What to Do When Faith and Hope are at Low Tide

Haven't spent much time on my Swords of Fire Military History of late. Too many other things going on. Besides, it is an overwhelming task which is going to take weeks to complete, even with dedicated time.

Even with my new and improved system I know I am creating errors, but that's hard to avoid when dealing with so many variables. I'm far enough along now that I don't want to stop and reset. I'm just going to continue on from where I'm at and try to avoid mistakes in the future.

One of the basic problems I have is the disparity in population from year to year. Succeeding generations had significantly higher populations than their predecessors. However, with the rule that parents remained home with their young children, and the difference in age between children and parents, about the time the parental generation was retiring from active military service, the child generation was beginning to have their own children. This results in a swift decline of military forces, and realigning companies becomes almost a yearly constant until the new parents are able to return to active duty, and their own children are old enough to join, too.

Right now, at Year 77, I am in the midst of a massive withdrawal of troops. There were 169 warriors in military service that year. In Year 78 that number dropped to 137. The force will go as low as 43 warriors in Years 85 and 86. Then it begins to climb again, peaking in just 25 years before cycling down again.

Each peak in numbers is a bit higher than the previous, and the lows don't fall quite so low. By tYear 352, which is the present for the Swords of Fire Saga, the military never drops below 800 warriors. Numbers are on the upswing as my main character's generation is joining military ranks in huge numbers each year.

Compiling all of this information into a logical order is much more difficult than just writing a story. Yet without this work, any story I write seems hollow. This background information is the substance from which history is made. And it is history which makes great stories.

Sadly, I am currently in one of my "it's never going to be published" moods. This is not just because I have been recently rejected (again). It is also because in order to submit to the next place I found I must have a synopsis. I just don't believe I know how to do that. Not well, anyway. Right now it's hard for me to believe in much of anything. So, I plod along with my detailed work, knowing it only matters to me in any case. Ultimately, that's kind of what I'm left with.