What are you writing about now?

133,159 words. 36 1/2 of 53 chapters edited. Found a paragraph I need to expand into a full scene. Found a chapter I'm not happy with, in that I'm not sure if I really need it to exist at all (and if so, whether the current POV person is the right POV for it).

I've marked them with @ToDo markers, and I'll deal with them when my noodle comes up with a plan.

43 of 53 chapters edited. Still have the two issues I mentioned earlier to fix.

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

I can type much faster than I can write, and with how busy I am, I'd never get anything done if I hand-wrote my manuscripts

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Typing also has the ability of being read later. Ent's writing is - well - abysmal. The twigs just don't coordinate that way any more. (Though he always loves to try. There's just SOMETHING about putting mechanical pencil to paper. (never a wood one..!))

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

I like knowing my word counts.

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In Ent's book your word always counts..! But I think we're talking about two different things..!

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

and I thought some of you might appreciate the heads up.

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Yes, the Oligarchy is getting ever more oppressive. Amazon just determined to pull all Shotwell's books, because Amazon felt like they were 'being likened to Mordor' in some work someplace. This includes, then, some of the works by one of our own authors. Ent is trying to find out more, as such a thing would be a clear breach of 'freedom of speech' - something the Oligarchy is getting far too tyrannical about.

Time to set out some challenges for the 'status quo' - it is 'quo-ing' in entirely the wrong direction.

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

Hey guys, someone in my local writing group just shared this on our group chat, and I thought some of you might appreciate the heads up.

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It's a good reminder to create local backups of anything you might store primarily on cloud storage. I don't use Google Drive for my main personal writing projects, but they are all on OneDrive, so I'm definitely going to work on establishing local backups of all my work sometime soon!

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This is certainly concerning, since I have been using the Google Docs app on my phone to do all my writing lately, and liking it. I shall have to find another place to take my writing now, I suppose. Thankfully, none of my works appear to be harmed yet.

50 of 53 edited! So close!!!

The finish line is in sight!

On the 53rd chapter. The Style Guide report lists about 160 items. For reasons known only to sloppy programmers, adverbs will be in that report 3 times, so about 66 of those entries represent the usage of 22 adverbs. I'm already using adverbs at about 1/2 the rate of other fantasy authors, so I don't sweat the use of most of them. But I'll prune some. It also lists 4 possible emotion tells (as in tell instead of show), a hidden verb, and surprisingly no passive verbs.
It will take several hours to finish, so that's for the morning's work.

Here's something cool. I've tried very hard to have the text have an archaic feel to it, so that it feels like a translation from a different language instead of modern English. (After all, it's supposed to be a translation from the original history of these events written in Sindarin.)

To do that, I drop some of the articles. Words like "the", "a", "an", "that", and similar words are often dropped (unless essential for clarity). I often use adjectives in place of adverbs. I literally mean that and not adjectives instead of adverbs. That's how it was done in Middle English. And, of course, a smattering of archaic words and unusual word order. I've been really pleased with the effect.

Finished editing the last chapter. I have a number of things identified that need to be fixed. I still have another editing pass to do through the book, this time focusing on spiffing up descriptive wording and double-checking it all sounds good when read aloud. (Some words just don't play well together when spoken aloud.) But this will be a piece of cake compared to what I just did.

This kind of editing is way more fun than the massive slog I just finished up. It was focused on grammar, passive verbs, correcting mismatched verb tenses, rewriting a bunch of chapters from 3rd person to 1st person, changing the POV on a few sections, and removing awkward phrasing.

david_wendelken said:

Finished editing the last chapter. I have a number of things identified that need to be fixed. I still have another editing pass to do through the book, this time focusing on spiffing up descriptive wording and double-checking it all sounds good when read aloud. (Some words just don't play well together when spoken aloud.) But this will be a piece of cake compared to what I just did.

This kind of editing is way more fun than the massive slog I just finished up. It was focused on grammar, passive verbs, correcting mismatched verb tenses, rewriting a bunch of chapters from 3rd person to 1st person, changing the POV on a few sections, and removing awkward phrasing.

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Oh, and I need to decide what illustrations will be needed.

david_wendelken said:

and surprisingly no passive verbs.

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remarkable.

david_wendelken said:

(Some words just don't play well together when spoken aloud.) But this will be a piece of cake compared to what I just did.

This kind of editing is way more fun

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Indeed. Words have both a 'cadence' and a 'music' some say, and when either is 'off' it's noticeable.
I've been spending just a little bit of time working on the 'sound and beat' of "flow" lately myself for a number of reasons.

Thanks for continuing to share David.

Writers, the time is now. We just lost one of the Entwife's closest friends - one of the "4 musketeers" as I called them - and folks in my age group are dropping all around me now,.

An Ent-o-gram has gone out to all my "family and friends" letting them know I'm moving into a time of intense focus on my books now. The future will be different for all of them than was the past in some ways, as I need to start saying "no." (And I confess - much of that will be me saying 'no' to myself - significantly revising how I engage with any 'discretionary time' I may find at any given time)

I've done a massive restructuring of many things, including my multiple computers, how and where I focus, store, organize, and access all the work, and have improved the framework of it all to eliminate unnecessary "noise and distraction" as well as insidious time thieves inherent just in maintenance of 'structure,' to streamline the drive ahead. (As a result, I have 4 computers I'm re-homing at this time as well. What a relief.)

I will be pushing my two essential books to completion now, having re-engaged with both. The consideration of "what comes first" is done. It cannot be "which" - it must be "both". (Plans are already in place.)

I've also harnessed a couple authors I edit for (who were included in the letter) - my "Pseudo-Inkling" friends, though we must come up with a better name for ourselves - to bounce ideas back and forth with, as both their work and mine progress.

I'll probably periodically post pieces, paragraphs, and postulates here someplace for your review and critique. There will be a need to say many things very clearly, and (here's the rub for an Ent) - succinctly. You can help if/as you wish.

So again - the time is now.
I've engaged the Admins in helping toss me out, if I linger here too long.

Keep writing.

p.s. - I've changed the title of my work on Tolkien's 'religions and moral elements.'

It has become Tolkien's Secret Fire: The Subtlety Of Middle-earth's Moral and Religious Elements,

Thrust of the book is the same - to unfold some of what Tolkien did - SIL, through Hobbit to LoTR - and demonstrate how he did it - with a view to helping us see more closely his use of language to "show" Middle-earth's Moral and Religious elements - "but not overtly,"

I still consider them worthy of being used as textbooks on the matter - and I still have not found another author covering this particular ground, extensive and imperative though it is, to 'understand his work' (Which he sad "most won't..")

I have just posted the final chapter of I Will Hold Your Hand Again (the second of my two fanfictions about Curufin and his family). I finished writing it yesterday.

It has been an unexpectedly long journey! A full two years of writing.

Very handily, the documents' creation and modification dates can tell me exactly when I started writing, and when I made the final edits.

The Works of Curufinwë:


I Will Hold Your Hand Again:


What's funny about these is that apparently I like to begin new writing projects at around half past 9 at night. 😂

And during the course of my writing, I found myself getting unexpectedly attached to these characters and their journeys.

(Brief explanation of these fanfictions, for those who haven't seen my previous posts about them)
The Works of Curufinwë is very closely based on The Silmarillion, and tells the story of Curufin and that of Celebrimbor, from their perspectives. If dialogue from the book exists, I use that. Essentially, this is me attempting to expand on what's written in the book, and it is a kind of character study.

I Will Hold Your Hand Again is a more speculative fanfiction. Here I focus on Curufin's family life, and his relationship with his wife, to whom I gave the name Tancaquárë. The first two chapters are set in Valinor, and the last three are set far in the future, after the events of The Silmarillion, and they serve as an epilogue to The Works of Curufinwë.

It will be a long time before I'm able to read this story, as you know, but I'm very excited to get to know the more emotional side of Curvo's relationship with Anca!

Drew four heraldic badges, just need about twelve more. I use heraldic badges at the start of each chapter. I'm thinking about using them at the start of each change in Point-of-View (POV).

I did Nerwen's original badge, one that contains elements of her father Finarfin's badge. Don't need the altered (disguised) one until Volume 4, and it's already done.

Did Carnimírië's original badge. Already have her two altered ones. She has a harp in her original badge like that of Finrod's, but when her king has a spiffy harp made for her, she alters the badge to include the new harp instead. The last one isn't used until Volume 4.

I did two badges for Faedírion of Brithombar. One isn't really a badge, it's just a graphical place holder. The second is the badge he adopts after bad things happen to him.

I still need to do one for a dwarven smith, an elven sea captain, an elven ship, a maiar in disguise as an elf, an easterling chieftain, a dragon, an elven archer, an Umbaran lord and his estranged son, a self-created orphan. Plus one for a knightly order, and maybe a Lady of Gondor and Elrond.

Ent said:

I've also harnessed a couple authors I edit for (who were included in the letter) - my "Pseudo-Inkling" friends, though we must come up with a better name for ourselves - to bounce ideas back and forth with, as both their work and mine progress.

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How about The Saplings - referring to possible new ideas that might themselves bend (like young trees) in the wind.

that posted, even as I write this, I can think of more
than one reason why this name might be unwanted

Okay, possibly not my best work, but at least I didn't
spend a lot of time thinking about it! Ahem. . . cough



Anyway, although I realize the question (in the thread title) doesn't relate to what anyone is writing in posts on Tolkien forums, I am writing a lot about wind lately; and mentioning it once again in this very arguably unnecessary post.

Got some more of the badge designs done. Still have more to go. All together, the piece is 11" by 37". Had to break it into 3 images to upload it here.

The Vertical lines and the grids on the names that don't have badges yet will be removed before printing.

This will be fan-folded. Each pair of names appear as one tab or stay on the inside of the book. A name goes on each side of the stay.

I'm using a Coptic style binding so the outside of the fanfold actually covers the pages when viewed from the outside of the book's spine.

I used a single piece of paper in one colour for Volume 4. I may end up doing that in Volume 1 also. But I'm going to explore using multiple pieces of paper. I'm thinking of a blend of gold and silver paper at the start (left) to represent the light of the two trees, blending from gold to silver and back, then go to a twilight grey with specks of silver (the starlit sky), then to multiple panels alternating between sky blue and the night sky. Don't think different phases of the moon would show up, but its worth a try.

Now that I think about it, I could do this fanfold as two pieces of paper thick in the gaps between the pairs of names. That's because the only parts of this paper seen on the outside are the parts between the pairs of names. I could glue the different colour pieces onto those gaps on the back side. Hmmm... Definitely worth a try!

Forgot to mention that some of the badges change as the people who have them change.

An absolutely brilliant suggestion from the MS Word grammar checker. 😂

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

An absolutely brilliant suggestion from the MS Word grammar checker. 😂
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Either one alone is workable, but both together??