Some good news

Thanks everyone. For all those comments. It means a lot to me. I’m not sure why they didn’t show up in my email feed. Only Iestyn’s comment did, today, which is why I hadn’t replied sooner. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m managing a bit of a family health crisis on my side of the world and have been a tad distracted.

Shush - stop saying sorry! Hang on in there with the health stuff - nothing’s tougher.

1 Like

Welsh people in the asteroid belt? I missed that story.

That’s because I didn’t have your get up and go, so just gave up trying to get published professionally. I just got into a few Star Trek fanzines. Now, what I set out to do in the first place was to send you…

Ps let us know how to get your book!

1 Like

published by a small aussie press. 2017. looking forward to it. keep us all up with it. and how we can get it. i 'm in the queue for one already.i’d like to hear a story with yr hen iaith yn yr gwlad newydd. (the old language in the new country).
thoughts to your family. S

2 Likes

Great news Liz, well done you ! I will definitely be buying the book. Will see if I can pop over one boot camp day/evening and say hello !

1 Like

That is fantastic. Well done.

1 Like

Diolch yn fawr pawb! I’m so looking forward to Bootcamp and will keep you all posted on the book.

3 Likes

Will see if I can pop over one boot camp day/evening and say hello !

That would be lovely!

Not sure if it’s get up and go. More like blind stubborn unable-to-let-go-ness. My brother took ten years to do his PhD. He said to me: what our family lack in talent we make up for in persistence. I think he’s probably right. :slight_smile:

Star Trek fanzines sound pretty good to me. You found a niche market.

1 Like

Your brother is not unique! Had he done the research, got a job and had to fit writing up in with everything else, like family life, moving house, marrying, having kids etc.? I had a friend with that problem!

1 Like

Only just tuned in here - wow, Elizabeth! It just shows you never know what life has in store for you once you start to follow an interest. Congratulations on the book, and it sounds like just the kind of thing I would love to read. Your ‘small Australian publisher’ might just be surprised at how many international orders they will be getting :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Yes, that pretty much sums it up. My son on the other hand went and pumped a PhD out in 2 1/2 years. I suspect he may have talent as well as stubborn persistence.

They tell new writers to write about what they know. I knew only two things about Wales when I started my research. That they mined coal and they had their own language. My novel was supposed to be an Aussie immigration novel. But I fell in love with yr hen iaith and the rest is history. :slight_smile: My next novel will be set entirely in Wales. I’m crediting Aran for this also. Last year while a group of us sat on the beach in Pwllheli, he lamented the fact that hardly anyone knew about Glyndwr, yet his story was every bit as interesting as Braveheart. So, I bought a book about him. At the the end of the book the writer was lamenting the failure of the revolt and how crushed Owain must have been and I am thinking never mind Owain, what about his wife! She ended up in the Tower of London. I’d like to try and tell her story.

5 Likes

Ooh, I’m grabbing that credit and running with it! :star: :star2:

1 Like

You might want to hold off. It could be rwtch.

1 Like

What about Gwenllian ferch Llywelyn? She was daughter of the Prince of Wales and her mam was Eleanor de Montfort, granddaughter of of King John of England. She was born in a palace, but her mam died 12 days after giving birth. It was not Gwenllian’s fault that a greedy King of England, a relation, wanted to rule her country. His army was attacking as she was being born and her Dad was killed when she was 6 months old. Her rather unsatisfactory Uncle Dafydd was killed the following year, as I recall. His children and Gwenllian were all imprisoned by dear Edward 1, in nunneries rather than the Tower, but what a hellish life?!! She lived to be 54, without ever knowing any freedom!
nb Her male cousins, in turns true Prince of Wales, were kept in prison and the one who survived longest was kept in a cage like an animal! Their title of course, was purloined by Edward for his less than satisfactory son, and all eldest sons of English monarchs thereafter, whether satisfactory or not!

2 Likes

Yes, I’ve toyed with that idea but she lived her whole life in a nunnery - Matins, lauds, Terce, sext, nones, vespers, every day. I’m not sure how easy it would be to keep people reading. :slight_smile: However, the other Gwenllian, who lead men into battle and who may have written down the stories of the Mabinogion, she would be easier to write about. :slight_smile:

5 Likes

Would she have known about Gwenllian frech LLywelyn and.perhaps, have comforted herself with the knowledge that she, at least had lived!!

2 Likes

Only with access to a TARDIS…