Angharad’s story began as a web serial back in the days when web serials weren’t much of a thing. There were no big archive sites for fiction; there was no indie publishing; there wasn’t even a graceful way to accept payments, though Paypal eventually coughed up a clumsy subscription option. It was 2003, and I was using Livejournal to tell her story: an experiment, I told myself, until some publisher picked up a novel from me and I could concentrate on writing books under contract.
That didn’t happen, despite several near misses, and I worked on the Godkin project on and off for six years. Eventually I finished the serial in 2009, and then a few years later, I sold the print rights to Sofawolf. By then the indie revolution was in full swing; I could put together my own ebooks and sell them, and did. Adding an audiobook edition looked like a fun project, so I ran with it in 2012. And that was all the work I devoted to Angharad until recently, when I realized that my contract with Sofawolf had expired and I could now issue my own print editions. That’s when I dusted the ebook off and remembered how much fun it was, writing that serial. Livejournal entries wanted titles, so every entry had a name, some of which were evocative (“The Flesh of My Flesh is My Flesh” or “Paying for Past Arrogance”). Some were funny (“I Do Not Brood! Except When Angry!” or “Creatively Working Within My Limits”). Some ended up paired for artistic purposes (“A Glorious Sort of Slavery” followed by “A Glorious Sort of Servitude”). All of them served the way titles of poems did, and coming up with each entry’s was part of the fun.
Livejournal also allowed you to choose the icons that accompanied each entry. I made multiple icons for Angharad in her various moods (which I’ve reproduced for you in the Art section). You could customize the footers that told you the poster’s mood and usually something like what music they were listening to, or what they were eating: Angharad’s were her mood and what she was wearing, so you would sometimes get normal statuses, like ‘proud’ and wearing ‘my leather armor. A flowing cloak the color of blood.’ Sometimes it was something funny, like a mood of ‘Smug’ and wearing ‘Ragna. Bandages’, or ‘seriously irritated’, wearing ‘nothing but a blanket.’ Present tense, which is a challenging stylistic choice for a book, made sense as a daily journal. You were there with her, wondering if she would change her bandages, and what mood she’d be in today: would we get scrubbing bubbles with the girls, or war in the valley? Tune in weekly to find out!
It felt like play. You can tell in the beginning that it was play, and only later did I buckle down and get to resolving the plot… and in the process, I created one of my favorite villain arcs, though of course, the Godson would disagree on this characterization. For something that was intended as a fluffy experiment, the themes—religion, nationalism, cultural clashes, identity and upbringing, loyalty and integrity—got heavy. Quickly. Maybe that was inevitable, given the author.
As many people have noted, I left the ending open for possible sequels. Silfie is due her vengeance, and perhaps a rapprochement; Donal would like a word with his neighboring monarch, and maybe her hand in marriage; the Godson and Angharad have a great deal of work to do, politically and culturally. I wonder about their various children: Silfie’s, Ragna’s, Donal’s, Angharad’s. What is life like post-fragmentation of the Godkindred Kingdom with the Godson as patron god?
Maybe if enough people ask, we’ll find out. But even if we don’t, I’m grateful that we took the journey this far.
—M