Silmarillion Writers&#39; Guild

Feeling somewhat accomplished as I have managed to finished a story that sat untouched for almost a year.

For all of you who need a little encouragement, here is this weeks "Encouragement Doodle".

http://j-flattermann.livejournal.com/373057.html

From:

lin4gondor.livejournal.com

I was just helping someone yesterday with their college homework assignment on Ray Bradbury, and I was reminded of what an awesome person he was, full of great writing wisdom. And here he is again today, speaking words of wisdom about getting out of the way of myself to get going! Love it!

Thanks for the encouragement, it's just what I need to hear with an only-slightly-busy weekend ahead of me; I will grasp those times of freedom for writing as my intuition leads.

From:

independence1776

Congratulations!

From:

Thank you.

From:

rhapsody11.livejournal.com

I am doing well with my goals. Besides finishing a story and a ficlet as planned, I also edited 9 chapters of one of my nanowrimo-novel and handed it to one of my beta's. I am now at the point where I have to re-write things because I lost 15k in chapters when my lap top died on me. But I probably will wait until my beta is caught up, I suppose. Hmm.

From:

ysilme

Well, I'm leaving in a few hours for our "summer holiday" trip, and won't be back until the 22nd, with very likely no internet access. So for me, this more or less is already the end of the SOWD. It went quite differently than thought, as I wrote already - those seemingly fast drabbles took forever, and I didn't finish my two other goals at all in time. On the other hand, I undertook another new to me fannish endeavour: making some banners for a fanfic award.

rhapsody11 said I could replace this as one of my goals, so there is another one managed. *g*

But apart from bringing me some new fandom acquaintances and friends, taking part at the SOWD really brougth me into the writing part of the Tolkienverse, and had so much positive influence on my writing. I'm very happy I joined and really had a great time. Thank you all so much for making this such a great experience!

From:

ysilme

Congratulations!

From:

How awesome that you went with the whole intuition angle and it worked! :D Congratulations!

From:

Rhapsody posted this quote on her LJ a few weeks ago, and I fell in love with it immediately. I have found, as a writer, that I have become much more regimented than I used to be; I don't know if that's because I'm older and have more responsibilities (and so less time to just go with a story), or if I identify enough as a writer now to went to write even when the muses don't say much else besides, "Eh." But like the "sneeze" prompt, it's nice to try to recapture that feeling in the days when the story went where the story wanted to go! :D

I'm glad the quote resonated with you too ... good luck this weekend! I hope it turns out productive. :)

From:

Ouch. That's a painful loss. :(

But congrats on good progress! That is awesome! *\0/*

From:

I'm thrilled to hear that it went well for you and that many good things came as a result of our humble little SoWD! :) That makes me really happy to hear. :) :) :)

Congrats on goals accomplished and new endeavors and new friends met! I hope you have a nice trip!

From:

Are you psychic or what?

This week I did get in my own way, though not strictly speaking because I tried to stick to some strict outline instead of following my intuition (which tends to be unavoidable anyway), but because I read some fantastic fic by someone I happened to be writing a story for... and went "Oh why bother, you'll never write like that, why are you even trying, it's like taking coal to Newcastle (and bad coal at that)?" And suddenly everything looked like crap. I'd painted birthday art for a friend, and I only realised how unhappy I was with my style, my lack of skill, my sloppy anatomy (and, to be fair, my lousy scanner that ate all the colours out of the originally reasonably vibrant piece). I wrote three chapters for TTS and three chapter for Golden Days (which I hadn't worked on in more than a year) and I only went "Meh, it's no good anyway, nothing to feel accomplished about). In other words, I was majorly standing in my own way. Maybe because I was suddenly focusing on my expectations too much instead of appreciating what I had managed to do, I dunno. Either way, it felt sucky and I felt like a failure.

Meh. We apologise for the complaining. I know it's silly. It's just so hard to get out of the way...

From:

independence1776

Awesome!

From:

independence1776

*hugs* Complaining can be useful, too. Everyone needs to vent sometime. Congrats on the things you did!

From:

Thank you, that's so kind of you to say. *hugs back* It is useful, if only because once it is out there, it looks a lot smaller than it did in my mind! ;)

From:

hhimring

Well, and here's me holding my breath because, you know: Updates for TTS!!! Updates for Golden Days!!! And a drawing of the wonderful Tamurille to boot!
Nothing to feel accomplished about??!! Whatever can you mean?!

From:

hhimring

Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way?
Yeah, right! Sometimes you barely manage to throw yourself sideways in time, because your intuition looks as if it's about to knock you flat--and sometimes your intuition's feeling so shy, it seems moving to another planet wouldn't be far enough out of the way for comfort...

I haven't upgraded my SoWD goals, because Earendil and Beleg both are looking as if they would react badly to any kind of pressure.

Could I ask something anyway?
Tolkien Gateway claims that Beleg accompanied Mablung to the Mereth Aderthad. This seems to contradict the published Silmarillion, doesn't it? Is there a different account of Mereth Aderthad in HoME somewhere that I can't find at the moment that has Beleg attending--or is this just an error in Tolkien Gateway?

From:

*sheepish look* You know how these bouts of self-doubt are. Especially when they hit you after a longer period of silence - you've forgotten how to deal with them, and suddenly you wonder how you could merrily ignore reality...
But thank you so much for expressing joy about the stuff I did. (Now I feel even more embarrassed about whining. >_>)

From:

ladyelleth.livejournal.com

Standing in my own way is something I do routinely, and if I don't do that, then something else does it for me. I do feel a little accomplished, though, managing to squeeze out rougly 4k of fic in less than a week, even if it included a LOT of pacing up and down the hall and tearing at hair - but I got it written before the deadline, so that's two out of too many SoWD goals down. I'll try to bang out another thing this weekend, and would like to share the song that is giving me a lot of inspiration toward it, even if it doesn't match the situation of the fic in a lot of ways: Dust to Dust (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-j86tzxi8s) by The Civil Wars.

But other than that, I will need to adjust my goals to have any chance of still making it, if that's still possible? It hasn't been a very good writing time, and that's okay, but I'd still like to point at something and say "I made it" by the end of the season to maybe let me feel like it wasn't a total failure on my part... hrm.

From:

I know. What kinds of artists would we be without the endless self-doubts? Not very good ones!

I can only add my voice to those who have also replied in saying that your work is wonderful and always happily anticipated. And don't feel bad for "complaining"; if things always went as planned, we wouldn't need SoWD, much less motivational posts! :) That's part of what they're here for: to sound off to others who have been there many times and know what it's like!

I'm not psychic (sorry, Felagund!), but I read all of the comments that come into these posts (even if RL means that I can't reply/participate as much as I'd always like), and I do pick up on trends in how people are progressing or feeling and try to aim the motivational posts accordingly. :)

From:

Thanks so much.

From:

I'm on the roll, there is the next one finished. Hmm, hope it keeps on going like that.
*grins*

From:

I don't know off the top of my head of any sources that connect Beleg to the Mereth Aderthad. I just checked Oshun's bio on Beleg, and she doesn't mention it either, and it's not like her to miss something like that. I'll take a turn through the indexes later just to be sure, but it seems to me that maybe the person who wrote that got the Mereth Aderthad mixed up with Beleg and Mablung being the only two from Doriath to fight in the Fifth Battle.

From:

You can absolutely still adjust your goals! You can either make a note here or the original post.

Congrats on the progress--that's excellent! I've done jack since finishing my SinS story. Okay, to be fair, there was that minor deal of starting a new school year these past two weeks ... ;)

Good luck on making more progress this weekend! *\0/*

From:

keiliss.livejournal.com

I think Dawn's right and someone mixed up two long, hard to memorise names.

From:

I'm not psychic (sorry, Felagund!), but I read all of the comments that come into these posts (even if RL means that I can't reply/participate as much as I'd always like), and I do pick up on trends in how people are progressing or feeling and try to aim the motivational posts accordingly. :)

I have on occasion snarked that (at least!) 80% of "being psychic" are actually just good observation/pattern recognition skills. So you're almost there. ;)

Seriously though, SoWD (as well as the motivational posts) have been a huge help. Sure, maybe the muses would have been cooperative even without that additional kick of "I have goals to reach, damnit!" - I hadn't even expected GD to feature into my productivity this Season, but lo, suddenly it grabbed hold and wouldn't let go (I have another unfinished chapter on which I still have to do some fact-checking and, of course, proofreading to do, and the beginning of the next chapter is already in my head, too, which is always the hardest part)! If I kept tabs on my writing progress, March and July-September would stand out like whoa. Seems that I really need the challenges.

As for the inner critic... I guess we just always see where we want to go, instead of appreciating what we've already reached. As you say, what kind of artists would we be without self-doubts? ^^

From:

Well, you know my theory that the most confident writers tend to be the worst writers ...

Seems that I really need the challenges.

I'm the same way. I'm very good at putting my creative work into last place, so it'll be, "Oh, this weekend, I have materials to make for a lesson, a reading to do for school, a beta to finish, a draft to toss to my SWG comods ... and if I finish all of that and am not exhausted by that point, then I will maybe write." Which almost never happens.

I don't know if I will make my goals--the SinS story turning into a novella threw a wrench into the cogs!--but my chart of progress would look similar to yours, and the very fact that I carved out time to even write a novella kinda says something.

I'm glad to hear that the challenge was motivating to you and others, though! And it's so easy to run, there's no reason we can run it whenever we feel we need an excuse to get something done. ;)

From:

I was going to say, you wrote an entire NOVELLA! And in short time, too!

It didn't work for me last year at all (it just wasn't enough to overcome all the other priorities, in the end), but this year both B2MeM and the SoWD were wildly productive. I can appreciate the quantity even when I doubt the quality. ;) It's not like I have a schedule like yours, being ~~a desperate housewife~~ a family manager, but what with one thing or another, creative stuff just tends to take a backseat if there isn't some sort of limited time frame and/or challenge.

But I forgot to say, the fact that YOU of all people think that my work is wonderful is thrilling me so much. If you could see me now, you'd laugh at my doofy grin. Heeeeeeeh. (I can now admit that it was, in fact, The Sovereign and the Priest that started off the "Why bother, you'll never be that good" spiral.) So, yeah. Squee. And also Eh, she's just being nice, you know your work isn't honestly any good, but we won't listen to the inner critic tonight. Squee!

From:

hhimring

Thank you very much!
I think you are right. I've found a footnote by Christopher Tolkien in the War of the Jewels now (p. 116?), that seems to say that although in earlier versions the names of those attending are not specified (which would just about make room for Beleg, I guess), once names are named, it's only Daeron and Mablung who are said to have come from Doriath, as later in the published version. (I had also forgotten that the gathering was originally set in Nan-tathren, before it was moved to Ivrin.)
Now I need reasons for Beleg to depart from Ivrin almost as soon as he got there... But Oshun's bio has already given me some ideas.

From: