For your reading enjoyment....::drumroll:: I'd like to present:

Ani Ledger's Running Notes and Explanations (Forgotten Roads, Part One):

Issue #1:
I had a LOT of problems dealing with the geography with this story. Although Merry isn't the main character, he is extremely important to the story since Diamond is visiting Lily, who is friends with Merry, and who is friends with Pippin; so that Diamond and Pippin can meet, Pippin is staying with Merry.
In the books, it never actually says exactly where Merry lives. Assuming from the family tree, where it says Brandybucks of Buckland, I figure Merry must live in Buckland, as I'm sure many others believe. I talked to my friend Kevin, hoping he might know, and he said he thought that Merry lived in Hobbiton, near Frodo.
I suffered panic attacks all day after this, and finally when I got home and was able to find a lovely map of the Shire and reread numerous parts of Fellowship of the Rings and the appendices to LOTR, I decided that Merry probably does live in Buckland (because he helps Frodo find a house, which is in Crickhollow, in Buckland. Originnally, once I figured this out, I was going to center the story in Crickhollow, but then I discovered that Bucklebury is a town right at the crossing of the Brandywine River (hence Bucklebury Ferry) and that's where Brandy Hall would be located. Being that Merry is a Brandybuck, and all the Brandybucks lived at Brandy Hall (as Frodo also did in his childhood) I decided it would make sense for the story to take place in Bucklebury. (See, Amy, I TOLD YOU that my author's notes would be lengthy! and I'm not even done!)

Issue #2:
I've been mentally beating myself up with about Farmer Maggot's farm. Where is it? Who knows. I couldn't find it on any maps, but I decided it must be near Buckland, because both in the movie and in the books.. they run into Merry and Pippin in the movie, and then run almost directly to Bucklebury Ferry (I'm using this in the story, that Bucklebury Ferry is through some woods, and then up the road from the farm) and in the books, Merry joins Pippin, Frodo, and Sam when they're at Farmer Maggot's farm, so if he was waiting for them at Crickhollow, he must've been close enough for him to go there. I think he rides a pony to the farm, but Crickhollow is several miles north of Bucklebury, according to the map I've been using, so I guess that would work out.

Issue #3:
I think I ended up doing the age thing all right.. the ages of the characters, that is, and also years in which events happen. Diamond is five years younger than Pippin, according to dates on the family tree, and Pippin is eight years younger than Merry. If Diamond was 22, Pippin would be 27, and Merry would be 35. I wanted Lily to be close enough in age to Merry to have their little romance thing, and she's twelve years older than Diamond... mostly so that I could make her 34 and more able to live on her own. Didn't feel like adding parents into the whole mess g Pervinca is five years older than Pippin, and although she is only in the beginning of the story, she would be 32, just a bit younger than Merry and Lily.