u/Lord_Hoax

So far I've done 52,000 words spread out over about 107 pages. My book is only 45% complete by my estimate. Please keep in mind, its my first time writing anything so long. Should I aim to cut it at 80,000 words or less? In other words, if I had to start over, what would be a good aim for word count.

In the exact month or so preceding my 12th birthday, I finally read Lord of the Rings. I loved the story and was a bit sad that there was no sequel to it (probably for the better). Thus I began looking into the Silmarillion for more tales regarding Middle Earth. The Silmarillion (at least prior to the Akalabeth) is a difficult read and is hard to understand. Thus, when I stumbled upon an audio book of the Children of Hurin (narrated by Christopher Lee no less), I at once latched on.

My overall opinion? 10/10 experience. The sour, kinslaying and ultimately incestuous tragedy was (for lack of better words to describe it) mindblowing. While to this day I generally look down on Game of Thrones for the exact same reasons, I find CoH executed beautifully, like a true epic of a culture that could plausibly exist.

Personally, I think children should be exposed to these hard and difficult stories. They show how the world can collapse around you so rapidly, despite how hard you try. When I was 12, though I found the story tragic, it was still mesmerizing.

Since then I have been quite interested in Germanic mythology and writing grand tragedies. On the latter front, I have only started succeeding recently but I'm still working on it on that regard.