News and Views: Writer's Block and Eregion
Orginally Posted May 1st, 2002
First off, I owe readers an apology for no Legolas/Haldir. The story for them is a story I want to tell, about elves, sex, and death, but it is going to wait a bit longer. But you've got ansereg galore, and more to come, in the new series One Ring to Bind Them.
Writer's block hurts. I acquired it banging my head against a story that wasn't ready to be told. I felt like the guy in the essay I Have Written a Bad Book, from McSweeneys.net. What defrosts writer's block? My cure was: 1. Glorious beta readers. Thank you. 2. Organic food and exercise. 3. The National Novel Writing Month web site and its divine-madness approach to writing. 4. Feedback and constructive criticism. 5. Reading Tolkien's letters, full of madly fascinating statements on sex, politics, and Middle-Earth. "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy..." In his letters, he shows that he thought a lot about the failings of the Elves, and about the nature of Sauron's evil. And those thoughts fed the story One Ring to Bind Them.
One Ring to Bind Them is a slightly different slash fic. I was wondering about Eregion. Tolkien did not seem to want to linger in Eregion, where he set his ideal race up to fall deeply. The glimpse we get of Eregion in FOTR is poignant, marked by the lament of the stones for the Noldor: "Deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone." Why did the Elves of Eregion fall for Sauron? Why did Galadriel put up with having Sauron around, even though she hated him? How were the Rings made, anyway? Why were they so alluring? I was also intrigued with the failings of the Elves; pride, nostalgia, a refusal to change at the price of stagnation for others. And, of course, I saw perverse, tempting possibilities lurking in the descriptions of Sauron in fair form "seducing" and elves "flirting". Of such stuff is book-slash made. I hope you enjoy the results. I'm enjoying writing.