And Love Grew by polutropos

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Afterword

The author indulges in some meta.

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Canons
The canons of the late First Age are a bit of a special interest of mine. Tolkien wrote many Silmarillion drafts, but he only ever completed one in the prose narrative ‘Quenta’ style once: the 1930 Quenta Noldorinwa (in The Shaping of Middle-earth), Christopher Tolkien’s main source for much of the last three chapters of the published Quenta Silmarillion.

The events from the fall of Doriath to the end of the First Age had to be reconstructed for the published Silmarillion from this and other versions of the legendarium that were much earlier than the ones Christopher was able to draw from for most of the previous twenty-one chapters of the book. Christopher did an admirable job, preserving as much of his father’s original words as he could. But he had to make choices, and those choices influenced the final shape the story took.

I have taken delight in honouring those choices in this story. But I have also taken delight in mixing in ingredients from the many versions that didn’t make it into the final version.

Maglor’s Singing

In Maglor’s first appearance in the fic, he is singing over the bodies of the wounded. Pretty typical Maglor behaviour, but there is an additional reason I chose this as his entrance.
In The Sketch of the Mythology (in The Shaping of Middle-earth), the first prose summary of his legendarium, which Tolkien penned around 1926, we find the following:

In a battle all the sons of Fëanor save Maidros [footnote: Maidros and Maglor] were slain, but the last folk of Gondolin were destroyed or forced to go away and join the people of Maidros [footnote: Written in the margin: Maglor sat and sang by the sea in repentance].

This marginal note makes me very excited. When researching for the Maglor bio for the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild, I realised that you can actually trace in the texts Maglor moving from Maglor the Mighty, with nothing in particular to distinguish him, to Maglor the Mighty Singer. At the same time, his place as one of the more sympathetic of Fëanor’s sons emerges. This marginal note in the ‘Sketch’ captures, I believe, Tolkien in the act of developing the Maglor we know from the published Silmarillion. “Sat and sang by the sea in repentance” is an early spark of the idea of Maglor’s fate as the repentant wandering bard. His first appearance in this fic is my nod to that marginal note.

Amrod and Amras as the aggressors in the third kinslaying

This comes from the Annals of Beleriand, both the ‘Earlier’ (in The Shaping of Middle-earth and ‘Later’ (in The Lost Road), written between 1930 and 1937:

229 Here Damrod and Díriel [=Amrod and Amras] ravaged Sirion, and were slain. Maidros and Maglor gave reluctant aid. Sirion’s folk were slain or taken into the company of Maidros. Elrond was taken to nurture by Maglor. Elwing cast herself into the sea, but by Ulmo’s aid in the shape of a bird flew to Eärendel and found him returning.

and

329 [529] Here Damrod and Díriel ravaged Sirion, and were slain. Maidros and Maglor were there, but they were sick at heart. This was the third kinslaying. The folk of Sirion were taken into the people of Maidros, such as yet remained; and Elrond was taken to nurture by Maglor.

Christopher Tolkien did not use the Annals of Beleriand much for the published Silmarillion, so this detail does not appear there. I love it though because I think it adds to the Silmarillion’s largely sympathetic portrayal of Maedhros and Maglor, and it also parallels Celegorm as the main aggressor in the sack of Doriath. Taking the narrative and annalistic versions of the Silmarillion together gives a much clearer picture of a Maedhros and Maglor who are just so done and have been operating out of “weariness and loathing” more than a real drive to get the Silmarils back long before this phrase occurs in the published text (i.e., right before they steal them from Eönwë’s camp). I think many readers come to this conclusion about them with or without the other versions, but it’s nice to have it reaffirmed.

I wrote the beginning of a flashback scene of the conversation at Amon Ereb where Amrod and Amras clamour to kinslay, but it didn’t make it into the fic. I posted it on my Tumblr, if you’re curious.

Elwing’s Choice

Deciding how to write Elwing’s… death? suicide? mad leap? deliberate leap? was such a headache. Any time I sit down to write about Elwing, a clamour of discourse rattles around in the back of my mind such that it’s impossible for me to hear my own thoughts. Having the whole thing filtered through Orfion’s retelling gave me a degree of narrative remove that made it feel less like typing on a keyboard of landmines. Her actions only ever being interpreted by others meant I did not have to commit to what’s going on in her head (to do that, I would need to know what’s going on in mine, and as I said I cannot hear it). I give her that last line: “Please forgive me, my loves. I do not think my doom as high as Lúthien’s, but this course alone remains to me,” — which I fully intended as cryptic.

I skirted around making a strong authorial statement on Elwing’s role in all of this, but it is still my hope that the reader’s takeaway, like mine, is sympathetic.

Here’s how Elwing’s choice is written in the 1930 Quenta Noldorinwa:

…for Elwing seeing that all was lost and her child Elrond [footnote: > her children Elros and Elrond] taken captive, eluded the host of Maidros, and with the Nauglafring upon her breast she cast herself into the sea, and perished as folk thought.

For one, though only subtly different, I find this version of Elwing’s choice more obviously sympathetic. In the published Silmarillion, her motive is left rather vague: “and [the survivors of Sirion] told [the people of Gil-galad] that Elros and Elrond were taken captive, but Elwing with the Silmaril upon her breast had cast herself into the sea.” In the Quenta Noldorinwa, it’s 1) she saw that her children were taken captive, 2) she cast herself into the sea. That is why I chose to have Amrod literally holding a knife to their throats when she leaps. Is it possible she could have stopped him? Probably; Orfion and Galdor manage to. Did she, in her despair (and knowing what the sons of Fëanor did to her brothers in Doriath) believe he could be stopped? No, I don’t believe she did.

Later in the story, characters try to interpret her actions. Gwereth at first sees it as suicide committed in despair but her later conversation with Dornil reveals that she now (or also?) sees her former lady’s leap as heroic and courageous. Little Elrond doesn’t know what to make of it: he knows his mother loved them, but he can’t understand why she would have left them. When Bornval suggests to the twins that she abandoned them, Elros reacts with rage. They don’t know why Elwing did what she did, but they know she must have had a really good reason. Maglor, for his part, is too wrapped up in his guilt about his role in her (as he believes) death to think too hard about why she did it.

Elrond and Elros as Captives

One thing I committed to with respect to Elwing’s choice/leap is that no one knows she survived it (except maybe Elros, but he has that thought snuffed out). The strongest reason for me to believe that the Fëanorians did not know she had survived is what Maglor says to Maedhros when the Silmaril reappears in the sky: “If it be truly the Silmaril which we saw cast into the sea that rises again by the power of the Valar…” Maglor and Maedhros seem to have believed that the Silmaril was gone. And if they thought the Silmaril was gone, Elwing was gone with it.

I still took some time deciding on the matter, though. I don’t think the various texts rule out the possibility that the sons of Fëanor knew she and the Silmaril had survived in some manner. But for me it makes Maglor — to whom the narrative is very kind! — look pretty bad. It twists his “pity” into a hostage situation in which the sons of Fëanor intend to trade the children for the jewel. Which is in obvious tension with the feelings and motives emphatically given in the text: he “took pity” on them; “he cherished them”; because (the semicolon implies) his “heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath.” The two things just don’t line up to me. (If I was leaning into the conceit of the biased/unreliable narrator for this fic, things would be different; but I’m not.)

That being said, the various texts consistently refer to them as “taken captive”; so, how to reconcile it with the love that grew?

By throwing mad, sad, murderous Amrod under the bus, of course.

I made Amrod the villain in the situation, 1) because as we have seen he and Amras are the villains in the Annals of Beleriand, and 2) while it could have been Maglor who took the twins captive at first and developed compassion towards them later (and I know the two things aren’t mutually exclusive, but they are in conflict), the more obvious solution to me is that it’s a different son of Fëanor acting without his elder brothers’ knowledge or permission, which agrees well with Maedhros and Maglor giving reluctant aid or standing aside as in the Annals of Beleriand.

But since my intent was to combine all canons, I still wanted to address the fact that Maedhros and Maglor keep them even after the Silmaril and Elwing are out of reach. So even pinning the worst of the crimes against Elwing and her sons on Amrod left me having to explain why Maglor keeps them. I admit I have reservations about how I muddled together motives: a not-entirely-selfless caregiver impulse combined with the justification that having the heirs of, well, everyone on their side certainly won’t hurt the reputation of the sons of Fëanor in the long run. I’m still not confident I made it work, but there it is.

It’s not a great look for Maglor, but it’s a better look than an alternative where he plays a more active role in the violence. (If you’ve interacted with me in the fandom, you’ll know I love a dark, even disturbing, take on Maglor’s kidnapdoption, but that wasn’t the story I set out to write here.)

The survivors of Sirion joining with Maedhros and the complicated question of Gil-galad (and Círdan)

In the Annals of Beleriand passages quoted above, not only are Amras and Amrod the aggressors, but the aftermath of the sack of Sirion has the survivors joining Maedhros (!?). This is actually the case in every version of the third kinslaying that Tolkien wrote where he mentioned the survivors at all, which I find fascinating and a very different story from the published Silmarillion in which Gil-galad takes the place of Maedhros as the endtimes guy to follow.

Here’s the passage in the Quenta Noldorinwa:

And so came in the end to pass the last and cruellest of the slayings of Elf by Elf; and that was the third of the great wrongs achieved by the accursed oath. For the sons of Fëanor came down upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath and destroyed them. Though some of their folk stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of Elfinesse in those days), yet Maidros and Maglor won the day. Alone they now remained of the sons of Fëanor, for in that battle Damrod and Díriel were slain; but the folk of Sirion perished of fled away, or departed of need to join the people of Maidros, who claimed now the lordship of all the Elves of the Outer Lands. And yet Maidros gained not the Silmaril, for Elwing seeing that all was lost and her child Elrond [footnote: > her children Elros and Elrond] taken captive, eluded the host of Maidros, and with the Nauglafring upon her breast she cast herself into the sea, and perished as folk thought.

For comparison, here’s the published Silmarillion:

And so there came to pass the last and cruellest of the slayings of Elf by Elf; and that was the third of the great wrongs achieved by the accursed oath.

For the sons of Fëanor that yet lived came down suddenly upon the exiles of Gondolin and the remnant of Doriath, and destroyed them. In that battle some of their people stood aside, and some few rebelled and were slain upon the other part aiding Elwing against their own lords (for such was the sorrow and confusion in the hearts of the Eldar in those days); but Maedhros and Maglor won the day, though they alone remained thereafter of the sons of Fëanor, for both Amrod and Amras were slain. Too late the ships of Cirdan and Gil-galad the High King came hasting to the aid of the Elves of Sirion; and Elwing was gone, and her sons. Then such few of that people as did not perish in the assault joined themselves to Gil-galad, and went with him to Balar; and they told that Elros and Elrond were taken captive, but Elwing with the Silmaril upon her breast had cast herself into the sea.

Thus Maedhros and Maglor gained not the jewel; but it was not lost. For Ulmo bore up Elwing out of the waves, and he gave her the likeness of a great white bird, and upon her breast there shone as a star the Silmaril, as she flew over the water to seek Eärendil her beloved.

The bolded part mentioning the ships of Gil-galad and Círdan is an editorial invention. Not without logic: Tolkien, who first ‘invented’ Gil-galad in a 1936 account of the Fall of Númenor and then gave him a prominent place in the legendary backdrop of The Lord of the Rings, never actually integrated him into the Silmarillion. That was left to Christopher, who I suppose looked at this passage about the people joining themselves to Maedhros and asked the reasonable question: “What of Gil-galad?” (And Círdan, who also isn’t mentioned, despite ‘existing’ in 1930.) Surely the people of Sirion would not join Maedhros if there’s a non-murderous High King right there. Bringing Gil-galad into the narrative here was a sensible choice.

But where does that leave Maglor? With no one else to care for them, I find his pity and love for Elrond and Elros much less complicated and easier to sympathise with as a reason for taking them into his care — as I believe the text enthusiastically invites us to do (more on that in this Maglor bio). The way the published text presents it, however, leaves me and other fans also asking, but for different reasons: “What of Gil-galad?” Surely it can’t have been all about pity and love when a non-murderous guardian is right there.

Because I love hurting my brain, I looked at these two things and thought, Why not have some of the survivors of Sirion join Maedhros, and some remain behind with Gil-galad? Why not let Maglor’s act be compassionate and self-interested?”

The conflict created by the presence of Gil-galad and Círdan is central to the fic, especially the decision-making that goes on in the first three chapters. Círdan, in later chapters, maintains more of a “What if?” presence than Gil-galad because Gil-galad is such a blank slate at this time in his very long character arc that I find it easier to write him off as a potentially better foster parent than Maglor (purely in terms of parental care and protection and not the legitimacy of either of their ‘claims’ to them — Gil-galad wins there no matter whose kid he is). But how do you defend depriving them of Círdan’s fosterage? I can’t imagine a better fosterdad in all Middle-earth!

On the other hand, the situation in the Quenta Noldorinwa in which the survivors join with Maedhros rather than Gil-galad, in my view, makes Maglor’s choice a little more sympathetic; small consolation, perhaps, but at least some of Elrond and Elros’ community is still with them (for now).

The objectively right thing to do would have been to ensure Elros and Elrond were safely bestowed with a more suitable, morally uncomplicated guardian. This, in fact, seems to be what Maedhros, laden with guilt over Eluréd and Elurín, wants. If any readers think he comes out looking morally better than Maglor, that was quite intentional. (Here’s a bit of meta I wrote on the textual history of Maedhros searching for Eluréd and Elurín and how I also think it muddles characterisations and motives — in a way that is pleasing to the imagination.)

However, I wanted to convey that Maglor choosing to raise them himself was not the worst outcome — and suggest that, in some strange way, it was a good outcome: “and love grew after between them, as little might be thought.” I’m just picking up what Tolkien put down.

The Finding of Elros and Elrond

There’s a version of the finding of Elrond and Elros that is, in my opinion, almost wholly incompatible with all other versions. It appears in number 211 of Tolkien’s Letters:

Elrond, Elros. *rondō was a prim[itive] Elvish word for ‘cavern’. Cf. Nargothrond (fortified cavern by the R. Narog), Aglarond, etc. *rossē meant 'dew, spray (of fall or fountain)’. Elrond and Elros, children of Eärendil (sea-lover) and Elwing (Elf-foam), were so called, because they were carried off by the sons of Fëanor, in the last act of the feud between the high-elven houses of the Noldorin princes concerning the Silmarils […] The infants were not slain, but left like 'babes in the wood’, in a cave with a fall of water over the entrance. There they were found: Elrond within the cave, and Elros dabbling in the water.

I wrote some meta about this version of my Tumblr.

While I am not a fan of this etymological fairytale version of events, it is the reason I stuck Gwereth, Elrond, and Elros in a cave-like cellar when they are found by Maglor and Dornil. A little nod to Letter 211.

Maglor as Sole Fosterdad

I have talked enough about my preference for Maglor as the sole foster parent of Elrond and Elros to annoy at least one anonymous person on the internet into bringing their displeasure to my Tumblr Inbox. I deleted the Ask post-haste but if I recall correctly it contained the (literal or implied) question, “Why do you hate Maedhros?”

I don’t hate Maedhros. But, dear people of the jury, do you see Maedhros mentioned here?

Great was the sorrow of Eärendil and Elwing for the ruin of the havens of Sirion, and the captivity of their sons, and they feared that they would be slain; but it was not so. For Maglor took pity upon Elros and Elrond, and he cherished them, and love grew after between them, as little might be thought; but Maglor’s heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath.

I rest my— “But polutropos!” the defense cries. “You’re obviously well aware of all the versions of these events, surely you know that it was Maedhros who took pity on Elrond in the earliest drafts! Surely you know that in the Tale of Years ‘Text C’ in The War of the Jewels, a text from the 1950s and therefore later than all these versions with Maglor, has Maedhros as the foster parent!”

“Quite true,” I say with a nod. “Much swapping of roles. Always just one or the other, though, isn’t it?” In the published Silmarillion, and in my heart (the most reputable source for all choices in fiction), it’s Maglor.

But I have not ignored that it was, at various points, Maedhros. I had it in mind when writing Maedhros in this fic, and I do hope it shows. That is why, for example, he represents the more selfless, ethically ‘correct’ view on what to do with the sons of Elwing, i.e., leave them in the care of literally anyone else. It’s also why, after conceding to Maglor’s desire to keep them, he is so concerned for their well-being. Maedhros cares about them, and will care about them as they grow up under Maglor’s fosterage.

But Maglor took pity upon Elros and Elrond. Maglor cherished them. Love grew after between Maglor and them. Maglor’s heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath.

Which leads me to another nagging question: “What of Maedhros?” Why is it only Maglor? Maedhros is right there!

Or is he? What if the reason this is the one thing that Maglor and Maedhros do not do as a pair is because they were not, in fact, a pair at the time? Thus, the story told in this fic.

People, Cultures, and Creatures

Gwereth, Embor, and Men at Sirion. I love the later legendarium notes that suggest a truly diverse population at the Havens and wanted to lean into that. That there were Haladin present is implied by the presence of Drúedain, who lived among the Haladin, mentioned in the essay on that people in Unfinished Tales. The presence of Hadorians is suggested by the presence of Dírhaval, the Hadorian author of the Narn i chîn Húrin mentioned in the chapter ‘Ælfwine and Dírhaval’ in The War of the Jewels. I am not aware of any source confirming the presence of Easterlings, either of the followings of Ulfang/Uldor or Bór, but the survivors had to flee somewhere.

Galdor. He is a Lord of Gondolin who survives the fall in the Lost Tales version of the Fall of Gondolin. If we follow Lost Tales canon, he also survives the sack of Sirion. I got the idea for a former Lord of Gondolin as a bodyguard for Elwing from swanmaids.

Lisgon. Maedhros’ High Captain is northern Sindarin (Mithrim). I am not confident as to whether there’s clear evidence that any of the Sindar followed any of the sons of Fëanor, but I think in general there was a lot more cultural mingling than the surface-level impression the Silmarillion gives. The sons of Fëanor were probably the least ‘mingled’ (for your typical sons of Fëanor reasons) but I cannot believe that at least a few Sindar didn’t choose to follow them in the time that they were dwelling around Lake Mithrim. Lisgon, being an escaped thrall, has added motive to stick by Maedhros.

Orfion. It’s not canon, as far as I am aware, that there were any Green-elves sworn to serve the sons of Fëanor, but we do know that they were allied. From the Silmarillion:

…but Caranthir fled and joined the remnant of his people to the scattered folk of the hunters, Amrod and Amras, and they retreated and passed Ramdal in the south. Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves.

And of course after the Nirnaeth it is said the sons of Fëanor, “took to a wild and woodland life beneath the feet of Ered Lindon, mingling with the Green-elves of Ossiriand.” I find this association between the sons of Fëanor and Nandor fascinating and wanted to take it further in the character of Orfion.

The Penni. One of the few things we know about Taur-im-Duinath is that Avari lived there:

But south of the Andram, between Sirion and Gelion, was a wild land of tangled forest in which no folk went, save here and there a few Dark Elves wandering; Taur-im-Duinath it was named, the Forest between the Rivers.

Penni are one of the tribes of Avari mentioned in the essay ‘Quendi and Eldar’ in The War of the Jewels. I chose them as the Avar inhabitants of Taur-im-Duinath simply because I liked the sound of their tribe name, and also because it sounded ‘closer’ to a Sindarin form of Quendi (I have no idea if this is linguistically true) and since I was situating them geographically close to the Sindar, this made sense to me.

I was delighted, when I actually bothered to look up the passage, to find they were the tribe “among the most friendly to the fugitives of Beleriand, and held themselves akin to the remnants of the Sindar.” The same passage also suggests that they never crossed over the Anduin and on into Beleriand, but well. The Avari are mysterious.

The idea that they mingled with mortals early in their history was a complete surprise to me, only entering the story when Nelpen told Elrond he was half-elven. I was too pleased with the idea to cut it for canon-compliance reasons, and as I said in the endnotes to Chapter 5, there is at least basis for cultural interaction between Avari and Men. I don’t see why they couldn’t have made a few babies.

The Cats. The genesis of the monster cats in Taur-im-Duinath actually had nothing to do with Tevildo. I was thinking it would be neat if Taur-im-Duinath was an ecological remnant of prehistoric times; of Almaren before the continents were reshaped. And I wanted monsters not directly in the service of Morgoth. What if this prehistoric forest house prehistoric creatures, descended perhaps from early experiments by Melkor but no longer under his command? What if they were something like sabre tooth tigers? Knowing that Tolkien was no great fan of cats (alas), and recalling Tevildo and company, the sabre tooth tiger direction for my monsters seemed the right one.

Women. I knew I wanted my story to have women. I also knew I wanted my story to take place in the world Tolkien created which, like ours, is a world where men lead by default. Any instance of a woman leading is an exception. Fortunately, First Age Beleriand is full of exceptional circumstances. Unhappy, miserable ones — but exceptional. Cultures have a way of elevating the status of the most marginalised in times of greatest decline and distress. I see possibilities for the same thing happening in late-stage Beleriand. Idril leading the Gondolindrim to safety; Elwing ruling the Sindar. Why not Caranthir’s widow commanding an army?

In Laws and Customs of the Eldar, it says: “There are, however, no matters which among the Eldar only a ner [man] can think or do, or others with which only a nis [woman] is concerned.” But it then goes on to describe various tendencies that elf-men and elf-women have, boiling down to: killing and not-killing fall along gendered lines. Still: “…in dire straits or desperate defence, the nissi fought valiantly, and there was less difference in strength and speed between elven-men and elven-women that had not borne child than is seen among mortals.” (We’ll not get into “had not borne child,” that’s a whole other thing.)

Well, Beleriand certainly presents a buffet of “dire straits”! So where are all the valiant women in the Silmarillion? In his later years Tolkien was cooking something up with Galadriel, but he never seems to have gotten around to actually putting his theories of Elf-anthropology (Eldalogy?) into his stories. There are no elven women fighters. He also, and perhaps not unrelatedly, never got around to saying anything about the people Caranthir and Maglor were married to — how serendipitous for me, the fic writer! Thus, Dornil. Thus also Tornel the scout in Maglor’s company, and Ifrethil the ranger.

But I also wanted to showcase women doing more traditionally (real-world and Tolkien-world) feminine things like being caregivers (Gwereth, Nennel) and healers (Elas).

Still, men far outnumber women in this story: Maglor, Maedhros, Lisgon, Orfion, Embor, Nelpen; Mírlach, Palannor, Bornval; Elrond and Elros are unique for being children, but they are male children — even Neldoremmen the Ent is ‘he’. It’s a story about men because it’s a story that heavily features traditionally masculine activities and roles: warfare, exploration, leadership. Still, I’m proud of the female characters I managed to slot between the cracks of a society in decline.

Inspirations

The Odyssey

My initial inspiration for the story structure was Homer’s Odyssey. It is a very basic and very ancient story structure. A hero sets out for home; faces a series of conflicts and obstacles along the way; encounters things monstrous, strange, and wonderful; touches the liminal and the divine; loses everyone and everything along the way; makes it back home transformed in some way.

That’s about where the Odyssey similarities in this story end. Nobody gets turned into a pig, crunched by a Cyclops, or seduced by a goddess, and it doesn’t end with a mass slaughter (though it does begin with one). More than that, the world of this fic — its logic, its culture, its philosophies — is very different from the Homeric Greek world.

The Lord of the Rings

Perhaps it seems a bit silly to cite LotR as inspiration for a Silmarillion fic. It’s all Tolkien, isn’t it? Well, yes: but they are quite different books; quite different registers of storytelling. I spent much more time thinking about LotR and The Hobbit writing this than I have for others of my fics.

I wanted to write a story that felt true to his world. A canon gap-filler but also a self-contained story set in the mythic framework of the Elder Days. LotR and The Hobbit are obvious models for such a story; that is, in a sense, what they are. But I was several chapters into writing before I realised how much inspiration I was taking from them. When I saw it happening, around the time that Maglor and his company come to the caves of the Penni, I leaned into it as the remaining plot unfurled. I won’t pick out every element that was inspired by LotR or The Hobbit, but if you think you see it; yes, you do.

I am imagining myself looking back on these reflections in a few years or a decade and scoffing. “Yes, yes, very good; you figured out that all stories draw on the same ancient tropes and follow the same basic structures. Very quaint.” And it’s true. Ten chapters and 50k words might be a couple months of writing for some people. For me it was one and a half years. I’ve never told a story this long before. I went from the immense hubris of thinking I could do it in a few months, to the rude awakening that I was in way over my head, through to creative paralysis, then to dogged determination to just get it done to the best of my ability, and finally through the other side looking back at what I’ve written and thinking it’s actually pretty darn good.