Ara's Mythos

         My last blog promised a further account of the journey of the story of Ara, so here it is:

         Immediately upon publication of Mirkwood in 2011, the Estate of J.R. R. Tolkien sought to have the book destroyed. Well, I’m a stubborn lawyer, I like Ara, I liked her story and its origin, and the important question it raised:        

                          "Where are the heroines in Middle-Earth?"

         So I sued The Tolkien Estate in federal district court in Texas. At this point, the entire matter went viral, got written up in digital and print editions of the Hollywood Reporter, The (London) Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, along with daily newspapers in Calcutta, New Zealand and host of other countries.

         The viral spread peaked at several hundred websites and blogs, and thousands of comments. The dispute became a cause célèbre for First Amendment Rights and anti- bullying.

         The case settled, the book continued (with some innocuous format changes to the cover and a disclaimer, all of which were quite agreeable to me) and became an Amazon Best Seller. It won a national IPPY award. It was translated and published worldwide in Spanish.

         I went to Hollywood and pitched the book at a pitch fest. This is essentially a cattle call: speed dating for ten thousand breathless aspirants to two hundred agents and producers, in four minute sessions at card tables in the convention hall at the Marriott Burbank Hotel.

         I got several offers and did a deal with EMO films. This resulted in more favorable press from the Hollywood Reporter. The key partner at EMO, Joel Eisenberg, and I moved forward with a screenplay (written by Joel out of sheer enthusiasm). From there, we sailed the ocean of being “In Development” which really means “Development Hell.” Financing, pitches, meetings, proposals, Cannes, critiques, on and on.

         After a period, we regrouped. We were convinced that the project held legitimacy in the marketplace, due in part to fairly extensive press and fan reaction. We decided to hold back on the film endeavor and first write a series of sequel books. The result is "The Chronicles of Ara", a new 8-volume fantasy epic published by Luthando Coeur, an imprint of The Zharmae Publishing Press. The first book in the series, "Creation", will be released in 2014.

         The announcement of the new series has sparked an unprecedented social network response for an upcoming debut novel, attaining a direct relationship with over 100,000 fans. Back in Hollywood, Mirkwood Partners, LLC, the rights-holders of all "Mirkwood"-spawned projects, signed with producer Gilbert Adler ("Superman Returns", "Valkyrie", "Constantine") and John Santilli's Aloris Entertainment, producer of "The English Teacher" with Julianne Moore, for a television series based on the new books. Mirkwood Partners is now represented by Creative Artists Agency, often described as the most powerful agency in the business.

         "The Chronicles of Ara" series deals with the theme of corrupted art. There is but a single muse who inspires all of creativity and invention, who is corrupted upon suffering a tragic loss. What then, of the artists? When J.R.R. Tolkien is called upon to help authenticate a recently-discovered "lost" book of Beowulf, the story takes on from there, gradually unveiling a horrific endgame to our collective entertainment.

         Featured authors include Mary Shelley, Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and others.

            Another book series, closer in tune and scale to the original Mirkwood book, is scheduled to begin in publication in 2015. More on that, and the associated writing contest in the next blog.

My Mythos

         In 2010, fed up with procrastination, I wrote, or rather completed, a book.

         The book actually started years earlier with my three children, two girls and one boy.  We would do bedtime reading sessions, voicing the entirety of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As we read the end of the last page of the last book, the cover was closed, we looked at each other, and there was a deep silence. Three years, a lot of improved reading skills, a lot of fun and joking, and discussions, and then . . . the end.

        

         The stillness was that of loss, of something irreplaceable having passed.

The lingering quiet broke apart with a question from my oldest daughter. “So, where are the heroines?”

         The blunt fact was that there weren’t any.

         I stammered, trying to play the fatherly authority role, and eventually said, “Well, actually there probably were some, more than some. Yes, most assuredly. It’s just that Professor Tolkien never got around to writing about them.”

         True to being a lawyer’s daughter came the follow up question: “Like who?”

         “Well, er . . .”, and here I jumped into deep water feet first, “there was one, one of the most famous. A very famous heroine. But her story was . . . uh . . . lost. In fact, it was . . . hunted down and destroyed . . .” I was feeling inspired now, on the brink of wrapping up this detail. “Which is why Professor Tolkien never wrote about her.”

         The questions didn’t end, of course, and more clues about this: “Lost heroine” emerged. In a month, I’d written down a chapter of a story about this most famous, yet now forgotten figure of Middle Earth. Her name I knew.

         It was Ara.

         And there it rested, the story relegated to a file, for several years. The kids grew up, the last one left the house, and I was alone. Quite by accident, I found the file, and the story in 2010.

         Some pieces of the Lost Tale of Ara were discovered and then revealed in the novel, Mirkwood: A Novel About JRR Tolkien.

         They were, it turns out, but fragments, mere mortal perspective, in a much larger, even cosmic mythos.

         Like her life, and her Lost Tale, the full Account of Ara has grown in the telling. It has embarked on a worthy journey of its own, and in the next blog I will recount some of that journey.

         In the meantime, I would like to hear your account, your aspirations, your questions and your adventures in creating your story. Please let us know so that we can share it with others. 

Intro to Mythos You

Mythos

·  a report or tale; a story expressing beliefs and values.

You

·   (colloquial) belonging to the person addressed