I often feel like Frodo. Ideas I thought ‘safe and secret’ can be hidden no longer. I step out to see if I can subdue them to my will, and get rid of them once and for all.

I think the journey hard, beset by wraiths and fears, pierced by plot issues. Bright detours into research lure me. Friends materialize out of the fog, pointing out logical flaws – ‘silly writer, the fog has to come between the wraiths and the piercing’. They are right. I trek onward, shivering and wounded. I know this task is mine. I carry it forward.

Leaving Rivendell, that haven of the thought-out plot, I slog day by day. One word follows another, scenes strung together like nameless days in the wilds of Eriador. This is no place to walk alone. I am grateful for the knowledge given that I did not have to seek, and the nourishment that comes when I am hungry for feedback. I know the destination, if not the landmarks. Companions see that I do not go too far astray.

Balrog! The black pit of unworkable characterizations traps me.

I find the way out and can rest for a time at last.

There is time to rest while the beta readers make their comments, but I know I still have a long way to go. I cannot wait, so I make a few changes as I float towards the journey’s end bringing my betas along as the river flows south.

Rauros. With beta help I avoid the falls, but I know what I must do and where I must go. I will make this idea work, alone if need be. Though it pains me, some plot is trimmed. I know that story lurks elsewhere.

Betas amalgamate into Sam. The hardest part begins.

I thought the first part hard, but nothing to the wastes before me now. The nuances must be right, the characters believable, and the plot logical. Without your support I would have given up long ago. The tiny bits of encouragement, “oh, great phrase,” can spur a chapter of rewrite through the “I want a tone of voice here’ and “this needs more!”

I know you stint your own writing to give me feedback more quickly, and this touches me more than I can say, because all my words are focused on my goal. And the volcano looms near now.

One-handed, I hang over the abyss and my words float precariously on the surface of the flow, ready to dissolve into nothingness. They are all crap. I write only junk no one wants to read anyway. I will let go and it will be all over.

“Reach!”

I look up to see my beta’s hand held down to me and I despair because I am a book!canon geek and I have slipped into movie!verse, which just proves I can’t write, and better that it all end now.

“Don’t you dare let go. This is good!”

Really?

“Dammit! Reach!”

Up. Done!

I am done! The story is complete. Finished. And even I can appreciate that it is not bad. The loose ends are tied up. The plot has no holes. The characterizations are spot on. Good. My betas clap and cheer and Frodo at Cormallen could not have felt more proud of his accomplishment.

I make my weary way homeward, and my betas show me places where the text needs to be scoured. A word overused here. An infelicitous phrasing there. These sentences would be much more powerful in a different order.

I am changed. I will never be the same.

There is a time for all things to end, passing from one stage to the next. One more tweak would be too many.

I face the future with confidence. I am sad to leave this process, and these betas behind, but it is time to take this story to the West. The Undying Lands of Good Review Comments are before me and my betas are left behind on the shore.

I close my eyes and savor the moment.

I am back at Bag End and Frodo holds an idea in his hands.

Goody! This time I get to be Sam!