Gillian Bronte Adams

YA Epic Fantasy Author

A Novelist’s Classroom

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Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, travel to England, sneak in the back door of the Eagle and Child, and grab a seat in the corner among the Inklings.
And maybe … just maybe … if I could gather up enough courage, I might venture to speak before the end of the evening.
But mostly, I would want to just listen. And learn.
To glean wisdom from the masters.
Until time travel becomes a reality, I’m afraid my dreams of sitting among the Inklings are doomed to disappointment. But I can still learn from the masters. That’s the glorious thing about a novelist’s classroom.
You don’t necessarily have to go anywhere or enroll in any specific classes. Nor do you need to follow a syllabus that was obviously written expressly to cause you misery and torment by a devious professor who simply must have graduated with honors from the Academy of Ultimate Villainy.
No, for a novelist, the classroom is all around us. The textbooks are at our finger tips. And the masters walk among us.
After reading certain books, I can’t help sitting there staring off into the distance with the book lying still open in may lap, stunned by the beauty and brilliance of what I just read. There are some amazing authors out there and some books that are truly works of art.
Sometimes, I have to pause in the middle of reading and jot down some new world-changing insight about crafting characters, or foreshadowing, or plot twists.
I love studying the craft of writing. I enjoy reading blog posts and how-to books. I love taking classes at conferences. And if I grit my teeth and force myself to bear the pain, I can also endure critiques of my work in the hopes that I will continue to improve.
But I believe the best way to learn about writing is to read.
Voraciously.
Classes will teach you the rules and mechanics. But only a well-written book can show you how the rules truly work, when they apply, and when it’s okay to break them.
And the truly beautiful thing about the novelist’s classroom is that you never have to graduate. You can keep learning, keep gleaning, keep growing.
Until you become one of the masters.

Coming Home – The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

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“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty,
dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a
dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a
hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
– The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien
Thus began the first story my dad ever read aloud to me. At
least that I can recall. I was five years old at the time and the strange creatures
of Middle Earth—hobbits, dwarves, goblins, and the dragon—speedily populated
the world of my imagination.
By the time I was seven, my dad had finished reading The
Lord of the Rings aloud. He gave me my own copy for my seventh birthday and I
loved it so much that for the next year I slept with it at the foot of my bed.
Tolkien’s Middle Earth became a sort of home away from home
for me, the backdrop of all my imaginings. The characters became than a child’s
imaginary friends. To this day, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings remain my
favorite books. And yet, unlike some Tolkien purists, I also absolutely love
the movies, despite their differences.
Around Christmas time, I went to see The Hobbit: Desolation
of Smaug. I’d heard mixed opinions of the movie—lots of comments about the
addition of Tauriel, Legolas/Tauriel/Fili, and the extended plot lines—so I
wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
But I loved it. Differences. Mistakes. Drawn out plot and
all.
Tolkien set out to create an epic worthy of the Norse
mythologies he studied. Mythology grows over time. It is not the work of a
single author. It’s bigger than that. It power rests in its ability to capture
and stimulate the imagination of others. And in turn, to absorb their
interpretations and additions.
Because of that, I think that Peter Jackson’s imagining of The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings remains true to the spirit of Tolkien’s work,
if not true to every detail. I watch the movies as much to see the beauty of
Middle Earth in living color on the screen as to know the characters and follow
the story.
Mirkwood. The Woodland Realm. Lake-Town.
All there. So much more fantastic than I could have imagined
them.
So yes, I loved The Desolation of Smaug. Just as I loved An
Unexpected Journey. And just as I’m sure I’ll love the third and final installment
when it finally comes out!
I think because Tolkien’s work was such a huge part of my
childhood, watching The Lord of the Rings movies and reading the books feels
like coming home.
A journey there and back again.

The World Ahead …

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"Home is behind, the world ahead."

At the end of the summer, I wrote a post about coming home from a summer full of grand adventures. I wrote about how to me home is the Shire and camp is Narnia.

Well, I’ve received the call as it were, and the time has come for me to head back. To set off on a new adventure. To leave the Shire behind.

I have a new job.

I’ll be working full time at camp as a ministry specialist, overseeing the horse program, writing Bible Dramas, and who knows what-other-awesome-stuff! If I could have dreamed up a job for myself … well, suffice it to say it would have looked a lot like this.

So, I’m currently in the middle of packing and loading up and transporting one life to a new one. It always sounds easier than it actually is. At the moment, my room bears a distinct resemblance to a town decimated by a Kansas tornado.

I do have a sneaky sort of suspicion that packing up might be a whole lot easier if I didn’t have such an extensive library! But honestly … what is one supposed to do?

“I forgot we’ll be hunting down Voldemort in a mobile library.“
~ Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

That would be me. :)

I intend to continue my writing of course. (Packing up my desk … now there’s a chore I’m not looking forward to!) The first draft of The Epic of Aedonia is forging ahead like a runaway forest fire. I don’t think I could stop writing it if I tried … or if I did, the characters would appear to me in my dreams and haunt my sleep.

“There is no agony like having an untold story inside you.“
~ Zora Neale Hurston

But generally speaking, I’m afraid posts are going to become somewhat sporadic on here over the next couple of weeks. Well, that is to say, more sporadic than usual. Adventures of this sort tend to be a bit time consuming. I’ve got to get moved in and settle into my new job and everything that entails … so the blog will have to scoot to the back burner for a week or two.

After that, I should be back on track, and we’ll be able to get back to our typical fantasy musings, character in costumes challenges, quizzes, reviews, etc.

Providing of course, I remember to pack my pocket handkerchiefs! :)

The Beauty of Imagination

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The Lord of the Rings
I was five years old when my dad started reading The Hobbit aloud to me at night, introducing me to a whole new world of imagination. A world full of goblins and dragons and magic rings and little hobbits who faced their fears and became the most courageous characters of all.
At five years old, I was afraid. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of goblins. Nothing like the brave hobbits.
So my heroic dad came to the rescue … and made me a sword. My first weapon! A magnificent blade, two feet long … crafted from the finest aluminum foil in the realm.
Yep. Aluminum foil. It was a mite flimsy. But I didn’t mind. I named it Sting and set it beside my bed in case of danger in the night.
I slept easy after that, comforted in the belief that if danger ever threatened, I could grab my trusty sword and it would become strong in my hand, a mighty weapon capable of slaying the fiercest dragon.
Imagination is a beautiful thing, is it not?
Beautiful Books
My older sister was an avid reader. She devoured books at a rate most rampaging dragons couldn’t hope to compete with. But on the rare occasions when she could be coaxed to set her book down, we played together in the back yard while she invented wonderful stories full of amazing people, places, and settings.
Together we sailed ships through terrible storms. Galloped across the hills pursued by enemies. Dug our way out of a prison camp.

But it wasn’t until several years later, when I picked up some of my older sister’s books, that I realized where her stories came from.

So many of the characters, places, and stories we had played over the years were drawn from the books she was reading at the time.

Imagine it for a moment. You pick a book off the shelf, flip it open, and suddenly realize that a character seems oddly familiar, almost as though you’ve met before. You recall a name, but can’t figure out how. The story you’ve never read tugs at your memory.

Deja vu?

The more books I read, the more I realized that I had already traveled a fair bit around the literary world in those games in the backyard.

I’d sailed to Treasure Island with Jim Hawkins. Traveled to Letzenstein and escaped from Julius Varenshalt along with Catherine Ayre from the Letzenstein Chronicles. Journeyed through the Wardrobe to Narnia along with the four Pevensies.

I think I can honestly say it was that first epic story I heard … and those wonderful little games we played … that inspired me to write novels of my own.

To create characters and worlds and events that would transport others to an imaginary place. To allow others to experience what I had experienced.

The beauty of imagination.

It’s a wonderful gift.

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan 

Mining for Gold

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“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.“
~ Jack London

Sometimes the best stories don’t chase after you, begging to be written. You have to hunt them down like the ever elusive white stag.

You have to dig them out of the deep places of the earth, like precious gems.

You have to dive into the depths of the sea and retrieve them, like ancient treasure from the wreckage of a sunken ship.

Victory won through sweat and sacrifice is that much more dear. And a story penned through tears and toil, mined from the depths of the earth, hounded from the farthest reaches of the forest, often rings truer than the story that springs nigh fully formed into your head one morning.

I’m still hunting the plot for my newest story, By Sword, mining my characters out of the rocks, and following their pathless trail through the forest. And it’s hard work. Discouraging, sometimes. But every once in a while, a tiny sliver of gold breaks through that inspires me to keep going, to keep hunting, to keep typing.

To hunt inspiration with a club.

Where are you in your writing? Are you hunting inspiration or refining gold?

Wanted: Burglar To Share In Great Adventure – Middle Earth Ramblings

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“As they sang, the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.” ~ The Hobbit

I expect most of us, like Bilbo, have a bit of a Tookish side. The part of us that loves adventure and the thrill of peril and the glory of great deeds. The part that loves reading Tolkien or leafing through ancient epics, watching action and adventure movies, the sight of the road going ever on and on.

The part that wants to wear a sword instead of a walking stick.

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.” ~ Gandalf

If only he had stopped by at my house on the way to the Shire. The Tookish part of me is jumping up and down at the moment, “Pick me! Pick me! I’ll sign up!”

And I would in a heart beat.

If The Hobbit were set in modern times, I could see Gandalf writing up this ad and posting it on facebook, or craigslist, or somewhere online.

WANTED: Burglar to share in Great Adventure.

Requirements: small, stealthy, clever.

Destination: the Lonely Mountain.

Object: Gold.

Remuneration: treasures beyond imagining.

Employers: Thorin and Company.

Expected enemies: trolls, goblins, wargs, dragons, and other nefarious creatures that inhabit the dark places of Middle Earth.

Danger: High.

Chance of return: Slim.

Apply at the Prancing Pony in Bree, ask for Gandalf.

Note: Thorin and Company are not liable for any injuries to employees, including (but not limited to) loss of life, limb, or sanity, dismemberment by wargs, enslavement by goblins, or barbecuing by dragons.

As Gimli would say, “Certainty of death . . . small chance of success . . . what are we waiting for?”

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