Several pieces of good news.
First and most important, my wife is recovering very well after her full knee replacement 4 1/2 weeks ago. We went grocery shopping together for the first time since her operation and she walked every aisle in the store with me, pushing the cart. Got tired by the end of it, but it's a whole lot better than it was a few weeks ago. She's still a bit unsteady on her feet and needs a cane at the moment, but she's walking faster than she was before her surgery. Woot!
Second, I had one last section left to write on my big transition chapter. In it, the main character gets a sudden inspiration to see what can be learned from the
palantir in the Tower
Hills west of
the Shire. (She's traveling south through the western part of The Shire when the idea comes to her.) This palantir is reputed to only show what is in
Valinor, unlike the other six stones in the set.
Now, I don't believe that some random person walking down the highway whilst passing through bumpkinville can just hightail it over to the Tower Hills and
be given access to the palantir. Neither does Carnemírië, our heroine. She does have some reasonable expectations of getting assistance.
She is the ardalagon
Lórien, the Royal Harpist of
Lorien, serving King
Amroth, (i.e., one of his emissaries and a member of his royal court). She has been so for about 500 years. Most of that time she has spent actively supporting Arthedain against
Angmar. She made frequent trips to
Lindon to drum up assistance for an orphanage for
Dunedain children displaced by the war. She's an extremely skilled
bard and would be well-known to key
elves in Lindon or surviving key officials in Arthedain.
Or at least, she was.
It's 3A 1984. Amroth and Nimrodel have been missing for 2 1/2 years and Arthedain fell in 3A 1974. It's a bit unclear whether she's actually still the Royal Harpist because, well, there isn't actually a King in Lorien any more. (
Celeborn and
Galadriel are "just" the Lord and
Lady of Lórien.) She hasn't been officially removed (to her knowledge) but she's been out of pocket in the back woods of southern
Gondor searching for traces of Nimrodel or Amroth, so she wouldn't necessarily know one way or the other. It was quite clear that Celeborn did not like her, he went out of his way to let that be known, before she left Lórien to conduct the search.)
Her inspiration was that if either were in Valinor, perhaps this palantir would show that. It would be good to make the succession to the rule of Lórien
clear and unambiguous, and that would be within the purview of her duties. She really has no idea how the palantir work or what their full capabilities or limitations are. As the best-selling lottery advert campaign said, "Hey, ya never know!" The reward for success is big and the cost is only a few days of her time to try.
So, I had to figure out what she would learn, or even if she would learn anything at all.
I finally figured out what she would learn, but the writing wasn't coming out. Lots of bad starts with a totally unsatisfactory feel to it.
Remember in the Fellowship of
the Ring (Peter Jackson) movie? Instead of showing Galadriel give three locks of her hair to
Gimli, they had him talk about it afterward? The actor's explanation was the act of giving the locks would be very awkward to stage.
That's when I realized I shouldn't show the process of her entering the
towers, negotiating being able to search them, having a seer explain how they work, and then describe the experience as it happens to her.
This section of the chapter is being told by a young man who was travelling with her. I realized if I continue having him as the narrator, he's not going to be privy to any of that. They'll arrive, she'll be closeted privately with the powers-that-be to negotiate access, she'll see what she sees, and they'll leave the tower hills together.
And then, as they resume their journey together, he'll ask, "Miri, what did you learn?"
Golly, that's a whole lot easier to write! And it earns bonus points because it keeps the
mystery intact!
Time to get back to writing!