I’d like to alert everyone still following here that I’m discontinuing my Twitter use and any link posting there. For a Twitter-like but superior experience, I recommend joining Mastodon. You can follow me there at https://toot.wales/@llywelynjones.
I’m still maintaining my Facebook page for the time being.
That’s it for now — although I may have some good news about Armes Prydein progress before year’s end.
Llywelyn
Cat o black as silk night my friend
I knew thee breaking in like clarinet (the cat’s instrument)
like harp (elven)
like violin (holy)
& like the drum
A rolling, rumbling thunder drum, the waves of the sea,
The motor of creation, thrumming insistent,
A will to hold & be held,
Sweet cat of the rumble on my heart
O cat
Green-eyed, clinging-pawed, & nuzzling
I must learn water from thee:
Cat fearing no water, we remember thy craving,
To drink & to share,
To walk upon us in the night & rain upon our faces
(Take this water & drink, for it is my love)
I must learn water for it is not how I have lived,
I am more fire & earth, I am
The one who burns what lies in my path
& may burn myself, I am
The one who lies unwavering within the path
Granite, slate, bluestone —
Against this
The poet said to teach us to care & not to care
The storm is to be entered but not navigated
The current is to carry, the fate is mere fortune,
I must learn the flowing ahead & around
O cat my warm beloved
In these years of small homes growing larger
In these years of roses blooming slow but sweet
In these years of patience screaming & money bleeding
In these years of inflammation:
cancer in thy flesh,
my kind eating the world
my kind eating my kind
kindness eating kindness
& now in long pestilence
How could I not learn water?
I could not predict thee,
Thy purr eternal, love aching & unbreaking,
But how thou might run lunatic in thy youth
& then the turns taken by tooth & bowel,
Lung & gland
& blood
I could not predict, I could not know,
There was the waiting
There was the knowing of my vow:
Protect this cat & love him, unto apokálupsis
& we are there, & we are here,
Friend o relentless one,
Rumbler of thunder,
Lightning runner,
Softest blackest cloud,
Who sought the water & gave it,
Who made it rain upon our faces —
I pour out the sea upon my face,
I raise my voice in plainchant,
The sea is rising,
The sky is boiling,
The water we may drink is drying,
& in my black silk shrouding half my heart
(gone, even if thou art reborn)
I wait for more water,
O my prince of beasts purring,
I will thank thee for the rain.
Long time, no write. But here’s some very, very good news.
Following on early 2021’s rough draft completion for Armes Prydein‘s chronologically-first narrative “Pair Dadeni,” I am ecstatic to announce that with my co-writer Alex now on board (as revealed earlier this year), we have now finished this massive novel’s second narrative, “Cŵn Annwn.” In contrast with its counterpart’s historical Arthurian fantasy that spans decades of events, “Cŵn Annwn” covers a much shorter time range and is situated genre-wise at a nexus of alt-history, magical realism, sociopolitical thriller, and erotic romance. However, despite the more unique niche, this narrative is like a conceptual nesting doll for its predecessor; and its rough draft has clocked in at a stunning count of 414,653 words. Expect that number to drop during revisions — but also expect “Pair Dadeni” to get longer as the right pacing balance is found.
With that, I expect to spend the next several weeks doing some worldbuilding housekeeping and tweaking some plot plans. But then: it’s cyberpunk time. At some point in 2023, Armes Prydein will be drafted in full.
Llywelyn
I’ve waited a little while to share this decision until various pieces fell more into place, but at long last, I’m beyond elated to announce that Armes Prydein, my novel in progress for the last several years, has officially become “our” novel: my husband Alexander Stewart is working on it with me as a co-author! It’s a labor of love in more ways than one.
One point of potential confusion that may arise from this news is whether the sheer length and scope of the rough draft has anything to do with this decision. This manuscript still covers three distinct timelines that each have required massive worldbuilding, and even after revisions it’s very unlikely that the final product will fall far below 1 million words. And although I’m a notably verbose person and quick writer when I have the time, this project is thus an order of magnitude larger than my first novel. Plenty of writers have sought ghostwriters or official co-authors for shorter books than this. However, while I doubt I’ll ever write something this long again on my own, either, sharing the writing credit on Armes Prydein is more about content needs than structural ones.
From the very beginning, Armes Prydein’s triple-threaded concept has relied on:
1) the Arthurian saga, “Pair Dadeni” – completely my own creation; rough draft already complete and preliminary revisions in progress
2) an alt-Cold War, magical realist, romantic political thriller, “Cŵn Annwn” – adapted from portions of unpublished collaborative fiction Alex and I wrote between 2012 and 2014; rough draft in progress
3) an apocalyptic cyberpunk story, “Cad Camlan” – originally my own concept but increasingly relying on ideas from Alex, especially once the rough draft gets underway
Despite the disparate nature of these narratives when described reductively, they’re all latently intertwined with their themes and pacing, as well as more directly connected by certain plot points, recurring characters, and all events taking place on the island of Britain. To fully understand each narrative, you’ll need to read the others; there may even be the option for you to choose between reading them as three sequentially separated parts, or reading them as totally interlaced chapters. But most importantly for drafting purposes, in planning ahead I eventually determined that it would not be possible for me to do justice to certain characters in “Cŵn Annwn” whom Alex had written in the past, nor would it be fair to adapt various pieces of prose without Alex’s name attached. And likewise, many of Alex’s character portrayals, worldbuilding contributions, and plot ideas have also proven invaluable for making “Cad Camlan” a reality later.
I want to thank Alex from the bottom of my heart for joining me in this literary journey. The acknowledgments section for Armes Prydein will be enormous on several fronts; but Alex has assumed a particularly unique role, and I’m incredibly proud of what he’s brought to the project so far. At this point I expect not I, but we, shall have finished drafting the entire beast in another 12 to 24 months, putting us officially behind my initial timetable; however, I promise the extra time will be worth it. I am so excited for the public — one way or another — to eventually see what beauties, wonders, and horrors my talented husband can write, and what dreams and nightmares shimmer within our shared imagination.
Llywelyn
I was waiting to announce until I saw my own copy of it for myself, but I’m thrilled to let the world know that the second edition of Tiresias is not only available in e-book form but also in paperback. This edition is largely unaltered from the original, but I’ve updated it to reflect my new name choice for publications, and it looks substantially better. Even the paper feels better!
If you already own a copy of the first edition, I don’t know how I could urge you to buy a copy of the second, but do think about it! It’s guaranteed to be a better reading experience. Alternately, if you’ve still never read the book, or if you want to send some weird trans metafiction to a loved one for the winter holidays, now’s your new best shot.
Retail options: 9798201914448 is the ISBN. Currently available through IndieBound if you want to support local independent bookstores, which I urge anyone and everyone to do. You can also find the book through B&N, Books-A-Million, a few international sites, or (because I don’t have much control over this) Amazon.
Now my head’s going back down to keep writing Armes Prydein. I’m nearing the halfway mark on the first draft, and I might be on the verge of a really big announcement about how this 1-million-word project is going to ultimately get completed.
Llywelyn
I am pleased to announce that as of this month, my début novel Tiresias has been rereleased in a second edition e-book through a superior publishing service (Draft2Digital).
If you’ve never read Tiresias, I’ve changed a lot from the person I was when I wrote it, but I’m still proud of what the project meant to me and the fact that it became a Lambda Literary Award finalist— so please think about buying a copy. If you’ve already read it, please consider supporting me by linking the book to anyone you know who’s interested in such varied topics as queer/transgender experience, abuse recovery, or T. S. Eliot. You can currently buy the e-book from iBooks, Barnes & Noble/Nook, Kobo, Scribd, Thalia.de, Bol.de, and Angus & Robertson. Here’s a handy link to find it at any of those places. Other services are still pending distribution.
The book is now out of print in physical form, but whenever D2D starts to provide print editions, I intend to re-release in that format as well.
Llywelyn
This is both a small update and a very big one.
As of yesterday, I’ve successfully drafted one out of the three narratives in Armes Prydein (which, if I’ve never mentioned before, means “The Prophecy of Britain” in Welsh). This 207,000-word storyline is currently known as “Pair Dadeni,” or “The Cauldron of Rebirth.” Chronologically, it’s first out of the three, and follows both the childhood and adulthood of a plausibly historical reconstruction of King Arthur, at least as he’s typically called.
This Arthur is not actually a king, while the overwhelming majority of characters and events are derived purely from Welsh legend and an academic understanding of what 5th-6th century Britain was like, researched continuously on my part since 2016. You will find a mythic tone here, and plenty of magic as well, but no French-named knights, no Holy Grail; this Arthur is decolonized, or so I’ve tried to make him. Most of my necessary artistic liberties are still grounded as much as possible in real archaeology, real Brittonic kingdoms and their rulers, and more. Meanwhile, however, “Pair Dadeni” should also distinguish itself from typical historical fiction by centering queer love and foraying wildly into some rather postmodern prose.
I’ve wanted to write Arthur since I was nine years old. It’s very important for me to have finally done so. But all that aside, this is still just one strand of a long, long braid. I’ll probably break ground on the second narrative today — in a few days at the latest.
Llywelyn
When is the time for poems?
As an experiment, I started writing them every day, or writing a poem for every day, on the autumn equinox. After two months of starting and stopping and starting again, publishing a few here and leaving most private, then I went on a longer pause. Now, with astronomical winter upon us, and my brain feeling like it has endless dark time available and yet very little time at all — I think I’m going to wait on more poems until I can resolve to do them a different way.
Probably starting in May. That’s when I generally take on new things. And then I’ll probably write poems on just the new moon and the full moon. Doing it every day assumed a lot about where my creative energies really lay. Armes Prydein is eating me alive, in a good way, and then I have the capacity to do a few other writing bits and other artistic bits that I was already doing; beyond that, I have a lot of Life going on, and my various mental health crises keep cycling round and round due to social isolation, pandemic time dilation, and physical ailments. The latter involve things like an iron deficiency, a pending tooth extraction, and Mystery Issues.
If I weren’t writing anything else right now, it would be the time to try poems, but as it stands, it’s become rather clear to me that poems are not what my brain wants to be doing. And as far as the Mystery Issues go, it’s really important that I not overextend myself for the next few months.
Goodbye for now, poetry. Let’s meet again when the time is better. I’m glad I at least tried again; it had been too long, before, and I’m proud of the poems I wrote, including the ones I didn’t share.
Llywelyn
By some reckonings, winter is still a few weeks away. By other reckonings, winter just began the other day. By other reckonings, winter started just over a month ago.
Well, whatever the season, it’s overquoted but the fact remains winter is coming, even as the thing we really ought to fear nowadays is summer.
As I start to hibernate and hunker down, entering the darkest and broodingest times, on the one hand I feel the urge to use these months for relaxing, but on the other hand I feel the call of ordeal. I’m making progress with addressing some deep-seated sources of anxiety and pain, and I want to try even harder. There are also various current stressors I can’t just push aside; I have to face them, deal with them daily.
And then there is Armes Prydein, which has now surpassed 137,000 words. Between now and the end of January, my goal is to reach the 1/3 complete mark. I think it’s possible, but that’s some more hard work to start.
There is a lot of work ahead. A lot.
Llywelyn
Once I wrote about the rain—
A November night when rain was past
& I was very young or less than half
The age I then became
In those days I had to find pain or invent it
I knew a little but I was safe
From the long pain
The winnowing & worrying & whittling pain
Cutting every last moment
Down to splintered ice
I was young in that November
& thought nothing real of rain or night
Llywelyn Jones 