Newletter--May 2006

[dawn_felagund]

May's Challenges

Canon with a Twist
Have you ever wondered, what if just one thing had been done differently in the canon? Maedhros had decided to hold off on meeting Morgoth? What if Oromë had taken a different road and hadn't discovered the Elves for another five centuries? What if Haleth had taken Caranthir's offer to stay in Thargelion? What would have changed?

This challenge asks you to think about just that. Choose a single moment in Tolkien's canon and have the character make a different choice. How does history change? Or how does fate fulfill itself? The response may be any length and format--poetry, drabble, or fiction--but should ask what might have happened if one thing had changed.

If you have ideas for compelling story hooks for this challenge or know of any good examples of stories that satisfy this challenge (either your own or someone else's), please feel free to share them in a comment or in a post to the group.

Thanks to Jenni (digdigil) for this month's challenge!

The Quote of the Month Challenge
The Quote of the Month challenge asks you to write based on the themes and thoughts the quote inspires or about the event in which the quote occurred. You may write in any format--poem, story, essay, or drabble--with any characters, genre, or rating.

"Now in Mithrim there dwelt Grey-elves, folk of Beleriand that had wandered north over the mountains, and the Noldor met them with gladness, as kinsfolk long sundered; but speech ata first was not easy between them, for in their long severance the tongues of the Calaquendi in Valinor and of the Moriquendi in Beleriand had drawn far apart."
-The Silmarillion, “Of the Return of the Noldor”

Do you have a favorite quote that you think might inspire other authors as well? Let me know! I am seeking quotes for future quote challenges; please email me at DawnFelagund@comcast.net with your ideas.

Other Ongoing Challenges
At SWG, challenges never die. You are welcome to write for a challenge at any time. All of our past challenges have been tagged and may be found here or on our website.

A Call for New Challenges!
The SWG does not have a committee or person devoted to challenges: The challenges are for members to create! If you have an idea for a challenge or would like to suggest a quote for the monthly quote challenge, please do not hesitate to suggest it on-list or email me privately at DawnFelagund@comcast.net.

As always, all Silmarillion writing, including challenge responses, is welcome in our LJ community.


Welcomes and Birthdays

I would like to extend warmest welcome wishes to kaizer_ken_ichijouji, lenajade9, ceana33003, and Dean, our new members who joined the Yahoo! portion of our group in April! Welcome also to those who have joined or are following our LiveJournal.

No members with birthdays in May have signed up for stories.

Do you want to get stories for your birthday and other special occasions? Sign up on our "Give Someone a Silmaril" database, located on our Yahoo! Groups homepage or post your request to the list or the LiveJournal.


News and Announcements

The Beta-Version of Our Website Is Online!
This month, I have completed the beta-version of our website and uploaded it on free Geocities webspace. I invite you to take a look at it and share your thoughts and feedback with me.



The SWG Website!

Please do not hesitate to report troubles or offer suggestions to me. I am very new at web design and appreciate all help folks are willing to give me.

I will be adding and updating the site on the free webspace throughout the month as I have time to do so. I am currently researching PHP/SQL in preparation for setting up our archives and forums, hopefully some time this summer. I will be taking a vacation in mid-June to Puerto Rico; upon my return, I will be purchasing a domain name for our group, at which point I can introduce more features to the site without fear of exceeding my (itsy-bitsy) bandwidth allotment.

Submit Your Group or Site to Our Yellow Pages!
As discussed on the Yahoo! group, one of the features of the Reference section of our website will be the Silmarillion Yellow Pages, a listing of groups and sites that have to do with The Silmarillion and writing.

If you have a group or site that you think fits the bill for our Yellow Pages, don't be shy: sign up! Hopefully, this will one day be a good way to connect Silmarillion groups with people who might otherwise have never found--or found only with difficulty--the group or site that fits their needs. No group is too large or too small, and everything from canon resources to fiction archives to RPGs are acceptable! Guidelines for submitting a group and the necessary forms can be found on our site.

LiveJournal Posting Tutorial
Because posting to LiveJournal can be tough for the uninitiated, I have replaced our old and no-longer-pertinent FAQs with a step-by-step illustrated tutorial for how to post in the silwritersguild community. All you need to post in our community using this tutorial is a free LiveJournal account; you do not need to be a member of or have silwritersguild friended in order to post.

---

Not a member? Do you want to be?
The SWG consists of two components: a Yahoo! email group, for discussions, story promotions, and planning, and a LiveJournal community for sharing our Silmarillion writing. Members are welcome to belong to both or just one, depending on what best suits their needs.

Read more about the Silmarillion Writers' Guild at our LiveJournal Community Information page.

To join our Yahoo! group:

Subscribe to SilmarillionWritersGuild
Powered by groups.yahoo.com

At any time, I encourage people--both members and non-members--to contact me with inquiries. I may be reached at DawnFelagund@comcast.net or through either the Yahoo! or LiveJournal groups.

Comments

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

Who do we appreciate this month?

I haven't finished yet something for Celegorm Appreciation Moth :(

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

I would love to see that May will be Celegorm appreciation Month as well :) So who knows

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

Me too, I just asked Dawn about it :)

[dawn_felagund]

Oh! And I forgot to mention in my last comment to you that I certainly don't care of you all celebrate Celegorm Appreciation Month as long as you would like. :)

(My Celegorm still argues that every month is Celegorm Appreciation Month! :^D)

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

Celegorms are this way - they want always be the one in spotlight :D
Have you seen my latest Celegorm concepts? All he does is to be in the center.

I've got a lot of plotbunnies changing a bit canon, especially meetings that never happened, etc. Like Elwe in disguise dancing in crowd at Mereth Aderthad, because despite all he said he had to see son of his best friend from old times. And he was happy to see Finwë in Fingolfin and his sons ^_^ But did he reveal his identity? Has anyone guessed the tall Sinda is him? Did Galadriel mention anything to Fingolfin's ear or not? Only Eru knows ;)
I wish I was easier in writing I could do anything, but it takes ages for me to write anything, plotting is much easier. At list I'll try to draw some ideas.

[dawn_felagund]

That's a fascinating idea! Ai! *ducks from the bunnies* Maybe they'll still be milling around come December and a suitable b-day present for you. ;)

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

That would be great ^_^

[dawn_felagund]

But some would argue *cough Rhapsody! cough* that every month is Celegorm Appreciation Month, so that's okay. :) (I didn't anything done either. I still can't believe it's May...where did April go??)

I didn't have anyone lined up to be appreciated for May. Any requests/suggestions for June? :^D

[ann-arien.livejournal.com]

I didn't have anyone lined up to be appreciated for May. Any requests/suggestions for June? :^D</>i

Er... Feanor? *sheepish grin* How about Maglor, hm?

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

The prologation to May would be nice :D Celegorrrrrm ^_^

In June we could appreciate not Feanorian, since we had Celegorm, time for the one who could have been his son if things went different way - Dior. It was put in words nicely in one fic where they are dying in each others arms, last thought of Celegorm...

About the site - maybe it would be better to do it with 3 web sites stick into one - it is called frames I guess. So the part with Logo and navigation stays always the same, the 3rd part content is the only thing changing. Now all loads during navigation. I could give you a simple index file to make it if you don't know how to do it. But then the graphics must be prepared to fit the web, but I see there are no images. Do you plan to do more 'fantasy' in style layout with time?

[dawn_felagund]

My chief concern with using frames is that--as far as I know (and I am faaaaar from an expert, so if I am wrong--anyone--please chime in!) they have been or are being removed from web standards in favor of layout with CSS. (Which is how I did this site.) I can see how having the navigation and title bar stationary might be advantageous, but layout outside of layout with CSS--given the size I hope this site will eventually become--I am hesitant to use HTML-based formatting that requires changing each individual page. Yes, I am lazy! ;)

As for the actual design, I chose to make it clean and simply versus very graphics-heavy to make the site easier to navigate and also to save on bandwidth. (Because in addition to being lazy, I'm cheap too! :^P) So I don't see myself introducing a whole lot more graphics to the site, as my aim is to create a site where people can get what they need as quickly and easily as possible.

I did want to ask you: I have been strongly considering the idea of having a gallery of Silmarillion artwork once I get the site launched under our actual domain name. (Versus this Geocities thing that has me tearing my hair on a regular basis!) However, I know next to nothing about the fantasy art community, how receptive artists would be to this, et cetera. So do you think that this would be feasible? I've considered the idea of doing--in addition to showcasing the works of individual artists--character galleries and illustrated chapter summaries as well. Any thoughts on this? :)

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

I know nothing on CMS, but as far as I know they work similar way, too. At least I've seen CMS sites with stable navigation. But I may be wrong in that. I don't want to overload the site with graphics, too. I was thinking of something neat, like HASA or SOA layouts - they are not heavy.

"However, I know next to nothing about the fantasy art community, how receptive artists would be to this, et cetera."

Take a look at RotN gallery I take care of (http://www.wladca.pl/Rivendell/galeria) - all these artists agreed to display their art at RotN site. You need to have the site ready to link them back so they can see what the place is. There art has to be copyrighted, not to be altered and credited, of course. It should be esier to get permissions with English language site.
Still I've got some pending images to put on and e-mails to send. Some people didn't answer, too. I have offered before - I can contact artists again, but the SWG site must be ready first. But I don't want to send similar e-mails to artists in so short period of time. They might feel it's something strange that I ask about another gallery again. But I can give you contact info to them and you can send e-mails yourself - this will look better for you're the site owner and you're better with words, too. I can contact the artists who I chat with first, so there will be something in the gallery for the start.

"I've considered the idea of doing--in addition to showcasing the works of individual artists--character galleries and illustrated chapter summaries as well. Any thoughts on this? :)"

Great idea, especially illustrated chapters summaries :) Some illustrations would fit with stories already, just again we would have artists to agree for that.

Just a small note - some, artists may disagree with displaying their art on a site containing slash fan fiction and slash fan art. I have opposite problem - RotN site is for general audience so I can't link back to some homepages artists do have...

[dawn_felagund]

*squees* Yes! This is all great information! Thanks so much. :)

I would love to pursue this once the actual site has been established. Aside from you and a few people who do artwork and stories, I know no artists, so contacts would be wonderful, as would getting a few artists on to the idea from the beginning.

Great idea, especially illustrated chapters summaries :)

I'm leading a Sil-reading over at the Henneth-Annun list, and it always seems so helpful to present chapter summaries with illustrations. The book can be hard to get through, but sometimes seeing how artists have visualized it helps, I think.

Just a small note - some, artists may disagree with displaying their art on a site containing slash fan fiction and slash fan art. I have opposite problem - RotN site is for general audience so I can't link back to some homepages artists do have...

Ai, well, it is inevitable that certain people should turn up their noses at what others wish to do. I expected this...and that certain writers wouldn't want to join a site that "allows" slash. Likewise, if I forbade slash, certain people wouldn't hold with that. There's no way to make 'em all happy, so live and let live, I say. :) I respect a person's right to share his/her work in a comfortable place, so that's okay, though I will miss these people's contributions.

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

I don't think you should forbid slash, we'll just miss some art, that's all. For example I don't know what with the Silmarillion art, but Jenny Dolfen doesn't allow her HP art to be displayed in HP slash pages. Maybe it's because HP characters are kids, I agree with her in that context. Peer at her FAQ here (http://www.goldseven.de/), she allows max 7 pieces (making the choice is really hard...). Kasiopea limited the amount for me, too. Ouch, that was hard to choose! Especially I had to include LotR art there, not only Fëanorians ;) Others had no restrictions like that so far. Amir has got a lot of slash art which I didn't include, but I guess there would be no problem to display it in the archive :) Amir is here - amir_lj. You might want to contact Maya, too - mathia. According to John Howe's FAQ you can display his art also. More later in em-mail.

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

In Jenny's FAQ: " - to give my name (Jenny Dolfen, not GoldSeven), well visible, near the pic and link back to my Elfwood gallery." - this is old info, the link should lead to her home page www.goldseven.de I see nothing on other fandoms, just Potter vs slash info, so all is clear :)

[sirielle.livejournal.com]

"There art has to be copyrighted, not to be altered and credited, of course."

LOL ;) What a logic! Sorry. Not to be altered, but to be credited.

[dawn_felagund]

No worries! I knew what you meant. :)

[mitani5.livejournal.com]

The beta-version is SO COOL
@__@
I love it.

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks, Brittany! :^D So my placeholder logo isn't too awful, then? Maybe I have hope to learn Photoshop after all, hehe....

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

The site looks beautiful Dawn!

[dawn_felagund]

Thank you, Rhapsy! And this from an expert, nonetheless! :^D *blushes* There's still things I need to tinker with, but for a first stab, it could be worse, methinks. ;)

[ann-arien.livejournal.com]

Oh, ideas, ideas, ideas... This is a very interesting challenge and you've made me climb on my desk, to protect my poor ankles from all the rabid bunnies just waiting to bite. Mandos! I would let them bite but, with all the stuff I've got coming up this month and the amount of work I'll have to do for my final exams, I really don't have the time to embark on a long story about a canon twist.

Here are some of the things that I've wondered about, not just as of late, but while reading the Silm. What if Maitimo didn't relinquish the Kingship to Fingolfin? Would he be accepted by all the Noldor, in the light of all the suffering he has survived? Would it help him if Findekano remained at his side, as a friend and/or lover? Would he have eventually united all his people under his lead and how would that have influenced the later events and the wars with Morgoth?

Here's another one. What if Feanor had not charged ahead and into the flames of the Balrogs? What if he had beaten the Enemy back and then returned to camp, with his sons? What would he do and how would he settle in the Lands that he was so eager to reach and build realms of unsurpassed beauty in? How would he receive Fingolfin and his host and would there be strife between them?(as it is most likely to assume)

But my favorite one and the idea I'm going to write a little something on, before I go back to school tomorrow, is : What if Feanor had not left Nolofinwe and his host behind? That would certainly have changed the face of Silm history as we know it.

Grr... I told you there are bunnies running around like mad. I don't know if you've learned about Jenni's idea to have Luthien choose Celegorm instead of Beren. Her story fits this challenge perfectly and I can't wait to read it.

Aaaaaanyway, I should end this rambly comment before it no longer fits in one post. ;)

[dawn_felagund]

Those are quite some ideas! *lifts feet from the bunnies Alina has unleashed* The good thing for you is that challenges never die here, so even if you can't manage one of them in May, you have...well, forever! I am still working on a challenge from back in September. o.O

I am most intrigued by the idea of Maedhros not relinquishing the crown. "Of the Return of the Noldor" was the Sil-reading chapter on the Henneth-Annun list this week, and as I was rereading it and writing up the summary, it occured to me that Maedhros kinda got the raw deal. He wanted to go back for them. But he ends up having to apologize and smooth things over and give up his kingship because of his brothers' and father's folly. (Apologies to your Feanor, who I imagine is glaring proverbial daggers at me right now!)

Of course, he might have given it up anyway because of "eldest of the House of Finwe" and all that gobbledegook, but I can't help but feel that things would have been different if he'd gotten his way and ships had returned for Fingolfin's people.

Do you think he told Fingon after the rescue that he had wanted to go back? Or do you think Fingon found out otherwise? I've always thought that Maedhros said nothing and took his brothers' guilt but that Maglor or someone else might have let it slip that Mae had remained loyal all along. Just curious how you see it. :)

But rereading that chapter has really given me a new appreciation for the efforts that Fingon and Maedhros made to unite their people...and Fingolfin's bravery overall. *huggles them all*

[ann-arien.livejournal.com]

(Apologies to your Feanor, who I imagine is glaring proverbial daggers at me right now!)

Nah! My Feany knows when he's been stoopid, would you believe it.

Of course, he might have given it up anyway because of "eldest of the House of Finwe" and all that gobbledegook, but I can't help but feel that things would have been different if he'd gotten his way and ships had returned for Fingolfin's people.

Well, er... he might have had to go back and pick up his father too, according to the ramble I've written and posted bot in the SWG lj and in mine. *SSP* Either way, that burning of the ships was a complete fiasco and even Feany-adoring me can't claim otherwise. I hat to think of that the confrontation between brothers would have been like, if Feanor were still alive when Fingolfin reached ME.

Do you think he told Fingon after the rescue that he had wanted to go back? Or do you think Fingon found out otherwise? I've always thought that Maedhros said nothing and took his brothers' guilt but that Maglor or someone else might have let it slip that Mae had remained loyal all along. Just curious how you see it. :)

I think Fingon would have just felt it. One look in Maitimo's eyes would have been enough, regardless whether they were lovers or just very close friends. They might have talked about it, but I'm sure that Fingon would have never blamed Maitimo, especially after his grueling ordeal.

But rereading that chapter has really given me a new appreciation for the efforts that Fingon and Maedhros made to unite their people...and Fingolfin's bravery overall. *huggles them all*

I agree 100% Pity that Fingolfin's bravery was so miserably wasted in the end, but I huggle him nonetheless.

[digdigil.livejournal.com]

This whole posting was so exciting I'm all short of breath. I love the SWG icon--the colors in it are attention-grabbing and beautiful. The Web Site looks amazing, the challenges for this month are exciting and stimulating and I cannot wait to get going on them! I'd like to say I'd do something for both of them! (I always think I will but usually get sidetracked.) Thank you Dawn, for another wonderful month's worth of dreamy thoughts, and reading and writing.

[dawn_felagund]

I'm glad that the icon isn't too awful. I made it last night at about 11:30 in Photoshop. I have no clue how to use Photoshop, but it was better than showing a broken image link, so I tinkered and pulled at my hair until I learned. I just mixed and matched the colors I used on the website.

But thank you! It seems every time I throw up my hands and declare, "I'm finished!" then I find something else to correct, change, or add on the site. And I have so many ideas whirling through my vacuous head, just waiting to be realized! :^D But I really need to concentrate on learning PHP. Recently, I have wondered if Bobby would laugh too hard at me for reading my PHP book on the beach in Puerto Rico.... :^P

Btw, I forgot to credit you as the creator for this month's challenge. I'm sorry. :( I just went back and edited the entry to give you proper credit. Thanks again for the marvelous idea! I think you've stirred a couple of bunnies already. ;)

[digdigil.livejournal.com]

Oh no! That's OK! You don't have to credit me! People are going to get sick of seeing my stupid name up there! I just happen to have a lot of time on my hands and thus can spend 98% of it thinking of Silmarillion-related things.

LOL! Yeah, by all means take your PHP book to Puerto Rico and read it there. I'm sure that passersby will think it's some kind of pr0n.

[ann-arien.livejournal.com]

AHA!!! So you're the one unleashing the rabid bunnies at SWG. {{{{{{{{{{Jenni}}}}}}}}}} You are the greatest!

[atanwende.livejournal.com]

Oh my, is it really already May? Time flies, and no mistaking. I should really try to write something for this challenge but I've been incredibly lazy lately. And the site looks mighty fine. The colours are beautiful. :)

[dawn_felagund]

Yep, May already. :) Hard to believe, eh?

If you like this challenge and you can't finish it this month, challenges are good for forever. (That Earwen story I just posted was for September's challenge! Ai! o.O)

And thanks for taking a look at the site. The original colors I chose were...scary. I've always had a weak spot for orange and blue; I think they work really well together. (Unless you're talking neon orange and navy blue. Ick.)