3 Quotes, 3 Days Challenge

Thank you skybluedaze for nominating me for this challenge. If you haven’t visited this blog, do yourself a favor and hurry on over and check it out.

You don’t have to be great to get started. But you have to get started to be great.
-Les Brown

This quote is all over my computer, my phone, doodled on scrap paper on and around my writing space. It reminds me that all my heros got started the exact same way I am doing it now. Every single one had a “real” job that paid the bills while madly scribbling away in the back room or the car or the bus, or train. Believing for all they were worth they would become Writers. Doubt plagued them, but that leads into my second quote.

Sucessful writers are amateur writers that didn’t quit.

So if Tolken could take 14 years to write the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmerian. I think I can keep putting word after word on the page. And be inspired by my heros, because they refused to give up and so do I. Somedays the words don’t flow fast and furious, but the times when it happens it is all the sweeter.

In closing this is a bastardized quote of Gaston Bachelard. I have condensed what he said and don’t think anything was lost in translation.

The blank page gives the pen the right to dream.

Because if we don’t allow ourselves and our voice freedom, how can we touch the world.

Cheers, james

Home: The physical place and the emotionally significance of home

Home is where you hang your hat.

Home is where your heart is.

Home sweet home.

 

All of these quotes deal with the signifigance of home as a shelter from the natural elements and of emotional ties. As a writer how important to your characters is home? Samwise in Lord of the Rings often thinks of home and the Shire, in fact this is one of his most important roles. Helping Frodo remember home and the Shire to get to Mt. Doom and get home. Those last pages and those scenes in the movie were important because without Samwise reminding Frodo about home, the ring would have completely corupted him.

So far in both of my stories home hasn’t become much of an issue. In Owl Story (dontcha just love working titles) home is destroyed within the first few pages. In Haydrian the main character is kidnapped from the street. So very little has been revealed of home there. However homesickness and the longing to go home play a big part. 

Owl has been my primary work in progress while Haydrian is the one I chew on and think about. Some seriously uncomfortable issues have cropped up and I want to make sure I handle them accordingly. Sexual slavery and torture are not subjects to be lightly handled but neither do I want them taking over either. So carefully I mull over how much to show and how much to let my reader fill in the blanks. 

As a writer do feel your own personal connection to home being reflected in your writing? I am very much rooted to the county where I grew up, although between third and fifth grade my family moved several times, but home was always where my grandparents were. I feel this belief is refected in my writing, even if it hasn’t made itself known yet in my two current stories. Also the need to explore and ramble ( as my grandfather would say) is reflected in my writing. That belief is a loud, proud, in your face kinda theme. I am hoping to see both of these stories develop and include the ideal of home. Every adventure starts at home and then Good Lord willing that is where it finishes. Unless you happen to be another JRR Tolken and then the sky’s the limit. Of course to be great you have to get started. I forget who said it but it still rings true. Cheers,

The Hobbit: The Desolution of Smaug

Oh my this was as good as the first movie! Ok i mentioned in my second post I think Mr. Tolken is the gold standard for fantasy writing. I just watched Peter Jackson’s second installment of The Hobbit. I enjoyed it thoroughly even if we had to pause for s’mores. Oh those were so good too, maybe better than popcorn. Anyway one thing that caught my attention was the way the movie filled in some gaps from the book. 

Since Hobbit is written from Bilbo’s prespective it makes sense that when Gandalf leaves Bilbo wouldn’t know what happened until later. I am trying not to give anything away in case you haven’t seen it yet. I so enourge you to watch both movies if you like Lord of the Rings or fantasy adventure. I give it two thumbs up and s’mores. Ok thats my two cents worth. Cheers,

Here we go post #2

Maybe this second post will be smoother than the several attempts made on the first post. I really should back track and read the how to’s but what fun would that be. Besides you learn and remember so much more when you learn it yourself. Ok maybe that doesn’t apply to a lot of things like math, calculus (is that really math or just cruel torture for our students) and other things, but it works for writing.

The more you write, the more you learn about writing. The more you learn about word slinging, the more you learn when you read. Other authors give such valuable insights when we read their books. The way this author handles plot, another’s incredible world building, the examples go on. Mr. Tolken was incredible in the scope of his works. Not only did he write four of the world’s most recongized fantasy novels, but he created the entire world, history, peoples, and its mythos. As a writer dabbling in the fantasy world not only is Mr. Tolken, my hero, he is my gold standard for what a writer should strive for.

Middle Earth is as real to me and other fans of his writings as Earth is to the everyday person. I truly believe a writer has the ability to make a difference with his or her stories. Through our stories we can connect people together and maybe change the way someone views the world and the people around them.