FairerStillTheMoonlight

Well, I finally have some time to write! I did a thousand or so words in Walls Between the other day, but other than that I’ve been positively swamped.

I’m happy to report that I’m still extremely exited about my newest fic.

Here’s some little tantalising images of things to come - and this time, they’re not word pictures!

Hopefully I’ll be able to write another chapter or so today, and maybe even work on Portraits of the Past! Believe it or not, I’m still working on that fic…but I want to get Lucy just perfect, so it’s taking a while.

Have a blessed week,

Val

These are late - so probably if you were interested in reading them you already looked and discovered that they werent’ here. In which case you would simply assume I hadn’t had anything wonderful to say besides I FINISHED THE TEMPEST!!!

You’d be right. That is all I have to say. So what’s next for me and MR?

I do hope to sever the relationship as quickly as possible in protest of James Patterson’s upcoming fourth book in the series. It’s called, The Last Global Warming Warning. Need I say more? Let’s call a boycott, people. Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports was bad enough - come on, does JP want American youth raised devoid of morals and common sense? Probably - as long as they’re replaced with propaganda-believing malleable minds where everything is relative (because, after all, on a relative scale his book might actually be called ‘good’).

So all I have left for MR is finishing up one ‘deleted scene’ from The Tempest where I get rid of a singularly annoying character. Oh, and I’m thinking of doing a cover art piece for Tempest. That way when I publish it here in pdf format (without all those annoying author’s notes and other stuff I insert) it’ll look like a real book! That should be fun, provided I can find the right photos to meld together.

Then I will officially sever all ties with JP and his books. I do still like the first 2 in the series, but the rest are, to put it mildly, trash. So is a lot of MR fanfiction, come to think of it… anyway. Thus concludes my brilliant commentary on my literary work.

I am writing this in case any of you who read The Eagle and were dissatisfied with my interpretation of canon could come here and hear me defend my reasons for doing what I did.

 Firstly, I tried to stick more to Tennyson canon than Tolkien canon in this story. Secondly, the main idea was not to fill in a ‘missing scene’ but to try to convey a vivid picture that Tennyson’s poem continually puts in my mind. The realm of Middle-earth just helped to put that idea across.

 Ok - so, here is the research that I did before I wrote the story.

Gwaihir and the rescue of Frodo: “He was also part of the rescue of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, accompanied by his brother Landroval and his vassal Meneldor.” - TolkienWiki. It didn’t specify how, though. I know in the movie it’s three eagles and Gandalf coming together from the sky - but who’s to say they didn’t join up later, and that one of the other two eagles was carrying Gandalf?

Geography of Middle-earth: I did take a little liberty here. But, since I couldn’t get my hands on a topographical map of Mordor, I did the best I could. In this story, Gwaihir is probably on one of the peaks of the Ephel Duath. They do appear the tallest in The Land of Shadow’s map, but I’m not sure how far away they are. Given that Minas Tirith was about as far away from them as Oroduin, though, it was probably pretty far…. but then, eagles can see pretty far. And fly rather fast. But let’s say I took a little poetic license and moved the mountains closer to Mount Doom.  Or made their foothills a lot taller.

Well, that’s my defense of my story’s setting right here. But I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert on LOTR canon. If you see anything that needs fixing or anything that I could do better, canon-wise or writing-wise, please do let me know!

Hope you enjoyed the story,

Val

I have finally started on my new Narnia fic! And I have a title- and better still, a theme song!

The title is The Walls Between.The theme song, which will probably contain spoilers as to how the story will turn out, will not be revealed until an appropriate time. However, all the chapter titles will be phrases from the song, so it shouldn’t be hard to guess! Especially because anyone who’s visited my profile page knows my favorite band and this song is one of their hit singles.

Well, enough of dropping hints! I wrote Chapter One: Nothing Left today! It’s probably one of the most action/tragedy filled chapters, but I am so terribly excited about writing more! I have to do some research first, though. I heartily thank whoever thought of Google Earth, though - I may have found the perfect location for Chapter Two.

I’m still finishing up The Tempest - only 3 more chapters to write! I will definitely get it done before I post another chapter on FF.net. And then I may just post the first one of The Walls Between because I am SO exited about it. Wait, I have to finish Portraits of the Past first, and I’m posting The Eagle tomorrow, too…. I really need to learn to finish things!

Ah, well. I just needed some place to let EVERYONE know about this, even if no on reads this.

Blessings anyway,

Val

I only have to write three more chapters before the Tempest is done! I must admit, though, that I’m excited for some of the wrong reasons. Therefore if the end is rather crappy it’s entirely my fault. I’m excited because… well, after…. hmmm, has it only been three months? Or was it four? - the hundred - forty-ish page long fic will be over. And guess what? As of now, it’s over 50,000 words long! Easily the longest thing I’ve ever written. I wonder what the average word length of a novel is - I’ve never even thought me writing a novel would be possible - and it probably isn’t. Oh well, it’s a novella at least.

The reason I’m most exited, though, is that it means I can start on my Narnia fic! I have so many great ideas about it - it’s all I can do to keep from typing the first chapter in right here! I haven’t been this excited about writing for  quite some time now, and it’s a wonderful feeling!

If you were hoping for some deep insight into this week’s Tempest installment…. well, sorry It seems like it was so long ago that I wrote it!

Oh, in this chapter you are introduced to the mysterious Miriam Avraham. Yay! She figures prominently in the sequel - which will not be written until 1) James Patterson reforms and deletes books 3 and 4 from the series or 2) reforms and stops trying to brainwash American youth into thinking gangs are cool, environmentalism is life, adults are evil, etc. He’s so deluded! and 3) I finish both Narnia epics.

 Well, that’s all I have right now!

Have a great weekend!

Val