Mary’s Monster Timeline
This is a timeline of the milestones, research, writing, illustrating and revising activities that led to the creation of Mary’s Monster.
I read the novel Frankenstein and learned that the author, Mary Shelley, was only 19 years old when she wrote it. I asked myself, how could someone so young write such a powerful book? And what obstacles must she have faced to become an author, since she lived in a time when women weren’t allowed to attend university? I read Miranda Seymour’s biography about Mary Shelley. This is an incredibly valuable historical record of Mary Shelley’s life, but it’s long and I was disappointed that it didn’t bring this amazing young woman to life. Eventually my questions led to an obsession with Mary Shelley. On long walks in the woods I dreamt of writing my own novel about her, but I doubted my ability to do it. Up till now, I had only written picture books. I feared I could never write such an intense book. Beginning to feel better. I searched for and found a copy of Mary Shelley’s two volume journal! I also read work by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the married poet Mary ran away with when she was 16. I also read much of the poetry of Lord Byron and histories of the politics and poetry of the Romantic era – England in the early 1800’s. Also helpful, was a biography on Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley’s mother and a founder of the feminist movement. I was well enough to travel to England to research Mary’s life. I travelled to London and Oxford. I visited the Percy Bysshe Shelley Memorial at Oxford and the Bodleian Library, where Mary’s journals and the original, hand-written version of Frankenstein are archived. I spend the next several months taking detailed notes from Mary’s journals and from letters that I found online (For example, see this site). I read historical biographies on Percy Shelley, William Godwin, and Lord Byron. I studied the scientific events of the time. I drew hundreds of sketches, and a dozen painted studies, while asking myself over and over HOW to create this book?! Should it be a straight novel with a few illustrations or a graphic novel? Should the work be realistic or symbolistic? How can I capture the history about how Mary came to write her novel but also the emotional journey of her young and very sorrow-filled life? I also began creating a timeline of Mary’s life. 1797: born The 4 X 8’ bulletin board in my studio is no longer enough to hold the ideas and sketches I create. I buy three more and the walls of my studio are papered in a growing storyboard for the book. I seized on the idea that I want to write this book in free verse with a poem and an illustration on every page. Not a graphic novel, something new, something different. It felt right to me to do something I hadn’t seen before with a book. Mary invented the modern day science fiction novel with Frankenstein. I wanted to do a book that celebrated the fact that she dared to tread on new literary terrain with her book. Began writing the first poems. I decided to organize the book into nine parts to symbolize the nine months it took Mary to write Frankenstein. The significance of the length of the gestation period for her story—the same as that for an infant—was not lost on her. Mary revealed the importance of this link by making the date of the first narrative letter in the book (from Robert Walton to his sister) to coincide with the date of her own conception (as recorded in her father’s diary). The last narrative letter is written nine months later, bearing the same date as her mother’s funeral, a few days after Mary’s birth. Mary was pregnant while she wrote Frankenstein and she gave birth shortly after finishing it. She frequently referred to her novel Frankenstein as her “offspring” or “progeny”. I began outlining each chapter of the book and I also started getting the feel of how I wanted to create the artwork. I was a little overwhelmed by how much detail and research it would require to do such realistic figure work! Most people would call it a first draft, but I prefer down draft. The idea is to get your ideas down quickly without over-thinking or self-editing. I began writing the down draft in earnest during the day. I researched visual reference by night, looking at historical reference, but also searching through thousands of slides and photos I’ve taken over the years during research trips. I was looking for reference of the period clothing, coaches, buildings, etc. I wanted the book to reflect layers of richness beyond just getting the historical elements correct. In the book, I describe how Mary Shelley stayed in the Villa Diodati in Switzerland when she began writing Frankenstein. The villa was steeped in the legacy that John Milton once stayed with this family. I researched what the villa looks like to get it historically accurate. But I also wanted to capture a sense of the mystic. I had drawn Rodin’s depiction of Paradise Lost in his Gates of Hell. I wanted to incorporate visual elements of those sculptures within my own illustrations to reflect the legacy Milton’s work had on Mary and Percy. The poem mentions they lived like “fallen angels” in the villa. But the illustrations deepen the impression on how his writing influenced their lives. As Mary ascends the stairwell on a stormy night, moments before inspiration lands, I depicted the marble statues at the base of the stairs as images from Paradise Lost inspired by the Rodin sculptures. Later, when her Creature is formed, I return again to these images inspired by Paradise Lost. The figures representing all the lost souls, death, and grief that influenced Mary’s Creature are again inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost and Rodin’s Gates of Hell. Often art comes before words. I usually have a mental image of the story before I find the right words, so I draw what I see in my mind. This book has around two hundred poems. In most cases I saw the image before I found the right words. Then begins the work of weaving the images and words together. These are some sketch ideas from the chapter which I originally called Ghosts. I am an exiled girl who feels so rejected by her father, My first draft was complete with poems and rough sketches in place for the dummy (the dummy shows the words and the art together in a mock-up of the book). This first version had 354 pages. Eventually, by September of 2015, I would have to reduce that to 312 pages. Normally I would never send a story to my agent on a Saturday night. But this story had become a lifeline to me as I slowly recovered from my illness. It had reawakened my creativity and made me feel whole despite the fact that I was still using a walker to walk and faced painful medical treatments. There was a lot of emotion tied up in this story. I was also terrified that she’d think I was off-the-wall crazy with the story – it was a big departure! I hit the send button, and then crumpled on the stairs, sweating, and shaking, and close to tears. I had tried to write a laid back message with my e-mail, but my awesome, kind agent must have noted the hint of panic in the tone. She opened it right away and read it. She wrote back in a couple of hours, and she DID like it!!! We planned to meet in a couple of days to discuss it. Showed it again to my agent. This time she felt it was ready to submit to an editor! Here’s what the beginning of the book looked like at this stage. I met with Connie in person in NY which was thrilling, because her enthusiasm and encouragement was a wellspring for me. Something magical happens when you sit down to talk with her. You feel as if you are suddenly smarter and know you can write, because she instils this faith in you. And she just makes sitting in the room talking about the book and all the work that is ahead, seem like a whole lot of fun. Endless revising. Revising the poems. Revising the sketches. This stage was difficult, but now my editor, Connie, was at my side. If I got stuck she was always there for me. Usually we’d begin talking on the phone, and I would feel as if my chest was tight and I didn’t know what needed to happen next in the story. Then Connie would start asking me questions about how Mary felt about something, or what did she do in this situation, and then memories would leap to my mind because of all the time I had spent buried in her journals, and by the end of the phone call I was bursting to start writing again. (Thanks Connie!) As the manuscript got tighter, it was also time to really get the sketches nailed down to go with the poems. I began painting studies of how I wanted the final art to look. This art would be like nothing I had created before, I needed new ways of working. Explored medium choices – paint?, ink?, digital? all of the above? How do I make digital brushes? All the while gathering more historical reference. My husband and I both posed as characters for photo reference so I could refine and improve the sketches. I turned in a major revision. The book really feels like it is taking shape. I think it’s the homestretch and am looking forward to finally getting to painting the art soon! Here’s what the beginning of the book looked like at this stage. Hired models to pose for Mary, and other characters in the story. My husband grew out his hair about so that he could pose as Shelley and the creature. Gathered props and clothes and held photo shoots with the models. More notes from my editor, and now my art director as well. More revision of art and poems. But it feels more like refining the story rather than the big changes before. It’s getting there! The cover is the most complicated piece of art in the book. In one painting you have to show what the book is about, while also grabbing people’s attention. I often do dozens of sketches, trying to find the right image. Here’s an early sketch from 2014. And here’s an early concept painting from way back in April 2014. These eventually developed into the artwork I proposed for the cover. Finally I changed the creature to be more consistent with how he looks in all the interior illustrations. And then we decided to add a little bit of color to Mary. My editor and I both feel the force of Mary in our lives by now! Mary gave birth a couple of weeks after finishing Frankenstein and my editor gave birth to her daughter, just after I finished Mary’s Monster. WOW!! Pretty cool. Welcome to the world Beatrix!! (She coincidently has the same name as my parrot – also cool.) We travelled back to England to film at the Bodleian library in Oxford. I wanted to capture the research I had done on the previous trip for a video to share with classrooms. Dr. Bruce Barker Benfield was kind enough to allow us to film while examining Mary’s journals, letters and the rough draft of Frankenstein. It is breathtaking to look at the actual documents! The video below first shows Mary and Percy’s elopement journal, and Dr. Benfield is reading the part where Percy Shelley is waiting in the carriage for Mary to arrive after she has run away from home. Then he reads a famous section from the first draft of Frankenstein. I also visited my English publisher at the Carmelite House in London. Finally. After five years of work, we are ready to announce the book. Back in 2015, Mary’s Monster went to auction with six different publishers in England. We chose Wren & Rook (@wrenandrookbook), which is an imprint of Hachette. Here’s the cover from Wren & Rook. And it made a top ten Non Fiction must read list! Here’s what they said: Part biography, part fantasy, and part feminist allegory, this book is very different to the others listed here, and I couldn’t put it down! I received the final design of the book for last chance proof reading. I read every word. I scrutinized every picture. Are we done? Unfortunately no – we still need to get the test prints working. Meetings with my publisher, art director, editor and production team to discuss how to get the quality we want, but have yet to achieve. I also received the final pass of book jacket too. We had a book launch party at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Such an amazing crowd of supporters. Mackenzie Lee steered the conversation so brilliantly. I loved sharing our mutual passion for Mary Shelley with everyone! It really was the best book launch party I could have imagined! Thanks to Ali Benjamin, Jackie Davies, Molly Burnham, Leslie Connor and Grace Lin. And thanks to Porter Square Books!
Frankenstein
January, 2006
Miranda Seymour’s Biography
January, 2008
The Shelley Circle
July, 2012
First Research Trip to England
September, 2012
Began work on this book!
December, 2012
Notes, Research, Outlines
January, 2013
1812: sent to Scotland
1814: ran away with Percy Shelley and gave birth 7 months later, 10 days later her baby dies
1816: left for Geneva, began writing Frankenstein that summer
1818: Frankenstein is published, anonymously. . .
Four Bulletin Boards
March, 2014
Nine Chapters
April, 2014
Began Down Draft
May, 2014
Building in Symbolism
May, 2014
Developing the Art
June, 2014
I later developed a poem that began,
she must create a family from ghosts.
Draft Complete
September, 2014
Ready to Show
March, 2015
We had spent a lot of time discussing who to send it to in months leading up to this point, so we knew exactly who we wanted to send it to – Connie Hsu at Roaring Brook. She is not only brilliant, but I had read an interview where she stated that she was looking for cross genre pieces. I’ve admired the books she edited previously, and I had worked with Roaring Brook in the past. It seemed like a perfect fit for me.
Revising, Revising, Revising
August, 2015
A Major Revision
October, 2015
Models, Props, Clothes
January, 2016
Cover Ideas
October, 2016
Baby Bea!
January, 2017
Back to England!
March, 2017
Mary’s Monster is Announced in Publishers Weekly
July, 2017
Wren & Rook
July, 2017
Final Design
September, 2017
It’s Launched
February, 2018
