#director commentary

Also, often nature starts something like watching a beautiful sundown or the sway of grassy fields. I often walk in the evening and often study the colors of the sky and sinking sun very closely for future references and ponder how I would describe it with words. I tend to observe the moon, its light and clouds very acutely for future reference, too! I do the same with flowers or trees in the woods or flowing water in the river... I just love watching natural movements or colors.

I've been trying to put into words what I see and feel from early kindergarten on 🙈 I cannot remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by nature and words or when I didn't think about how to tell or describe something. I was a strange kid who thought about (easy) morphology (though I had no word for it back then XD) at a very young age. At the supermarket I always pretended to "read" the magazines there to show people I knew how to read already (which I totally didn't 😂) and couldn't wait to go to school so I could actually learn it! I often begged my parents to teach me read and write but they said I was too young lol. But I was very lucky to have a dad who read many, many books to us children and even harder ones when I begged him (my sister wasn't that enthusiastic about it though and didn't always like me for it XD.) So this... zest and excitement for (written) words has always been pretty crazy with me XD 🤣

The third thing that inspires me is simple: READING I love books and written words. When I want to write a poem, I read poems first to get me in the right mood (and make my brain think in iambs and rhymes XDDD). If I want to write in German, I read a German book, if I want to write in English i read an English novel (again to make my brain switch languages and think they way I want it to).

While reading I almost always get inspired (as long as my mind is not too busy with work or worries which it is most of the times hence the long periods of time i take writing...). Now you would think I get inspired by what I actually read, and sometimes it is, the mood, the atmosphere... but more often it's just a single word. A simple noun or verb or adjective. Like "skin" or "soar" or "lit" (these are more recent examples). From this one word often springs a single simile or metaphor or something like it... I have tons of bits of paper everywhere and note pads lying around, even in my bathroom and in every book to write everything down I come up with XD

And most often a fic or scene evolves from this simple word or simile or metaphor. I remember it when I go for a walk and if I hit the right song... it just evolves. I can't describe it very well >.< but I guess this is what it's like for many if not most authors!!! <3 🖤

(btw the music bit also works when I'm driving my car so I have a simple audio record app on my phone to record any fragments I come up with lest I forget them again and they're gone forever! To be honest it's a bit dangerous XD but I usually stop pull over so I can stop and record with full concentration. More often than not I note things down by writing because I'm way better with written words than spoken ones!)

(Chaotic) Writing Process

Finally, I end up with a thousand (rather more) snippets of papers, sometimes with only a few sentences or words on them, sometimes many with cohesive scenes on them!

This happens before I actually start writing a chapter/fic and while writing.

More often than not I don't start writing right away but let a new idea simmer and evolve with more of that same music and some more walks.

Another curious thing is that I almost never start writing something before I have a title (for fics that is) because... without a title I haven't found the "Leitmotiv" for the fic yet and thus don't know yet what it's actually going to be about. 🤔 Most often, the title is one of the very first things I come up with when letting the first idea simmer and develop.

Haha, that was a lot of rambling without actually answering your quesitons!!! 🙈😳

A Moon Lit in Paradise

So about "A Moon lit in Paradise":

Due to all the things mentioned above it's very hard for me to reconstruct my own writing process in the aftermath especially when I'm in the middle of another process for another fic/story/chapter.

But I remember two incidents: Every summer my family and I drive to a small lake outside town to watch the Perseids meteor shower. A few years ago I suffered from a disc prolapse in my lower back so I couldn't lie on the ground for long so I started walking and listening to music in the moonlight. I remember the moon being so bright I could actually observe my own shadow and those of the trees moving in the azure-blue night which was absolutely fascinating. Around that time I also read a particular scene in a book by one of my favorite Indian authors. I specifically remember reading the word "moonlight" and somehow these two events resulted in that fic.

I tried to find the actual handwritten documents with the fic to reconstruct more of the process and show you but my apartment is such a mess of papers and tons of writing pads and "Schulhefte" scribbled over with stuff I gave up finding it 😅🤣😅

I don't even remember which song it was that inspired me but should I hear it again I shall know in an instant because I listened to it all the time while writing!

While a part of my writing process is very chaotic... well, once I sit down it becomes more structured. I know where to insert all the little parts and longer scenes I wrote down haphazardly on any paper available because the whole text is structured out in my head. Although that doesn't mean that when actually writing new things don't add themselvevs to the text... this actually happens every time! (certainly true for all writer out there 🖤).

Like.... I think a lot about every word, every sentence and every part. About the sequence of sentences and scenes.

I love literary devices, I actually squeal internally whenever I read one, so I deliberately use a lot of them. A lot of times I create more versions of a simile/metaphor/allegory/etc because I don't only want it to be vivid and visually persuasive but also FITTING regarding metre, vowels and first letters (as in assonance and alliteration), syntax and order of ideas (e.g. chiasmus or hysteron-proteron ) but also overall imagery. It should fit not only the sentence at hand but the overall chapter/fic and atmosphere and the characters, of course.

Sound and rythm and content and vibrance overall matching imagery is all very, very important to me.

Which means I rewrite and rewrite things a lot and have many versions to choose from in the end XDDDD

The last step is when I finally sit down in front of my laptop to type everything in a simple word document. This is the last stage when I combine and fuse all those handwritten versions and choose what words to use exactly. It also takes a lot of time with me because I read all things again and again to make sure they fit my taste... and even here several versions still crop up! Only just before publishing I will obliterate all other versions and choose the one I think are most appropriate which can take... again a lot of time XDDD

So here you go, that's why I'm the slowest writer in the universe 😆🌌 (and also because I can only write when I'm relaxed and not stressed out from work which... doesn't happen so often)

You asked about the descriptions 💗 and I must admit that those who've read my original writing tend to mock me for my descriptions a lot 😂😂😂 I love reading/creating dense atmosphere and it shows! In addition, I love symbolism and psychologizing the surroundings and objects to elucidate a character's inner life and emotions, especially surpressed emotions.

So most of my writing is full of waaaaay to long and detailed descriptions (in order to write them I look at things very closely in real life especially while writing).

My sister likes to joke "Oh, a new chapter? I bet it begins with a sundown and ends with a curtain moving in some... way. And that's it. That's the whole chapter. 100 pages of sundown and moving curtains. Ah yes, we will also have detailed info on which funiture crowds the room and how the faiding ligh of said sundown looks on it. The main character's name will be.... noted. Once. Yep. That's going to be the whole freaking chapter of 200 pages. " 😂🤣

I tone this down for my angbang fics because I in my opinion it's not really fitting Melkor's voice and perception of the world. He will certainly describe things he's in awe of - like Mairon and his own work - in great detail but I would never introtuce him like in "A Moon Lit in Paradise" because his focus is so much different (mostly on himself) because he's a divine being and perceives time and places much differently from normal human beings.

But with Fenris and Hawke who are completely normal (elven and human) beings... especially Fenris who is a deeply traumatized character I can use things like this <3 not only because it's a favorite literary device of mine but also because there are things like dissassociation in psychology (but I don't want to go into detail on this lest this text gets longer than the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion combined XD).

Btw, another one of my favorite literary devices is synesthesia 🖤 which you probably knew! 🤣😂

Like I said, when I describe a scene... it's very vivid in my mind and I try to study things like wood or marble in real life in order to be able to find words for them. I... can't describe it any better 😭 so sorry!

That all being said, I feel like I answered your questions in a very haphazard, nebulous and vague manner 😔 I'm so sorry that I can't make myself any clearer!

If you're still reading you've earned yourself PRIZE STICKER!!! 😘😘😘

AND some sweets!!!

You earned them!!!