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About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Simon (---.lancing.org.uk)
Date: June 09, 2003 06:15PM

Great! Those chapters were certainly worth waiting for.

"Chuckle" at the idea of cats lurking in ambush for schroedingers.

So what surname would 'Sarah-Jane' be using (in any circumstances where she actually needs one, which of course isn't the case in Rivendell) now?
'Goode-Evans-Hardly-Decent'? 'Hardly-Decent-Goode-Evans'? Some shorter combination of those elements? Something simpler, such as 'Smith'? :-)

Re the carrying case for Dave's laptop... Sapient pearwood, perhaps?

************************************************************

"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Sarah (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 09, 2003 06:40PM

David and I had quite some discussion about the surname, and in the end he decided to fudge it! :-D

You'll have to wait to find out about the carrying case. Let's just say it doesn't make Avon feel very happy. (That doesn't give away too much, does it?)

I'm as keen on the "Nextarillion" as anyone, but I'm also rather anxious for him not to clog up the Fforum with it, so I am trying to persuade him that it would be better to leave what he's already done up as a taster and then post a link to his new website when he's got the rest of it up there. This is, after all, Jasper's Fforum, and the "Nextarillion" is long - considerably longer than the skits I did around Christmas last year. He has got the domain name, so with any luck it won't take too long for him to get the site up and running. As they say, watch this space!

(Edit: just to make it absolutely clear, David does agree about this - I don't want to appear as if I'm chivvying him online, as this was never the intention.)



Post Edited (06-09-03 20:25)

..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 09, 2003 06:47PM

Sarah-Jane is in real trouble, isn't she? I never did decide on a suitable surname, it was more important to find a new one for me once Sarah found out what I had been writing about her! She seems to be in search of a new one though if you read between the lines ---

Some of your guesses are altogether too good! But do make them; it's intriguing to see what readers are guessing in advance. All the responses I have had have really surprised me and are most appreciated.

It's very kind of Jasper to put up with all this, as I am rather eclectic in the authors I choose to get involved with, so thanks very much JF.

In the meanwhile as Sarah says I am trying to get a site set up to cover any other writings I do, and Sarah's huge back catalogue of excellent Blake's 7 fan fiction.

If you can face downloading 838k I can post the whole Nextarillion 1-3 to anyone wanting a copy. Just e-mail a request, I'll be glad to.



Post Edited (06-09-03 19:51)

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Simon (---.lancing.org.uk)
Date: June 11, 2003 01:49PM

Wow!
Alas, poor Skiffle... (I hope that you got her permission before writing that scene?)

Re the list of works retained by the Tolkien family: So that Earth's version of JRRT hadn't written any other non-"Middle Earth" fiction? No 'Farmer Giles of Ham', 'Leaf By Niggle', or 'The Father Christmas Letters'?

I'm not an expert on legal matters, but... It seems to me that as long as "Daeron" leaves the "true" authorship of the work on which he claimed JRRT had based LOTR (etc) a secret, so that no heirs to the rights involved are publicly known and thus their formal consent to his producing that so-called "original" version can't be in a contract, his legal position re that
version wouldn't really be any better than the Tolkien family's position at that stage re JRRT's works.

Re the return of Morgoth: I remember reading about a roleplaying campaign (probably D&D) set in a version of Middle-Earth where Frodo had failed to destroy the Ring and Sauron had gained control over all of Middle-Earth within a generation or two after recovering it. The resistance to his rule included a secret cult whose members were trying to free Morgoth from capitvity (by means that included the sacrifice of intelligent beings) in the hope that when the Valar dealt with him THIS time they'd get rid of Sauron (if he'd even survived Morgoth's ressumption of power) as well.

Did you know that a series of unauthorised sequels to LOTR has been published in Russia? (Sorry, I don't have any information about them beyond that basic fact...)

************************************************************

"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."



Post Edited (06-11-03 15:05)

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 11, 2003 03:57PM

I never really said it WAS Skiffle, but from the point of view of a Fforumite it does rather look like it. I avoided any details of Diesel's mistress for just this reason. I came to a crisis point of having more material than I could ever use. To keep it trim, I banned myself from developing any more characters or plots than I had to; this is the one place it shows. Skiffle has a copy of the text and a sense of humour, and I'm not dead ye---

Diesel is going to be rather important (though not heavily used); you may have spotted a brief appearance in N2, preparing for the role I anticipated for her at the very end of N3. What I originally set out to write is going to be in N4 (I hope!) but I have had so many ideas that I would like to develop first!

The position 'is' that any fiction JRRT wrote in that universe was included in the 'original', in some degree; except 'Goblin Feet'. The joke about that is that the real Tolkien lived to regret it heartily, hence the conspiracy regarding the authorship did not want it either.

'Daeron' isn't concerned about grabbing rights for himself; it's far, far worse than that, and I hope that by the time N3 is fully out (yes, it is well and truly written!) the context will be obvious.

Was the Russian stuff IN Russian, or is there an English version?

JRRT began a sequel due to demand; it never got very far. He reasoned that the sequel must be in the time of Eldarion (son of Aragorn) or later; that Elves could play no significant part; that the whole thing would be completely about 'men'; and as the abandoned fragment shows, it would have been about the unpleasant practises of those who wished for a return of darkness. I think he had no heart for this at all. Instead we have what must be the most astonishing 'prequel' ever written; the 'Silmarillion', already twenty years in development before the Lord of the Rings was begun.

I think if men had managed to release Morgoth, the Valar would have let them keep him; they were not there to make decisions for men, rather to foster an environment in which they could make decisions for themselves.

Now I know what it was like for JRRT ---

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Simon (---.lancing.org.uk)
Date: June 11, 2003 04:13PM

Re Daeron & rights _ But in such an unclear legal position, with the heirs to the author of the original work unidentified, would any publisher have risked producing his versions of the books?

I don't know anything about those Russian books (such as what languages they're available in...) other than that they exist.

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 12, 2003 01:42PM

Very good question. I am basing the legal side on my experience in music copyright. Commonly an unattributed song comes into public use at religious services and the situation is called 'Copyright Control'. Having made every effort to trace the author, book publishers print the song in music books / words editions with a standard message, and funds are put aside to pay the author for the use of his/her copyright retrospectively if they should be found. In the religious environment, there are plenty of people who are glad that the song has been used and don't want any accreditation, but that only influences the circumstances in which the printing arises, it doesn't alter the law.

If that doesn't help, all I can plead is that this is a universe full of book nuts we are talking about, and if the legal situation is anywhere near as daft as the political one has been shown to be in JF's works, who knows what the laws are regarding publishing in a Nextian world? Yes, this is a cop out!

If the above doesn't settle the matter, I hope it doesn't affect your enjoyment of the rest of the book.

Thanks for the comments; I am looking at this skit as 'author in training', and this kind of feedback is just what I need before I put my head over the parapet with original ideas. Sorry I'm late with today's chapter, that's my next job.

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Simon (---.lancing.org.uk)
Date: June 21, 2003 01:12PM

"Curiouser and curiouser" (And still highly enjoyable).

Sauron 'the Cat of Morgoth', H'mmm? Well done, Minsky.

(1 carton of virtual moggilicious is on its way to you...)

************************************************************

"This was willed where what is willed... can get rather silly."

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 21, 2003 06:10PM

Nice to know it's still fun. Sarah likes the way her cats are developing. I think 'The Chronogram' (about to post) is my favourite, as it caused much sweating of blood to come into being.

Part of my own fiendish plot is to give you all something to do until WOLP arrives. I'll be posting the last chapter of N3 this coming week. Coincidence? ChronoGuard!

EDIT
Truth about 'The Chronogram' 2 chapters after the one with that title, sorry, forgot.



Post Edited (06-21-03 22:13)

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Sarah (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 21, 2003 07:06PM

Minsky wishes me to pass on grateful purrs for the virtual can of Moggilicious. He also wishes me to tell you that he would have been around on the Fforum but he's been too busy saving the world.



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Sarah B (---.cable.ubr06.dudl.blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: June 22, 2003 07:00PM

Dave, since I've been not around on and off, do you think you could e-mail me the lot?

To my blueyonder address if you please, Sarah74656@blueyonder.co.uk because my hotmail (which this links to) certainly won't cope with such an overwhelming file size!

Thanks!



--------------

There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 22, 2003 09:28PM

Yup. Tell me if it doesn't get through - e-mail has been unreliable lately.

Nice to know women are reading this, I know Sarah (not B) thinks a lot of it, but after several years in the lingerie trade it's hard to know when I'm being too much.

Actually I blame Sarah (not B) for the whole thing, as she pinched my characters for the Bodyswappers and mangled Chris Crustacean. For this and many other things I'm grateful ---


Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: June 22, 2003 09:33PM

me too please??? I have a hard time reading BIG things online cuz it just kills my eyes. So if I can print them out I can do MUCH better :)

What I have read, I've loved though!

But if you have a file that goes from the first , that would be very cool!

thursday_next@jontwila.com

THANKS!

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 22, 2003 09:47PM

No sooner finished sending Sarah B a copy than another request!

Writing anything and letting people see it is a very vulnerable thing to do (though be assured yours is in process of being posted tonite (he panders).

You'll be getting the whole terrible tale, from N1-3. If anyone wants a reprise of 'The Bodyswappers' by Sarah (NOT B) we may be able to do something about that soon. I told Sarah to use paid work time to retrieve it from the bowels of the ex-FForum, which she was glad to do.

'Bodyswappers' is sort of 'assumed' in N1-3 though I suppose it could be read without it.

N3 should be completed on the FForum this week. If you're in a position of re-reading parts of it, you may find that a fair bit of it was written specifically to kill you second time round.

LOL


Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Sarah (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 22, 2003 10:06PM

If I'm to be accused of mangling Chris Crustacean, I might mention here that a certain someone also mangled Squirdle, who was my character from the very beginning... but, in all fairness, he did realise he'd done it and ask me to rewrite all the Squirdly bits! ;-)



..........................................................................................

That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 22, 2003 10:10PM

I was never in any doubt about Squirdle, I can't do his dialogue at all and I'm grateful for the help, also same goes re Avon and the UU chapters.

I think we've mangled each other quite enough too! Your enormous good humour has been appreciated.

Hey, the e-mail's on the blink again, can you send one to Twila for me?


Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Simon (---.lancing.org.uk)
Date: June 30, 2003 12:49PM

Great! Much enjoyed. Congratulations, Dave. (So when can we expect the first chapter of 'Nextarillillillion 4"? :-)
The scary thing is that, from the plot synopsis you gave in Chapter 25 of this story, the Crustacean version actually looks as though it might be worth reading... I don't know whether that's partly due to the fact that having the high quality of Tolkien's work even partially reflected in it makes it look as though it might be better than quite a lot of the Fantasy that's been published in recent years, or just due to how interesting you yourself made it seem (Arry "Trotter" Gore and all...) but if you ever "find" a more complete version of the text then I'd be interested in seeing it...

So 'Dave Bloke/Rubach' is actually Earendil, is he? Would you believe that when I saw him speculating about which member of the Numenorean dynasty he might be, after you'd already given us a hint of Morgoth's return and reminded us that Earendil was supposed to be involved in thwarting him again, I had started to suspect that this would be the case?

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 30, 2003 07:03PM

I am not surprised that you spotted Earendil, as you had already shown a disconcerting ability to see through me. Fortunately it doesn't seem to have spoiled your fun.

It's a hard job to judge how much to tell your readers. I was concerned to make sure that re-reading (!) would reveal clues that could be enjoyed on a new level, i.e. not to say too much, and at the same time not to give it away. Of course for those who don't know LOTR the response to 'Father!' might well be 'eh?', whereas for those who are familiar with Dave Rubach's sacred book (the Silmarillion) it opens up a whole world of possibilities. Notice I put some stuff in about Earendil earlier on 'for Minsky's benefit' in case anyone hadn't heard of him.

Earendil is the key to the whole Tolkien mythos, but I suspect you are aware of that. The hardest bit was finding an excuse for Rubach to be unlike Earendil until Rivendell, as I havn't decided whether I can'do' him yet or not; I am well aware that Sarah is far better at Avon than I ever could be, and I have no instinct for the wizards; Sarah, equally, knows her attempts at the witches are not up to her normal quality.

There came a point where I decided that Dave could NOT be a temporal alternate of JRR 862829 or Chris Crustacean, and in the end it suited William Crustacean to make Dave think that he was, to put him off the scent; hence the comedy enlarding.

I do hope the 'illis' don't get to the 'Next' version, as this would mean the Crustaceans had been after ME, and I can do without that! Interesting prospect - write a book as if it is itself in the course of a struggle over its content. Um. Damn! James Joyce beat me to it.

It's interesting that you 'liked' the WC version; I am sure Jim Slip would have done so, the real one has not read that chapter yet. Soon after I read LOTR I also read 'Bored of the Rings'. I found this a maddening experience, as the author clearly didn't understand what he was parodying, which is inexcusable (even then I had written a little satire, and knew that this was true. Parody what you know, or parody nothing).

Some time ago I realised that the way forward from this point was a kind of organic growth, in all sorts of directions. If people continue to like it, there are so many things I could follow up, and on a website (give me time!) you could download things in the order you wanted, rather than follow a book; rather like an adventure game (text, do you remember them?).

I have found writing for me goes in stages.

1) Tell yourself you aren't writing at the moment and burst out laughing at inappropriate times as new ideas come to you unbidden. Example, William Crustacean's poem in the 'game' thread (apologies).

2) Tell yourself you are letting the ideas moulder until they come right. Look grim and refuse to laugh at anything you think of, in case it might not be funny enough.

3) Start writing.

4) Get carried away as the book begins to write itself.

5) Desperately plan how you are going to get out of writing 'war and peace' as those formerly elusive ideas suddenly become a tidal wave.

6) Now I've got to put out. Overlaps with 1.


Looking back at N3, it was the happiest thing that has happened to me in ages, due in no small part to the encouragement of others, and especially Sarah. From here, I think I've written something that reads like a novel rather than fan fiction, though of course the subject is completely unpublishable. The question for me is whether my style is enjoyable enough to others to make it worth having a go at a publishable novel. I noticed that I wrote the thing almost without any sense of time or place, which ought to be tackled; apart from that, I think Ive learned enough to have a go. 80,000 words were written in 60 days, despite a 60 hour a week job AND settling into a new home, so I can afford to take my time over style if make a serious attempt at a novel. Do say that I'm not ready if you think so!

I have original ideas I would like to work on, and my nine year old daughter is quite insistent that I do; but N4 is winning at the moment.

Writiing this has poisoned other peoples' books for me. I am re-reading TEA at the moment, and Jasper is the only author who has risen in my opinion as a result of having a go at writing. You may have noticed I quite like Tolkien, but reading Chris Tolkien's 'laundry lists' has radically changed my opinion of the quailty of his fathers' work - downwards. I can now see the whole thing, less the language, as completely achievable; indeed we have a similar methodology. I will need time for my feelings about books to settle down.

Finally, the reason the imitators are so many and so commonly unsuccessful, is in my opinion because they have missed the point about JRR; what people find attractive about him (if they do) I believe they commonly mistake for something else, and the more they write about it, the more it isn't there. As for saying what it is, that is much harder for me to put into words. If you have liked the Nextarillion, than I must have done so within it.

Now where can I get a book by Geoff Dyer ----


Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: jon (---.proxy.aol.com)
Date: June 30, 2003 09:26PM

Ah, you've been bitten by my disease, David. Once you start looking at how things are built, rather than just enjoying the finished product, it changes your whole outlook. Especially with books. You see the joins, and hear them creak, spot the padding and the hasty re-writes, recognise the literary tricks gacked off better writers. Reading the laundry lists is exposing the Wizard of Oz with a vengeance. I believe Gandalf said something wise on this topic once.

I know exactly what you mean about JRRT and his imitators; and I will try to put it into words. JRRT was driven by the love of language; he was a philologist first last and foremost. He wanted to make stories like those he knew in the languages he loved (the Kalevala above all), and to make languages to tell them in, and make the stories explain the languages and the language enrich the story. None, none, of his imitators and followers knew the things he did; all the old forgotten far off things, snatches and tatters of stories long untold in tongues long unheard. That's the difference. If you like, he was the Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin; he had heard the old bluesmen and wanted to make something like they did, but new and his own. The fantasy writers of later years are the Def Leppards and Metallicas; they have never heard the old bluesmen, and wouldn't like them if they did. If you haven't already, read Tom Shippey's The Road to Middle-Earth; he knows what it's about, being a philologist himself.

I don't know if you're ready to strike out on your own. I don't know if anybody ever is. But I certainly think you ought to try. I can think of at least one fantasy author you can be better than ....



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Re: About the Nextarillion.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.in-addr.btopenworld.com)
Date: June 30, 2003 10:49PM

Thanks Jon. One problem would be waiting until I can prove I'm ready. How would I do that?

I was struck by what Simon said re the WC version. If I can think up a plot better than some fantasy authors can while I'm in the course of trying to write the worst plot I can think of, I'm not doing badly. When I thought about this, it encouraged me in a very weird way.

Another thing is, would I learn any more by doing another project like N3? I honestly think I would learn more by trying to do the real thing at this point; I might find I wasn't ready, but there would be no harm in that and I would know where I was. On the other I would certainly enjoy N4.

I got an original idea for a story tonight. I have had enough thoughts that I was quite clear weren't any good or were too like someone elses; this one I honestly thought up to scratch. Then I sat and thought 'Oh, I suppose I'm going to have to write it now.' Strange. I'm simply overworked, so I'll keep the idea and see if I come back to it when I'm not knackered.

Also my daughter has rights regarding the children's plotlines I have fired at her.

Probably I'll just wander into the next stage when time affords, which currently it doesn't.


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