Writing Historical Fiction
Back in high school, I remember overhearing two girls lamenting how awful their classes were and how they ‘hated’ history. Since I was hiding in a bathroom stall at the time, I didn’t give voice to my horror at their sentiment, but it has stuck with me in the thirty years since. How could they ‘hate’ history? Unfortunately, all too easily if by ‘history’ they meant the memorization of facts and dates that had little or no bearing on their lives. Why did they care what year the Civil War began? Or who was the tenth president of the United States? Or what happened in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia (though knowing might clarify our wars in the Middle East today, but that’s a different topic). That’s not what history is about. History is about people. It’s the anthropology of Read more…
The Weather in Wales
When my son took his American History class, he read to me from the diaries of Lewis and Clark when they wintered on the Oregon coast after coming all the way across the country. Mostly what they did was complain about the rain: “Rained again today.” “Rained all night long and into the morning.” “Rained all day for the third day in a row.” Having grown up in western Washington State, I know all about this problem. Having lived through the last two years in Eastern Oregon, I am intimately familiar with this problem. We had frozen rain and hail on May 17th. Wales, climate-wise, is nearly identical to the Pacific Northwest coast. This was our experience. Here’s Dolbadarn Castle. In the rain. This is the forecast for Bangor, Wales for the rest of the week: Five-day forecast (Details) Tomorrow 19 MayFair Read more…
Anna Elliott: Georgiana Darcy’s Diary
Today’s Inspiration Award goes to Anna Elliott! Anna is the author of the Twilight of Avalon Trilogy (book three comes out this September), and she has recently gone the indie route with the publication of her new book Georgiana Darcy’s Diary. Welcome Anna! _______________________ I’ve read Pride and Prejudice many, many times, and seen the various movie adaptations more times than I can even begin to count. (Colin Firth is my favorite Mr. Darcy!). I love Elizabeth and Darcy’s love story, of course–it’s a testament to Jane Austen’s genius that it truly stands the test of time and feels as compelling now as it did 200 years ago. And yet, strangely, it’s always been Georgiana Darcy’s character that stays with me the longest, each time I read the book or watch one of the films. Georgiana’s character is almost Read more…
Writing and re-writing: A Novel of King Arthur
I normally blog about dark age and medieval Wales, and just touch on the writing that has preoccupied my life for the last five years. But I’ve just put up my new novel, Cold My Heart: A Novel of King Arthur, and I thought I’d talk about the process that created it, particularly for my long time readers and followers who will have seen a blurb to this book in another form not long ago. The most important thing I’ve learned in writing fiction over the years is, of course, never give up. The second most important thing is that no book is ever set in stone. It’s really hard to see that when you’re in the process of writing it, but every single one of my books has gone through a transformative process from when I first began writing Read more…
Women In Ancient Rome–Guest Post by Suzanne Tyrpak
Today I have a guest post by author, Suzanne Tyrpak. Welcome, Suzanne! ________________ About seven years ago (before my divorce, when I had some expendable income) I traveled to Rome with a group of writers. I fell in love with Italy, Rome in particular. A travel book I read contained a short blurb about vestal virgins; it mentioned they were sworn to thirty years of chastity and, if that vow were broken, they would be entombed alive. That got me going! Plus, on a tour of the Coliseum, a guide pointed out the seats designated to the vestal virgins—the six priestess of Vesta were educated, and therefore powerful, at a time when most women weren’t even taught to read. Vestals were in charge of legal documents. They not only wrote these documents, in triplicate, but kept them secure within Read more…
Heroic Fantasy in Dark Age Wales
I was invited to guest post about my book, The Last Pendragon. at http://keithcblackmore.com/blog/ Come check it out 🙂
Original Sources for Welsh history
J. Beverley Smith, in his exhaustive history of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, lists primary sources for his research in the back of his book Llywelyn ap Gruffydd: The Prince of Wales, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998). In perusing the documents, it becomes clear that while the thirteenth century was no longer officially the ‘dark ages’, there is very little documentation for an enormous amount of what happened in Wales during Llywelyn’s reign. On one hand, we have the cryptic Chronicle of the Princes (from which I quoted a few days ago), but no other record, official or otherwise, of the events leading up to Llywelyn’s death. In addition, we don’t know: 1) When Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was born 2) If Senana was definitively his mother, though there is reference to him as the ‘uterine brother’ of Owain and Dafydd. 3) Read more…
Footsteps in Time Review (from Smashwords)
This was pretty cool, so I felt the need to repost it . . . so thank you Wil! I’m glad you liked the book! ________ Review by: Wilson James on Feb. 14, 2011 : Honor. That’s a word not often used today, in 2011. Honor, however, was one of the only things that American teenagers David and Anna took with them in their time travel to medieval Wales. Honor also describes the way in which Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd lived his life as the ruler of Wales in 1282. The best way to describe FOOTSTEPS IN TIME? An amazing tale of adventure, daring exploits, loyalty, and courage all wrapped up in a time travel young adult fiction story. This book was enjoyable from beginning to end, as it has plenty of action mixed with a truly remarkable degree of Read more…
Writing Historical Fantasy: a Conversation with Jules Watson
Guest Post by Anna Elliott: A Conversation with Jules Watson. Jules Watson writes amazing, lyric historical fantasy set in the Dark Age Celtic world. Her newest book, The Raven Queen, will be out next month. And she has an absolutely fantastic historical fiction workshop on her website. If you write historical fiction or fantasy, go check it out immediately, it’s one of the best resources for writers in the genre I’ve seen. http://juleswatson.com/fictionworkshop.html Where do your ideas for a book start? With a known historical fact or myth? A ‘scene’ that pulls you into a story? A particular character? Or maybe none of those? The Raven Queen and my previous book The Swan Maiden were inspired by the heroines of two ancient Irish myths. For The Swan Maiden, I had always adored the Celti story of Deirdre of the Sorrows, Read more…
New Books Available!
I’ve been working on the After Cilmeri series, a young adult, time-travel fantasy, for the past five years. As should be obvious by now, the fate of Wales after the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd has been a near-constant occupation of mine, and these novels are a fun way to imagine a different fate for him. A prequel is in the works . . . Enjoy! _____________ Footsteps in Time In December of 1282, English soldiers ambushed and murdered Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales. His death marked the end of Wales as an independent nation and the beginning of over seven hundred years of English oppression. Footsteps in Time is the story of what might have happened had Llywelyn lived. And what happens to the two American teenagers who save him. Footsteps in Time is available (for free) at: http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/18316/footsteps-in-time Or Read more…
National Novel Writing Month!
I actually ‘finished’ this ‘book’, at exactly 50,000 words (by some fluke) on Friday, November 19th at 7:49 pm, at which point my husband suggeted we go out for ice cream . . . I couldn’t validate it until the end of the month. Like all first drafts, or parts of first drafts, it’s terrible! But I plan on spending the next year making it better 🙂
NaNoWriMo Day 1
November 1, 2010: I sat up in bed morning, pulled my laptop close (hoping that my son wasn’t going to wake up quite yet) and started typing. Now, with historical fiction, it doesn’t take very long before a need for research pops up, and I encountered the first after 3 sentences. Why didn’t I do this research earlier? Because I didn’t know what I needed until I’d written those three sentences. This new book is a murder mystery, if I can pull it off, set in Gwynedd in 1143 AD. In real life, Cadwaladr, Owain Gwynedd’s obnoxious brother, has Anarawd, Owain’s future son-in-law, murdered on the eve of his wedding. It is over a land dispute, and Anarawd was ambushed on the road. Once it is determined that Cadwaladr is to blame, Hywel, Owain Gwynedd’s bastard son, is sent to exact retribution Read more…
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