Busy, Busy, Busy Bee

That's me! Since starting my job at the beginning of August I haven't had much time for...well, for anything other than checking people out at the bookstore and explaining our return policy and financial aid stuff. And when the only thing you say all day long is a five minute speech on repeat --

HelloFindeverythingyouwerelookingfortodayOhthat'sgoodweliketohearthat
IsthatcreditordebitCanIhaveyouwaittoswipeyourcardTherethat'sfine
YouhaveuntilSeptember8thtoreturnthatItstillhastobeintheplasticwrapCanIget youabag?Haveagreatday!

Well, let's just say you don't have too many brain cells at the end of the day left for being creative. Despite this, somehow I managed to get the second chapter of the Rose Rewrite posted on FF.net yesterday before I went to work, and then managed to stay at work from ten in the morning till nine at night. Which was bad, because I ride my bike to work. Note to self: Riding bike home in the dark is a BAD IDEA.

I've also been doing some reading (on lunch breaks, mostly, and at home before I get to work) and I've finished the first two books in George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, a novel by Guy Gavriel Kay called the Song for Arbonne, and Mary Pat Kelly's Galway Bay as some further study abroad prep. Speaking of study abroad, I have to order my reading books for Doctor D's seminar class. Hooboy.

The Song for Arbonne was really awesome -- Kay's writing style is part historical fiction and part fantasy, which is something I would use if I could get away with it. It was interesting; I picked it up thinking to find something of Song of a Peacebringer in it and I did, traveling troubadour types and songsingers being a key part of the story. Audemande would like it there.

One thing I've also learned -- being employed nearly full time doesn't leave much time for writing. Who knew?

Why Rewrites are Bad News

So, the MaMotR rewrite steamrollers along at close to 50 pages now (and Boromir hasn't even left Gondor yet, which is a good sign for the narrative pace, I think.) I had a discussion with my sister about whether a rewrite was against FF.net rules, and we agreed as long as it gets a new title, I should be okay. I've decided on "A Rose Among the Briars", a twist on a line from the Christina Rossetti poem "The Rose":

The lily has a smooth stalk,

Will never hurt your hand;

But the rose upon her brier

Is lady of the land.

But something about this story is really starting to worry me. I actually had a discussion with myself the other day that went a little something like this:

Muse: You had Rhoswen get a dog for New Year's in the original. You still want to go through with that? I think getting a hawk would be so much cooler.

Me: A hawk would be cool. But the dog would have to be a hunting dog, and I think the original had greyhounds, which I still think would be appropriate.

Muse: But dogs and hawks are symbols of the hunt, and I don't think they're big on the hunting scene in the Tower of Guard. I mean, you've already established that the Pelannor Fields are townlands.

Me: Damn, you're right. They wouldn't have time for stuff like that in Gondor. Hunting is a replacement for fighting, and they fight all the time. Nix on that. Still want Rhoswen to get a hawk, though. Maybe it could just be an elite status symbol, a throwback to a time when they did have the time.

Muse: Now, wait. She's good with small children and gardening. And she sings later. You can't have her be good with animals too!

Me: Damn, hadn't thought of that either. Gonna have to think of something else for a present.

Yes, I had this conversation! I am so afraid New!Rhoswen is turning into a Sue after reading Why Bella is a Mary Sue by whitedog1 on DeviantArt. The MarySue Litmus test gives me a 20, which still isn't very reassuring, but I checked some canon character boxes that only get checked because I took her dad's name from the list of lords that ride into Minas Tirith before the Battle for the Pelannor Fields.

And on top of all that, I guess I'm afraid no one's going to want to read it. All in all, not good prognosis here.

Five Years Time

Oh
Five years time
I might not know you
Five years time
We might not speak
Oh
In five years time
We might not get along
In five years time
You might just prove me wrong

-- Five Years Time, Noah and The Whale (Here at YOUTUBE)


Today I started my re-write of Meaning and Mystery of the Rose, and I use the word re-write exactly the way it means. I tried to remember the original plot line and started over with a clean slate. Glanced at the original copy after I'd written about ten pages, but that was it. And boy, was I glad. I couldn't even bring myself to re-use anything in the original. It was just...terrible.

But then I glanced at the date I published it. October of 2004. Nearly FIVE YEARS AGO. And this taught me something. In five years, I have learned something about writing. I have improved. And that made me feel really good.

I wrote the exact same scene two different ways, and I have to say, the second version reads in a much more fluent fashion. The original first chapter of MaMotR (Ha, I just realized that rhymes with LotR; are my acronyms good or what?) was so busy, so hectic. I changed scenes about six different times in four pages. Obviously I wanted to get to the good stuff. In this new draft, we spend at least a page with each character before moving somewhere else. Also the transistions between those scenes are a little more fluid.

You can read the old copy here. I'm trying to figure out some place to archive the new text so you can compare it with the old one and laugh along with me at how gung-ho I was about my writing at the age of fifteen.

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.

Celebration!

Last weekend I posted my 40th fanfiction over at FF.net. As of this past October, I have been a member of that site for nearly five years, since the 8th grade, when I bravely ventured out from my floppy-disk bound writing endeavors into the big wide world of public critique.

Let's see how times have changed, shall we?

First off, I no longer save my stories on floppy disks. In fact, the computer on which I now save my stories no longer has a space for floppy disks. My first public story was a Lord of the Rings parody of Wierd Al's Phantom Menace, written with some help from my friend Katie on the way between her house and mine for an occasion that has gone beyond memory. My 40th story was a Kingdom of Heaven fic explaining a minor incident in my Song of a Peacebringer fic (I think we could start calling it a fanfiction novella at this point -- it's 114 pages long...)

My first contributions to FF.net were in the Lord of the Rings archive, centered on Boromir, my first real literary crush. My first large piece of work was The Meaning and Mystery of the Rose, a Lord of the Rings story I affectionately called 'My Baby' for a long time because it was the longest thing I'd ever written. I wrote each chapter in a separate document, so it's difficult to say how many pages long it actually was, but FF.net puts the word count at around 53,821 words, including, of course, the Author's Notes that were regrettably common in those days. Song of a Peacebringer (which is being composed in a single document and parsed out into separate chapters) is, at the time of this blogging, some 55,178 words long. And it's not quite done, either.

Goodness, how times have changed -- I'm still verbose and still writing obscenely long fanfic.

Today my high school friend Catroux interviewed me for a paper she's writing on fanfiction and identity in teenagers -- hopefully, if she says yes, I'll post an edited (for continuity) copy of that interview up for you to read and learn a little bit about me and my journey as a fanfiction writer. And hopefully she'll post some of her paper, too...

Speaking of papers, I don't know if I ever told you all that my own paper on fanfiction (the one mentioned here, here, and here on this blog) is going to be presented by yours truely at Scholarship and Creativity day! Not everyone gets to do that, you know. You've got to special. Ground-breaking.

So, share around the balloons, have a slice of CAKE


-- and celebrate this milestone with me! What milestone, you ask?

The milestone of being thought important and authoritative enough to interview!