The History of Middle-earth and other texts related to how Christopher Tolkien constructed The Silmarillion out of his father's unpublished drafts can seem both a blessing and a curse to the fanworks creator. On the one hand, they give us so much raw material for our works. On the other, they muddle the water considerably where "canon" is concerned.

Fanworks creators have different views on which of these posthumous, draft, and previously unpublished works count as canon and which do not. Many, however, reject the earliest concepts when they were replaced later by different ideas (which often went on to become that "canon" that is the published Silmarillion). This isn't shocking. Tolkien's earliest writings on the legendarium date to the 1910s, when he was still in his 20s. The Book of Lost Tales, especially, seems at odds with the Silmarillion we know, in terms of plot, character, and style. Tolkien himself appears to have agreed. When he recommenced work on the first phases of what, decades later, would be published as The Silmarillion, he stripped almost all of his Lost Tales work away and began again with something termed, literally, "The Sketch of the Mythology." (Though many of these ideas would end up rejected too.) From there, decades of successive revisions, many letters, and much noodling about brought about the various materials that Christopher Tolkien used in putting together the published Silmarillion.

This month, however, we are embracing those early rejects like they were never cast ignobly out of the legendarium. Prompts for our challenge this month, called Rejects, are just what they sound like: rejected concepts from Tolkien's pre-LotR work on the legendarium. These were the days when the Silmarils had yet to achieve central status, Victorian fairy-story and the medieval Northern mythos somehow coexited, and Tolkien hadn't yet abandoned his "mythology for England" (do not laugh!) We're asking creators to pretend like their assigned event did transpire as it did in the early works and explore any aspect of the legendarium with that revised canon in mind.

If you'd like a Rejects prompt, you can reply to this email, and we'll send one along.

Also: The schedule for the Second Age Book Club hosted on our Discord server on April 29-30 has also been posted. (If you need a Discord invite, reply to this email!) And this is the last call for responses on the Fandom Voices project on defining canon, if you want your response included in the article. (Incoming responses will be added to the collection forevermore ... or as close to it as we mortals can achieve.)