Under New Management

[fredbassett]

Hello, my name is fredbassett, and following mrkinch's recent post about their intention to leave LJ, myself and liadtbunny expressed interest in keeping the community open, and so the site has been transferred to us as co-mods and we'd like to gauge what interest there is in keeping the site active.

We'd certainly like to keep the site alive so far as past posts are concerned and would be delighted to see more drabbles being posted here! Cross-posting is actively encouraged. We would also be very happy to provide drabble prompts/challenges with whatever frequency members would like to see. This could be weekly, fortnightly, monthly, whatever you like! Prompts/challenges could be themed, random, utterly bonkers, again, we'll be guided by you folks. If we get no response, we might just experiment for the hell of it!

To start the ball rolling, how about using the comments on this thread as a sort of introductions posts to saw who we are, how we got interested in Tolkien, do we read, write or both? What we would like to see from this community? Anything about youreslf you'd like to share? It would even act as a friending meme, if you like.

So come on, folks, pop in and say hello! It would be lovely to know if anyone is still out there! I'll start the ball rolling by saying something about myself...

Comments

[fredbassett]

My interest in Tolkien started at the age of eight when my elder brother have me The Hobbit to read. I wasn't gripped by the opening chapter and was about to give up when he told me if I stuck with it, there would be trolls who ate people! I followed his advice and by the time I got to the trolls, I was well and truly hooked. Fili and Kili were two of my earliest fictional boyfriends and I was gutted when they were killed. I did the classic kid thing of reading the book under the bedclothes with a torch.

The following day, having read at the back of the book that there was a sequel, I dragged my brother up town to the only bookshop. They had a copy, but my brother wouldn't spend one pound ten shillings on the book! I threw a strop and marched across the road to my dad's office and he handed over the money. After that there were numerous scraps over whose turn it was to read it, with me claiming it was morally mine and him exerting superior force. Dad often had to play the peacekeeper. I was hooked on Tolkien and devoured anything I could get my hands on.

I started writing my first fanfic almost immediately I'd finished reading, entitled The Adventures of Captain Faramir. Sadly I no longer have it. But I do have the umpteen exercise books filled with a long-running LorR fic started in about 1974. I still have it, and might one day finish it. The main character is a massive Mary Sue, but there's still a lot I like about it. I haven't written any Tolkien-inspired fic since I got on the internet, but I do a lot of other writing, both original fic and fanfic. My main fandom is Primeval (a sci-fi dinosaur romp from ITV in the UK), others include The Musketeers (BBC TV show), Numb3rs, Stargate Atlantis and various other odds and sods.

I absolutely love drabbles. I like the discipline they impose on word count. I try to work to the aim of producing 'a novel in 100 words' and do a weekly challenge/prompt for primeval100 which is a lovely comm. It operates on one challenge a week, every week, where you can only post for the current challenge. I've now been doing it without exception for about 9 years!

I would like to start some Tolkien drabbling and it would be lovely to have some company on that journey.

[liadt]

Hee, I enjoyed the story of your and your brother's battles over Tolkien:) I think I first read 'The Hobbit' when I was eight too.

[fredbassett]

It was a yellow three-in-one paperback.Sadly it fell apart terminally many years ago.

My next purchase was one of the old grey cover Return of the Kings as I had to have the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen and the rest of the Appendices. I saved up for that. And I remember taking a deep breath before I spent a fiver, some years later, on The Master of Middle-Earth, which I really must read again, as it had some interesting insights.

I still have the original copy of The Hobbit, though. The grey cover with the death of Smaug.

[liadt]

Aw! I'm glad 'The Hobbit' survived. I think all-in-one LOTRs are the way to go. Love that a fiction book has an index!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hello! How good to see a post on this comm.

I am a mod at tolkien_weekly and usually post there -but if there were prompts here I would be happy to take them up now and again.

[fredbassett]

Hello! Lovely to meet you!

So pleased to have a vote in favour of prompts here! That's really heartening.

When did your Tolkien interest start? I'm always fascinated by how folks get into fandoms. I so wish there had been online fandoms when I was in the first throes of my addiction. the only people I had to talk about my obsession with were my brother, my best friend and one of her elder brothers, who was very obliging and talked about the books with me for hours.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I first came across Tolkien at eighteen at university - there were copies of LotR in the Chaplaincy library ( three large bookcases!) and one of the chaplains suggested it to me as really good read.

My husband and I bonded on the discovery, on an early date, that I knew what he was talking about when he mentioned being an early member of the local Tolkien Society - and we played D&D for a long time, which is most certainly based in Tolkien's writings even if Gary Gygax had to deny this for legal reasons!

When our daughter was still a baby we found the best way to get her to, eventually, sleep (apart from being passed from person to person during long D&D sessions) was to read to her - and as she was so small she really didn't mind what we read she first heard The Hobbit all the way through before her first birthday. We read it again as the bedtime book many more times!

From a fandom point of view I was actually involved in the Buffy fandom (husband and daughter both being big fans) and when looking for something to read one wet afternoon 11 years or so ago, at Twisting the Hellmouth, I decided that I would go to the Tolkien crossover section as they would be stories where I understood both worlds. It took about 3 or 4 hours for me to be pulled back to Tolkien and here I have stayed ever since! (Well apart from most of my many stories being part of a crossover 'verse begun when I thought, at TtH, I could do better...)

[fredbassett]

That's lovely about The Hobbit! I hope she still enjoys it now.

Mr FB and I came late to Buffy, just before the final season aired, and quickly fell in love with the show.

I'm currently beset by a huge desire to go on a massive Tolkien binge read but am away without the books at the moment. Will give in as soon as I get home, I think.

[periantari.livejournal.com]

That's awesome that this comm is starting again! I would love to join in the fun!

[fredbassett]

So great to hear from you! We had no idea if anyone was even still here to take an interest, so getting two responses has been fabulous. I now need to equip myself with a suitable icon!

I'm away, but returning home tonight, so as soon as I get to my books, I'll think up something for a maybe weekly challenge.

I would love to go back to writing in the Tolkien-verse. It's not something I've done for ages. And I've only published four fics that were Tolkien related. One was Bilbo/Thorin for a friend's fandom stocking, and the other three were crossovers with Primeval, again for fandom stockings. It's built up into a bit of a tradition, so I expect there'll be another this year.

But drabbling here would be great fun.