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1st January. Happy New Year from Eryn Carantaur!
I hope this is the first day of a very good year for all of us.
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And back to Winter Magic, asap!
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31st November. Well, it's Christmas!
I've put a special banner on the front page, and added the snow,
and I've started posting our traditional Yuletide calendar—the
story behind this one's a crossover! Once I get things going,
I'll be posting one part a day until Christmas Eve (but due to
an emergancy at work, which means that I have to stay in London
tomorrow night, I've had to post part 2 a day early :-)
In the meantime, I haven't forgotten Winter Magic and
will be working on that again very soon!
...
A few weeks ago I went to see the Half-Blood Prince, came
away obsessed with Draco, and suddenly found myself writing a
Draco/Hermione story. It's sort of complete, but I am thinking
of going back and filling in some of the blanks—you'll see
what I mean if you read it:
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I've also added two other very short non-LOTR stories, which
I wrote a while ago:
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6th October. I've added Chapter 4 of Winter
Magic (at last), in which Melannen makes some new friends,
and Legolas and Eowyn find out what made that terrible sound.
The chapter has taken a very strange turn. I tried and tried to
get it back on track (which is why it took so long to write),
but the culprit is Arador, and he does generally
know what he's doing :-)
I've also added an edited version of a talk I gave at the WriterConUK
Midimeet, about writing mysteries. It only scratches the surface
of a huge topic, but it does discuss the sorts of problem I've
come up against when writing, and the things I've found interesting
in books & TV programmes.
...
Inspired by a talk about accessibility by kazzy_cee at
WriterConUK, over the last few weeks I've been converting the
main stories to pdfs, which can easily be downloaded and printed,
or used with an e-reader. So each story now has a download button
on its title page—just click on the button and the pdf will
open in a new window.
...
I made this banner for the WriterConUK banner grab challenge
(click for the full-sized version):
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Sadly, nobody grabbed it—if they had, they were supposed
to use it as a 'prompt' for a story—but it will illustrate
the next part of the Eowyn/Legolas challenge (when I finally get
round to writing it :-)
...
Some more icons:
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5th August. I've added chapter 3 of Winter
Magic, in which Legolas and Eowyn, having failed to find Gimli
and the others, return to the Forest, and Hentmirë finds
herself in a sticky situation!
Speaking of Hentmirë, Trix very kindly sent me a
picture, which shows how she imagines her.
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So now, in my head, Hentmirë's become a sort of cross between
Trix's picture and this one, which I've used before:
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Here are some Legolas graphics I made for a Live Journal challenge—click
on the images for the full-size versions.
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26th June. A big update!
First, I've begun the continuation of the Winter Magic
story—it's the morning after their wedding, and Legolas and
Eowyn are planning to return to Melannen's homeland and find out
what happened to the elves who lived there. If you click on the
Continued > link on the right, you can jump straight
in at the new bit; clicking on the icon will take you back to
the beginning of the story.
Secondly, do you remember Melannen's picture book? I've also
made some pages from that. The animals/birds/plants are drawn
in fibre tip pen and coloured pencil and pasted onto torn tissue
and scrapbooking papers. The text is added using a photo editing
program.
Finally, I've written a short story (in 10 parts, LOL) for a
LiveJournal 'plot without porn' ficathon. The story is caled Supernatural,
but it's not a crossover...
...
More icons!
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20th May. An update!
I've added parts 46 & 47 of the Eowyn/Legolas challenge,
in which Legolas and Eowyn enjoy a few fluffy moments tying up
some loose ends, then go on a shopping trip an
important salvage mission to Caras Galadhon.
I've also added a 'featured story', because I haven't quite finished—in
other words, I'm quite a long way from finishing—the second
update I had planned, but I thought it was about time I took the
Yuletide Calendar off the front page!
…
Some more icons, including a couple that are not LOTR, but that
I'm pleased with!
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16th April. Part 45 of the Eowyn/Legolas
challenge!
I'm sorry it's taken so much longer than I expected. I moved
house at the end of last month, and everything got lost, and then
found again, and then there was so much house-stuff to do...
Anyway, I won't give too much about the plot away here, but I
hope you enjoy it. Next time, Legolas and Eowyn will be going
shopping—honest!
…
Eryn Carantaur was four years old on 14 March! Amazing!
…
Some icons:
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24th February. I've added three (short) parts
to the Eowyn/Legolas challenge.
I hoped to have finished a fourth part, but it's being a pain,
so we're left with a bit of a cliffhanger :-) I have three more
parts planned, then I intend to start work on the second half
of Winter Magic (the one with Melannen, his missing parents,
and the disappearing town, which began in the 2007 Yuletide Calendar).
That probably means that I'll end up carrying on with the challenge
instead. {sigh}
...
Have you seen the pictures of Orlando making his next film? It's
called Sympathy for Delicious and he plays a rock star.
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1st February. Already!
I've added the next part of the Eowyn/Legolas challenge, and
it's actually taken a slightly unexpected turn—suffice to
say that the gaur took me by surprise, and there will be a lot
of Legolas-angst in the next part :-)
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14th January. Yesterday was Orlando's birthday—let's
hope he had a great day!
At long last, I've added part 40 of the Eowyn/Legolas challenge!
It's taken me a while to get back into the story, but I've actually
got some more parts planned, and this part ends with a bit of
a cliffhanger :-)
…
I've also added some icons I've made for various icon-making
challenges:
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6th January. It's Twelfth Night, so I've
taken the Yuletide banner off the front page but I'll keep the
snow until I make a proper update. (Besides, it goes well with
the banner).
I'm working on the next few parts of the Eowyn/Legolas challenge
at the moment, and will post them as soon as they're ready. And
I've started on something else, which I'm quite excited about
:-)
In the meantime, here are some Yuletide icons, which I should
have posted before!
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26th December. A belated Merry Christmas!
I hope you have enjoyed the festivities, and look forward to
seeing you again in the New Year :-)
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9th December. I'm going on holiday (to Krakow,
Poland) for four days, so I'm posting the next few parts in advance.
No peeking early!
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30th November. It's Christmas!
As usual, I've changed the front page banner and added snow --
I love that snow :-)
And I've started posting the Yuletide calendar. This time its
an adventure story, which I hope you'll enjoy! There will be 24
parts, one per day, plus an epilogue, and I'll post each part
the night before (except for when I'm on holiday, when I'll post
a few parts in advance—but no peeking)!
I also hope to update to the Eowyn/Legolas challenge before Christmas,
fingers crossed.
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30th October. I've added a teeny tiny ghost
story for Halloween.
Next, it will be back to the Eowyn/Legolas challenge
and those pesky werewolves!
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25th October. Do you like the new banner
on the front page? I'm really pleased with the colours :-)
I've added the final part of Season of Mists at long last,
LOL.
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It turned out much longer than I'd expected (about twice the
length of a normal chapter), and took ages to write. I hope you
enjoy it. There is also a short epilogue.
...
Next, I'm planning to do something for Halloween: Anne
has asked me to write the next part of the werewolf story, and
I've also had an idea for a short ghost story. I don't know how
much I'll get done, but don't forget to check back, nearer the
time.
...
I hadn't made any proper Legolas/Eowyn graphics for ages, so
I decided that now was time!
(Click on the banner below to see the others).
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And here are some more icons.
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21st September. I've addded Chapter 9, at
last, in which Thorkell and Gimli deal with the tad-dail, Legolas
and Eowyn make some important discoveries, and Legolas gets a
bit of a shock :-)
Parts of Myldreth's adventure are shamelessly ripped off from
Susanna Clarke's Mr Simonelli or The Fairy Widower, but
that was one of the original inspirations for the tad-dail.
We're almost at the end now—just one more chapter to go.
…
Last month I went to the WriterConUK Midimeet, in Reading, met
a lot of fellow fanfiction writers and icon makers (most of them
from the Buffy fandom), and gave a talk about doing research!
I've posted it here:
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I also made some 'Spike's adventures in Middle-earth' banners
for the banner challenge. (Click on the banner belown to see the
rest).
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I haven't forgotten the timestamp challenge, btw. Two
people have requested 'extra scenes', and I'll post them as soon
as they're written :-)
In the meantime, more icons:
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16th July. Another chapter! Woo-oo-oo! I'm
cracking along now!
Not :-)
But writing is a lot easier than it has been for a while,
so keep your fingers crossed for me!
This chapter is a bit longer than most, and I think you can see
that the story is beginning to draw to a close. There will probably
be two more chapters. Then I think I should get back to the Eowyn/Legolas
challenge for a while—Legolas, after all, has just been injured
by a werewolf…
I also have the continuation of Winter Magic (the story
in last year's Yuletide Calendar) to worry about, and a half-written
short story, which I originally intended for Valentine's Day,
and which has lots of lovely detail about hunting dogs, that I
must finish sometime.
...
A challenge
Sagaluthien, at LiveJournal, set herself a challenge that
I thought might be fun to try here, too:
Take one of my stories,
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sometime in the past (before the story starts) or in
the future (after the story ends) and I will tell you what
happens.
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Have you seen
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It's a website that allows you to make word clouds: you
just paste some text into a box, click Go, and the program
creates a pattern, sizing and colouring the words according to
how often they appear in the text. Common words are ignored by
default (otherwise you get really big THE, AND, and FOR). You
can alter the font and the colours and choose different types
of layout.
This is what a word cloud of the first four paragraphs of Eryn
Carantaur's title page looks like (click on the picture for a
bigger version):
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Hmm. Interesting that Legolas should come out so much
bigger than Eowyn. Anyway, I thought I would set a little
Eryn Carantaur
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Some more Legolas and Eowyn icons!
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I recently came second in the LiveJournal bwlims ('black
and white last icon maker standing') contest!
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