News and Views: Kiwi Inspiration
Originally Posted March 21st, 2002
Gentle Readers,
Happy Equinox! Part 3 of Star-Crossed is up, Summer Storm. This story is about making ethical choices with your life when your sexuality is on what other people consider an unethical edge. Also up are two miscellaneous pieces: a short, dirty, kinky PWP, Shields, and the quasi-essay Of the Laws of Ansereg.
I look at the fiction lists for the Tolkien fandom and things seem to be quieting down a lot. So why, I asked myself, am I still cranking along creatively, with quite a few stories planned after Star-Crossed is wrapped?
Then I went down to the local dairy, which is what we call the corner store here in New Zealand. I live in Auckland. And the LOTR movie is still making magazine covers and generating feature articles. It's still making the news on TV and in the paper. New Zealand went bananas for LOTR and it hasn't stopped yet. Oscar fever is peaking this week, and we're getting The Trailer, so I don't think the country will calm down for a while yet. I literally cannot open up any local publication, including business magazines, without getting an LOTR dose.
All of this is no help for me, because I was a big LOTR fan even before the movie, and then I discovered the slash, and now, well, it's all hopeless. It's just a constant flow of inspiration. I'm surrounded by the scenery of Middle-Earth- if I drive south to visit a friend, boom, I'm in The Shire. If I drive further, there are the blue rivers and cliffs evoking the Argonath, and the mist-wrapped green mountains. If I go to the garden center, I can buy the flowers Bilbo has in his garden. The grocery store has the vegetables they were selling in Hobbiton (New Zealand pumpkins are very distinctive). And they hired the elf-extra guys locally. Let me tell you, there was a good talent pool of tall lean elf-looking guys with British-esque accents here. The guy who currently waters the plants in my office looks like Glorfindel...it never ends...