Interview meme
Feb. 24th, 2007 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamflowerHere's the other part of my interview meme, my questions from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gryffinjack.
1. I've always thought your icon is so lovely. What is the story behind it an what does it mean to you, other than a smial?
I’ve always loved that particular painting of Bag End. I like to think that it’s showing Gandalf right after he left that little mark on Bilbo’s door in The Hobbit. But it could also be him leaving or arriving at some other time for a visit.
I love the soft greens of it all--it’s so clearly a beautiful spring day!
2. What got you interested in calligraphy and writing fanfic?
Calligraphy: I’ve *always* been interested in letters and handwriting, from the time I first learned to write. I can remember how excited I got in third grade when we were going to start learning cursive writing, and I know that all through school I experimented with my handwriting, trying out various styles. My first year in college, the school library had a copy of Edward Johnston’s book on calligraphy, and I was fascinated by it. But it was several years later, when I joined the SCA that I actually began to teach myself “real” calligraphy--and I’ve never looked back since. Letters are amazing things--not only does each letter represent a sound, and the sounds combine to form words and meanings, but they can be beautiful in and of themselves, just the shape of them, and the way they look when combined into different words…to quote one of my favorite poems “painting speech and speaking to the eyes”.
Fanfic: As to fanfic, I knew such a thing existed in general, though I’d not really seen any LotR fanfic. A couple of years prior to the movies coming out, I began to frequent the Tolkien newsgroups, rec.arts.books.tolkien and alt.fan.tolkien, and discovered online fandom. But it wasn’t until a couple of months before RotK came out that someone in r.a.b.t./a.f.t. posted a link to some fic. I was amazed. It was *good*! I found a few archives and stories, and began to read, but I wasn’t really planning to write any myself.
Then one night, I read “The Prodigal Took” by Lulleny. For some reason, the story stuck in my head, and I woke up about 3AM with this story in my head, a kind of sequel to what she’d written. I was terribly green, so I emailed her and asked her if she’d mind if I wrote a story based on hers. She kindly encouraged me to write it, even beta’d it for me, and encouraged me to post it. And I found SoA, and never looked back.
3. Who is worse, Gollum or Clovis and why?
Well, Gollum murdered his best friend on purpose, when he’d only had the Ring for a few minutes--but I have a feeling that if the Ring had put itself in Clovis’ way, he’d have been just as bad. Gollum had five-hundred years of the Ring working at him.
Clovis, on the other hand, has pretty much been a creep most of his life without any Ring or outside influence.
Still--Gollum *did* do murder, so I guess I’ll go with him.
If you’d asked Gollum or *Hyacinth* though--I’d have said *her*!
4. If Pippin almost died from alcohol poisoning when he was a tween, why would he ever start drinking again?
Well, there are a couple of reasons. One is story-external. He drank beer in canon. So he drank beer, at the very least.
Story-internal, I think it is easily explained by hobbit-society. It would be almost impossible not to drink *some* in the Shire--ale and beer are apparently ubiquitous. I compromise, in that he will not drink any kind of *distilled* spirits except for medicinal purposes, and he can’t stand the taste of brandy. And of course, he made his pact with Merry.
5. What is the most important thing you have learnt in your life?
There are two:
“Don’t sweat the small stuff.” (And really, in the long haul, it’s almost *all* “small stuff”.) And the other one is “Being nice and polite is free. It doesn’t cost a thing, and pays big dividends in the end.”
gryffinjack. 1. I've always thought your icon is so lovely. What is the story behind it an what does it mean to you, other than a smial?
I’ve always loved that particular painting of Bag End. I like to think that it’s showing Gandalf right after he left that little mark on Bilbo’s door in The Hobbit. But it could also be him leaving or arriving at some other time for a visit.
I love the soft greens of it all--it’s so clearly a beautiful spring day!
2. What got you interested in calligraphy and writing fanfic?
Calligraphy: I’ve *always* been interested in letters and handwriting, from the time I first learned to write. I can remember how excited I got in third grade when we were going to start learning cursive writing, and I know that all through school I experimented with my handwriting, trying out various styles. My first year in college, the school library had a copy of Edward Johnston’s book on calligraphy, and I was fascinated by it. But it was several years later, when I joined the SCA that I actually began to teach myself “real” calligraphy--and I’ve never looked back since. Letters are amazing things--not only does each letter represent a sound, and the sounds combine to form words and meanings, but they can be beautiful in and of themselves, just the shape of them, and the way they look when combined into different words…to quote one of my favorite poems “painting speech and speaking to the eyes”.
Fanfic: As to fanfic, I knew such a thing existed in general, though I’d not really seen any LotR fanfic. A couple of years prior to the movies coming out, I began to frequent the Tolkien newsgroups, rec.arts.books.tolkien and alt.fan.tolkien, and discovered online fandom. But it wasn’t until a couple of months before RotK came out that someone in r.a.b.t./a.f.t. posted a link to some fic. I was amazed. It was *good*! I found a few archives and stories, and began to read, but I wasn’t really planning to write any myself.
Then one night, I read “The Prodigal Took” by Lulleny. For some reason, the story stuck in my head, and I woke up about 3AM with this story in my head, a kind of sequel to what she’d written. I was terribly green, so I emailed her and asked her if she’d mind if I wrote a story based on hers. She kindly encouraged me to write it, even beta’d it for me, and encouraged me to post it. And I found SoA, and never looked back.
3. Who is worse, Gollum or Clovis and why?
Well, Gollum murdered his best friend on purpose, when he’d only had the Ring for a few minutes--but I have a feeling that if the Ring had put itself in Clovis’ way, he’d have been just as bad. Gollum had five-hundred years of the Ring working at him.
Clovis, on the other hand, has pretty much been a creep most of his life without any Ring or outside influence.
Still--Gollum *did* do murder, so I guess I’ll go with him.
If you’d asked Gollum or *Hyacinth* though--I’d have said *her*!
4. If Pippin almost died from alcohol poisoning when he was a tween, why would he ever start drinking again?
Well, there are a couple of reasons. One is story-external. He drank beer in canon. So he drank beer, at the very least.
Story-internal, I think it is easily explained by hobbit-society. It would be almost impossible not to drink *some* in the Shire--ale and beer are apparently ubiquitous. I compromise, in that he will not drink any kind of *distilled* spirits except for medicinal purposes, and he can’t stand the taste of brandy. And of course, he made his pact with Merry.
5. What is the most important thing you have learnt in your life?
There are two:
“Don’t sweat the small stuff.” (And really, in the long haul, it’s almost *all* “small stuff”.) And the other one is “Being nice and polite is free. It doesn’t cost a thing, and pays big dividends in the end.”
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-25 05:48 am (UTC)And that is a lovely painting of Bag End!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-26 01:20 pm (UTC)And I do think it is! It's my desktop picture, too.