Writing in the spirit of Tolkien, to me, doesn't mean using Middle Earth and its characters and languages. To me it means creating a new world, and making it so rich and believable that people almost think that they're reading about history, instead of a fantasy.
Also, Tolkien was a revolutionary. Nobody had written anything approaching the scale of Lord of the Rings before he did it. Writing in the spirit of Tolkien means doing something different.
As a fanfic writer, among other things, I love to use Tolkien's world as a backdrop for my stories. However, I don't think that's truly "in the spirit". It is fun, though!
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If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."
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