How *did* Tolkien do it?

[Jonlang]

I'm not alone here in being either: a) a fan of Tolkien, or b) able to appreciate what he achieved. I was given The Nature of Middle-earth (the latest HarperCollins release of previously unpublished Tolkien material) and it got me thinking... Just how did he manage to do all this? The man lived between 1892-1973, died at 81 (higher than life expectancy of a man at the time). In that time he went to war, lived through a second war, worked as a professor, had four children, and the limitations placed on him by the time in which he lived; yet he still managed to construct one of the largest, well-fleshed out fictional worlds ever created. He constructed languages for it (or rather visa versa). He wrote an epic myth cycle, a children's novel, and a not-exactly short adult novel, a myriad of poems, illustrations, translations, academic papers... all the while being a working man, a father, a grandfather, a husband, and a member of the Church.

I find it astounding how much this man achieved in his lifetime when you consider that he lived during the early 20th century with, what I imagine to be, a demanding profession.

[alice]

A combination of good time management and absence of social media distractions?

[WeepingElf]

Love and dedication.

[Vardelm]

Let's not forget a healthy dose of knowledge. He was a philologist, after all, and I'd say that's the strengths of his conlangs. It's the combination of how the words sound plus their historical derivations that make them interesting. IMO, the languages aren't particularly novel in terms of morphology or syntax (not that they need to be, of course). He also studied myths & legends and drew upon those heavily to make Middle-earth. Finally, add into that what he had experienced in terms of WWI and the industrialization of England, wrap it up in a scholarly, Catholic world view, and there ya go.

In some ways, I almost think the amount of information easily available for world-builders these days might be overkill. There is SO MUCH that you can consider. I've been working on plate tectonics for my own world lately, and I'm quite sure that's something Tolkien never bothered with. (I mean, just LOOK at Middle-earth's mountain ranges!!! ) Tolkien was probably able to more easily focus on his interests for Middle-earth and not get distracted with many other aspects of world-building.

Still, being able to do all of it while being a professor, etc. is pretty amazing.

[WeepingElf]

Also keep in mind that Tolkien wasn't really a very prolific writer, neither as an academic scholar nor as a fiction writer. He wrote three novel-length pieces; some others wrote thirty or more. Meanwhile, I have begun to wonder whether he had a mild autism-spectrum condition, and Arda was his special interest. Such people can achieve amazingly much in their special interests. I am currently reading The Nature of Middle-earth, and that volume is full of considerations (and computations!) of Elven life cycles and reproduction rates which strike me as nerdy. I am pretty certain that no other fantasy writer ever spent so much thought on such a subject!

[zompist]

Not to devalue Tolkien's accomplishment, but... well, look at his friend C.S. Lewis, who was also a professor, but died at 64. Yet he wrote 14 novels, 12 books of Christian theology or autobiography, and 6 academic books. (At a minimum-- I'm skipping things like letters and resuscitated juvenilia.)

As for his conlanging-- as Vardelm points out, philology was his academic specialty anyway; it's like marveling that Charles Stross gets his computer stuff right. Plus, as anyone who's delved deeply into his conlangs could tell you, he was never able to write a complete grammar of any of them.

Finally... well, don't underestimate what you can do, even in your spare time, if you have fifty years to do it in.

[Vardelm]

Finally... well, don't underestimate what you can do, even in your spare time, if you have fifty years to do it in.

Not sure if it's a famous quote or not, but I've heard it said that people tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in 1 year, but underestimate what can be accomplished in 5. I heard that in the context of software development, but I think it probably applies to conlanging/-worlding as well.

[linguistcat]

Also, while I highly respect Tolkien, he also never HAD to make his own meals or iron his clothes, do the wash, clean the house, etc. Even though we have a lot of modern conveniences, most of us still have to run to the store for essentials and do our own cleaning. As I recall, Tolkien did have some folks as hired help even if it was just a cook and a gardener or the like. He also was in a situation where his work itself was conducive to thinking and writing. It tied right in with his conlanging.

I'm not saying I would do better than him in the same circumstances, but either I would have done little in my writing either way or I would have done a lot more if I didn't need to make my own food and work (or search for work) that often kept me from writing or even thinking about things outside of the present moment. Work gets in the way of daily chores, and daily chores get in the way of anything else. If those two aspects of my life were dealt with by others, either completely or primarily, I could do quite a lot more writing, reading and conlanging. (And arithmetic as well I suppose.)

[Jonlang]

Also, while I highly respect Tolkien, he also never HAD to make his own meals or iron his clothes, do the wash, clean the house, etc. Even though we have a lot of modern conveniences, most of us still have to run to the store for essentials and do our own cleaning. As I recall, Tolkien did have some folks as hired help even if it was just a cook and a gardener or the like. He also was in a situation where his work itself was conducive to thinking and writing. It tied right in with his conlanging.

I'm not saying I would do better than him in the same circumstances, but either I would have done little in my writing either way or I would have done a lot more if I didn't need to make my own food and work (or search for work) that often kept me from writing or even thinking about things outside of the present moment. Work gets in the way of daily chores, and daily chores get in the way of anything else. If those two aspects of my life were dealt with by others, either completely or primarily, I could do quite a lot more writing, reading and conlanging. (And arithmetic as well I suppose.)

I don't think Tolkien was well-off enough to afford hired-help. He couldn't even afford to have a typist type up LOTR - he did it all himself in his attic. I doubt that he did any housekeeping, it was probably his wife's role in their marriage. But I still imagine she spent many an unhappy evening sat alone while he wrote about elves or worked out a word for a specific plant which never even gets a mention in his work.

[WeepingElf]

Yes, the burden of housekeeping rested on his wife's shoulders. According to Carpenter's biography, she was not much of an intellectual. How happy or unhappy she was about her role, I don't know.

Yet, Tolkien could probably have achieved more if he had been better organized. Especially, his linguistic materials apparently were a terrible mess - which explains why the "Elfconners" (the linguists Christopher entrusted with the scholarly edition of the linguistic materials) have been so slow at editing it. Apparently, there is no complete Historical Grammar of the Quendian Languages waiting for publication in those piles of manuscripts. The Etymologies as published in The Lost Road and Other Writings appear to be the closest Tolkien ever got to that.

Also, The Hobbit was merely a tangent - a story he originally wrote for his children, only loosely connected to the legendarium - which found its way to a publisher because one of Tolkien's sons had a school friend whose father was running a publishing house, and the rest is history. The Hobbit sold well, the publishing house (Allen & Unwin) asked for a sequel, Tolkien offered the Silmarillion which was rejected because it was too dark, too complex, full of foreign names and did not even feature hobbits, and then wrote Lord of the Rings. But focus of his dedication has always been his mythology and his languages, which he constantly improved and revised.

[So Haleza Grise]

The thing I wonder most about is exactly *how much paper* all of this material - the vast bulk of it unpublished - must take up.

[Jonlang]

The thing I wonder most about is exactly *how much paper* all of this material - the vast bulk of it unpublished - must take up.

Most of it "stolen" from various universities due to the lack of paper available after the Wars. This is why some of his material is forever lost due to him erasing pencil and re-using the paper. He even used old newspapers to draw on.