I hope you are expectant about the coming year, so full of possibilities and potential! J.R.R. Tolkien and I share a January 3rd birthday, and as he was a writer, this encourages me in my writing efforts.
As I sit down and try to practice my resolution to write more, I find there’s a number of Tolkein’s characters that relate to the obstacles/challenges I face as I stare at the blank page. The great dragon Smaug from “The Hobbit” resembles a foe I constantly confront as I begin to write. My dragon is a dark, slimy creature that represents mistakes, failures and shortcomings that rise up before me and argue that I have nothing to say, nothing that will change people or events. I must find this dragon’s vulnerable spot and slay him before I begin, and more often than not, he holds me captive and I am unproductive.
Like Frodo, from “Lord of the Rings” I sometimes feel that I’m carrying something ‘precious’, something that will either destroy me or take me to what I was made for, an unlikely hero for sure.
In trying to discipline myself, I always end up looking into Shelob’s lair (the spider from The Two Towers) for a shortcut. Sitting down and gathering my thoughts, finding time to write in world of distractions, those side eddies to the trite or sentimental often beckon me, but I’m trying to escape the web of the trivial to find the meaningful and helpful in my writing.
One of my favorite characters from the Lord of the Rings series is Legolas. He is an elf with many skills, my kids love to give me a hard time and call him ‘the fairy.’ But Legolas hears and senses things long before anyone else, is able to defeat his enemies, and seems to triumph over every adversity (even walking on top of the snow.) Lofty goals, I know. But to slay the dragon of past failures, believe that God has gifted me, spurn the shortcuts and really believe I can triumph in the midst of adversity would spell success for me, whether my writing is ever acknowledged or not.
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