Mulling over Tolkien and persistence

[pegkerr]

I'm reading the Shippey book, and I'm finding it both fascinating and, oddly enough, comforting. Apparently, Tolkien thought he was 3/4 of the way done with the entire book of The Lord of the Rings at the end of the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring. Even the great masters could be clueless sometimes. As Shippey puts it,

However one thing which remains certain is that he was still not working from a plan, an overall design. He was writing his way into the story. Other great works have been written the same way, like Dickens's novels, composed and published in serial installments--Tolkien's notes often look rather like Dickens's, with both writers in the habit of jotting down a string of possible names for a character till they struck one that seemed to fit. But Tolkien, even more than Dickens, had no conscious idea of where he was going. Seven months after starting The Lord of the Rings, he complained that he still had no story. The amazing thing is that this did not stop him trying to write one.

This gives me hope, and it's in line with what I've always suspected, and what I've always told beginning writers--and I have to remind myself, periodically. The ones that go the distance, that become professional writers, are the ones that don't give up.

From The Pocket Muse:

I once heard a college student in Waterville, Maine, ask visiting writer Ron Carlson how one knows if one is really a writer. Ever the showman, Carlson delivered an entertaining riff about the distractions writers put in their own way, all day, all the time: leaving the room to get coffee, check the mail, walk the dogs, go to the bathroom, get coffee, look something up, get coffee. Then, dead serious, he summed up the whole enterprise in a line I have never forgotten: "The writer is the one who stays in the room."

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

However one thing which remains certain is that he was still not working from a plan, an overall design. He was writing his way into the story. Other great works have been written the same way, like Dickens's novels, composed and published in serial installments--Tolkien's notes often look rather like Dickens's, with both writers in the habit of jotting down a string of possible names for a character till they struck one that seemed to fit. But Tolkien, even more than Dickens, had no conscious idea of where he was going. Seven months after starting The Lord of the Rings, he complained that he still had no story. The amazing thing is that this did not stop him trying to write one.

This explains a lot about LotR. I think the stories are brilliant. I think the characters are wonderful. I think about half of the writing is good/necessary. Privately I call Tolkien "ADD boy" because he couldn't seem to stick to the plot. He kept going off on tangents. FotR is like one big tangent and then all the loose ends are tied up in a few pages at the end of RotK. I know I probably have no right to criticize a great author like Tolkien, but editing never hurt anyone. I know anything I write is butchered before I show it to anyone and I usually cut a quarter of it away. ::grin:: It's nice to know that all those tangents we'ren't some big meaningful stuff that I was missing and that he couldn't find much of a plot until 3/4 the way through either.