Write Like a Tree: The Slow Habits of Christian Sub-Creation

“One writes out of the leaf-mould of the mind.” This is J.R.R. Tolkien’s answer to how he wrote The Lord of the Rings. Here’s the full quote:One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. (J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, 131)Writers can learn a grea