Why, Mr. Frodo, remember when you were Bingo, sir? Or Odo Bolger coming to Rivendell on the back of Mr. Gandalf's horse? Or the time we were imprisoned by Giant Treebeard in his garden? Don't these twitter threads never end?

HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH THREAD 4 - SAURON DEFEATED By 1944, Tolkien had got up to the end of what's now Book IV - Frodo captured by the orcs, Sam on the far side of the gate. He doesn't get back to this story for another three years.

All right, here's thread #3, as we go through THE WAR OF THE RING, the next volume of the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH The War of the Ring, by the way, was a potential title for the third volume of Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien preferred to Return of the King, as it wasn't a spoiler.

Thread 2! We're starting in THE TREASON OF ISENGARD, Volume 7 of the History of Middle-earth. (I lost my copy of 8 and haven't actually read ever gotten to read Vol. 9, but copies of both are on their way.)

So, for various reasons, I'm rereading the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books about the writing of Lord of the Rings. They're fascinating (for certain values of fascinating); what I'm going to do this time try to extract writing advice (thread) Tolkien wrote drafts out by hand; he'd make scribbled notes on one draft that might get worked into the next. Most of the drafts were preserved, so we get to trace how the story evolves and changes. Basically, it's the Track Changes of doom.