I'm doing this all wrong.

I should be writing a compelling story chapter by chapter, each one ending in cliffhangers to keep you coming back. Most authors do this, filling in lore and world-building details as they go along. If I was smart, that's what I'd do. Instead, I'm not even writing chapters...yet…

(There are chapters posted here but they're beta for now. They're largely there so you can get a sense of my style and I can make sure the website works the way I intend it to. Feel free to read them but be aware they may change. That said, they will be the first chapters, so you can read them knowing that they won't just go away.)

I am, at the very core of my being, a detail person. I can't help it. It's not a decision so much as it's a way of being, the way I experience the world. I can't write a story without knowing all the details first. I've learned that my best stories come when the protagonists are real people moving through a real world steeped in history and culture. So I'm starting with the world building.

I don't intend on building the entire world before I start writing. That would be absurd. If I did that I'd probably never actually write a story. Instead, I'm going to get some of the main overarching lore (Worlds, Magic, Technology, etc) in place, then dive into the culture and history of specific parts of the world. Once those parts of the world are fleshed out, then I'll start releasing chapters of my protagonist(s) in that part of the world.

I anticipate a cadence where I release lore for a bit, then follow with stories for a while in that part of the world I've fleshed out, only to switch back to lore in a different part of the world. Of course, as this continues, more and more chapters will be released as the story returns to places I've already fleshed out.

To be clear: I've already "written" something like 60 chapters, usually containing the first 6-10 chapters of just over half a dozen protagonists. Also, the general outline of the worlds, politics, and cultures are largely in place—I've been working on this for years already. This has given me a lot of context I can use as guidelines for how I build the world, but I also anticipate my world building will force me to go back and alter or even rewrite chapters as I align these stories to the world I'm building around them.

This is probably not the way I should do it, but I've come to realize if I don't do it this way I may end up not doing it at all. So I figure a product released poorly is better than none at all.