Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh have begun writing The Hobbit. The news comes from TheOneRing.net, where they had their elven minions at a telephone Q&A Guillermo recently did in Australia.

During the call, del Toro confirmed that scripting has started, and even described the writing process as “beautiful”. It sounds like Peter Jackson has some sort of creativity orgy going over there in New Zealand.

It’s a small step, but it’s the first step in finally getting The Hobbit turned into a movie and letting loose whatever freaky, eyeless vision del Toro has flapping around in his head.