AUTHOR'S NOTES:

When I finished "A New Reckoning", I knew that I was eventually going to write two sequels to the story: the first would be the hobbits' journey from the Shire to Edoras and their stay there, and the other would be of their time in Minas Tirith.  

I also knew certain things that would take place in the first sequel before I ever finished the first story-- the discovery of Ted Sandyman's fate and Freddy's reaction to it was the most important event; I knew also, that I wanted Freddy to save Bergil from some sort of peril ( my thanks to Marigold for the idea of the poor lad's near-drowning). I knew that at least some of the prisoners would escape and that they would be recaptured by Legolas.  And I had certain scenes set in my mind-- Beri and Viola's encounter with the nosy woman in Tharbad, the non-Buckland hobbits learning to swim, and the meeting with Treebeard were all set in my mind long before I began to write "The Road to Edoras".  However, a good deal of it was not, and perhaps I made an error in beginning the story too soon, for I have never before had so much difficulty getting a story completed.

Still, things began well, and I started the story in March of 2005.  I posted updates fairly regularly to begin with.  Then there was the interruption of Hurricane Katrina and the recovery from that storm resulted in the first hiatus.  When I got back to it, I found my momentum was gone, and that some of the things I'd planned no longer seemed to fit the story.  New characters intruded, and the characters I had seemed to want to skip ahead to the other sequel.  Finally, I managed to get things going again.  The delegation had been stuck at their little encampment in Dunland for months, it seemed, and I was sure that if I could only get them to Meduseld, all would be right.

The time had not been wasted, for I was able to decide which of three possible fates were going to befall Cado Banks, and which of two fates would befall his father. (The fate of Clovis had long before been decided, and I shall say no more now of Dago.)  As far as Cado is concerned, I have to say the delay was good for him, and he owes a lot to my readers, most of whom found him sympathetic.  The other two fates would have been a lot more angsty!

Then came our move from Mississippi to Oklahoma, and I found myself losing track again.

New elements came into play that I had not foreseen at all: Beri's prank on Legolas presented itself to me, and I noticed that his courtship of Viola was moving more quickly than I had anticipated (they weren't to become an official "courting couple" until Minas Tirith, but alas, love is impatient and does not like to wait on the plans of authors!)   I got completely blindsided one night, when I suddenly realized Cado's story of what would happen to him after the others left.  Cado was very excited about the prospect of a story of his own, and for quite a while he would not leave me alone.  And then Merry and Pippin started to bug me (well, mostly Merry).  Merry was insistent that the world know of the part he played in the courtship of  Eómer and Lothíriel.  I reminded him that he had plenty of stories of his own, and that this would wreak havoc with my timeline.  He crossed his stubborn Brandybuck arms and said "Too bad", and then Pippin put his two cents in.  This resulted in my having to make some major changes to the ending of the story, and I had to scrap several already written scenes to accommodate the new material.

I got completely frustrated at this point, and when I saw the announcement of the Finishathon on LiveJournal, I thought "Aha! I always work better with the pressure of a deadline!  I will put up 'Road to Edoras' as one of the stories, and I'm sure that everyone will vote for me to finish that!"  Wrong.  Instead, "Trotter" won the poll, and I had to finish that story, of which I had nothing at all except the prologue, in eight weeks!  "Road to Edoras" had to go on the back burner once again!  However, I was determined, so once "Trotter" was finished, I turned to another LiveJournal community, "Ficfinishing", and this time I was able to push ahead and complete those last three chapters!  In addition to the Ficfinishing community, I also made use of another tool, Write or Die: Dr. Wicked's Writing Lab ( http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html ), which I would used to jumpstart my writing each day.  Once I got started, I could continue in a more conventional manner.

I'd very much like to thank the many people who helped me with this story; all of my faithful reviewers of course--too many of you to mention without the fear of leaving one of you out!  Of course, I'd like to thank Marigold for some of the important plot points, and Dana, who brainstormed with me over the phone.  SurgicalSteel who helped me avoid any major medical blunders.   Motherskadi who was my "first reader" for Ficfinishing, and Emmademarias who is the mod there.  And finally, my thanks to Claudia603, who beta'd those last three chapters for me!

It was a very long haul getting this story done.  But of course, the adventures of Freddy, Berilac and the others are not over.  And neither is Cado's fate all told.

My thanks to all of you who stuck with me over the very long dry spells!  Your encouragement meant the world to me!