Writer's Block: Historical Romantic Mystery Thriller

[vovat]

[Error: unknown template qotd]
I'd say mostly fantasy, but not so much the sword-and-sorcery variety, although that's okay on occasion. A lot of what I read might be classed as either comic fantasy or children's or young adult fantasy. Mind you, for me, Oz is pretty much a genre in and of itself.

Speaking of fantasy, I wrote a post on Gandalf today, which addresses some of the pros and cons of Tolkien, at least in my own mind. I'm not as much into Lord of the Rings as many of my fellow fantasy fans are, but I did enjoy both the books and the movies. There are quite a few nerdy things on which I can converse at a certain level, but I'm hardly an expert. One idea I had for a post is a comparison between the Houyhnhnms from Gulliver's Travels and the Vulcans, but I don't know that I'm enough of a Trekkie (or is that Trekker?) to really pull it off. Maybe I'll try it someday anyway; I'm sure there's enough information on Vulcans available online to supplement what I already know.

I've been working on adding the cast of Chris Dulabone's A Viking in Oz to my list of apocryphal Oz characters. I'm pretty sure I included them before years ago, but that version must have gotten lost somehow. It's a short book, so it's not a big deal. Anyway, I'd like to get someone to look over my list, but it's really sloppy in its current format. That's not something I care a whole lot about, but other people might. Maybe I should post a sample and see if anyone has format suggestions. I don't know. Would anyone care to look this over?

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I'd say mostly fantasy, but not so much the sword-and-sorcery variety, although that's okay on occasion. A lot of what I read might be classed as either comic fantasy or children's or young adult fantasy.

My description is pretty much identical. At least of what I mean when I say my favorite books are "fantasy." I actually enjoy a lot of different genres, and sometimes I think my absolute favorite is humor. Humorous fantasy, humorous SF, humorous realistic, humorous historical. And yet, Madeleine L'Engle is my favorite author, and she's not funny at all.

I'd been thinking of writing a post on Levels of Geeky Fandom for awhile, and Tolkien's the example I love to illustrate it with. There are those who know only in passing of Tolkien, and those who have only seen the LotR movies. There are those who enjoy the books okay but don't, like, WORSHIP them or anything, like you. Then there's me: I named my son after a friggin' hobbit. That should scream out "major geek" shouldn't it? AND YET I personally know people I KNOW are bigger Tolkien geeks than me, who read the books at least once a year and have studied the appendices and the Silmarillion and all the smaller writings and so forth. And then there's Peter Jackson, who seems to be the EPITOME of Tolkien geek, the amount of INTENSITY he's put into adapting the books properly. AND YET, for full effect, HE had to hire even BIGGER TOLKIEN GEEKS THAN HIM, who are experts in the languages of Middle Earth or devote their whole careers to illustration Tolkien or even just DRAWING THE MAPS.

So there's always going to be someone who knows more about Vulcans than you. Heck, there's possibly even someone who knows more about Oz than you. So just write about Vulcans anyway.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I probably will. Thanks for the input!