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dragonlady7Wow, it's already almost two and I've done almost nothing today. I took a nap, but it was from 6-8 am-- I suppose it was efficient of me to get it out of the way, but I feel like it didn't 'take' so I need another one...
I'm *gasp* actually outlining for a story I want to do, but the only reason is because I think it's more complicated than the little short bit I was writing on the bus, so I'm laying it out to see if it's worth delving into. I don't want to get into anything heavy-- I want to light-heartedly amuse myself until I can get back to the Novel. So I'm outlining and doing some background research to determine whether I have the time and energy to toss this one off, or if it's going to be a Weighty Tome that had best be left for another day. (it may well prove straightforward once I decide a few things, in which case, whee!! but if it's too hard, it's too hard.)
The only thing I've achieved so far today is taking my final look at the Death of Ecthelion fic, proofreading one last time, and then sticking the thing up on ff.net.
Which is a hard-ass site to use. How do so manyidiots people manage to bumble their way through its bizarre interfaces to actually post their drivel stories? (Incidentally, I had forgotten that I do already have a fic archived on there. Whoops! Well, it's better-formatted on my own site.)
So, if you want to read my (I think!) final draft, it's here:
Cool Waters, on Fanfiction.net.
Yeah, I know, I wrote a Silmfic. Actually it's a HoMe-fic. I didn't mean to make it rely on knowledge of those volumes, as I hate that in other people's writings, but I didn't really give a lot of consideration to the beginning, and now I don't really want to rewrite it. So, I apologize. Other than that I'm quite pleased with it.
So, separate from the story, if anyone wants to make me happy and read the damn thing, I'll summarize the Silm / History of Middle-earth knowledge you need to understand it, right here! One time only offer.
It is the year 510 of the First Age. Some Elves live in Middle-earth, having traveled there from Valinor in complicated circumstances. Melkor (aka Morgoth, better known as Sauron's boss-- yes, he was bigger and badder and was the original Dark Lord) lives in Middle-earth too.
So the Elves hide from Morgoth by building hidden cities. Morgoth is very clever, and finds these hidden cities, one by one, because he hates the Elves and likes to drink out of cups made from their skulls.
Gondolin is one such hidden city. The people in it are sure they are special and won't be found. Unfortunately, they are wrong. (Duh.)
So Morgoth finds them, and sends his Orcs and his Balrogs (the thing that pulled Gandalf into the Pit of Despair, in FotR? is a Balrog and thus far more badass than the context makes clear) and his fire-drakes (I don't even know what they are, but kind of dragonish I guess and they breathe fire and are made of metal, oddly), and they set about destroying Gondolin.
Gondolin is full of warriors, and they make a pretty brave stand. Tolkien, in youthful exuberance, made colorful names for each battalion, and gave them pretty pretty captains. Glorfindel of the Golden Flower is one: he actually gets recycled and appears in the book The Fellowship of the Ring. Ecthelion of the Fountain is another. Egalmoth of the Heavenly Arch is another one, with some really bad dress sense. (Yes, Tolkien described their outfits. Frightening, in some cases.) Duilin of the Swallow gets killed dramatically, hit by a fire-dart and tumbling from the city's walls. Rog of the Hammer of Wrath does pretty much a kamikaze attack with all of his warriors and every single one dies. Penlod of the Pillar of Snow gets pinned to a wall by Orc-spears. But Salgant of the Harp makes a sad name for himself by being the sole coward; he withdraws his troops to protect his house and goes and lies on his bed. His troops, understandably, decide after a while that they really had better go try to save the city, so they do, and they run off to save the beleaguered Golden Flower, who are about to be overwhelmed in the Market.
That's where this story, that I wrote, comes in.
Other things I should probably explain:
Tuor is a mortal Man who was sent by one of the Valar to warn Gondolin that it would be overthrown, and to urge them to flee while the city still stood. The king, Turgon, was too proud and too wary to do so, but made friends with Tuor anyway. Tuor married Turgon's daughter Idril, and together they had Earendil-- in this tale, he is only about seven years old. Earendil is, yes, the one who becomes a star. Elrond, incidentally, is his son. It is because of Earendil's dual heritage (and Elrond's mother Elwing's, who is the granddaughter of Beren and Luthien, another famous pair) that Elrond and thus Arwen are given choices of whether to be immortal or not. It is because of Earendil's later journey to Valinor that the Valar involve themselves and hurl Morgoth out of Middle-earth. So, this is all important in the grand scheme of things.
Gondolin is utterly destroyed. The refugees, led by Tuor and including the famous Earendil, escape through a hidden tunnel that most of the city's citizens hadn't known about-- in this story, Glorfindel doesn't know about it yet. Gondolin's king, Turgon, decides to go down with the ship.
For the curious, the tale is told in The Silmarillion in brief. It is told in full in HoMe vol II, The Book Of Lost Tales, Part 2, although that version dates from very early in Tolkien's writings and as such is rather difficult to read. Parts of it are really beautiful, however. Which is why I wrote a Silmfic.
I'm *gasp* actually outlining for a story I want to do, but the only reason is because I think it's more complicated than the little short bit I was writing on the bus, so I'm laying it out to see if it's worth delving into. I don't want to get into anything heavy-- I want to light-heartedly amuse myself until I can get back to the Novel. So I'm outlining and doing some background research to determine whether I have the time and energy to toss this one off, or if it's going to be a Weighty Tome that had best be left for another day. (it may well prove straightforward once I decide a few things, in which case, whee!! but if it's too hard, it's too hard.)
The only thing I've achieved so far today is taking my final look at the Death of Ecthelion fic, proofreading one last time, and then sticking the thing up on ff.net.
Which is a hard-ass site to use. How do so many
So, if you want to read my (I think!) final draft, it's here:
Cool Waters, on Fanfiction.net.
Yeah, I know, I wrote a Silmfic. Actually it's a HoMe-fic. I didn't mean to make it rely on knowledge of those volumes, as I hate that in other people's writings, but I didn't really give a lot of consideration to the beginning, and now I don't really want to rewrite it. So, I apologize. Other than that I'm quite pleased with it.
So, separate from the story, if anyone wants to make me happy and read the damn thing, I'll summarize the Silm / History of Middle-earth knowledge you need to understand it, right here! One time only offer.
It is the year 510 of the First Age. Some Elves live in Middle-earth, having traveled there from Valinor in complicated circumstances. Melkor (aka Morgoth, better known as Sauron's boss-- yes, he was bigger and badder and was the original Dark Lord) lives in Middle-earth too.
So the Elves hide from Morgoth by building hidden cities. Morgoth is very clever, and finds these hidden cities, one by one, because he hates the Elves and likes to drink out of cups made from their skulls.
Gondolin is one such hidden city. The people in it are sure they are special and won't be found. Unfortunately, they are wrong. (Duh.)
So Morgoth finds them, and sends his Orcs and his Balrogs (the thing that pulled Gandalf into the Pit of Despair, in FotR? is a Balrog and thus far more badass than the context makes clear) and his fire-drakes (I don't even know what they are, but kind of dragonish I guess and they breathe fire and are made of metal, oddly), and they set about destroying Gondolin.
Gondolin is full of warriors, and they make a pretty brave stand. Tolkien, in youthful exuberance, made colorful names for each battalion, and gave them pretty pretty captains. Glorfindel of the Golden Flower is one: he actually gets recycled and appears in the book The Fellowship of the Ring. Ecthelion of the Fountain is another. Egalmoth of the Heavenly Arch is another one, with some really bad dress sense. (Yes, Tolkien described their outfits. Frightening, in some cases.) Duilin of the Swallow gets killed dramatically, hit by a fire-dart and tumbling from the city's walls. Rog of the Hammer of Wrath does pretty much a kamikaze attack with all of his warriors and every single one dies. Penlod of the Pillar of Snow gets pinned to a wall by Orc-spears. But Salgant of the Harp makes a sad name for himself by being the sole coward; he withdraws his troops to protect his house and goes and lies on his bed. His troops, understandably, decide after a while that they really had better go try to save the city, so they do, and they run off to save the beleaguered Golden Flower, who are about to be overwhelmed in the Market.
That's where this story, that I wrote, comes in.
Other things I should probably explain:
Tuor is a mortal Man who was sent by one of the Valar to warn Gondolin that it would be overthrown, and to urge them to flee while the city still stood. The king, Turgon, was too proud and too wary to do so, but made friends with Tuor anyway. Tuor married Turgon's daughter Idril, and together they had Earendil-- in this tale, he is only about seven years old. Earendil is, yes, the one who becomes a star. Elrond, incidentally, is his son. It is because of Earendil's dual heritage (and Elrond's mother Elwing's, who is the granddaughter of Beren and Luthien, another famous pair) that Elrond and thus Arwen are given choices of whether to be immortal or not. It is because of Earendil's later journey to Valinor that the Valar involve themselves and hurl Morgoth out of Middle-earth. So, this is all important in the grand scheme of things.
Gondolin is utterly destroyed. The refugees, led by Tuor and including the famous Earendil, escape through a hidden tunnel that most of the city's citizens hadn't known about-- in this story, Glorfindel doesn't know about it yet. Gondolin's king, Turgon, decides to go down with the ship.
For the curious, the tale is told in The Silmarillion in brief. It is told in full in HoMe vol II, The Book Of Lost Tales, Part 2, although that version dates from very early in Tolkien's writings and as such is rather difficult to read. Parts of it are really beautiful, however. Which is why I wrote a Silmfic.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 04:51 am (UTC)I need to read that part of HoME. Lost Tales started frying my brain -- the language is so fucking abstruse -- so I gave up partway through something that might have been a way early version of Turin's story. I should go back to Gondolin.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 08:59 pm (UTC)I've read three of those almost twice, as of yesterday, because I am doing a research paper on the damned Silm for my Tolkien class. No fanfic from me for a while (not like I've been a prodigious writer since the summer anyway, so it's not like a great loss) since by the time I get through this semester my eyes will glaze over every time I look in the general direction of anything Tolkien. But I can already spout random details about the Silm and wide swaths of HoME off the top of my head. How many people can do THAT? ;)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 11:32 pm (UTC)Well... an alarming number of fanfic writers. I mean, alarming.
So Morgoth's Ring, which volume is that? I have a quantity of HoMe out of the library at the moment and am attempting to determine which ones I should bother reading. I've read Lost Tales 2 and Peoples, but am a bit hesitant about Lays.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-11 01:05 am (UTC)Morgoth's Ring is Vol. 10. In it are yet another early draft of the Silm, the Laws and Customs of the Eldar (which is fun), and the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, which I liked. It's a debate between King Finrod Felagund and a wise human woman named Andreth about the nature of death, mortality, the end of the world, etc. etc. Of course, the real reason for this entire intellectual discussion is that Andreth wanted to sleep with Finrod's brother and was sad that Finrod's brother went off to war instead (yes, honey, guys suck... even Elves).
There is also stuff in volume 10 about how Tolkien was working hard to come up with a consistent and workable system of mythology. For instance, he decided that the whole myth about how the sun and moon came to be that appears in the published Silmarillion was pretty ridiculous. So then Tolkien tried to come up with alternative stories about the sun and moon more consistent with "reality" but that didn't undermine his entire mythology. This section of the book also discusses the nature of orcs, the nature of evil (what motivates Sauron and Morgoth to be evil), why the Valar behave in certains ways, etc.