Guest Post: COMPLETING A TRILOGY by David K. Hulegaard

This guest post come to you from David K. Hulegaard, author of the recently completed Noble Trilogy. Before I hand over to my good friend Dave, however, I’d like to say that it’s always pleasure having him here. Ever since meeting him when we both contributed to Resistance Front (featuring Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster, Bernard Schaffer et al) he has done all he can to help his fellow writers out. Whether it’s a blog post, a review (and always a completely honest review, at that) or even something small like an RT on Twitter . . . Dave will always give that little bit more of himself to assist others. He has done nothing but support my work since I first came on to the writing scene, and I owe him more than can be written here.

So congratulations, Dave, on the completion of your trilogy after so many years of hard work. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Here’s Dave:

Completing a Trilogy

by David K. Hulegaard

When I finished writing Bloodlines—the second book in the Noble series—I almost gave up on the idea of making it a trilogy. I had some ideas regarding where I wanted to take the story, but after witnessing the extremely vitriolic reaction toward another trilogy I was close to at the time, I started to second-guess myself. However, with the cliffhanger ending I’d left readers with, I knew abandoning the trilogy was not an option.

I took some time away from the series to work on other projects, but failed to make much progress on any of them. It became rather apparent that my brain would not allow me to focus on anything else until I gave the trilogy a proper ending. After a five-month break, I compiled my notes and began work on the next book.

While on a train headed toward San Francisco in September of 2012, I wrote the first chapter to the then-untitled WIP. That first chapter later became chapter four, and that untitled WIP eventually released under the name Noble: New World Order in May of 2014.

Yes, you read that right. It took me almost two years to complete the book. Why? The same trepidation I felt in the beginning never completely went away. It continued to whisper in my ear with every plot decision I made, forcing me to lose valuable time as I toiled over whether or not I was making good creative choices. Eventually, I became completely absorbed within the story and confident in my creation. Once I had achieved that, all the useless trepidation disappeared.

In the end, yes, I did make a lot of risky decisions, but I couldn’t be happier with how the book turned out. I reached a point early on in Bloodlines where I knew I’d taken that particular arc as far as it could go. It was time to be bold and show the reader another view of the story. That view comes in the form of a new protagonist named Desmond Kalish, who joins the story at its climax where the action really heats up.

Although I am sad to see this trilogy reach its end, I am so very proud of the work I put into it. In total, I spent over four years writing the series, and I took great care in weaving elements of Sci-Fi, noir, levity, conspiracy theory, and urban legend together into one epic tale. The result is something that makes me smile, and I hope it will do the same for you, too.