I come bearing pictures!

Well, my summer classes are almost over. No longer will I have to muddle over french translations or worry about what type of volcanic texture the rocks in my backyard have. Needless to say it's been an interesting past few days. I helped my sister re-paint her room blue, and now sitting in there feels a bit like sitting in a box made out of sky.

Over the past week I've been re-reading and re-watching The Lord of the Rings and remembering a lot things in the original text and in the movie that made me want to be a storyteller and fanfiction writer in the first place. One of the other things this project has made me want to do is re-write my first large fanfiction piece, the Meaning and Mystery of the Rose. I'm sure if I were to revisit the concept now (and in my mind, this is not taking the shape of a mere edit, but a whole overhaul of the whole story) Rhoswen would turn into a much, much different woman than she is in the first draft. For starters, I wrote her when I was fourteen or fifteen, and the grand age of 19 seemed so far off. Now I am 19, and it doesn't seem so old anymore. I know she'd take a different shape, and I'd flush out why she was chosen to be Boromir's bride above other more powerful and pretty candidates. In my mind this new version of Rhoswen is strong and forceful and a young woman who knows that she's a pawn and won't allow herself to be completely used like one for the betterment of the House of Hurin.

But something in my mind also tells me that no one cares for such stories anymore, and a rewrite wouldn't attract any readers. So I think it'll have to be shelved for another time.

Another thing that might be shelved is this Cranford fic I posted last time. No matter how many books I read on Victorian England Mary Marshland and Harry Gregson refuse to budge into any more scenes than the ones I've already written. But I did find pictures for the upcoming Christmas special! A link was posted on the Enchanted Serenity of Period Films blog, here. It almost makes me want to write again. Alas, the writer is willing and the fandom is weak.

Another source of inspiration for some doubtless awesome future shenanigans came by way of the Lights, Camera, History! blog here, when they posted in their "Upcoming Period Dramas" scrolling picture box a spoiler pic of Ridley Scott's upcoming Robin Hood movie! Then, of course, I had to go find it for myself...


And I couldn't help being reminded of someone else...











Well, I think there's kind of a resemblance there. Maybe it's just the surcoats. At any rate, the movies are directed by the same person and set in the same era and by some accounts were meant to be a sort of prequel-sequel deal, so I'm excited nonetheless.

Finishing

Say, I haven't put any updates on here in a while, have I? I think it's time to rectify that.

Song of a Peacebringer -- FINISHED, finally. People died, people got married, people generally reflected on the whole story. It was interesting. Now I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself. You can read the whole thing, all 33 chapters, HERE.

The Hunting of the Sue -- Up and running at FF.net, and receiving generally complimentary reviews. You can read it HERE. The Summary:

Harry's stories may be over, but his adventures continue, no longer as leader in the fight against the Dark Lord, but as a Jurisfiction agent fighting alongside Thursday Next to defeat one of the most terrifying demons known to the BookWorld -The MarySue. A Thursday Next/ Harry Potter Crossover, produced in conjunction with the BookWorld in storycode WebBook1.0

I found out after posting this that Jasper Fforde does not condone fanfiction in any genre or style, so I assume that's the reason there's so precious little of it floating about the 'net. I wrote this because I wish he'd hurry up and finish One of Our Thursdays is Missing, and I'm not making any profit off of it at all, so there. And I combined it with Harry Potter, so his absolute dislike of fanfiction and Rowling's acceptence of it should make it only mildly bad, I think.

The Untitled Cranford Fic -- As yet unpublished Cranford fic (not a whole lot of them floating around, either) I thought I would post here to get some initial feedback from my Cranford fans in the crowd. (Mom, Dad, Helen, this means you.)


Imagine, if you think you can, a small village in Cheshire preparing, as it always does, for the end of summer. Carts of laborers going out to the fields, the market lane bustling with the comings and goings of the village folk. They are a simple people, unconcerned with the wars that fill their newspapers or the gossip about Queen and crown that is filling everyone else’s heads. If you are imagining, pray do not trouble yourself any longer, for the people and the town they inhabit are very real, and their comings and goings are much the same as yours or mine. The town is Cranford, and the year is 1854. If you are acquainted with the place (as I know some are) it is probably ten years since you have seen the place, but fear not; in its usual Cranfordian fashion nothing much has changed. True, some of the less colorful inhabitants have died or moved on to better climes (though what climate could be better or more healthful than Cranford’s the town’s greatest minds are still undecided) but some who have left are returning, names and faces who were once long associated with the town and the niceties of manner and speech that are still practiced here though they have quite left the rest of England.

See, here is one of them now – that young man there, in the lane, astride the bay mare. Do you see him? Topcoat tails soiled as if from a lengthy journey, trousers tucked inside equally stained riding boots, his body is well-formed and his seat on his mare is good, though he does not carry off the air of having ridden his whole life. His clothes are tailored by a professional hand and everything about him, from the shoes of his horse to the slight jauntiness in his top hat, suggests a young gentlemen home from school. This is of course the case, and the school (or rather the college, he is quite older than school) is Saint John’s College in Cambridge, a long way off in Cranford terms. Yes, this is Harry Gregson, once nothing more than a poacher’s son and sometime street urchin, now come back to his hometown a scholar of serious repertoire, well versed in Latin, Greek, the smallest of smatterings in Hebrew and of course his mother-tongue, which he speaks now with an upper-class city air.

He has learned mathematics, economics, and a hint of law, and – though he never admits to this – some of the other vices common to boys of a certain class: a regard for good company and a fine face, and a desire, however latent, to marry such a face and perhaps retain such comfortable circumstances as permit the fine face to shine even finer...

Now You Understand Me

Let me begin this post by saying there is nothing I enjoy more than sharing with others a story that I have already taken pleasure in reading , and in turn having them delight in it as much as I have. These past two weeks I've been watching the BBC drama Cranford with my parents, and I think that they've enjoyed watching it as much as I've enjoyed sharing it with them.

How do I know this? Well, for starters both of them were righteously indignant on Frank Harrison's behalf at the end of episode four (He's wrongfully accused of proposing to three different women and the rest of the town begins shunning him) which amused me to no end. And the second thing was that tonight, after we finished watching the fifth and final episode, we had a rather curious exchange about the ending. I said something to the effect of "See, it ended rather well, didn't it?"refering, of course, to the fact that Frank does indeed get to marry the girl he intended to, long lost brothers are returned home, and most everyone ends the story a little happier than they began it. But my parents weren't satisfied with this. "No," my mother said. " Mr. --- died. That wasn't very happy. And there were lots of unresolved things. What happens to Harry? Does he get to go to school? And what about Miss Pole and Peter Jenkins?"

"Yeah!" My father said. "Where's the fanfic?"

Yes, readers, my dad used fanfic in a sentence. I have trained my parents well. Finally they understand why I write what I write -- to tie up the loose ends and tell parts of the story I think should have been told. I assured him I would attempt to find some or, if I did not find any that suited, I would endeavor to write one myself. (I was thinking of doing that anyway.)

And of course, I reminded them that the BBC will be making another Cranford series to air this Christmas. I don't know when it will be on PBS in the US, but they're fairly good about putting things on at about the same time.

(I've also convinced my mother that next week we should start watching "Jane Eyre." Huzzah!)