Making the Rounds: Four Chapters Left to Go...
I don’t want anyone to think I cut some chapters to hurry this thing along. I based it on how much more of Book II’s extended version would tell and on the ending of Book I. Didn’t make a dent, actually.
I think my father’s okay. My sister hasn’t called or anything. I might see if I can see him tomorrow. When I saw him last week, he looked okay. Frail, but he’s 86 years old. He was whining about how cold it was with my brother-in-law who took me. He loved Lee with the child in the pool. I showed him a photo of Lee in Bali. I said, “See, Dad. Lee’s wearing pants.” Dad said, “Finally.”
Nope Dad has not gotten over Calpernia. At that moment, whatever was wrong with my Dad didn’t exist because he still thinks Lee Pace takes selfies of himself in dresses. He remembered so much that I forgot, it’s hard to believe he’s got Alzheimer’s.
After all I’ve been through since the beginning of writing this book, it’s hard to believe I’ll be done with one of them in under two years. It’s Dad’s book when I once again post **END OF BOOK II**. Only this time, it is final--for the original, that is.
You know, I don’t understand why people think I’m competition. That’s weird. I don’t compete with people. I’ve been writing before most people were born. This is my first book, but not my first rodeo. I got my first copyright at age nine for my work on an opera. Script, story by me. Coretta Scott King put my poem in the library of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center herself. In the library. I am on a card catalogue. I wrote an adaptation of “The Point” by Harry Nilsson that he liked when I was 15.
I write because I’ve never wanted to do anything else since I was two. I wrote loopy loops then and was mad when my mom couldn’t read the story. She just stared at me. I rolled my eyes and told her, “It says ‘once upon a time’.” She wasn’t listening--she was staring at the fact I made the loopy loops on the lines of the steno pad perfectly. That’s when she and my Dad began to teach me how to read and write. Just in time for me to know how to read in Preschool where I was thrown out for being able to read. They said the other kids would feel stupid. I don’t know why they thought that. They asked me to read to them. They thought it was cool. But adults can be just as silly as they think kids are.
I may have done a lot in writing but I don’t think about it too much because I always am ready to go to the next thing. I’m always the last to know if it was good or not. I just do it. All day, every day no matter what it is. A blog, TKWR, a poem, an idea for another “whatever”, a script. I don’t do it to compete. I do it because I love it. It is a passion I was born with. I’ve been compared to Maya Angelou in college and recently someone said me and Tolkien have the same soul. Shocking, considering I wanted to Shakespeare when I was eight.
I don’t do it for attention, I don’t do it to get more readers or whatever some think--I haven’t used one “fan art” to tell the story, though on the History page, I use credited stuff. I don’t compete because I don’t have to--every writer is different and see things differently. We’re supposed to be different. Shakespeare wasn’t trying to be Ben Jonson. Tolkien wasn’t trying to be C.S. Lewis. They just wrote what they wanted to. They became legends not because of how many people liked them. People thought Tolkien was a quack at first. It was the story he told that made him good (though vague at times).
Great writers are never popular. When I started this thing, I was one in a sea of Thranduils. If I had worried about that, I wouldn’t have The Mindy Project following me on Twitter--much less SIRI (I don’t get that one). No one is going to write the story I saw because it is not for them to see. It is for me to tell. If another writer sees something else, more power to them. You’re not supposed to see what I see and I’m not supposed to see what you see. That is the point of diversity in writing.
Granted, I learned Tolkien--still am; I am not done. But I decided that before Thranduil became what he has become in The Kingdom of the Woodland Realm Trilogy. I chose to do it this way. I didn’t want to write it any other way. The only part that isn’t “Tolkien-esque” is the point of view. Thranduil had a story to tell and he was going to tell it. I give Lee Pace credit for inspiring that. In three seconds in one scene in the middle of a film I saw for the first time in 2015 in the middle of a severe weather outbreak, I saw this story in his eyes.
I couldn’t get it out of my head, honestly. I could feel everything he felt after years of pain and anguish of loss. He wanted to tell it, so I let him. It grew from there.
I had to change my life from one genre to the next--from screenwriting to book. I had to drop what I had worked on for 17 years to take a risk on something I’ve never done because I thought I sucked at narrative (still do, I think). I didn’t have a choice--my father was in the hospital and I didn’t know what would happen.
Since then, I’ve finished this particular book once last July, and my father got better then got worse. My disease went into remission. I learned I had fans and Lee Pace got a new dog (Freddie). He’s kissed pandas and took photos of Scotland. I’ve made good on every deadline I’ve ever made (I used to not do that until Thranduil).
There are a thousand fandoms for the face that launched a thousand fan fictions. People get worked up if one gets more writers than other. That’s not your problem. Your job is to tell the story. Period. Bad writers worry about who’s reading. Good ones worry about what someone will be reading. Great ones just write the damn thing. I’m not saying I’m great; I’m saying if I worry about what people think of what I do, how will I get done what I started?
The other day, some woman found out what I was doing and the first thing that popped out was “The Estate will never approve it”. Never read a word. Just assuming something. Someone cut in and said, “Christopher Tolkien changed his position on that. He said if it follows his father’s work, he’d consider it.” That didn't sit well because another person said, “Ooo, I’ll beta read it.” Needless to say, I tried to nice and got called a bunch of names (not by that person)--everything from conceited to spammer and everything in between. It bothered me personally but this time I just decided I had some orcs to kill in Dol Guldur, so, See ya!
(Meanwhile, Thranduil once again took over another site to the point now I have to write more of the episodes I do here over there. This one is a crowd pleaser).
Oh, Thranduil. You never disappoint in your ability to turn what once was a gamer page into the “Middle Earth/Jackson Set Antics starring Yours Truly” page. So much so, some “haters” started sharing memes and some started making some of their own. Who knew being nice worked? Okay, so, Thranduil just does what he’s going to do and no one is going to say otherwise.
Still, I never get invited to join anything--the lady has a page for fan fiction writers. I am rather hated among fan fiction writers. I don’t know why. I thought I was one of them. Did they get mad because one guy told me that even Tolkien was writing fan fiction (if you know the story of Beowulf). Someone is always telling the same story--just never the same way.
I didn’t even know I was writing fan fiction until someone brought it up. I almost stopped but Thranduil always gets his way. So I carried on--hoping to be done before my dad passed on. I think he’s hold on for one of two reasons--to see me finish Book II and to see if Lee Pace continues to wear pants. I didn’t start this thing to be considered canon. I just wrote the damn thing. I love writing it. I love the story. I never thought I get to the point where I couldn’t get out of finishing something because someone said it was pointless. On the contrary--the more the said it was pointless, the more I wanted to do it.
At some point, to make a living as a writer, you have to let go of getting approval and popularity. I am glad Tolkien’s family changed their stance, but I am not writing for them, either. I’m writing because I love doing it and I love this story. I worry about that being right more than anything because if I don’t, they won’t approve it and no one would read it. The story is my only focus. There will always be critics, but there will not always be readers.
I don’t write anything I don’t love myself. If I love it, someone else will. It’s like if you love yourself, so will others. You don’t need them to love you, but it’s nice. It’s just my job to give them something to love. I know I am a woman of color writing about a 6′5″ elf king from Mirkwood that has a son named Legolas. Like a woman can’t write about a guy? I heard that so much, when a guy company on Instagram called me, “dude”, I just proved those people wrong.
I do it because I can. I can because I want to. I want to because someone said I couldn’t.
No one should have to compete for readers. People are going to read what they want to. I’m going to write what I want to. The world won’t stop spinning because some decided to knock off the competition. In fact, since that “rumor” thing, Thranduil’s readership took off.
Last count: 2000+ readers and nearly that many followers across all of it’s sites. You throw dirt you lose ground. It’s a reflection of my work--it’s a reflection of how petty someone is to do something so unnecessary, it was almost ridiculous. I’d like to thank them, though. Their “hating” on me got the Mythopoeic Society to suggest I dedicate my entire trilogy to J.R.R. Tolkien so it could be seen sooner. The first book (Saga of Thranduil) is always my dad’s, though. I think the children of Tolkien can appreciate celebrating a beloved father.
Thanks to the “haters” I was forced to tell my sister everything--she said, “Well that makes my life seem dull”..oh, I’m sorry. Was my life getting started interrupt someone from liking your condo in St. Croix? People act like you can't like more than one thing--as if somehow they’ll be inconvenienced by someone saying, “I like this, too.” Tolkien and Lewis encouraged each other--they didn’t stab each other in the back. Guess what? They both are famous writers with beloved books. Some people like one more than the other, but more like them both.
Tolkien’s books didn’t make his friend C.S. Lewis’ books any less beloved.--J.
Image: ©2013. Warner Brothers Pictures. The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. All Rights Reserved.
Image: ©2014. Warner Brothers Pictures. The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. All Rights Reserved.
