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Sometimes I marvel that Christopher Tolkien managed to go through and assemble in a coherent set of books most of the unpublished manuscripts and fragments and drafts for his father's magnum opus (History of Middle-earth volumes 6-9).
Right now I am looking at about 20 overlapping fragments, drafts, and discarded bits of Resurrection III. Many of them cover the same ground. Others are bits that I hate dropping but don't quite fit. Others have many excellent phrases, yet the whole tone or arc is wrong. Yet others are the plot I have settled on, but the words don't sing. I am a poet who has studied Latin metrical poetry for almost as long as Trekqueen has been alive (yipes), and the music and rhythm of vocabulary, phrases, and voices matter to me almost more than plot and content. No wonder I like Auron and Lulu so much. Their voices are the best in the game.
Does anyone else write by sculpting? It's like clay. Throw and shape bits together, shape other bits and stick them on, cut off pieces, and wind up with a whole tableful of unfinished and partly-good, partly-bad models before one of them works.
I liked writing lemons. They just happened. None of this futzing around trying to make something coherent.
Oh well. Silly to be putting so much effort into a story, especially when so painfully aware that one's prose is rather hit or miss!
Right now I am looking at about 20 overlapping fragments, drafts, and discarded bits of Resurrection III. Many of them cover the same ground. Others are bits that I hate dropping but don't quite fit. Others have many excellent phrases, yet the whole tone or arc is wrong. Yet others are the plot I have settled on, but the words don't sing. I am a poet who has studied Latin metrical poetry for almost as long as Trekqueen has been alive (yipes), and the music and rhythm of vocabulary, phrases, and voices matter to me almost more than plot and content. No wonder I like Auron and Lulu so much. Their voices are the best in the game.
Does anyone else write by sculpting? It's like clay. Throw and shape bits together, shape other bits and stick them on, cut off pieces, and wind up with a whole tableful of unfinished and partly-good, partly-bad models before one of them works.
I liked writing lemons. They just happened. None of this futzing around trying to make something coherent.
Oh well. Silly to be putting so much effort into a story, especially when so painfully aware that one's prose is rather hit or miss!
