Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016 (repost)

iatus!


(thank you to Magali Studer for the drop cap!)

Following my happy announcement from a few months ago, life has gotten extra busy! I'm going to be rerunning a few classic posts on the blog from now until January; I'll miss some Insecure Writer's Support Group posts and checking in for A Round of Words in 80 Days, though I may try to note some updates in comments. And my Books Read in 2018 post will likely be delayed!

is for Z end of the list and the third and final part of the #TolkienCollection Photo Challenge!

Part one of the Tolkien photo challenge was under the letter K and answered the first seven questions. Part two of the Tolkien photo challenge was under the letter R and covered questions 8 through 14.

Here's part three of the #TolkienCollection:

15. Item you consider to be a must-have for every collector -- authorised editions of the books, of course! I don't mind collecting other editions, but during my annual rereads I only ever read the 50th anniversary edition, since it has most of the typos and errors corrected. I'd like to get the 60th anniversary edition...

16. Top three items you'd take on an adventure -- The Lord of the Rings and copies of The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers plus some of the poems. Also the original Caedmon recordings. Is that a lot of books to carry in one's backpack? Maybe, but I've always done that -- carried more books than clothes or other items, everywhere I go!

17. The oldest item you own -- maybe the hardcover The Lays of Beleriand? No, that one isn't a first edition or even a first printing, so it must be my dad's copies of The Lord of the Rings from the 1970s and the biography of Tolkien from the same decade.
Besides the truly rare (like the recent discovery of a Tolkien poem called Noel), there are few items that were actually published in Tolkien's lifetime. To own something old, then, would mean first editions or printings of The Hobbit, Mr Bliss, The Lord of the Rings, Farmer Giles of Ham, and a couple of other items. Maybe one of those letters or postcards that comes up at auction once in a while.
I don't own even a copy of the first edition of The Hobbit, with the original Riddles in the Dark chapter! Must get on that...
Cursory research shows I can get one of the original 1, 500 copies, first impression of the first edition, published 21 September 1937, for only 12,000$. Perhaps we could sell our car...

18. An item it took you a long time to obtain -- just started this year, purchasing items I've known of for ages but somehow never bought before! I've gotten Bilbo's Last Song, a copy of The Devil's Coach Horses, Tolkien's brother Hilary's book Black and White Ogre Country, and so on. I'm still missing two major items: the original Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Tolkien Family Album by Priscilla Tolkien. Hammond and Scull also have two massive companion tomes out that I really want (who can resist a big fat book?).

19. An impulse buy -- a few months ago I got a print of Pauline Baynes illustration from The Chronicles of Narnia, signed by Baynes! Okay, so that's not a Tolkien work, but...


20. Your choice -- I ought to have taken a photo of this to share. I have a notebook I started writing in about 20 years ago, where I kept lists of interesting words Tolkien used, doodled line drawings of the walls of Minas Tirith (this has been one of my stock doodles since about the age of 12), copied out some of the poems, and worked over and over again on translating Errantry and a couple of other poems into Turkish.

It seems as though many people have stock doodles. When you're sat in a meeting and trying to concentrate, and you pick up a pen or pencil... Besides Minas Tirith, mine feature geometric shapes, sunset on a sea, a branching tree (another Tolkien-inspired item), a cat silhouette, fish outlines, and a few other bits and pieces.

 Tree of Amalion and Stylized Tree, from Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien

Here's to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge and all the hosts, participants, and commenters!

You can still keep commenting on all the R to Z posts, for your chance to win in my 1000 posts contest -- The winner will be drawn this weekend and announced on Wednesday!

What kinds of doodles do you draw?