I’m writing The Battle in the North and it is taking a while. Not for detail--oh, no. I have to get the elves straight. It literally takes me hours just to get who is doing what right. The Battle of the Five Armies was a nightmare--fun, but a nightmare. The War of the Last Alliance took six months because there I was dealing with Elves from different places, Dwarves and Men. The same with BOTFA, but fewer as it was just Thorin and Company and the Dwarves of the Iron Hills lead by Dáin II Ironfoot. I suspect Legolas’ version of The War of the Ring should be worse than a nightmare except I have to cover The Great War during the First Age in Book I. Oh, well. I chose to take this path and to say it is easy would be a lie. To say it wasn’t fun would be as well. I LOVE doing this. I hate taking breaks from it. I did briefly to talk to the author guy (among others) but I was thinking about it the whole time.
I am trying to clean up Thranduil’s family tree because like all things Middle Earth, that is the hardest thing to figure out. I realized there is no way you can’t write this stuff without adding people! No wonder Tolkien has an appendix for everything. The more the merrier..and I already have 170+ new ones--every one of them born out of Book II. So, be patient with me if you will. I just added another wizard--and the funny thing is that they are Maiar and there are more than the five of the Heren Istarion--Tolkien himself said so (and they are everywhere).
For a fellow author to acknowledge the work I put in and the things I do to make it right is like Heaven to me because for over a year, trying to tell my family and friends at home never seems to register, though explaining this can be tedious--far harder to explain than to write. But my love for writing it only grows stronger by the day. (So does Thranduil’s daughter’s fans, I think. Little Isílriel made quite a mark on the world).
