frankenstein

All lakes lead to Avallach…

I haven’t provided an update about my writing activity since the winter, I realized, so here is some overdue news. Well, not news— I have no scheduled publications at the moment— but at least some information, because developments have occurred. I’m very gratified that my reasons for not posting much on this blog are largely that I’ve been hard at work. If you’ve been wondering about my next big project, today I’m lifting back the veil just a shade.

First, with regard to finished work, unfortunately, the situation with Frankenstein has reached a standstill. I had really hoped to manage a public reading and a full production in 2018, the 200-year anniversary of the original novel’s first edition, but the prospective director had to back out (which I say with no animosity, as she’s a lovely person). By the time that I decided to try pitching the script to local theatre companies on my own, the most obvious choices were no longer taking submissions for their next season. I should have known better, but there’s not much I can do about it now. Therefore, given that I also have other projects, I think Frankenstein must sadly sit on the back burner for at least another six months until I can submit it somewhere again.

Likewise, “O Fortuna” has retained “???” status, but I have my fingers crossed for some good news on that front. And while all of that makes it sound like nothing’s happened, something big (for me) has very much happened.

That is to say: last month I officially broke ground on my next novel, Armes Prydein. I may only keep that as the working title, but it’s rather likely to stick. The language will be English; the words in the title are Welsh, however, and a quick Wikipedia search will tell you what I’m referencing.

I’m going to try and post semi-regular updates about my progress without giving away too much immediately, but so far, here is what I shall say about this future beast of a book. Starting this past autumn, I spent approximately six months eating, drinking, breathing, and dreaming research about the island of Britain from the 5th to 6th century CE. Now I cannot call myself an academic expert on the subject, but I finally had a grounding to create a full cast of characters, rough plotline, and setting details for 1/3 of this novel’s content. I might still require the next 6-8 weeks to finish planning the whole thing as thoroughly as I’d like to before I truly dive in; however, before the end of April I had successfully written the opening paragraphs.

Now, as for why I say 1/3 of this novel’s content and not all of it, Armes Prydein is what can only be called an Arthur tale— it will be “my” Arthuriad— but as has become my way, there will be several stories connected to each other. I am classifying one story as mythic-historical fiction, another as alternate-history sociopolitical drama, and another as dystopian cyberpunk. A few characters will exist between all of them, but mostly the connections are thematic and structural. I toyed with the idea telling each story as its own novel and making a trilogy, but ultimately chose to keep things interlaced the way I know they need to be. Potentially a publisher could split the novel into three parts if that made a gargantuan, multi-genre, literary chimera more palatable, but if so I will create potential split points within each story’s plot.

We will see what happens. Ultimately, I would be shocked if I didn’t spend at least five years on this, and it will exponentially surpass the length of Tiresias. Particularly given that this will be only my second novel, I know it’s very ambitious. I decided to go ahead because if it’s going to take me so long to do it, I’d rather start it while I’m young; and of all the projects on my plate, this is the one I have been hoping to write for the longest time. It’s extraordinarily important to me as a Welsh person, an occult practitioner, a linguist, a leftist, and a mythologist. It is, if you will, the novel that I will not be satisfied until I complete before my death. Everything else I accomplish should prove the frosting on the proverbial cake.

I know it would be a wise plan to produce some shorter writing here and there while I labor on Armes Prydein, and I will attempt it periodically, especially if I need to rest my brain from some segments that I expect to find emotionally challenging. However, I would like the estimated five years to not double to ten, so the novel will remain my priority.

Onward; this is what I’ve been living for.

D. Llywelyn Jones

A play, and a story

I feel somewhat stupid for not doing a proper blog announcement about this at some point: earlier this year, my adaptation of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus achieved what I will call its performance-ready form. I think I shied away from formally declaring anything because in my opinion (and in others’) the script would benefit from a public staged reading before a full production. I also have been dithering on whom to approach as a potential local producer, although an interested director does exist. Nonetheless, I do think of the play as “done”— ready for action. Immense thanks are due to my beta readers, as well as to Lucas Commons-Miller, J. Deschene, and Ally Matteodo of the Boston theatre scene for serving in a multiplicity of roles during last December’s private reading. When I figure out how to really move forward, I will be better about updating here.

Worth noting as well, I suppose: while it is now in beta, I completed my first sci fi short story, “O Fortuna,” earlier this summer. I consider this a personal success because it has been a long time since I truly finished a short story, and while some bodies would classify it more as a novelette, the fact remains that it is not a full novel, and yours truly the master of verbosity managed to tell a concise tale. I also suspect this is the first sci fi story of any kind that I’ve written without just a two-paragraph beginning. When it is out of beta, I’ll be querying magazines, or whatever else seems like a good possibility.

Until next time.

D. Llywelyn Jones

Edit: Oh, right. I also joined Medium. Follow here, if you’re a Medium person. I consider myself fairly useless at Medium so far, but if I figure out something to do with it, I will.

Not dead

Hello all. I realized I last updated this blog over a month ago, and I wanted to offer reassurances (if anyone was wondering) that I am actually doing rather well. Life is by no means perfect, but I’ve been adjusting to a new rhythm of things. My husband has a new job, thus a new work schedule; I’ve changed my own schedule, too, though less to line up with his and more to attempt a different angle of attack on my depression and energy problems. I’m trying to find the sweet spot between “waking up so early that my delayed sleep phase prevents me from achieving cognitive functionality” and “waking up so late that my seasonal affective disorder kicks into overdrive from the loss of sunlight.” So far, it might be working, but I’m not sure. In any case, a lot more is afoot than simply this challenge, so my attention has been pulled away from writing here. Speaking of writing, I’m doing a lot of things writing-related:

  • I’ve made some sporadic but satisfying progress in my new short story.
  • I’m partway through arranging a private reading for Frankenstein, and I’m getting very excited about how that will go.
  • As I’ve already announced on social media, I’m serving as a guest editor for The Offing‘s first Trans Issue, which will feature work entirely by trans people, curated by trans people. The issue will probably be released pretty soon, and when it does, I will obviously put a link here. I was very honored to receive the invitation for this role, and you should check out the magazine in general; a non-profit arm of the L.A. Review of Books, they largely exist to center traditionally marginalized voices across all genres and types of prose and verse. And they are actively invested in paying their contributors, guest editors, and staff a more-than-nominal amount! What a novel concept. (To help them achieve this goal, please consider donating to their fundraiser.)

That’s an intensely summarized telling of my life as it stands. My best and wickedest wishes to all of you as All Hallows’ draws near.

DLJ

New look for the website, new work to do

I’ve had this site for about a year now— it seemed like the right time to improve the look. I’ll admit the old banner looked tacky, and even though I find white-on-black more readable and aesthetically pleasing, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a perfect stranger running across the page might find the look rather too Angelfire. This version looks less 1999, I hope. More literary. Something.

As an addendum, if you missed me saying so, I’m very pleased to report that Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is now in the beta reading stage. My goals from this point forward are to conduct further revisions during late summer/autumn, to arrange a private reading by year’s end, to do one more revision round and a public reading by mid-2016, and then to have the play professionally produced by some point in 2018— the bicentennial of when Mary Shelley published her original novel. That is basically a three year ongoing project, and I expect some stagnant periods, therefore I’m also especially pleased to add that this summer I intend to seriously get to work on my second novel. This itself will easily take me years to complete even the first draft, because it’s going to be very long— though technically I’m not going to be writing it alone. I will leave you with that cryptic implication for the night.

DLJ