During my more younger years, reading had become more of a chore than an enjoyment to me, I couldn’t even pick up a book without feeling distressed or in any sort of acute agony made up by my fragile young mind; this being said I was more attentive when being read to or hearing others read. I did enjoy some books as a child, yet I never found a fondness to pick it up myself and read. Not too much a distance, but when it came to writing I had despised it greatly, I found it impossible at times to write anything, even write a sentence, I would much rather answer most of my writing assignments verbally, or even not at all if that choice was available to me. Yet when I had to write I did, and I didn’t do it with any enthusiasm to no surprise, so for the most part I was originally just writing answers down to more linear and thoughtless questions given to me by my teachers, it was only until they told me that I could write about any of my interest that I started my fondness of it. This had been the start of what can be considered a new era, this had been a small spark but a spark nonetheless; this spark would soon light into a fire and one which would fuel my desire to write out of pleasure rather than forcing myself to.                                                                                                                           

While free writing, the interest that would first step fourth were those of games and movies that I’ve watched. As simple as it sounds my likeness towards writing did not further any more than it did when writing the thoughtless near meaningless questions given to me. Only after when I started getting into vaster and intricate entertainment with more literary content, I started to take up writing more keenly. The majority of these pieces of entertainment that I started to acknowledge were Warhammer 40k, a real time strategy game that tells of humanity’s future in the stars, its constant evolution and soon falling decay lead by those who sought greater power than that of which they’ve already been given. A second interest was in Dungeons and Dragons, a role-playing game heavily reliant on the players ability to be creative and with near unlimited possibilities. For years I have been exposed to these influential mediums, always plunging myself deeper and deeper into the lore and narrative of each word. Every word I read had caught my interest and at that vulnerable age I had become obsessed with them, I was a fanatic to retelling the tale of the 41st millennium and one for deepening myself into whatever world I was thrown into by my Dungeon Master. Many of the campaigns brought to us by our Dungeon Master were done in the company of friends, this in turn instilled into me a sense of enjoyment when the name was ever brought up. Each new piece of information learned was biblical to me. Yet what piece, or pieces, of literature brought me to love this type of genre, that of exaggerated fantasy? The answer to this is no further than J.R.R. Tolkien’s classics, the Lord of the Rings.  

The world of Tolkien, it’s a beautiful and depth filled world, not a single stone within his books is not talked about. The most popular of his books, the Lord of the Rings, were all magnificent and kept me thrilled every step of the way, each word captivated and enthralled me. To this very day, the world that Tolkien had created is nothing more than spectacular to me. Yet Tolkien goes so in-depth that he wrote a whole new language for the world, practically history books which cover vast topics, like the pantheon, the races of the Middle Kingdom, the different cultures of the world and the exclusive guardians of Middle Earth, least to say their title describes what they do. The pantheon itself is astonishing, all names and types of gods within Eä, this is the name of the universe within Tolkien’s novels. The gods of this book mostly consist of three main ones, Eru the creator of all life and the creator of two other significant immortals, Valar, those who hone the elements and Maiar the watcher of magic which incarnates wizards. Of course, beside them in this whole creation was the Ainur, practically miniature gods they created most of the creatures and wildlife on the earth only in true obedience to Eru creator of life; many of the Ainur turned against them and either went to Aman and Valinor, which are both basically heaven. Besides the amount of details and characters that is seen laced within this literary narrative, when first finding out how he created his novels it had astonished me and had inspired me to start some writing of my own personal interest. 

When first creating a world for your characters to live in, many examples will have to be brought up. These can either be what type of world you want; so if you want a world stuck in chaos you make evil human like gods, you make a world completely built on accident, there can be a god for every single item in the universe. This is shown in full detail with how J.R.R. Tolkien gets his inspiration from, similar to Tolkien I am also a Catholic, so the process of being polytheistic is an abstract concept for me. Many of my closest examples would be from randomly selected mythology, yet for Tolkien that would be too basic, and everyone would become less interested about what he had to write. Therefore, he chose more of a selected are in mind when it came to his mythology, taking up more of a western style influence; such as Celtic, Finnish, Slavic, Greek, and Germanic folklore and literary pieces. Yet not only did he include their pantheons but also their philosophy, even his own Christian beliefs were reflected within his work. To me this is what a literary master does, and it truly inspired me the next time I was to host of our Game Sessions for Dungeons & Dragons. The opportunity arose when I had first received the idea from one of my companions from our local sessions. He rejected multiple copies of pre-made campaigns and had decided to create his own with a smaller, easier to understand world which could be used for quick matches between each other. Being the slightly competitive person that I am I promised to do the next campaign within 2 months, I had promised them a campaign, and I planned on giving them one. When first getting to work I started off similarly to how Tolkien started his works; I researched different mythologies and wrote down what I found interesting about them most. After which, I matched what sources from other myths were able to be compared to each other and what could be a better idea for future steps in my world to come. Once the pantheon was completed, world building, or creating the history of the world, was to be completed; for most of the history I had based it off of other sources of entertainment, an example of this is how similar the separation of both good and evil gods in my world is compared to the Horus Heresy within Warhammer 40k. The similarity is between how in my world the Demi-gods’ sons of the one head god are basically; while within the Horus Heresy Logar and his brothers betray his father, the God Emperor of Mankind. These small details of my interest and choice in detail show how instilled these hobbies have helped influence me into becoming a better writer. 

I have not mastered the skills that Tolkien has used; this is mainly due to the fact that most of my writing has been within brief but multiple sentences. When writing longer pieces for a more in-depth analysis of a character or a setting I normally flush it out with only the main details that I find necessary for the reader to understand clearly and concisely. Many of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels are mostly done for pleasure and for the enjoyment of others who want a high fantasy world with tons of high adventure. His novels are completely story driven while the ones I write are for more educational purposes and to inform the reader of what he should know about the world he is immersed in. I guess that’s where both Tolkien and I are more similar, we both have to have the ability to make the reader believe in the world we created, to detail it to the point where you can practically see all these types of events unfolding, to hook the reader in and submerged them in the world of our creation, to make them take up some feeling for any place, people, or event that has happened. Our work as writers is to create some interest in the reader to continue looking for more detail from our writing.