meridian_rose

I've been having a brief discussion about Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit. I recall an article or possibly LJ/Tumblr post about Tolkien and the Hobbit. He wouldn't stop editing it. Eventually his close writer friends had to basically stage an intervention before he ruined the book.
Food for thought for writers who can't stop tinkering, no matter how much we quote Leonardo, "Art is never finished, only abandoned".

If anyone knows the post I'm talking about please do let me know :)

Anyway in looking for that I found this on my old Tumblr. You can read the article How To Tell If You Are in a JRR Tolkien Book for yourself. (There was a load of those articles at one point for various books/genres and they were good fun at the time.)

Screencap


“You long to go on an adventure, but only so long as the adventure is not in any way uncomfortable or inconvenient.” Totally me.

Also this reblog shows pictures of dragons by Tolkien, starting with the picture that is on my copy of The Hobbit:

So that picture has special meaning. The book actually came with the The Hobbit text-based adventure game for the Commodore 64. I read the book. I hoped it would help me win the game. I did the "'WAIT' command so the trolls kept arguing until dawn" part. I wandered the Misty Mountains. Thorin kept singing about gold. I kept getting stuck in the barrels and never met Gollum or completed the game! There was not the wealth of user guides to purchase or view online in those days :P