You know the drill. At this point it’s mostly cleanup and refinement. There are a lot of dates to set and with the fuzzy historical record, I have to make all the pieces fit as best I can. I take some liberties, but ever since I got a more complete record, a lot of those liberties have been scaled back. Adoptions, fosterings, co-kings, and identically named children are among my techniques to sort out the contradictions. I’ve insanely extended my timeline out to the 9th Century just because that’s around the time a lot of the kingdoms I’m working with finally fall out. (For reference, I set the Battle of Camlann at 537 and start the main narrative with Constantine III’s claim to Rome in 407.)

I believe I’m starting to lose steam, though (I say coming back from a half-hour detour chronicling the rulers of Strathclyde). Probably about time I switch over to something else for a while and recharge my batteries. We’ll see what I hop on next. Stay tuned.

I showed some restraint last night. I only stayed up till 0500. -_- There’s still a fair bit to hash out, but it’s going to have to be relegated to the side because the big mystery project has been revealed and it’s going to be a lot of work. I have places to be next weekend, so the objective is to get as much done before then as possible.

I did a major shakeup to the genealogies of my Arthurian cast based on better information I’ve acquired. You see, originally I wanted Caradoc the Elder to be a Coeling through Pellam (who I made a posthumous child of Coel Hen), the odd duck left to tend to most of Britannia while his father (in my version) Pellam retires to Listenoise with Pelles and Pellinore. However, learning about actual sons of Coel Hen and the Kings in the North, I decided to separate them out. Caradoc is now the adopted son of Ynyr, the son-in-law and heir of Vortimer, son of Vortigern, keeping him in the south. Well, I made kings like Loth and Urien sons of Caradoc who inherit their respective kingdoms after he abdicates. With Caradoc now being divorced from the north, that wasn’t going to work, so I shifted Angusel, Loth, Urien and Nentres from Caradoc’s line to that of Gwrast Lledlwn, the son of Ceneu the King in the North (one of the actual sons and successors to Coel Hen). They’re now half-brothers to Meirchion Gul of Rheged who gain their territories from Uther Pendragon after he’s named King of the Britons, a sort of consolation prize for him taking the title of King in the North from their family. (Although, in Uther’s defense, he’s a grandson of Coel Hen himself and as the son to King of the Britons Constantine II, has a strong claim as Coel Hen’s successor, but this conflict will play into the story.)

All that sound complicated and convoluted? Well, that’s just scratching the surface, but that gives you an idea of the kind of stuff I’ve been mired in. I’ve conflated Uther with King in the North Mor ap Ceneu, so I need to reconcile that line with Arthur. I may or may not choose to go the multiple Guinevere route to resolve some of it. (Some versions of the stories say he married three Guineveres in his day. It would explain why the more famous one appeared later in his reign.)

Once the genealogies and timelines are settled, I’ll probably switch back to writing on either Tico3 or TTWC1, but so long as I have the drive to advance this current work, I should capitalize on it. Stay tuned.

You know the stories, ladies and gents. Another day in which I was up to 0600 poring over lists of kings and chronicles of old battles to bulk to bolster the backdrop of my Arthurian stories. I came upon some new sources that are plugging some holes and opening others. There’s a bit of reengineering left to be done, but I’m getting there. I can’t be spending as much time on it, though. Big things coming up. We’ll see if the generous air of anxiety and unease will break out into abject terror or not. Stay tuned.

I don’t need to tell you what I’ve been doing. You already know. This time I was up past 0600 working on the peripheral materials for my Arthur stories. I spent the greater part of the day scouring through all the different lines of Irish kings for a suitable candidate for Anguish, the father of Iseult. I needed someone preferably named a variant of Angus who reigned around the turn of the 6th Century. I found my man in King Aenghus of Osraige. Being on the west coast, sandwiched between Leinster and Munster, made vassalage to Cornwall plausible, thus setting the stage for the Tristan and Iseult story. I sure do go to a lot of work to give some historical basis to something some French troubadour just made up.

The quickest answer would have been to conflate Anguish with Angusel of Moray, but I wanted an actual Irish king if I could swing it. And I did, so that’s something.

I need to get things more or less resolved soon because there’s supposed to be a big project this week that I’m going to have to really devote a lot of time to. As interesting as all this work is, it has to take a back seat to higher priorities. I imagine I’ll still be fiddling with stuff over the course of the week, but I should probably start thinking about writing on the stories currently in serialization. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.

Arthur Mania just won’t quit. In fact, this update comes so late because I was up till 0530 working on it, woke up around 1300 and picked things right back up. It’s been a while since I’ve been this consumed by my work. I’m mildly concerned about the potential consequences, but I suppose the only solution is to just keep pushing and get to a place I feel I can leave it.

I’ve been a lover of myth, fable and legend ever since I was a child. This should come as no surprise given that I’m an SFF author, but I’m also big into history. In fact, my minor was in history. I could easily have made it my second major, but I was getting a little weary of school by that point and was eager to begin my adventures in the Orient. One of the great things about the Arthurian mythos is that it blends the historical, pseudo-historical and the fantastic all into a single bundle, much as I’ve tried to do with my own story canon.

I was still in high school when I sketched out the first ideas for what would become The Brothers Pendragon. I wanted to use Excalibur, so it naturally followed that I would adopt the Pendragon name. I had the patriarch call himself Adam in the pretension that he was starting a new humanity. Of course, naming your two sons Cain and Abel is just asking for trouble. Going back to Excalibur, though, I envisioned this Adam Pendragon as a forgotten castoff of Uther Pendragon’s excessive womanizing who fancied himself as Uther’s true heir, seizing the opportunity he had long been seeking at the Battle of Camlann. When Bedivere goes to cast Excalibur back into the Lake, Adam (who I’ve recently decided to call Lother prior to his arrival on Tellus) intercepts and kills him, but he and his followers are transported from our world. Ever the pragmatist, he conquers the new land just as he intended to do with Britannia.

I won’t deny being rather strongly influenced by the ’98 Merlin mini series. (No, I haven’t really watched the more recent series, just caught some glimpses as my roommate was watching it.) The inclusion of Mab in the mini series had a bit of a domino effect for me. Mab happens to be involved in The Trident War Chronicles. She’s bound by Rowland in TTWC3 and forced to serve the Promethean Alliance. You remember that barrier around Maximilion that drove out the Third Legion back in Cronos’ section? Her work. Anyway, certain things are going to happen with her that I’m not going to spoil. If you’ll recall, I did a big shift of the timeline of the Tellus Arc not that long ago to resolve an issue relating to this very spoiler item. I will reveal that it’s related to the Arthurian mythos. Because the Earth and Tellus timelines are synched up (though time flows more slowly on Tellus, similar to how time flows faster in the Fairy Realm, a.k.a. Avalon), there were fixed events I couldn’t wiggle around. I originally resolved the problem with chronomancy, sending the character in question 20 years into the past to make things work. Much like Old Joe in Looper, I don’t like messing around with time travel too much, so this bit of juryrigging never did set right with me. (Speaking of time travel, there were two projects in pre-production I scrapped because of my decision to adopt a “no time travel” rule. Maybe I’ll tell you about them one day.)

Perhaps it’s that recent edit to the timeline that got me thinking about what little I’d already put down for an Arthurian story I was considering. Whatever the case, I’ve pulled out all the stops and this obsession is going to continue until I pretty well have the peripheral materials settled. Sorting through the fragmentary and often contradictory stories can be a pain, but it’s like solving a puzzle. The link to my own canon restricts my freedom of movement a little, but I’m coming up with some innovative solutions. I believe I’ve mentioned before how the already tangled genealogies of the major characters have been tangled further thanks to my love of interconnectedness. I honestly think I’ll have a hard time finding someone who isn’t related to one degree or another. Royalty!

I’m trying to find a balance among all the English, Welsh, French and Latin and it’s a little tricky to say the least. I want it to be accessible but not too anachronistic. I still have time to settle things but it’s a bit of a pain. I’ve actually taken to drawing up my own map of the British Isles rather than sifting through a couple dozen at a time to find this or than ancient and/or mythical border or feature. Learning a fair bit of British geography this way. ^_^; It’s a wonder just how much is packed into so little space. The world really was a bigger place back then.

Speaking of back then, I’ve got to curtail how far I venture into the timeline in either direction after the timeframe of the stories. I really don’t have any business going further back than the 4th Century or further forward than the 7th, but the urge to fill out the chronology is strong.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for now. There’s plenty more work to be done. Away!

I continue to be neck-deep in my work fleshing out the background of my Arthurian Cycle. Trying to compile so many disparate and often conflicting sources and weave them into a single cohesive narrative is no mean feat. Besides making the timeline, encyclopedia and story outlines, I’m also doing my requisite genealogical work and, man, is there ever the tangled web (which I am, admittedly, tangling a bit further). It’s a bit funny. I started my now terribly complex family tree with an eye for the royal family in Tellus, but it’s been the Arthurian period I’ve focused on. This sort of thing is really addictive, a testament to how much I love worldbuilding.

I’m presumably going to keep at this a while, so I might pepper future updates with some fun tidbits. Stay tuned.

I spent an insane amount of time yesterday working on the peripheral materials for the new Arthurian Cycle. The Arthurian mythos is so vast and varied combining that with both actual 5th-6th Century history and my own story canon is proving to be quite a feat but an incredibly enticing one. Honestly, all this work is coming to the detriment of my other priorities, but I’m sure I can set things aright.

Now I’ve got to decide how I want to break down the series. I’m thinking that the first book should be devoted to the lead-up to Arthur’s birth, the next one to Arthur’s tutelage under Merlin, and the last one all the tragedy leading up to the Battle of Camlann. It’s kinda funny. I’m getting so wrapped up in Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that I start to forget the character who acts as my primary link with The Brothers Pendragon. (I will say, though, man, does he ever get what’s coming to him.) That isn’t to say I lost sight of all links to the Tellus Arc, as a significant portion of the cast has been reimagined to inextricably link them up. (You’ll probably be surprised at some of the connections made.)

Honestly, I could write a whole novel just about the rise and fall of Constantine III, but all that is more a distraction that anything to the main story. Perhaps I’ll make a spinoff. We’ll see. Stay tuned.