Skip to main content

On the art and practice of writing

"I found not being able to use a pen or a pencil as defeating as the loss of her beak would be to a hen."
For several weeks, near the end of his life, Tolkien was unable to use his right arm. He had been used to spending hours each day writing...writing poetry, stories and novels...writing letters for business...corresponding with family and friends. 

I often imagine myself writing as diligently, as "old fashioned", as Tolkien. I can see myself sitting at a rolltop desk or finely crafted secretary, smoking a pipe, serenely composing a handwritten letter to my children, or drafting another chapter for my next novel. I can imagine Tolkien feeling joy as he writes. 

But it's not me. I don't enjoy writing by hand, at least not after a paragraph or so. For me, handwriting is for note taking, or rough drafts (short rough drafts). 

But I greatly admire Tolkien for his ability in, and dependence upon, handwritten letters and documents. 

Quote from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Introduction, page 1
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maps &c. for 'The Hobbit'

"I have redrawn (as far as I am capable) one or two of the amateur illustrations of the 'home manuscript', conceiving that they might serve as endpapers, frontispiece or what not. I think on the whole such things, if they were better, might be an improvement. But it may be impossible at this stage, and in any case they are not very good and might be technically unsuited. It would be kind if you would return the rejected."  This is the earliest reference I have seen to The Hobbit . Humphrey Carpenter notes that C. S. Lewis had read an early text of the book in 1932, though it was still lacking the final chapters. The completed typescript was sent to Allen & Unwin Publishers on October 3, 1936. By the time of this letter, January 4, 1937, the book had been accepted for publication and Tolkien was attempting to provide maps and illustrations.  At least five years had passed to this point in the life of Bilbo Baggins. Probably that many more years stewing and brewing
Post a Comment
Read more

Such a mad hobby!

"I have done done some touches to my nonsense fairy language - to its improvement. I often long to work at it and don't let myself 'cause though I love it so it does seem such a mad hobby!" Tolkien's "mad hobby" was at the very core, the foundation of all his wild success in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Without the hours spent (stolen from other more "normal" obligations and responsibilities) he might never have written anything at all, at least anything that endures to the present as popular and well-known.  This gives me faint hope, or justification, for the time I spend on seemingly useless endeavors. I enjoy organizing my digital music, cataloging wild plants, hand-coding HTML and CAD...and posting Tolkien quotes!  Will it all pay? How will it benefit me or others?  I don't know.  Sometimes joy is hard to define or categorize.  Sometimes joy sneaks up on a person.  Quotation from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, # 4, page 8. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The Utter Stupid Waste of War

The Utter Stupid Waste of War "The utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it. And always was (despite the poets), and always will be (despite the propagandists) - not of course that it has not is and will be necessary to face it in an evil world. But so short is human memory and so evanescent are its generations that in only about 30 years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart. The burnt hand teaches most about fire. "I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days - quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the hearens!" Letters, #64, page 75
Post a Comment
Read more