Hmm…

Author: harmamae

  • Happy Endings vs. Sad Endings

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    harmamae
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    And Everything In Between Endings are one of the hardest things for me to write. Obviously, I feel the weight of the readers’ expectations—hey, if anyone is reading this, they’re trusting me to end this satisfactorily! And I’ve read so many books where a so-so ending kept the book from becoming great. But both happy…

  • Diana Wynne Jones, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien – What a Combination!

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    harmamae
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    “When I was a student at Oxford, both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were lecturing there, Lewis magnificently and Tolkien badly and inaudibly, and the climate of opinion was such that people explained Lewis’s children’s books by saying ‘It’s his Christianity, you know,’ as if the books were the symptom of some…

  • The E-Publishing Experiment

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    harmamae
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    So I decided to take a shot at e-publishing. If you listen to the hype, the world of e-publishing has exploded in the last couple years—it is the way of the future, it will revolutionize the industry, and so on and so forth. I’m not sure if all the evidence supporting that is in yet,…

  • Why You Read, Why I Write:

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    harmamae
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    “To some degree, we thrust ourselves into the hands of a storyteller, trusting that he will deliver us safely from a daydream that swiftly turns into a nightmare.” (The Passive Voice, quoting David Farland) What should stories do – teach us something about reality, or allow us to escape from reality? Those that are more…

  • A Thought From Anne of Green Gables

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    harmamae
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    I just have time to put up a quote: “I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “I don’t exactly want to make people KNOW more. . .though I know that IS the noblest ambition. . .but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me. . .to have…

  • Why It’s Harder to Write a Term Paper Than a Blog

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    harmamae
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    Some people might think blogging is pretty scary – putting up stuff for all the world to criticize, and maybe to use to your disadvantage when you run for President someday (fortunately, there’s no chance of me doing that). However, I realized these past two weeks that writing academic papers scares me more. Then I…

  • Un Bon Mot – Language Learning is Hard…

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    harmamae
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    No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself. – Tolkien, English and Welsh  I’m thinking this is true, as my Spanish and Portuguese “fluency” languishes… It’s tough to learn languages, and I…

  • The Case for Ugly Romantic Interests

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    harmamae
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      Good-looking romantic interests can be fun (and too-good-looking-for-their-own-good romantic interests can be even more fun). But I’d like to suggest an ugly romantic interest for a change of pace. This post was inspired when I recently read a book describing the romantic interest as having “mushroom-coloured skin.” The book didn’t turn out to be…

  • Tolkien’s Take On True Love

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    harmamae
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    Since we’ve been talking about romance, here’s Tolkien’s take on the subject. He actually wrote an astoundingly long letter on the marriage to his son, in typical Tolkien style:  “But…  only the rarest good fortune brings together the man and woman who are really as it were ‘destined’ for one another, and capable of a…

  • Quotable Misquotes

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    harmamae
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    3 Ways Misquotes Happen “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” –Mahatma Gandhi  Delightful little quote, isn’t it? I’ve seen it plastered all over the net, on T-shirts, on bumper stickers. But it nicely illustrates the problem of using quotes, especially ones you find on the internet. According to Wikipedia (behold the…