It's a full life, if a trifle banal

I'm extremely proud to have an essay in this collection from the Mythopoeic Society, Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of JRR Tolkien.

My essay is about fanfiction, and is titled: "Finding Ourselves in the (Un)mapped Lands: Women's Reparative Readings of The Lord of the Rings". You can read a review of the book here [PDF file].

The new captain made little impression.

( Come athelas )

dwimordene_2011 did this meme over on her journal:

Pick a character I've written and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

I did a few over there, and here they are.

( Altariel's Five Point Guide to Denethor )

( Altariel's Five Point Guide to Finduilas )

( Altariel's Five Point Guide to Faramir )

I am reading Fallen by aliana1. It's a novel set in the Houses of Healing and it's exceptionally good. Readers of this journal interested in WW1 should read it, as well as Tolkien aficionados.

I've been making Tolkien-related bingo cards. There's a sentence I never thought I'd write. It's for the March b2mem bingo challenge.

You have to come up with a theme, and then fill 24 squares with a prompt or challenge related to that theme. I decided on the theme "March 3019 T.A.", which is when much of the main action of The Lord of the Rings happens (the Downfall of Sauron is on March 25th, as you already know, Bob).

I looked in the Appendices to see what other events were happening alongside the events of the book, and I tried to come up with prompts using as many of those as possible. Some of them we get accounts of second-hand; some we don't really hear about at all. I got so engrossed in this that I missed my stop on the bus this morning. Oops.

My prompts so far are under the cut. If you happen to have detailed knowledge of the events of March 3019 of the Third Age, I'd be very grateful if you took a look through and pointed out any glaring errors before I commit this to the care of the generous card-makers.

( Read more... )

OK, this is brilliant. A guy called Mark has somehow managed to remain unspoilered for The Lord of the Rings, and is currently reading it a chapter a day, and posting very long, very entertaining posts about the experience. He's a quarter of the way through TTT. You can catch up here:

The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers

He's done this with a bunch of other books, films, and TV shows. The site has specific guidelines for commenting, so read those first if you're thinking of commenting.

I promise this will be my last excited breathless jumping-up-and-down-for-joy post, but I really have had the most amazing week, and I still haven't shared all the awesome. There has been so much awesome this week that it's taken me almost the whole week to write about all of it.

So as well as the Monday Feast and the CAPSLOCK CAKE and the whole life beginning at forty business and the fandom anniversary, another AMAZING THING HAPPENED, or rather TWO AMAZING THINGS: my bloomin' friends bought me some original pieces of art by Anke Eissmann.

Yes. Originals.

Wait till you see which ones. I can't link directly, but if you go here, and click on Faramir and Éowyn (1999) and "And so they stood on the walls..." (2004) then you can see which ones (they are seventh and eighth on that page). My icon gives you a little clue.

*falls off chair flailing arms of joy*

If Dwimordene's and Isabeau's fiction inspired me to write about Faramir, then Anke Eissmann's paintings provided the inspiration to write about the Houses of Healing. As you may have worked out, my head isn't very far from that place.

I cannot tell you how beautiful these paintings are up close. I can't believe they've come into my care. I took them to the picture framers yesterday: they had no idea of the source material, but were still wowed by the beauty and skill of the pieces. They are getting black frames with a silver hint to them: very Númenorean! When they come home, I'm going to rebuild the entire house around them.

Anyway, I think I have now told you all the awesome. Though the weekend isn't over yet!

The results from the MEFAs came in a couple of days ago, and I'm the lucky recipient of some gorgeous shinies. What are the MEFAs? I hear you cry. They are the Middle-earth Fanfiction Awards. What's nice about the MEFAs is that scoring is done by reviewing: the longer the reviews, the more points for the story. It is a big reading and reviewing annual festival.

There are numerous heroic people involved in running it, but particular thanks must go to: telperion1, who is the main organiser; aranel_took, who designed a new website from scratch for the awards this year; and the wonderful banner makers who made and customised my shinies: ellynn_ithilwen, esteliel, and particularly mrowe, from whom I demanded a shopping list of shinies as long as my arm! Not forgetting the various adminny people who quietly do good work behind the scenes - my thanks to them too.

And I'm hugely grateful to everyone who took time to read and comment on my stories over the past few months: those reviews coming in kept me going throughout an exhausting few months towards the end of last year (some occasional grim moments).

Now, shinies!

( Graphics below the cut )

A dispatch from the Unabeauverse (best_loved_sons). Chess, cousins, and children.

( Old Soldiers )

Meanwhile, in the Houses of Healing...

( Love Among the Ruins )