fic progress.

[shadowbrides]

I think I'm finally ready to post the first chapter by Monday, perhaps? That is, my reply to Aliana1's Bechdel fic challenge, which would be[Short summary under spoiler because possibly boring]fic about the misadventures of a female Sea-Captain in the 4th Age. She goes by either a ridiculous meaningless string of pseudo-Quenya or Markirya, which is not in fact a name at all but a word meaning "ark"

Comments

[pandemonium_213]

Oh, wow! Those are great finds (now bookmarked), and (selfishly speaking) timely, too, as I have a chapter under draft and planned chapters for The Elendilmir that will take the protagonist out on a whaling ship. My primary resource (and an excellent one) has been Melville's Moby Dick. I also took a little field trip down to New Bedford to check out the whaling museum, and when friends from California visited last May, we went on a whale watch (Stellwagen Banks) via the New England Aquarium.

The nautical terms resource is very cool and potentially very useful!

Thanks a million for sharing these!

and submarines apparently, which I only remembered thanks to Pande and have been trying to erase from my mind ever since because, well. No. Just No.

No, no, not submarines! This might be the passage (from HoMe V, The Lost Road) I mentioned:

At first (Sauron) revealed only secrets of craft, and taught the making of many things powerful and wonderful; and they seemed good. Our ships go now without the wind, and

[shadowbrides]

Glad to be of use! I can't wait for more of the Elendimir

[aliana1]

Eeee, this makes me so happy! I love avoiding reading for class doing historical research for fiction, too! I've been reading journal articles about the history of surgery. Looks like you've found some amazing nautical swashbuckling stuff.

While I lean heavily on Medieval European sources for some things, my personal headcanon Middle-earth is also not exclusively such. While my Minas Tirith is still pre-modern, a lot of elements are inspired by 9th-10th century Persia. This is mainly because I write a lot about medicine. This is an extremely broad generalization, but Western European medicine in that period was a lot of humors and leeches and superstitions, while in the Islamic world they were actually like, hello, science! And I suppose I'm vain enough to want my characters to be more "enlightened," or at least not to make the reader cringe with their dangerous wrongheadedness. ;)

[shadowbrides]

Hah! It would be pretty hilarious to have Aragorn show his 'superior' Gondorian medical knowledge and talk about humours and recommend a good bloodletting to the hobbits, though, especially if they actually end up in worse health than before, only to be rescued by scientifically minded elves at the very brink of death - who are then very pissed off to be called 'magical', just like Haldir and his iRope. xP ...ahem. Ignore that.

I don't have anything against the middle Ages, not at all. Just think its a shame it often seems to be seen as the only period M.E. should be influenced by when in fact you can choose from just about anything! I'm really fond of some bronze age influences myself for certain peoples.

History of surgery sounds pretty interesting. And hey, we may be procrastinating but I'm sure we're learning a lot of useful/interesting things. xP