Some Assembly Required

Welcome . . . to the Halls of Mandos!

Nahhh! Your fëa didn’t leave your hröa. This is just my new, no-frills WordPress website and blog. Just a place I can hang my hat for now. Err, metaphorically speaking. I’ve got an About page, an Articles page, a Books page, and an FAQ, so far.

One thing I would like to bring up here in my first blog entry is my latest writing endeavour: a bit of “popular scholarship” called The Silmarillion Primer. This is the revised and upgraded version of the Primer that first appeared on Tor.com back in 2017. That online series is still there, but I’ve done so much rerwriting and fixing already that it looks like old crayon drawings by comparison (to me, anyway). They’re very colorful, and I’m still proud of them, but I can’t look at it anymore; I’ll only see the mistakes.

This is the near-finished cover art by
illustrator/blacksmith/artist-of-all-trades
David DelaGardelle.

The Silmarillion Primer—yes, it will be a real book!—is being published through Signum Press. When’s it coming out? I’m not sure yet. But listen, Signum has a site called the Collaboratory, a place anyone who loves literature, fantasy fiction (especially Tolkien and his ilk), and language can get involved in one or more creative projects (some of which will also be books). Please feel free to check it out!

There are a bunch of other projects in Signum Collaboatory—not just mine. There’s Corey Olsen’s Exploring The Lord of the Rings, Michael Drout’s Beowulf lecture series, TikTok’s Knewbettadobetta’s own Silmarillion space, and more. There are three levels at which you can engage with any of these things in the Collaboratory:

► If you get an Essentials account, you have total access to the Circulation Library—which has all kinds of cool stuff (including some samples of mine)—and you can join one Project Room. In a Project Room, you get to read chapter drafts and provide feedback/criticism/encouragement/whatever right inside the chapter windows. You can also come chat on a Discord channel. Project Room memberships are super valuable to us.

► If you get a Premium account, you can be part of two Project Rooms.

► If you get a Patron account, you can join three Project Rooms and one Creator’s Circle. So for example, I meet monthly with my Circle members and send them the very latest chapter drafts and graphics I’m working on. I have other things in the works, too, for which I’ll rely on my Circle’s input.

But yes, The Silmarillion Primer will still be a real printed book at some point (and ebook, and audio book) when the revision process is finished. The Collaboratory is just a way anyone can join me in the process and help me shape it by providing feedback, brainstorm ideas, or even tell me where I’m going wrong. I’ll be crediting everyone involved in the Acknowledgments, naturally. Come check it out?

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In The Silmarillion, there is a sentence near the end of the Ainulindalë (the Music of the Ainur section) that I often think about. See, the spirits who volunteer to go down and govern the newly created world of Arda—that is, the Valar, who previously sang their hearts out to dream up said world—are shocked when they actually get there:

For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshadowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it.

In other words, the Valar had big (musical) hopes and dreams for the world, and Eru Ilúvatar (i.e. God) had created it based on those dreams, but they discover that the world is still in a raw state, not at all fully realized like they’d expected. Some assembly was still required! Big ideas are one thing, but one must still put in the work to “achieve it.”

“Such is business. Such is life.”
—Waring Hudsucker

For me, this is still true of my book, of this blog, of . . . everything. What do you still need to assemble?

This is concept art by David DelaGardelle, whose work is awesome.