This is what Elaine had to say:

I’ve heard writers far more experienced than I admit that every now and then, they’ll come up against a book that is far more difficult to write than they’d anticipated–including some stories they’re never able to complete. For me, RECLAMATION was one of these problematic stories.

I rewrote the plot several times, changed the scope of the story, dropped characters and subplots and added new ones, changed Elaith Craulnober’s role from a secondary character to a major character, wrote, revised, tossed out, lather-rinse-repeat. Despite all these efforts–and also because of them–I was unable to complete the book before the drop-deadline. After much consideration, the folks at WotC decided to cancel RECLAMATION.

I have absolutely no complaints about the way WotC has handled this situation. If a writer cannot, for any reason, meet a contracted deadline, the publisher has every right to cancel that book.

Yes, I’m disappointed. This story dealt with several issues I would have liked to resolve: the final mystery behind the moonblades, the identity of the child Princess Amnestria bore to Elaith Craunober, the fate of Kymil Nimesin, the royal succession of Evermeet. Elaith needed to face his past and move beyond it one way or another. Danilo needed to move beyond what my friend and current co-writer calls “a walking romantic subplot” and come into his own. Arilyn had residual issues raised by events in the last part of Dream Spheres.

But. With fourth edition around the corner, it just didn’t make sense to push back the release date again. Upcoming 4th edition changes to the Realms will render many of the themes and concerns of this book irrelevant, just as the destruction of Halruaa pretty much guaranteed the irrelevance of the Counselors & Kings trilogy. Also, nine years have elapsed since the release of DREAMSPHERES, the last Songs & Swords book. Nine years. That’s a long, long gap, even in as long-lived a series as Songs & Swords. ELFSHADOW, the first Songs & Swords book, has been in print longer than many FR readers have been alive. All things considered, it’s probably time to move on.

I apologize to readers who have been looking forward to this story and who are disappointed by its cancellation. You have my heartfelt thanks for all your support, kindness, and friendship over the years.

Later on in the discussion thread, she adds that

Last night I couldn’t fall asleep, so I came downstairs and starting reading Writing the Mystery, a writing reference book with articles by many of the top mystery writers. Lawrence Block, whose work I’ve long enjoyed, contributed an interesting article about “ending a story.” He concluded that there were three reasons why he occasionally stalled out:

1) There was something wrong with the story itself. It went off track somewhere, but he just couldn’t figure out where and how.

2) There was nothing wrong with the story, but he just wasn’t able to finish it at that particular time. On more than one occasion, he pulled an abandoned ms out of the file months or years later, read it, and immediately figured out how to procede.

3) There was nothing wrong with the story, but he was having a crisis of confidence and needed to muscle his way past it.

I’m fairly sure I’m facing a Number 1 problem, because I know what a confidence crisis feels like, since I’m obliged to push through them on a regular (weekly? daily?) basis. Maybe someday I’ll wake up at o-dark-thirty sitting bolt upright and exclaiming, “Yeah! That’s EXACTLY what the story needed!” And maybe I’ll finish it to satisfy a personal sense of closure. But barring that if-if scenario, this isn’t a matter of WotC “allowing” publication. If they’d received a finished ms on schedule, they would have published it already.

She brings up a very interesting yet common occurrence in her second post; that of a sense of closure from completing a story. While the relationship between the story and the storyteller (author in this case) is no doubt unique, this feeling of frustration is shared by all readers and fans whenever a story is not told to its finish. Whether it occurs when your parents tells you to go to sleep instead of reading you the final page of the children’s book, or when ABC decided to drop Twin Peaks before the plot was over, if we enjoy a story we will get frustrated if it is not told to its ending. There exists a need in us to achieve that sense of closure, even if the ending is unsatisfactory (like in the case of The O.C); it is still better than no ending at all.

This phenomenon spans across all manner of storytelling mediums, ranging from literature and television shows to computer games and role-playing games. This past year I’ve been involved in a role-playing campaign in the world of Artesia, a campaign with a storyline conclusion planned for the end of the academic year and the beginning of the summer. Suffice to say, we failed to meet that deadline. My character, Cedric de Beanique, served as the teacher and advisor of Freya al Eldrick, daughter of the Baron of Gallos. He was constantly vowing for her full attention and favoritism over the likes of Edwyn, her cowardly instructor and teacher in the fine arts, and the hated Leo, priest and servant of the Divine King. Cedric, as any good teacher, was not without a dark past of his own and soon both accusations of homosexuality and dark occult magic came to follow him wherever he went. Meanwhile Freya gets kidnapped by the brother of her personal guard on behalf of an infamous outlaw, then is rescued and almost ends up in bed with a prince of the realm. Meanwhile university masters are assassinated in what Cedric believes is a plot by the Divine King temple to take the throne of Erid-Dania in order to continue their conquest of the land of Daradja and convert them to their belief.

Unfortunately, this is also where it all ended, for the time being. Personal distractions, philosophical clashes and people moving away prevented us from completing the campaign on time, and when summer time came, we called it quits, unsure if ever we would pick up where we left it. Yet for some reason, most likely the frustration felt between story-lovers to see a story told to its finish, once the summer was over we met and decided that the story must be go on, even if half of the group has left, vital people are moving away, we somehow owe it to ourselves to find out what happens to the characters we have come to love. We may not know exactly how, or even when the story will be told, but just knowing that it will be, someday, satisfies me for the time being.

So when I read the sad news about Elaine’s novel, of the Reclamation that could have been, I raise my glass in salute of all the good stories that went unfinished, never fully told. And I pray that as many of you as possible, one day or the other, find your way to the ending.

Today is the 25th birthday of my fiancee, EM or Evamarie. While we rarely buy each other gifts in the conventional sense (what with shared economy and such ruining some of the feeling behind it) I still wanted to do something special for her. So I enlisted the aid of my favorite web comic designer and fellow player turned friend Nhani, author of Beyond the Tree, the misadventures of Hani and Tiny in creating this picture.
In the picture are the two fictional role-play characters that we played together (and apart) in World of Warcraft for over three years. The little one is her character called Gwangwen Fizzledoodle, Gnomeregan survivor, while the tall bearded fellow in the dress is my Dalaran wizard Monos of Three Thunders. They, like us, have been through a lot yet managed to come out smiling on the other side. While neither of them are actively played nowadays, they still hold a special place in our memories and this picture will forever ensure that they remain where they are – walking into the sunset. Simply clicking on the image does not really do the picture justice, instead check out the full size versions to see the detailed facial expressions (links below).

Happy birthday EM, let’s hope I don’t mess up when baking your cake.

Skuutosh, leader of the Red Tail Tribe, realized that despite his considerable bulk and might (for a goblin that is) tribe leaders rarely lasted long in their position considering the scheming ways of their sneaky kin. Not fully trusting even the seemingly most loyal of his shamans, he traveled into the lower tunnels of the World’s Edge Mountains in search of a loyal beastie to smash into submission, hopefully a dragon. Unfortunately (or perhaps luckily) he found no dragon, instead he stumbled down a filthy cavern complex that held a stench worse than an old snotling, even if it had crawled up into the dross pit and died there. Within he came upon a small “family” (a group which has not yet killed and eaten one another) of trolls, who (after realizing that he was outnumbered) Skuutosh convinced into joining his growing force, with promises of offal and stunty extremities. Skuutosh then returned to the surface and the waiting Waaagh! without having defeated a dragon, but pleased that he had found a personal bodyguard to ensure his survival. At least for another day.

The three trolls have each been painted with slightly altered color schemes. They were all basecoated with Scaly Green but with different highlights inspired by Warhammer Online, where all trolls seem to come in different variations of green with no single troll looking quite like the other. It made the painting more interesting, after finishing so many goblins of much the same color I was happy to add some diversity to the army. They weren’t converted very much, aside from a slightly altered pose on the one with the stone sledge, as I thought they looked fine as they were.

Trolls, for those of you unfamiliar with the specifics of Warhammer and Orcs & Goblins in particular, are fear-causing beasties who regenerate wounds caused but they also suffer from stupidity. That is, they might scare the enemy into running away from them, they save wounds on a +4 of a D6 no matter what hurt them (as long as it isn’t fire) but they also have to roll a leadership check each turn to avoid standing still in confusion, unable to do anything. I will most likely employ them as a “hammer” unit for a hook or anvil & hammer tactic, that is use them as a strong-hitting charge into the flank of the enemy, with a goblin boss on a wolf urging them on.

Click on the images