editing and writing are two very different skills, and I think that’s an important thing to think about. I wrote Draft 1 of my book, and that was all well in good, but it was not really done. It was a rough thing. I knew what it could be, being the person who wrote it — I could see what was under all the dirt and grime. The problem is that most other people can’t see that, no matter how excited you may be for the project.

So, you have to go back to that dirty rock and polish it, work it, revise it. It’s a long process. I think it’s the part of writing where a lot of people give up.

I think many new writers put together a first draft and think that’s that, and if it stinks, well, they just weren’t cut out for it. If you’re such a writer, I want to urge you now to not quit! Take your time. Keep working it. Rome was not built in a day, and your favorite book was not written in one draft. As clever as you think your favorite author is, he or she is only so clever because they’ve spent countless hours reworking the same chapters and scenes until they are as good as you see them.

During NaNoWriMo, I read all of their motivational emails that were sent out. One particular adage stuck with me, and it was something like this: “You can revise a bad first draft into a great book, but you can’t revise a blank page into anything.”

Revising has become a process of writing that I’m very, very fond of. The initial writing is the groping in the dark, figuring out where things go, if you will (get your mind out of the gutter!) — the revisions are where you really start to bring light to what you’re trying to say. Cut out the fumbling passes, the awkward gestures, and get to the heart of the matter. What you came there to write. I’d like to walk through my process of drafts so far, to kind of show the way my own work changes over time.

Let’s start with a look at Draft 1. I warn you, it’s ugly. It’s a monster in the dark, afraid of the light still. Raw. For this example, we’ll be looking at the first paragraphs of Chapter 2:

CHAPTER TWO / DRAFT 1

“You could have killed him,” a voice said, floating somewhere in the sky.

“How was I to know that he was so sensitive to the arts?” Another voice that sounded familiar, though this one sounded no closer.

The boy felt himself coming back around to some semblance of consciousness.  He could hear the echoes of voices lingering around him, but couldn’t make out what was being said anymore. His legs and arms still felt numb, like a thousand feathers were dancing up and down his skin. He felt cold and alone, in that moment, and for all her tried he could not seem to open his eyes. As he fell back to sleep, he heard the voices coming clear again.

“You’re too brash, you need to be gentler,” the first voice spoke again.

“Oh, please, the last thing I need is to be gentler,” the familiar voice said, becoming hazy again. The voices thickened as if dipped in honey, and try as he might to hear, he lost his focus and fell into sleep once again.

Yowza. I can’t picture THAT winning any prizes, or getting me anywhere particular. It’s important to note that for Draft 2, I’ve done away with Draft 1. I wrote the whole thing, and now I’m rewriting it from scratch and memory of what happened in Draft 1. It was the only way I could distance myself enough from what I’d done before. I needed to do Draft 1 to figure out what happened, how things worked. I need to do Draft 2 to turn it into something more. So, let’s take a look at the second run at the start of Chapter 2.

CHAPTER TWO / DRAFT 2

“You could have killed him,” a voice said from the darkness.

“How was I to know? Maybe it would have been better that way.” The second voice sounded familiar, cool and distant as it was.

“No one is dying tonight. You’re too brash, you need to be gentler.”

“The last thing I need is to be gentle. I’m not some caged animal to be controlled, you’d do well to remember that.”

The voices were like ripples in a pool of water, spreading out in the black. The boy felt a swelling in the back of his head, and numbness in his lips. He heard himself groan out once, a long and low sound that seemed a thing separate from himself, and then even the darkness left him.

Okay, it’s getting better. The flow has been changed to something more readable, I got rid of some of the awkwardness and formality of the first. It’s still not quite right. I’ve sent it out to two beta readers (the full chapter, that is) — and it’s clear that it’s just not quite working. I wish I could post the whole chapter here so you could see the full extent of the revisions, and maybe I will at some point, but not today. Anyway. After getting opinions back on that chapter, I went back in.

I erased Chapter 2 as it was, and started from scratch again, in what I call Draft 2.5.

CHAPTER 2 / DRAFT 2.5

The darkness ebbed and rolled like the sea beneath him. He didn’t know where he was going, but he could sense the movement as he was carried away. In the shadows, he thought he saw himself, always just out of reach. He tried to grab hold of anything, but he found his fingers were wet and unwilling. He could swear that he cried out, but he never heard the sound.

Eventually, he lost himself in the darkness. Time, words, even thoughts had no meaning any longer. It may have been hours or days before he heard something again. It was faint, and he had to strain to make sense of it.

“You could have killed him.” The voice thrummed through the emptiness. He thought it faint and motherly, it was gone too soon.

“And maybe it would have been better had I just slit his throat rather than bring him back, Valdel. You will take him or I’ll do as much.” This voice peeled like thunder, it was familiar in a terrible way.

“No one is dying tonight. I will take him, I am only saying that you must be gentler.”

“After all that has happened, you ask for kindness. Leave me, and take that boy if you’ll have him.” The thunder snapped.

He wanted to cry out, to scream, but he could not find his voice. He thrashed in the darkness until he was too tired to move, and then he waited until the emptiness swallowed him.

There it is. It’s the most recent version of that segment in the book. It took a long time just to get that chapter to where I want it to be — and it’s still not done yet. It’s done enough for Draft 2. I’m sure once I finish this rewrite I’ll be going back and changing wording, deleting some things, but the bulk of it is at a place where I’m happy with it now.

The point I’m trying to make is that revisions are an amazing thing. Your initial writing may not be that technically great, but you’re saying something that you need to say. It’s important. The second draft is just as important. Finding the energy, the time, and the drive to do that second draft is important.

Don’t be discouraged by Draft number one! If our favorite authors did, we wouldn’t have any of the books that we cherish today — at least, not in the form that we love. Everything starts off in a similarly rough form. It’s getting everyone else to see what we’ve always known was there that’s the beauty of it.

I’ll be back for more talk, I’m sure, after I rewrite chapter 3.

I’ll see you guys then!

I’m working on a blog post about Voice in writing, still, but it’s not quite ready. I’m lacking free time between studying for midterms, trying to get some reading-for-fun in, being sick and working on my notes for Draft 2 of The Names We Chose. Life is nothing but busy! Anyway, you can expect my post on Voice by the end of the week. For now, it’s time for my much overdo post about the Lord of the Rings read-a-long.

Before we start, I want to talk about one or two things. First, thanks to Amalia over at her blog Good To Begin Well, Better To End Well. She so kindly gave me the Circle of Friends blog award! Her blog is really interesting — she’s got a book she’s querying with agents right now, and she so kindly let me read the first 53 pages of it (which were wonderful) — so, if you have any interest in myths, legends, tales, gods, anything and everything and good writing to boot, you should check out her blog! Thanks again, Amalia.

Next, I want to thank The Literary Omnivore for hosting the first leg of the Lord of the Rings read-a-long. It’s been a blast and she’s been an excellent host. She posts about a lot of great books, and I only wish that I had the time to comment there more often, but I do read her blog whenever it’s updated!

This blog post is about The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and as such it contains Spoilers.

The read-a-long for The Two Towers is being hosted over at Shelf Love, so many thanks there!

Now, without further ado, it’s time to talk about some hobbits (and men, elves and dwarves!) Let’s start with The Fellowship of the Ring and the questions posed to the bloggers by the Literary Omnivore.

Since we’re dealing with a third of a novel, instead of the first novel in a series, do you find anything different?

To start with, I think it would be very easy for most people to pick up The Fellowship of the Ring without ever having read The Hobbit — that’s not to say they wouldn’t be missing a lot, but I thought that was a nice thing to do for readers. Being the first part of a trilogy, the ending is obviously lacking complete closure. I think the fact that it’s part of a large work gives it more freedom to take its time. Tolkien certainly kept the cord of tension tight and worked at a great pace, but he also didn’t rush things when he didn’t have to. Being the first book in a trilogy afforded us the time to stop in Lothlorien, to really examine and see the world as we move through it. I was a little surprised by the words THE END at the end of my copy, instead of TO BE CONTINUED or something similar!

Do Books One and Two have significant differences to you?

Books one and two are very different creatures to me. The first half of The Fellowship is all about the group coming together. It’s very much a rock that starts rolling down a hill, gradually gathering snow until it turns into something massive. At the start, we have just a few little hobbits wandering in the woods, scared for their lives by the dark riders. It’s amazing to see the way in which new characters carefully work their way into the mix.

As for differences between book one and two, I feel there are quite a few. The tone in these book gets progressively darker and more mature as it goes, and that’s no exception between these books. I think Tolkien feels free to sort of pin-point more things in The Two Towers. He’s not afraid to separate the point of view from Frodo to Strider and the rest. He gives us a grander scope, and we get to step back and say: Hey, it’s really not just this evil concentrated on following Frodo about with the ring. There are terrible things going on all over the place. I see The Fellowship as getting an inkling of an idea, and Two Towers as a way of stepping back and seeing how grand the plan is.

Who’s your favorite character so far into the novel?

That’s so hard to say! Not having read the books in quite a while, I went in expecting to dislike Frodo.

I think some of this had to do with growing up. When I was younger, I don’t think I understood what Frodo’s problem was. Why was he always so moody, why was he always so overburdened. Reading it now, it’s crazy how visible the weight on Frodo’s shoulders are. One line struck me in particular, where I believe it’s Gandalf who mentions that the ring reveals itself to those who know its true purpose. When Bilbo had the ring, he just thought it was a neat trick and it never revealed itself to be more. The effects on him were slow to take, because of this — like a tiny trip from a faucet.

When Frodo wears the ring, he knows full well what it can do, and as such the weight on him is roughly 100x what it had ever been on Bilbo. You can feel the ring working at Frodo, wearing away the edges of him as he tries desperately to keep himself together long enough to do what he needs to. He’s truly a respectable hobbit. If you’d asked me when I was 12, I’d say that Bilbo was 10 times the hobbit that Frodo ever was. Now, I think Frodo truly came into his own, in my mind.

What surprised you the most?

How wonderful Pippin and Merry are! I knew that Sam would be wonderful, but I’d completely forgotten that Pippin and Merry were so great. They’re strong, intelligent (well, save maybe Pippin) and stalwart companions that you’d love to have in a pinch. I was also surprised with how much I sympathized with Boromir this time around. When Strider finds him and he admits to having tried to take the ring from Frodo — well, I just felt so bad for him. It’s not his fault! He was just one man trying to stand against the darkness and save the only home he ever knew. He didn’t really want the ring, but he was weak because of how much he wanted to be able to save his people. It was easy for him to be manipulated by the ring’s power, and in the end when the ring flew far away, Boromir was a broken and sad man, sitting with his broken horn. What a terribly sad scene.

What was your favorite scene?

Truly, I think it was the scene with Boromir that I just talked about.

If not that, then I have to say it was the flight through Mordor, and later on the scene in Lothlorien where Galadriel stands up for Gimli. There’s so much history in the words there, and in the descriptions of Mordor. You get a true sense that it was once a glorious place that’s fallen into ruin, and it’s a shining example of what Tolkien is trying to say is happening slowly all through Middle Earth. The drums are resounding deep in the earth, and they’re getting closer …

Now, let’s move on and talk about The Two Towers — with the questions that Shelf Love has so kindly provided.

Where are you in the trilogy right now? What do you think of the books so far?

I’m only a few chapters into The Two Towers right now, and I’m loving the books. I love the dynamics of the groups. They each have their own talents — and right now on their journey, they’ve been broken and battered but they still, somehow find a way to trust each other and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I love that they’re all such wonderfully realized characters. They have their problems, but they’re truly heroes. When their friends are kidnapped, they don’t hesitate in going after them, in doing the right thing. Sometimes I get tired of the new trend in Fantasy, that everything must be “gritty” and “realistic,” which tends to mean you have characters who are just ruthless bastards and never do anything truly respectable, or if they do they die shortly after.

I like the simple complexity of a good person standing up against all odds and carrying on.

What’s your past experience with The Two Towers? If you’re rereading, how does it stack up against the other two books?

I honestly remember The Two Towers even less than I remember The Fellowship. As such, it’s blowing away any preconceived notion I had of it. I’m loving it!

If you’re a first-time reader, what big questions do you have at this point? What are you hoping to see Tolkien deal with in The Two Towers? If you’re a rereader, what are you most looking forward to?

I’m most looking forward to Strider and co’s journey through these books. They really do come up to some seemingly insurmountable odds — and even though I know they’ll stand against them, somehow, some way, it’s still nerve wracking and I can’t wait to see it all realized.

What about the movie? If you’ve seen it, what did you think of it, and how much do you think it will color your experience with the book?

The only way the movies have truly been coloring my view, so far, is in the way I picture the characters in my head, now. The movies did a good job of giving me good images of what they might really look like — and in addition to that, a scope of what the landscape would be like. How many miles they travel, and what it really looks like around them. It’s true, there’s no greater scenery than the imagination, but it’s nice to have such breathtaking imagery as the movie provided to call back on.

All that said, I’m very much looking forward to continuing my reread! I’m working my way through it a little bit at a time, while also reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, two very different books! It acts as a nice balance between the two worlds, though, and I look forward to diving back into both when I have a moment of free time to breathe.

Instead, today, I want to talk about beginnings in books. The very first line! How much is decided right there. In bookstores, many people take a peek at the first chapter, and most importantly the first line. It’s the thing that catches my attention or leads me away. It’s the first impression of the story. While it’s possible for a great book to have a bad first line, when a good book has a good first line, it’s a real treat. So, let’s share those!

Here are some ones that I enjoy:

There once was a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.
- Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Later, when memory was all she had to sustain her, she would come to cherish it: Old Honolulu as it was then, as it would never be again.
- Alan Brennert, Moloka’i

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

This is no comprehensive list or anything of the sort, but they’re a few of the lines that came to mind when I went roaming through my bookshelf. I love the start of a great book. I’m sure you can tell by my small selection that I like the opening lines that tell a story, yet seem simple. They’re a brief glimpse into what we’re about to see.

I was thinking of all of this because I’d been thinking about my own first lines in stories. I came up with the first line I’d like to use in a book that’s been storming about in my mind for a while now, and so the whole idea has been on my mind. I’m not ready to share the line yet, but I’m eager to get started on the book while I wait to start Draft 2 of The Names We Chose.

For now, here’s a first line from a short story I’ve done:

Trouble followed Luck across the crowded dance floor.”

Or maybe this one:

No matter what city you live in, police stations all look the same.”

Or MAYBE even this one:

Dear Dictionary.com,

I love you,

Or I loved you once.”

So, if you’re out there reading this, tell me what your favorite starting line of a book is! Or maybe post one that you’ve written yourself. I’d love to hear it.

It’s a dark and stormy day out there, and I intend to make the best of it by writing until my fingers fall off! That’s the plan, anyway. First, I thought I’d come here because I had something I wanted to talk a bit about.

That thing is the writer’s worst enemy: Yourself, and your fear!

I’ve talked about fear a bit in the past, but it was mostly in a vague sense. Being afraid to start writing, or maybe being afraid of the size that a book was growing as you write it. Now I want to talk about something altogether different. The fear that you are not a good writer, will never be a good writer, and nothing you can do will change that.

It’s a trap! I mean, it’s a lie. It’s a lie and it’s a trap. I think I may have some useful, helpful tips to offer on this subject. At least I can go over the things that help me, and maybe they’ll help you, as well. I know that the writing doldrums, as they are, are something that almost every writer — or even every creative person must go through once in a while. If not weekly. It’s that time when it’s maybe a little bit late at night, you’ve had a long day, you just don’t feel like you’ve done anything good that day.

Before you know it, the feeling snowballs. You’re looking over your old work, going: “Why did I think this was good?” “What is this crap?” “This is all I’ve written?” — and before you know it, you’re sitting there thinking maybe it’s best that you turn your free time to other pursuits. This brings us to the first point.

1) Whatever you do, don’t stop!
You can take a break. Hell, step away from the computer or notepad. Go for a walk. Take a breather. But COME BACK in a few minutes, or an hour. We all have those times when our mind just switches and suddenly the work that we once loved, well, all we can see now are faults. That’s okay. It’s normal, it’s even natural, and it’s going to happen. You need to step away and get some space, then come back to it. There’s a very strong chance that you’ve just written something you aren’t pleased with and it’s shading your view of everything.

2) When you come back, write something else!
Giving up gets you nowhere. Nobody ever got better at writing by quitting halfway through. If you hit one of these points where you just don’t feel like you can do it anymore, my advise to you is to change your tactics. Look at what you’ve been writing, then do your very best to think of something completely different. It can be silly, or funny, or a strange and outlandish idea that’s just been sitting in the back of your head. Let your mind wander and come to a new place, then write about that place. The change in scenery will be of infinite help.

3) Talk to other writers.
They’ve been through this before. This is just a phase, and if you reach out to other writers — via forums, twitter, wherever, just having a place to vent can be very helpful. There’s a good chance that a writer you respect has gone through these same things and has nearly put down the pen (keyboard?) — how would you feel if they’d done that? Well, you’d be missing out on a lot.

4) Be Confident.
To go along with point 3, have some confidence in yourself. If you’ve started writing, there’s a very good chance that there are stories in you. There are stories that only you can tell, and no doubt there are people who’d like to hear them. Your favorite author became your favorite author because they met the dark nights head-on and, though I’m sure they struggled as any person would, they kept going. As a result, you’ve gotten some undoubtedly cherished and prized stories. Working through the knots in things like this are all part of the process, and you’ll become an even better writer if you keep going.

5) READ!
Hah. Okay, I know. This is a tip I mention any time I give out advise, and I have no doubt that I’ll keep putting this tip in any time I give advise. Feeling stuck? Feeling crappy? Take a small break, relax, and read something good. It’ll get your imagination stirring, it’ll get you feeling like there’s a treasure at the end after all. You just need to work for it, and sometimes, giving your mind the chance to relax and explore other words and worlds is all you need to do.

Plus, it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

Oh, and as a 6th tip, I might suggest …

6) SUBMIT YOUR WORK!
Do it. If you haven’t done it yet, start now. Write a short story — write many short stories, and find magazines (online or print) that’s looking for submissions. Make sure you find a suitable magazine (don’t write a dramatic fiction piece for a science fiction magazine) and submit your work. Even if you get rejected, it doesn’t matter. That’s the kind of thing you’ll have to deal with anyway. What matters is that sense of progress and achievement you get just by submitting your work somewhere. It takes a certain amount of pride and confidence to put your work out there under judging eyes — and even if you have to force yourself, trick yourself, you’ll feel the results once you do this.

So, go out there, slay the dark things in the night, and have more fun writing! Now, it’s time for me to brainstorm and get to work on some things.

I finished Draft 1 of my novel today! I have no words for how excited I am. I think I may have used them all today. I can’t believe I’ve finished the first draft!

So, let’s give it a go.

The Names We Chose is a story about a young boy named Liam. Liam has just turned 12 years old, and as all young boys, he turns a deaf ear to his parent’s warnings not to go in the forest that surrounds their peaceful northern town. He enters looking for adventure, to find why the soldiers keep probing deeper into the forest, and there he meets a man named Jaxael and more adventure than he could ever imagine.

The Names We Chose follows Liam as he’s stolen away from his peaceful village, taken to the Faery City of Eldresh where the fey there have secret plans for those and other humans like him. A war is brewing between the human cities and the fey, it’s been boiling for over 40 years, and the bubble is finally about to burst. With the help of a few young children, willing or not.

That is the short of it! I figured I should put up at least a brief description here, now that Draft 1 is all taken care of. The story follows Liam from the age of 12 to his early 20′s and spans multiple cities in the country of San R’eith. Now, let’s go over some numbers.

Facts about Draft 1 of The Names We Chose …
It is 150,369 words long.
(That’s 621 pages!)
The first word is “The”
The last word is “Tale.”
I love that as a last word, and hope that it doesn’t change in revisions.
I have 14 and 1/2 pages of notes, written in a notebook, for things I want to do in the revisions.
I wrote the majority of this draft while listening to Loreena McKennitt and Seth Lakeman. I’ll need to find more folk music for future revisions.

I now plan to take about a week to two week break between finishing Draft 1 and starting Draft 2. I’ll use that time to write short stories and send them out for possible publication! I’ll also use that time to do a lot of reading and video game playing, when I can squeeze it in. By February 4th, I’ll be back to writing Draft 2, and I suspect I will not surface for breath until that draft is finished.

Right now, my plan to tackle revisions is this: I’m going to go out this weekend and buy the largest poster board I can find. I am hoping for something huge. I’m going to tape it to a wall and plot out the entire book, and then I’ll be able to see the big picture and choose where I need to change things, what I can take out and what I can add in.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait the full two weeks to start work on Draft 2, but I’ll do my best so that I have some measure of distance and point-of-view, but I am so very excited right now.

PHEW.

This is the week! I am putting in all the time I can this week to try to finish my novel. My self-imposed deadline is February 20th! I won’t let it fall by the wayside this time. I’ve made good progress so far today, and I feel like I’m on the right path with things. My main character is currently having a huge fight with who he considered to be his friends. One by one I’m pulling apart this group, fanning the flames and watching as they soar. It’s been a lot of fun.

Writing is exhausting work. I’ve put out a good chunk of words today, met my daily goal and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. So, I figure I’ll relax a little and do today’s Lord of the Rings read-a-long blog post. It’s mid-month and time for the check in to see how the book is going. Be warned of spoilers, all ye who enter!

Thanks go out to The Literary Omnivore for hosting this month’s read-a-long. She’s also provided some discussion questions that I’ll be going through.

If you’ve been with us since the beginning, how do you feel about the narrator compared to the narrator in The Hobbit?

I think this was the part I was most looking forward to. When I was younger and first tried transitioning between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I didn’t appreciate the change in narrative voice at all. I’m not sure it was something I completely recognized, being as young as I was, but I distinctly remember feeling like it was a completely different thing from The Hobbit. I missed the good-natured humor, the light voice, the easy flow of it. I was curious to see how I’d react to the change now.

I can’t say I’m disappointed at all. I love the change in narrative voice, and I find that it’s wholly appropriate. The tone has grown up a little, but it hasn’t lost a single bit of its charm. We’re not seeing such a light play of a story — Lord of the Rings seems less of a folk tale and more of a solid legend, etched somewhere in stone tablets. With The Hobbit, we often have Tolkien passing through what we would consider “present time” of the novel. He’ll occasionally mention events from further along in the book, or even elsewhere in the world. In The Fellowship of the Ring, we don’t get that — instead, we get a more sobering and realistic view. Tolkien is more firmly rooted in what is currently going on in the story.

What results is that we’re left with much more uncertainty of what will happen with Frodo and his friends. In The Hobbit, we get enough glances and peeks ahead to pretty much assume Bilbo is going to make it out alright. In Fellowship, we have no such guarantee. Still, the voice is charming, likes to poke fun where it can, and does not lack for wit. I think it’s a huge success, this time around.

How’s your pace going? Is it smooth sailing or have you found passages that are difficult to get through?

Like I’ve mentioned around here, I’m neck-deep (way worse than knee-deep!) in writing work, so I often only get a chance to read Fellowship during class breaks or before bed — as such, it can be frustrating to not have a vast amount of time to dedicate to it. Still, I’ve felt the pacing pretty smooth. I’ve more recently seen the movies than read the books, so it was interesting to see how much more time was spent between the Shire and the Prancing Pony, as compared to the movies. I enjoyed the lingering, slow and winding travel to the start of the journey. Tolkien takes his time, and it’s just the kind of thing you need to accept. If you can accept it, it’s a beautiful thing. He’ll take you through the woods by the hand and paint this picture of a vast world.

If you’re a little impatient, or if you don’t feel that you have time for the painting, I think it can get frustrating. Personally, I wanted to take my time with it, and I’m enjoying going along for the walk, watching as the shadows creep over and things get quite dreary, with hints of sunshine.

If you’ve read this series before, is The Fellowship of the Ring, for the most part, as you remembered? If not, is it what you expected or something else?

I’ve read this series before, but it was quite a while ago. Long enough that I don’t really remember reading it, so I have no memories to compare to.

The one thing I didn’t expect was liking Tom Bombadil as much as I like this time around. The first time I read the book, I remember feeling like I was slogging through that portion. Here was this goody two-shoes guy getting in the way of the action, singing, leaping around, what have you. Now, though, I love him. He is absolutely charismatic and such a strong figure. When he came for the Hobbits in the Barrow Downs, I cheered. He is magnificent. I love how Tolkien sometimes gives us these glimpses of characters that are near immortal, perhaps even demigod like, without overshadowing the rest of the story with it. Tom Bombadil is certainly a powerful man, but he knows his place and he has his boundaries.

Plus, I love his songs. They are so cheerful!

Are you using any of the extra features- maps and indexes, for instance- in your book?

My book is old and ratty, needing quick replacing (hopefully soon)! So, the most I have at hand is a single map at the front, which I actually haven’t really been using. I’m honestly a little bit afraid that the book will fall apart if I’m constantly trying to pry it open enough to look at the map. Oh well, haha, it will be much appreciated when I upgrade to new copies!

Overall, I’m really enjoying my reread, and I’m taking it nice and slow. I’ll finish it by the end of the month for sure. I’m greatly looking forward to reading more! Now if only I could keep my eyelids propped open for long enough.

This past week I’ve felt like a lot of things. Like a sheet of blank paper, like butter over too much bread (thanks for that one, Bilbo!), like a sick person. I’ve felt very tired, and like I just can’t write anything. It’s been a long week, to say the least. I sit down and stare at what I’d like to write, in the time I have to write, and I write little.

Yesterday I made huge advances in The Names We Chose, somehow. Today, I’m not feeling it. I think I’ll take the advice of the Twitter-verse and step back for now. I’m going to take a break. I’ll sit back in this computer chair again, later tonight, after I watch Too Much TV and let my mind wander. Hopefully I’ll come back tonight, done with all of my other things, and put away a couple thousand words.

For now, I’ll leave you with a short story written for the Word of the Day — based on the word Vitiate. Enjoy!

Katelyn Monroe was sitting in the kitchen when she thought of her sister for the first time without crying. She was sitting at a table that had passed through their family for years, drinking tea from a chipped china cup and tracing the familiar patterns of the grain when she thought of Anna.

It was an innocuous thing, a small thought that dislodged somewhere from the table, impossible to say exactly what it was, but when she thought of it she didn’t flinch. Then, she started to cry, because she’d thought of Anna and she hadn’t cried.

So, while the wind was still whipping the trees outside, while the rain was still falling, Katelyn sat inside her kitchen and cried into her tea. She hadn’t finished crying when she got her keys, her coat and her purse. She still hadn’t finished after she’d pulled out of the drive and started down the road, her car dipping through all of the familiar potholes.

Sure enough, when she pulled into the parking space, her face was still wet. She was mopping at her cheeks with tissues, she was sure she would become dehydrated, shrivel up and die right there. She didn’t, of course.

Katelyn got out of her car without an umbrella, without her coat. She ran across the parking lot, onto the green fields, beyond the iron gate. When she saw the cemetery she stopped running, and she gasped for breath. Mud stuck to her boots the way the memories clawed up her mind.

When she got to the gravestone, her knees quivered but she did not fall. She sat down as calmly as she could, crossed her legs and opened up.

“I was thinking today,” she said, and she tried to get the hair out of her face. She laughed a little. It was a hiccup in the rain, like something inside of her was strangled. “About the time you waited up all night for Santa. Mom has the picture at the house, in her bedroom. You’re sitting in front of the plate of cookies and a cup full of milk.”

Katelyn took a deep breath at that, because she didn’t know what to expect, because she needed time. When her lungs were empty, but her mind was still full, she started again.

“I remember how mad you used to get. People would always ask us if it was true, if twins could really tell what the other person was thinking. Maybe we couldn’t, but you were still closer to me than anyone else,” she said, and she reached out to touch the wet stone. Her hand fell short and touched the ground instead, the green grass. She wanted to dig it up.

“Maybe we could, though, because lately I just don’t feel anything. The way we lived by the train tracks for so long, and then when we finally moved all we could hear was the fact that there weren’t any train tracks.” She thought about that, chewed her lip, pulled a blade of grass from the soil. “You’d probably call me crazy.”

When the rain began to die down, when Katelyn had sat in silence for a long while, she set down her purse, took off her coat, and stretched out over the plot of grass beside her sister.

“Sometimes I just don’t know what to do,” she said. “Last week I was getting ready to go out, I couldn’t decide between a blue dress or a green one until I remembered that you always said green was our best color.” Katelyn reached her arm out and pretended she was reaching between the worlds. The rain struck her skin like a thousand reminders that she couldn’t hold her sister’s hand where she was.

“Mark can’t even look at me now, he hasn’t been around in months. When he sees me, he says he just thinks of you and he can’t deal with it. He should try being me and looking in the mirror every morning,” she said, and she laughed a little at that. “They’d never understand,” she tasted the rain in her mouth and it was sweet and nice.

Katelyn turned on her side, then, and looked up at the monolith towering above her, overshadowing her.

“I thought about you, today,” she said. “I’m always thinking about you. Today was the first day I didn’t cry,” even as she said those words, she felt a wave building up somewhere inside of her, overwhelming her. She let it carry her away, dizzy and lightheaded, she stayed the night right there. Her hand outstretched, and maybe somewhere in the middle of the night her fingertips brushed something more than this world could hold.

When she slept she dreamed of Anna, of the first time they saw the ocean together, of their holidays. She dreamed of the little moments and the big ones, and when she woke up the sun was out again. She gathered her things; her coat, her purse, her memories, and left, not for the last time.

That’s alright, though. Time goes on, and I’ll keep on writing. I’ve got a lot of novel left to write while I try to finish it by the 20th, so I have to keep myself busy, don’t have time to feel bad about this! Instead, I’ll grab some chocolate on my way home today, go for a run, and then get started on writing. That should hit all of the appropriate levels — exhaustion, chocolate enjoyment, work satisfaction.

So, for now, I’ll post the short story here so that, at the very least, hopefully you fine people will enjoy my story about the end of the world:

[ Submitted Again! Story is taken down for now. ]