Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

It's hard to choose favorites from among my own work, because I really do like everything I write, if I do say so myself! ;-) But here are a few that came to mind:

Dreaming New Dreams

I have written exclusively in the Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit fandom, except for this story. It is a bit of a gapfiller for characters who feature in Major, a baseball anime and manga series. My love for the Major anime series (and later the manga) was such that I braved writing something unfamiliar and totally different than what I am used to and comfortable with -- that's why Dreaming New Dreams is one of my favorites of my own creations. It is not quite finished, as Real Life got to be demanding and I let my muse go dormant -- but finishing the story it is on my List of Things to Do in the coming months. This is a fandom that seemingly has very few fans and even fewer stories written for it, so this story has gone largely unnoticed. I also haven't shared it in my normal circles -- mostly because I never finished it, but also because it is so different from my usual LotR stuff. I am very fond of it, however, and feel it does justice to the series and to the characters.

Evil Undone

This was done for a Big Bang challenge. I took a one-shot story I had written previously and fleshed it out with more back story. I had a lot of fun with this one! It was a challenge to make a few changes to canon that altered the story in a very extreme way and then make it work, but I like to think it turned out to be (mostly) believable. I am considering returning to this someday and maybe writing a sequel, since I left it rather open-ended.

Reforged

This story came out of a plot bunny that I'd been nursing for a long time and finally developed for a Finish-a-thon challenge. It is tied to an older story that I am also very proud of -- The Best Sword Ever -- but the two stories diverge in how they end. This is very much one of my favorites, because it deals with an intriguing possibility that I haven't seen explored very often.

Sounds of Home

I tend to struggle with fixed length fics, but this was one that came fairly easily to me for a change. I love this one because it has cicadas in it, and I am nothing if not a huge fan of cicadas! It was great fun working them into one of my stories.

Ugh -- it's been almost a year since I updated this story!  The fact that I think about it daily and work on it frequently must have disguised the fact that it has been longer than I thought since the last chapter.  I shall have to do better than that if I'm ever going to finish this story -- which I definitely plan to do.

But here it is at last, the next chapter in the tale of Boromir's return to Gondor:

( Lords of Gondor Chapter 52 )( Lords of Gondor Chapter 52 )

Thanks for reading!

One of the LotR writing communities I belong to is having a discussion based on a meme called "30 Days of Headcanon", in which each day you explain a little something about your own views of the "universe" you write.  I couldn't resist sharing a little something for Day 2, which concerned "something about a character you are hopelessly in love with."  That would be Boromir, of course.  ;-)

When I first started reading LotR as a young person in 8th grade, I was immediately drawn to the Men of the tale. I was very fond of the hobbits (Sam in particular) but it was the stories involving the Men that really piqued my interest. I started out as an Aragorn fan, but somehow, after a second reading of the trilogy, Boromir worked his way into my affections, and once he got my attention, that was that.

I still have old copies of the trilogy where I have underlined in green pen all the times Boromir was especially cool or honorable or strong. It was always special to me to see how many times he is mentioned or remembered with honor and respect by other characters even after his death! I've underlined every word of it. ;-) My favorite Boromir "adventure" in LotR is the time they spend on Caradhras, where I believe Boroimir's true character shines out as he is instrumental in saving everyone from the snow storm.

Boromir's fall from grace as he is tempted by the Ring endears him to me much more than it angers me, because he is shown as being very much a real person who has faults and weaknesses, and who has the strength of character to acknowledge those weaknesses in the end, even though it is after his fall. Sometimes it takes a hard fall to help people see clearly where they need to change, and I think Boromir was like that. After almost 35 years of loving Boromir, when the idea came to pursue how that acknowledgement of his own weakness and fault might have played out if he had survived at Amon Hen, I couldn't resist, and began exploring through writing Boromir's journey towards home and redemption. That was ten years ago, and I'm still working on it!

I'm only slightly less in love with Boromir's family.  Faramir and Denethor are such a part of Boromir in my headcanon that my love for him extends to them as well -- and even further, to all Men of Gondor!  Having so many awesome Men to write about makes for a pretty fun time, I must say.  ;-)

But Boromir is still my favorite, and there are still many stories about him to be written that I haven't discovered yet in my "universe."  Guess I'll go work on writing some of those now!

Success!  I have reached my goal of 7,000 words added to my Lords of Gondor WIP -- what a relief!  The total word count between the three chapters written for the Finish-a-thon challenge comes to 7,078 or so, so I just barely made it.  But I'm content.  Now I'll just have to keep my momentum going and not let months pass before I add Chapter 52.  ;-)

Without further ado, here are Chapters 50 and 51:

( Lords of Gondor Chapter 50 )

~*~*~*~

( Lords of Gondor Chapter 51 )


Thanks for reading!

I have signed up to participate in the Finish-a-thon again this year, and I need everyone to help me by voting in the poll that will choose which story I will "finish" by the due date in June.  I have listed 4 stories in my poll, and state whether I am committed to finishing or writing a certain number of words in the next few months.

Click on the following link to vote!

http://multific.dreamwidth.org/48681.html

If you do not have a Dreamwidth account, you can sign in using your LJ OpenID -- yourusername.livejournal.com.  You'll be asked to approve access to DW and then you can proceed by clicking on the link for the poll.  If you have any trouble, let me know!

Thanks for your help in deciding what I'll be writing in the coming weeks.  ;-)

I imported my LJ to my Dreamwidth account (wow, it took less than 5 minutes, awesome!) and now I'm setting up cross-posting.  So this is a test to see if it works, and what it looks like in my LJ.

Interestingly enough, the import kept all my icons (something like 66!), even though I only get 15 at DW.  Now I'll have to figure out which ones are active and which aren't.  I don't expect I'll go to a paid account at DW at this point, because I'm trying to save some money here, but I have to admit, 15 icons is really hard to get used to after having 66!  :-)

I've had a paid account at LJ for a number of years, but I've decided not continue that paid account.  I am considering switching my LJ to a plus account -- mainly because I can't bear to part with all the user icons I would lose if I went back to basic!  As it is, I'll still lose a lot (including my extra ones I got for having a paid account year by year), but a plus account gives me a few more to keep than a basic account does.  And really, I'm not posting as much as I used to so it's really for the best when it comes right down to it!

So, anyway, let's see how this works....

UPDATE:  Well, it worked nicely, but I see that the import has totally screwed up my icons at DW, by switching in some from LJ seemingly at random and making the rest inactive.  Guess the next thing I have to figure out is how to repair the damage, but it could be worse!  It might help me get in the mood for deleting LJ icons in advance of my (likely) move to a paid account!

Once upon a time, there was a story that I was writing, posting a new chapter every week.  Due to lots of different things, it got harder to keep to that schedule, but I did try to update fairly often.  Somewhere along the line it came down to posting one new chapter a year, if you can believe it!!  That's been the trend lately.  It hardly seems possible, since this story is always in the back of my mind, but the dates of posting don't lie.

I have, of course, been writing other things, so it's not like I've been totally dormant!  I have written quite a bit this past year, though I do believe I have not gotten around to posting it in my own journal.  Methinks I need to change my posting habits a bit, eh?

In any case, the latest chapter in the Lords of Gondor saga -- half written for more than a year -- is at last complete and ready for your viewing pleasure!  Chapter 48 is now knocking on the door -- and I vow a Gondorian vow that it will be written and posted before the end of the year!

If you need some review of what has happened previously -- or if you are reading for the first time -- just click on the "lords of gondor" tag at the bottom of the post and previous chapters will magically appear!


Thanks for reading!!

Back in April, I shared in my journal that I had decided to take part in a Finish-a-thon, to help push me towards finishing some of the stories I had begun writing or to complete a story based on one of the plot bunnies that had been plaguing me.  People voted on which of my tales or plot bunnies should be the one I concentrate on, and one of the plot bunnies was chosen.

For the past month and a half, I've been working on the following bunny:

Fandom:  Lord of the Rings
Rating:  all-ages
Type:  gen
Description:  Plot bunny -- Boromir somehow recognizes Aragorn as being Thorongil, who spent time in Minas Tirith when Boromir was a young child. How does this affect their relationship and goals?

The deadline for finishing my Finish-a-thon story is today!  I actually finished a week or two early, and posted the story in some of the archives I frequent -- but I waited to post the story here at LJ until today.

( Reforged )

 

It was really fun writing this one!  I actually think I might have to write a sequel to it sometime -- but not yet.  First I have to see about working on -- even finishing -- some of those other stories that have been waiting for me to pay attention to them.  ;-)

I see I've only been posting about once a month lately here.  Oh, dear.  ;-)  Let's see if I can try to summarize everything I've been up to lately to catch up!

I've been keeping very busy at our Friendship Center, particularly now that most of our volunteers have left for the summer.  Our ESL and tutoring programs rely heavily on volunteer help, but right now it's pretty much me and a couple of others left to teach all the women English who decided winter was over and it was okay to come out again and get back to learning English.  ;-)  Prior to this I was getting away with just being the director involved in directing others, but now I am doing that plus teaching myself.  Which is okay, too.  Just busier!  That along with all the other things I do at the Center because they have learned that I am good at computers, good at writing newsletters, good at editing, etc.

One of my new students is a young widow from Pakistan who has only been in the country 4 months.  Her husband sent her over here, then died before he could join her.  :-(  Her 3 year old son is so naughty that we can't have him in the Center while she is studying, so I have been going to her house (it's just down the street) three days a week to teach her English.  It's quite nice!  Her boy is a bit better behaved at home, thankfully.  I'm hopeful that we can eventually help him learn to behave himself so her live won't be so challenging.  She also has a baby, born just after she go here to the US!

My family is doing well for the most part.  My dad will be 86 on Sunday, and he's still living on his own (with multiple visits per day from my brother).  He did say something not long about about "maybe we should think about assisted living" so we're looking into that.  His health is very good, so that's a blessing.  My in-laws are in assisted living and they like it, but they are still struggling with health and other issues that keep them stressed out, so that's something we have to keep up with whenever we go up to Wisconsin.  Our DS is doing well, still working at McDonalds and trying to write his stories.  They are begging him to become a crew trainer at Mickey D's, but he's dragging his heels, unsure of whether he can handle the extra hours and the added responsibility.  We think he can, but he's the one who has to make the decision in the end.

I'm very busy this month in my writing pursuits, as well.  Though it may seem to some who have followed my stories faithfully that I am not updating my tales, I am actually doing quite a bit of writing, and every single Work In Progress is being thought of and worked on every day.  I realized recently that, even though I haven't been updating my WIPs as I should, I have still been busy writing, and I found a bunch of stories on my computer to prove it.  I recently posted them at various archives, so I feel like I've accomplished something, even though it actually wasn't recently.  ;-)

I am currently trying to finish up my Finish-a-thon story about Boromir and Thorongil, which is due this month by the 24th.  I also have a 20,000 + word goal I am striving for in a story for the LotRGFic Big Bang Challenge, coming due in mid July.  I'm having fun with that one, though I haven't made much progress lately.  Mostly because of Real Life stuff and this other story that needs to be done sooner.  ;-)  My goal this weekend is to actually try to finish the one so I can work on the other.

I also have a pie-in-the-sky goal of finishing a WIP that hasn't been touched for some years, in the hopes that I can enter it as a completed work in the 2011 Middle Earth Fanfiction Awards, but hat may be too much for me this month.  I might be better to just concentrate on writing a new chapter for each of my ongoing WIPs (of which there are currently 3)  and prove that I haven't actually stopped writing them.

Anyway, it's pretty busy around here, but it's all lovely and fun and I'm enjoying myself, doing what I'm good at and also what I enjoy doing!

This is a post from my LJ which I thought I'd share here as well.

I'm involved in the Finish-a-thon again this year and I need folks to help me decide which WIP or story idea will be the one I work on for this year's finish-a-thon.  Below is a link to the poll so if you have an account at LJ and care to participate, please cast your vote and help me out!

http://multific.livejournal.com/43125.html

If you are participating in the Finish-a-thon yourself, you can vote twice, if you are not a participant, you can only vote for one piece.

The stories I've included in the poll are as follows -- more info on the stories along with links to existing chapters are available at the above link, along with the poll:

• Dreaming New Dreams -- a WIP based on the Major anime/manga series, which is about as far away from LotR as you can get, but it's been fun writing it.  As usual with me, it is still unfinished.  ;-)
• Face of the Enemy -- a Boromir WIP that has been dormant for too long
• Lords of Gondor -- my epic WIP which simply can't be left where it is
• Plot bunny A -- this is a story idea that I've had which won't leave me alone (check out the poll to see what it is!)
• Plot bunny B -- another persistent story idea which has intrigued me for some time (check out the poll to see about that one, too!)

THE POLL IS ONLY GOING TO BE UP FOR A WEEK -- so please vote now!  Thank you kindly!