Along with my fiction and gaming I will publish my serious and heavy academic work too!
I have decided to clean it up a little and publish it as a book, preferably through an academic publisher, my Master's dissertation 'Geoffrey Monmouth's Prophetiae Merlini and Welsh Prophetic Literature' very soon just to get started on releasing some academic works finally. I wrote and submitted this to Prifysgol Cymru Llanbedr in 2006!
Then I will eventually finish and publish my study on the Battle of Llongborth someday, it hinges and is dependent on the famous 'Arthurian' victory of the Battle of Badon Hill or Gwaith Caer Faddon. This is, as yet, incomplete and only notes and barely started.
My reasoning is, since I should be starting on my PhD in Celtic Studies soon, and wishing to jump back into Higher Education soon in the form of teaching, ideally, I want to throw in many serious academic works into my long lists of publications and bibliography too. It might be a little droll compared to my usual fare here, but it is still fun stuff!
UPDATE: I have already sent off a proposal to Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru (University of Wales Press) to see if this will be feasible. I believe it will be since I am a graduate of one of their universities and this is a dissertation they had to review and mark (pass). So now I wait....
Cast from the same fires that the ancient Brythonic sagas and tales that we only have the smallest remnants and hints from, as discovered in the Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydain), the Book of Aneirin, the Stanza of the Graves and the many others sources of early Celtic mythology from Britain, my first story is now published! 'The Sullen Queen' is now in Kindle format and will be in print as well for all to read and review for themselves. Because my specialty is this subject I had hesitated writing tales in it, simply because I dreaded trying to figure out how to fit in EVERYTHING to do with the Post-Roman era and its peoples, so I wrote horror and Weird West instead. Doing so didn't get me anywhere as far as success but it did gain me experience in learning the craft of being an author, acquiring the technical side and humbling me soon enough to see that my skill wasn't as great as I imagined.
I composed 'The Sullen Queen' in October of 2013 from a spontaneous will of wishing to reinvent my own writing career and taking my earlier Celtic novel project together and suddenly this happened in the result. Not only did I create something new, but related, but I also learned how to write better and proper in comparison to my earlier technique. My first draft was rough of course but by December it was done and then I was already into the sequel 'Within a Dark Mountain', a book that is now edited and ready to go (except for the cover). Where we lack the greater part of the saga of Prince Rhun from a mythical standpoint, I have created one on my own in these tales.
Carefully I have taken the bits and pieces of the real Prince Rhun from history and myth and filled in the gaps using my three decades of study and research into his era, and plenty of imagination in between to flesh out his life starting from the age of fifteen on. Going from this age on the reader will learn about his past as one journeys into his future on his long and uncertain ride towards the tenuous chance of kingship of Gwynedd. Each book will flesh out his world, and those around it, below it and around it, more as he and his companions adventure onward.
These novels tie in with my 'Codex Celtarum' and the adventure modules into one large 'set' together with each complimenting and adding to the other as a whole. One could gain the complete picture when all is said and done if you have them all and envision it all. Added to this, soon I will begin my PhD (hopefully) in Celtic Studies and it will be heavy research on the Celtic Otherworld. My Doctoral thesis will be exclusively about every scrap of what my work above is focused on, and so it will place it all into an academic perspective that will make complete sense to those readers that are very concerned and serious and want something MORE than just gaming and rolling dice. Trust me, this is and was a cultural matter long before it was ever placed into gaming context.
This song is one that has been my motto during the creative process of writing these tales, 'Bring it back...' is exactly what I intend on doing through these tales. I wish to bring back glorious marvelous action packed stories filled with enchantment, monsters, gods and heroes. epic battles and more in the old style. I have put all of my effort forward in doing so. Part three, 'A Perilous Pursuit' is now midway from being written and it is already showing how such a saga is evolving and changing, much less maturing before my eyes. I cannot wait until that tale is published!
