FairerStillTheMoonlight

It’s a product of long nights and days full of studying and nothing else. Because a girl has a right to have some fun…. the photos I used either came from Deviant Art or Google Images. I’ll put up a full list of credits later. But in the meantime…. does this not look cool? It looks just like the cover of a real book - but then, I have to remind myself that it is novel length…

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

Almost forgot to put these up! Let’s see.. what do I have for you all this time? (I can’t even remember what I wrote…)

 Oh! The Great Plot Twist and Mysterious Child. Heh, heh.

The plot twist was planned, and as I explained earlier, it isn’t a cop-out. You’ll still get to know the Plan 1.0, though it won’t be quite as satisfying cuz you’ll know that that’s not the version in effect right now.

Mysterious Child. Well, let’s say my over-allegorical mind tends to stick in things like this at the last minute. This was one of those cases. I’m not sure where things are going with the child, but maybe I’ll find out if I ever write the sequel.

Let’s see…. then there’s Tanya being evil again… but you’ve got to feel for her, Jeb was pretty rotten in his treatment of her; she has a lot of cause to be bitter.

Then we go into the wondrous mirror cube, adapted from Susan Cooper’s mirror maze in Silver on the Tree. Only Will and Bran are so much cooler than Fang (runs from screaming fan girls).

I had a lot of fun writing that one - I don’t usually read horror, much less write it, but every author deserves a chance to be evil now and again

Sorry about the rather gruesome cliffie. Things’ll get worse.

Keep reading, though - and please do review - and I’ll keep the story coming!

Val

As I was working on another portion of Flash - the bit with the sword on the battlefield - it occurred to me that it needed a reason for being there.

 Story ideas come from the weirdest places. And, lucky me, this time it wasn’t an idea for a simple one-shot. I may end up writing a long one - or two - soon. And all the people who are reading Tempest are giving me funny looks right now, and probably glaring at me for not updating….

So I’ll make a promise to myself, and to you: I will not post any Narnian epic until the Tempest is finished (meaning that I’m done with all the writing. It may not all be posted, but it’ll be finished).

Now, onto those wonderful ideas that are just waiting to hit the paper….

1) So I thought it would be good to write about how the Witch came to rule Narnia in the first place…. it would be a very tragic event for the Narnians (and I’m pretty decent at writing tragedy, right? I mean, look at what I did to Fang!) and there is just so much potential… I already have a few characters just begging me to write them, but I think I’ll do this next one first and have this be the prequel…

2) I even wrote a summary for this one! I’m so excited about it… but I won’t post it ’till the Tempest is done.

Rith, youngest and last of King Frank’s house (rather cliché now that I come to think of it) has a difficult choice to make: die at the hands of the invading horde (the Witch’s army, of course!) or take his own life (well, not literally… more like jumping off a cliff or something equally overused). He’s a warrior but he’s afraid to die, and makes a choice he will regret forever…

Basically, he (I hate this term but have to use it) falls into England through one of those many openings between our worlds. He has a rather hard time of it (details are fuzzy here) but eventually settles down there and grows up. When Narnia is just a distant memory, he meets a man …(guess who!) He finds out what happened to his family (he’ll be related to the main character in the prequel… boy is this getting confusing!) and how the White Witch was defeated, etc. And then we go into basically how he was ashamed of his decision…and then a, what’s it called, redemption process, I suppose, where Aslan comes in, and then there’s this wonderful twist at the end…. I am so excited about writing this! Of course, I’ll have to get it clearer in my head before I start, but I think it’ll be cool… no longer than 10 chapters, I hope. But sometimes I get carried away - like in the Tempest!

Well, I’d better get to imagining and finishing the Tempest before I forget myself and start writing drafts here… and by the way, I’m almost finished on the oneshot about Gwaihir. So that will be posted soon.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Val

It’s late at night and I’m sitting here typing for no particular reason. Nothing amazing has happened today…but then, I shouldn’t say that. Miracles do happen every day. I wish I could see them more often, but I know that they’re there. Friends tell me of things, a search on Google will turn up thousands of hits. If I only open my eyes, there is so much to see!

 Walking down the road in the mornings, walking fast, I hardly see the beauty of the trees around me. I’m hurrying to go places, I have things to do and I won’t let myself rest until they’re done.

Most days.

On some days I do notice, even as I step fast through the trees’ long shadows. I hear the slight birdsong, as clear as the cars driving past, the tiny noise of the crickets as they end their songs. I see all the people around, walking just as I usually do, fast and furious, empty eyes missing the wonders around them, and my heart breaks.

It’s not just because they don’t delight in the silver of the Spanish moss in the oaks or the sharp, perfect blue of the sky. It’s because they can’t see.

They’re lost, so terribly lost, and they don’t even know it. Perhaps they don’t even care. I know them; they’re my friends and they’re nice people, wonderful people, cool people, but I know that none of that will help them in the long run.

All that will matter is whether or not their hearts have broken.

I pray for them then, that God will break their hearts when they see their own sin, their own sordid sin in the face of His holiness. I pray that they will abhor it and fall to the ground, crying for mercy, crying for salvation, because they know that there’s no earthly way for them to save themselves; they’re already doomed.

Cry to Him; He will save you. Not because you’re a good person, but because you’re a sinner. Because when He sent His son to die on the cross, it was so that you wouldn’t have to face the penalty for your crimes. This is what sacrifice is; this is what salvation is.

Choose Him, I beg you. I pray it for my friends and family, for my city and country, and most of all for this broken, shattered world.

Lord, heal this broken land!

What is the first rule in writing?

 ”Write an extraordinary story that will leave your reader gasping”, according to Darcy, a character in one of my favorite books, Showdown by Ted Dekker.

Leave your reader gasping. What author could ask for more?

In the same book, Dekker lists the monastery’s four rules of writing:

 ”Write to discover.

“There is no greater discovery than love.

“All love comes from the Creator.

“Write what you will.”

“Write new stories and new characters, embarking on grand, unique journeys with twists and turns that will leave the reader wondering,” the monastery teacher continues.

Dekker certainly does a great job with that; but what of me - a young writer of fan-fiction? Can my stories leave you gasping? Do they reflect the love of the Creator?

I honestly don’t know. I do write to discover - I write to uncover the journeys of characters I already know and love, I write to delve deeper into the hearts of magical lands and the souls of stories. I don’t write romance, generally, but my greatest, the greatest story, the story of my life and all life, is a romance. The Great Romance, Dekker calls it, the love song God sings everyday to His people. The discovery of love is the discovery of God. He is love, and all love comes from Him.

So then I will write what I will. I’ll try my best to make it new and brilliant, to take my readers into magical places and eternal conflicts, but I won’t always succeed.

That being said, I’ve been flooded with story ideas in the last few days.

I’ll list them here just to hold myself accountable - I think they’re exciting and I don’t want to get to the point where I fail to write them down. If I don’t use them in a year or so, though, feel free to ask me if you can borrow them!

Lord of the Rings

My favorite poem ever is “The Eagle” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I was thinking about eagles the other day, and suddenly I had a picture of Gwaihir Windlord in place of the usual golden eagle I see when I think of Tennyson’s poem. So I was thinking I would do a piece on him, and weave in threads of the poem.

“Like Gold Fall the Leaves” - For some reason that song Galadriel sings to Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring has never left my head. I was wandering along the other day and the first line came into my head: “Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen…” - “Ai! Like gold fall the leaves in the wind…”

It’s a very sad song, almost a lament. I fell in love with the first five words, and saw a picture of Lothlorien, deserted and empty, and it made me so sad I wanted to write a lament - maybe the story of one left behind, or the last one to leave the land, or one who visits it many years later. I’m not sure if it’s canon, but I’ll work it out somehow.

Narnia

Another picture-story. Two, actually, though I wrote one up but haven’t posted it yet.

I saw a sword on a blackened field, its silver blade bloodied but still reflecting a ray of moonlight, a ray of hope when all seems lost.

I saw a crimson feather on a sea of lilies, and just beyond that an endless wave of water on the edge of the world.

And then I thought that maybe one day I would like to write the tale of the last of King Frank’s Narnian descendants in their ill-fated battle against Jadis. But that would be a very long fic… and I’m not sure I have the time to write it up.

In the meantime, though, I hope that maybe in my stories you are able to see a little of the Creator’s love.

Have a blessed day,

Val