New and Updated Writing

Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.

Celebrimbor tests a new idea, sets Narvi a challenge, and makes a confession.

In the darkness just before dawn, Haleth of the Haladin meets an Elf-lady with eyes as bright as a falcon's, and both their fates are changed.

Narvi adorns Celebrimbor with jewelry while telling him a story about the creation of mithril.

Narvi shows Celebrimbor the Crown of Durin in the Mirrormere and tells him the story of how it came there.

Feanor and Fingolfin, from their youth to their fall.

"I will do this gladly," Fingolfin said, whispering into Feanor's mouth, grasping for reasons and sense. "Gladly, if it will bring peace between us. If it will end the madness."

"The madness will not end," Feanor said. "There will never be peace."

Chapters 1-11 and 18 were originally posted on fanfiction.net in 2002 and slightly revised for this version. Chapters 12-17 were written in 2026.

Melian chooses a home for the first birds in Middle-earth.

A Teleri fishing boat captain turns to farming on abandoned Noldor lands after her ship is stolen. A Noldor farmer returns with Finarfin to find that his land belongs to the Teleri now.

Celegorm does not like the idea of fleeing to Nargothrond. He likes it even less for the nagging fear that Curufin will prefer the Arafinweans to him, will abandon their Oath to keep them happy.

He'll do anything to stop that. Curufin will accept it eventually.

Spring arrives at the Havens of Sirion.

Elwing can see that Earendil is about to go seafaring again.

As prince Curufinwë Fëanáro makes an historical speech from the high court of the King upon Túna, those at the back of the crowd strain to hear. 

A silly little scene inspired by Monty Python's "Blessed are the Cheesemakers" scene from The Life of Brian, written for SWG's Everyman Challenge April 2026, using the prompt:

"A great multitude gathered swiftly, therefore, to hear what he would say; and the hill and all the stairs and streets that climbed upon it were lit with the light of many torches that each one bore in hand." ("Of the Flight of the Noldor")

These were simply flashes, a hint of a wider, greater world. A tantalizing glimpse of more, always at the edge of awareness, never within reach. Míriel would grasp it, if something as intangible as the concept of color could overflow in bounteous wonder over her hands.

But then fire was caught, tamed and kept and cherished, and their world was suddenly awash with light. The world expanded, a pageantry of blues and greens and browns. A cacophony of color, overwhelming in its saturation.

In which Míriel falls in love with the colors in the earliest days, and Indis too.

An exchange is made during the Great Journey

A thrall lately escaped from Angband is turned away from Ladros and finds an unexpected welcome elsewhere.

Early in the history of Numenor, Elros's son Vardamir not only gathers much lore himself, but also assembles an early circle of loremasters around him. One of these is Tegilbor, who reflects about lore, Elvish and otherwise.

Trapped upon the bitter cliff, Maedhros dreams. Or hallucinates. Or endures the mental torments of the Dark Vala, Morgoth. Surely, one of those must be the case; for he cannot have been rescued from Thangorodrim's torturous peak. He cannot.

But then, why is Findekáno here?

Maedhros finds in many ways that those visions which do not end with his own blood and breaking are the worst of all: because they end instead in waking, and the inescapable knowledge that such things will never again be aught but dreams to him. That knowledge is a tighter shackle than the one that holds him to the cliff-face, and the pain of it around his heart is much sharper than that which throbs through his arm. An arm goes numb much faster than a heart, and there is a limit to how much pain a body can bear before the sensation of agony starts to crumble beneath the onslaught.

If there is a limit to how much pain a heart can hold, Maedhros has not yet found it.

On the morning of the day Fingon was to die, the sun rose bright over a shining sea of metal.

Lalwen comes to tell Elemmírë that the Noldor have resolved to leave Valinor. Elemmírë is devastated that she can't persuade her beloved to stay.

A fragment from a Dwarvish version of their creation story. (Drabble.)

Níniel regrets not knowing her past or her family, but at least she and Finduilas have each other.

The Hall of the Glass-cutters in Ost-in-Edhil had four panes of stained glass set in its front. (Drabble.)

Finrod is called to Mandos to speak with the spirit of a kinsman who is pardoned, yet refuses to rejoin the living.

The Eagles find a woman in the wilderness and bring her to Gondolin, and Maeglin's feelings are thrown into confusion.

A compilation of Tolkien-related drabbles.

Turgon yearns for happier days, days before he knew cold. But he knows in his heart that some things are forever lost, and wonders if he, too, is merely a remnant of the departed, a spent husk to be cleared if spring should ever bloom again.