Blog Ing

Posted By Ing on March 12, 2008

After reading a post on Noesis about writers imitating Tolkien, I thought maybe I’d write a bit on the same subject.  All right, a little honesty here: just a little bit on that actual subject…but mostly about me.  (As you’ve probably come to expect by now.)

I found the topic particularly interesting because I love Tolkien, and because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I always want to write fiction (or pretend I want to) but never actually do it – and because in combination with an interview of Chris Baty (founder of National Novel Writing Month) that I found on Writer Unboxed, the article that prompted the post on Noesis said a lot about what’s keeping me from actually writing my own novel.

The Tolkien connection

The post on Noesis and the article about imitating Tolkien that prompted it struck a chord with me for several reasons.

One is that I’m a complete Tolkien geek; I practically lived in Middle-Earth for a good 15 years, and still worship The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion as my favorite books EVER, by ANYBODY.  (The movies rocked my world too.)  The Lord of the Rings was a revelation to me; I had never seen an imaginary world so full and detailed together with a story so fully realized (and still haven’t to this day). 

Another is that within days of finishing LOTR for the first time, I started imitating Tolkien myself, drawing my own maps and filling them in with civilizations, cities, histories, climates, and geology — and before too long, dreaming about writing a fantasy story set in my own world.

Another is that (if I can take credit…or is it blame?) I introduced my two youngest brothers to Tolkien.  Both of them love Tolkien’s books.  One of them is now the proprietor/writer of Noesis and also (inspired in some measure by Tolkien, I’m sure) a linguist and a talented fiction writer. 

There and back again

So now we’re back where we started, which is Daeruin’s post on Noesis.

The article he mentions is a very good one.  It particularly struck me because it articulates the power of Tolkien as both an inspiration and a hindrance.  For me, though, the question is not so much whether or even how much to imitate Tolkien  – in world-creation, I consciously emulate the master (but not copy outright, I hope); in writing style, I know that imitation would be fatal (not to mention impossible), and I wouldn’t try to do it.

The question for me is how to light my own little fire here in the enormous shadow Tolkien casts over all would-be writers in the fantasy landscape.

I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that everything I’ve done with my writing and fantasy world-building has Tolkien’s imprint, and I wouldn’t want it any other way…but I also have a self-defeating tendency to measure myself against the monuments of Tolkien and a few other select authors who really float my boat, and inevitably I find my own efforts and talent sadly wanting.

So what’s a writer to do?

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that when it comes to modern fantasy, especially epic fantasy, Tolkien doesn’t just cast a shadow over the landscape, he is the landscape.  I think that the vast majority of fantasy writers, for all that they may try to avoid imitation, just find a way to tend their personal homesteads amid the mountains he raised. 

Going with that analogy, I’m trying not to look at my own efforts in direct comparison to the enormous masterpiece Tolkien spent a lifetime building.  There’s no way to win in comparing my crappy early drafts to someone else’s finished product, let alone Tolkien’s.  Even if the larger landscape belongs to someone else, maybe I can at least build a place in it that will be recognized as mine.

But of course, to do that I actually have to write something.

That’s where the Chris Baty interview and National Novel Writing Month come in.  The point of Baty’s philosophy — and the idea behind National Novel Writing Month — is to give yourself permission to just write.  Editing and refinements and the inevitable comparisons to other writers, and even things like a decent plot, can come later.  First you actually have to just get a lot of words on paper.

Easier said than done (Or, finish with a good cliche) 

This getting words down on paper thing is not as easy as it sounds.  At least when it comes to me writing fiction, that is.  I’m a perfectionist and an Olympic-level procrastinator, not to mention a (more or less) professional copy editor, and it’s damn tough to get outside of all that, even for a little while.

I can produce material, however.  Just look at all the words I’m writing on this blog, for instance.  If I could crank out that many words toward a novel, I’d probably have a full draft in less than a year!  Odds are I won’t, though.  This blog is possibly the most powerful procrastination vehicle I’ve ever discovered.  I’m gonna ride this mule till it drops.

But seriously, there is good food for thought in these things, and I do hope to turn over a new leaf creatively — as in actually getting some novel writing done.  No better time than the present.  The only thing we have to fear is four score and seven years ago…  Or something like that. 

Actually, I think the best thing I can do for myself and my incipient novel (and any longsuffering readers still with me at this point) is to go to bed.  It’s late, I’m tired — hell, you’re probably tired too — and I have a job that requires my ass in a seat and my brain functioning (at least mostly functioning) in the morning.

I’m done for now.  Talk at you later.  In the meantime, as one of my fellow bloggers who actually writes would say… 

Write on!

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