Chateau Lloyd

Now that my schedule has loosened up a bit, I'm able to seriously think about writing.  The question then turns into what I should write?

After 11 books, I've covered many of the topics that have interested me.  Scorpion's Pass has scratched an itch from my college days, as have both Long Live Death and Walls of Men.  

Battle Officer Wolf got the whole authorship rolling, and it's got a sequel built into the original concept.

The Man of Destiny series allowed me to work out my Star Wars prequel hate and create a new universe of my own.

Similarly, Vampires of Michigan has the potential to be a franchise if I want do go that way.

Three Weeks with the Coasties was originally intended to be an introduction into semi-autobiographic writings on my military experience.

Finally, there's plenty of space for more game designs and even an update of Conqueror: Fields of Victory.

Given this vast amount of open terrain for creativity, why am I not using it?

The answer, I think, is boredom.  Having done a topic, I'm done with it.  I simply cannot relate to authors or filmmakers who want to constantly revisit their earlier work.

That being said, I'm now looking at things a little differently, and seeing if a story I'm turning over in my head might fit in an existing setting rather than needing a new one.

And yes, there is some commercial element to this as a new title will bring the older ones to the forefront and timed with a discount, could boost my sales.  However, since my motivation is pleasure rather than profit, this is not persuasive to me.

A better argument is that I enjoyed creating my characters and settings and revisiting them could be a fun way to tell new stories about people I haven't talked about in a while.  This is beginning to resonate with me.

Looking over my site, I realized that I don't have a comprehensive discussion of the Man of Destiny series.  I have updates on its composition, publication announcements, but nothing to give an interested reader detailed information on why this would be a worthwhile read for them.  This post is intended to remedy that.

I've blown past my original deadline, but the end is at last somewhat in sight.

I've set aside time this weekend to push through World War II and get into Korea.  For those keeping score at home, the current word count is more than 64,000, quite a bit more than Long Live Death.

In fact, this is currently the second-longest book I've written.  (The current record-holder is Fall of the Commonwealth.)

The biggest challenge is knowing when to stop.  In earlier areas, there simply wasn't much information out there, so I wasn't tempted to go into great detail.  Sources are much more plentiful about modern conflicts.  Not only do I risk going into an unnecessary amount of detail, I also am tempted to do more research than necessary, which is far more time consuming.

Ironically, I think the work I've done on the warlord period and now WW II will make my discussion of the Chinese Civil War go much faster since the legacy of those conflicts clearly shaped the later one.

Once one understands that the Nationalists had effectively spent an entire generation at war, it is understandable that their forces were generally exhausted by 1946.

Of course the first draft is just that - a starting point, and I'll certainly have to go back and shore up various concepts and points during revision.  I am looking forward to finishing, though.  Hopefully that's only a few weeks away.

Today The Imperial Rebellion went up on Amazon.  The series is done and available for purchase.

The complete "Man of Destiny" series runs 250,000 words and more than 1,000 printed pages.  I often wondered if I could write a trilogy.

Well, I guess I can't, because I had to add an extra book.

Still, it's pretty cool having it done.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I'm now reviewing the proofs for Man of Destiny's fourth book, "The Imperial Rebellion."

It will take a me a few days to go over them but it looks like things are right on schedule.

The title is a last-minute change.  I had been using "Destinies Fulfilled" as a working title, but I never really liked it.  This was because Man of Destiny was supposed to be a trilogy.  When I decided to press ahead with a fourth book, I had no idea what to call it.

I think "The Imperial Rebellion" is consistent with the other titles.  The cover is pretty cool, too.

I'm told that the ending is particularly good, but of course I would say that, wouldn't I?

“Fall of the Commonwealth” is now available for the Kindle and in paperback. 

This is the longest book in the series because so much is going on.  It was the most fun of all the books to write because after three years of working on the series, I really felt close to the characters. 

Justin Tolliver really comes into his own in this book.  The romance between Adam Flyte and Cristen Morra also develops more fully, but my proof readers tell me that the real love story is between Phae and Arrin Morra as they fight to preserve their marriage amidst war and political upheaval.

“Fall of the Commonwealth” also explores how conflict can drive people to extreme measures.  There’s a widespread belief that once one side senses defeat, the heart goes out of it and the war comes to an end.  That’s actually the opposite of what usually happens.

The Alliance knows it is losing, and Richard Martel and Oliver Praeto have to decide how far they are willing to go to turn the tide. 

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of dissention in the Commonwealth ranks, particularly between the Ordo Militaris and the Ministry of Defense.   Maxim Darius knows that nobody wanted him to become Premier and he also knows that plans are already in motion to kick him out.  He’s got a lot of enemies and only one of them needs to get lucky to bring him down.

If all goes according to plan, the final book in the series will be released in a few weeks.