on writing - author anecdotes

These are always to fun to read - the small beginnings to great ends.

1. The Hobbit:
J.R.R. TOLKIEN was grading college exam papers, and midway through
the stack he came across a gloriously blank sheet. Tolkien wrote down the
first thing that randomly popped into his mind: “In a hole in the ground there
lived a hobbit.” He had no idea what a hobbit was or why it lived
underground, and so he set out to solve the mystery.

2. Treasure Island:
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON painted a map to pass the time during a
dreary vacation in the Scottish Highlands. When he stepped back to admire his
handiwork, a cast of imaginary pirates appeared. Stevenson recalled, “They
passed to and fro, fighting and hunting treasure, on these few square inches of a
flat projection.” He promptly traded his paintbrush for a quill and began to write.

3. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
L. FRANK BAUM was telling his sons a story when he abruptly stopped.
He’d been swept away to a land unlike any his imagination had ever conjured.
Baum ushered the young audience into another room and, page by page, began
to document Dorothy’s journey along the yellow brick road.

By Neily

a dreamer's wisdom - the well written - c.s. lewis

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter
the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you
have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk
about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly,
nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they
hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face
till we have faces?

- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

By Steve Kim

on writing - c.s. lewis on language

There are no right or wrong answers about language in the sense in which
there are right and wrong answers in Arithmetic. "Good English" is whatever
educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be
so in another.  Don't take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters.
Nor of logic.

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and
make sure your sentence couldn't mean anything else.

In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel
about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was
"terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful";
make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those
words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your
readers, "Please will you do my job for me.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean
"very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about
something really infinite.

Via Letters of Note

By Jeanette Salvesen

illustration - pettry b

Pettry B most frequently explores pairings of human and beast.
Fantastic stories have come from these relationships - The Golden Compass,
Sailor Moon and Luna, MacDonald's Curdie and Lina, Eragon and Saphira,
Lucy and the Beavers, more recently, Merida and her mother in Brave, and
Pi and the tiger, a story coming to the big screen in November.

What other tales like these are waiting to be told?
Would your protagonist ever be in one of these relationships?