Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! Read more ...
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
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Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Optimism is a pretty little thing isn't it? That is the feeling I sense on reading this. And just because something is beautiful and delicate in appearance it does not mean that it is weak - ask the spider!
Your allusions to various Springtimes in Arda work well throughout the piece along with the snippets of hopeful possibility that this, my favourite, season offers...
Thank you very much! No, nice is not an offensive word at all!
I agree, optimism is pretty, perhaps, but not weak. As I rather tend to pessimism myself, it is something I really admire.
By the way, I was glad to see you are working on The Great Tales of Beleriand again! I've been meaning to re-read, but at the moment I've got a lot of reading to catch up on.
Oh I recall that conversation. How pleasant to see this pop up today. This is an excellent way to explain Vána's function, an undying curiosity while the world's other attributes as manifest in the other Valar decline to weariness. The way you illustrated Vána-nature in several familiar characters was perfect.
I'm glad you approve! Actually, when I had written this, I went back and realized that I'd missed part of the conversation, but that some of what had been said remarkably agreed with what I'd been trying to convey here!
Which reminds that I was going to go and check out Lirillo at HASA, but I haven't got around to it yet...
For whatever reason, from last night to this, I've been lonely, mopey and just plain lazy. I've had all the chapters from this story up in tabs for about a week and only just now read them.
I've noticed that this one in particular has gottent the most attention from your reviewers, and rightfully so. It seems simple at first, but underneath is a deeply uplifting sentiment, and one reading has elevated my entire mood tenfold.
When I'm depressed, I often think about when people tell me that I need to do something different or make some kind of change in order to improve my situation, but it never makes me feel any better nor does it make me feel like acting on that sentiment. I think this little piece highlights why: the new and unexpected should be about the wonder and the possibilities, not just the chance of personal fulfilment.
"And Bilbo runs out the door without a handkercheif." Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
I'm very sorry to hear you've been depressed--and delighted if this piece managed to lift your spirits a bit!
It's a rather unusual story for me. I was partly influenced by Dwimordene's piece on Nessa, which I had just read-- and so writing it, too, was a bit like an unexpected gift at the time, which I'm happy to share if I can...
This breaks my heart. Very poignant and effective, and I like the idea of a few small stories that compose this drabble, because each sentence is a story itself. Powerful ending. Thank you for sharing. Poor Sindar...
Poor Sindar, yes. At least the Noldor had a little more idea about what they were getting themselves into. The Sindar just suddenly had Morgoth and an army of orcs appear in their backyard, so to speak!
I've always thought that not only Fëanor, but all Noldor, must have felt almost "trapped" in Valinor. They really belonged to Middle-Earth, they loved to have their own kingdoms, their own spaces to live, learn and explore. Valinor was, to them, a "golden cage", but a cage anyway.
But the Vanyar, in my headcanon, were different. But it's possible that, as you say, they were also trying to find their own place in Valinor, and, in a way, were as restless as the Noldor. Interesting point of wiew.
Yes, I agree about the Noldor or at least many of them. Not all the Noldor who felt restless were even of Feanor's party and I think at least some of the restlessness was there even before Melkor fanned the flames. Feanor certainly shows it. But it must have been quite a shock after Feanor's trial, for some of them, to realize how they had been manipulated by Melkor nevertheless.
As for the Vanyar, their movements here are more or less canonical: first to Tirion, then to Valmar, then further up Taniquetil. Of course those movements are usually interpreted differently--but it seemed to me that you could argue that there is a similar restlessness here, just in a different direction, with a different focus.
Of course, there is a reason I gave these words to Aegnor: because he has both Vanyarin and Telerin relatives and connections and also because of what we know about his fate later on.
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.