The Real Problem

Most writers are waiting for a flood.

The big launch.
The viral post.
The book that finally breaks and carries the rest of the career on its back.

And while they wait, they measure themselves against everyone who looks like they already got theirs, and they feel behind.

*sigh*

I spent a chunk of my life on that hill.
It absolutely, unequivocally, sucked.

Let me tell you what I learned.

The flood is not a plan.
It is a wish with a scoreboard attached.

A real living does not arrive all at once. It doesn’t come from beating another author, either. It comes from something much smaller and much more in your control.

The great part is once you see it you cannot unsee it.

When people ask how I have raised a family on my writing, they expect some big number.
Monumental sales.
Massive book signings.
…and I just laugh.

I’m sitting here, at my keyboard right now, debating whether to write any more. No one listens to me about this. I’m not sure why, unless it’s because I’m not famous, or I’m not some millionaire in the papers.

Hell, most people have never heard of me.

But my bills get paid.
My lights are still on.
…and I LOVE my work, my readers…and my life.

*sigh*

Here’s the boring version.
My books do not roar.
They trickle.

And a trickle, it turns out, is probably the most powerful thing a writer can learn to build.

The Framework: The Trickle Strategy

I don’t believe blueprints work for us, when it comes to creatives.

We’re all so very different…in temperament, endurance, capacity, perspectives, determination and the list goes on. So I’m going to share PRINCIPLES with you.

The basic things that WILL work,…but YOU have to apply them in YOUR way, according to YOUR circumstances.

Five steps. That’s all it is. Work these in order, but DON’T skip the last one.

This is all on you, cupcake.

Read more

There is a lie you absorbed so early you never questioned it.

It says writing is a race.

Somebody is ahead of you, somebody is gaining on you, and if you just push harder than them, you win.

Let me tell you what that lie once cost me.

Years ago I entered a month-long writing event. It’s where the platform tracked everyone’s word count on a live leaderboard.
It was my favorite contest.
I looked forward to this each year with crazy anticipation.
Those who know me use the term ‘prolific writer’, but there’s a better term, IMHO…

Insane.

Every single morning I looked, and every single morning one name sat anywhere from three to twenty thousand words ahead of me.

So I pushed.

Coffee, naps, writing.
Coffee, naps, writing.
When my arthritis stopped me, I asked my my wife to massage my hands.
I popped ibuprofen and aspirin like they were Pez candy.

The result?

I wrote three hundred and sixty-eight thousand words in one month to beat that competing writer.

When it was over, my body literally shut down.
I was so sick I disappeared for two weeks.

Then I found out the truth about the man I had been racing.

He was a very nice guy from Russia, who didn’t even know the event existed.
Hell, he didn’t know Jaime Buckley existed.
It still hurts to think about this…
He wasn’t writing at all.

…he was uploading pages out of gaming manuals to build a world for his tabletop game!

My favorite platform in the whole world WAS COUNTING EVERY LINE!!

*ARRRGH!!*

I had wrecked my health chasing a person who wasn’t even IN the race.
I wasn’t losing to a writer….
I was losing to a library.

[I will pause here as you laugh at me.]
[No, really, it’s okay,…I’m over it now. Go ahead…]

That’ what comparison does.

It picks a number off someone else’s screen and convinces you your whole worth is stapled to it!

It’s a complete and total LIE.
You have no idea what that number even is, or if the person holding it is running at all!

My friend Kummer Wolfe shared his view on the podcast.

[mic drop]

So listen to me…

Put the scoreboard down.

Not because comparison is impolite, but because it is bad math.
It measures you against a number you cannot see, held by someone who may not be playing your game.
…or any game at all.

The only writer worth measuring against is the one you were, last chapter.

In the newest episode of Nothing About This Is Safe, and I walk through this, and then into the part that actually pays the bills.

Listen here. 👉🏼 🎙 EPISODE 15: How Do You Make a Living as a Fiction Writer Without a Bestseller?

And when you’re ready to stop chasing one big break, I can show you how to build income you can actually control. The deep dive lays out the whole method, step by step, with a worksheet included.

Read the deep dive. 👉🏼 How Fiction Writers Turn One Book Into Steady Income: The Trickle Strategy

Your Turn

What would change in your writing life if you stopped comparing yourself to other writers and just focused on the next piece of work?

Join Us

If this hit home, subscribe for more unfiltered truth about writing life, mindset, and creative courage.

If you want the deep-dive framework that shows you how to build a sustainable audience without chasing algorithmic favor, it’s waiting for you in the paid companion article.

Share JaimeBuckley.com

About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the monthly writing-truth podcast hosted by , featuring candid conversations with working authors. We go after the real questions fiction writers actually search for ... craft, identity, mindset, publishing reality, money, and creative survival ... without sugarcoating and without performance.

If a writer is looking for an honest answer, these are the conversations you want to listen to.

Share

Leave a comment

Jaime Buckley
Nothing about this is safe, but it’s worth it.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

There is a race almost every writer is running, and nobody signed them up for it.

You look at another author’s numbers…
…another author’s launch,
…another author’s follower count,
…and some quiet voice says you’re behind.

I know that voice.
[bastard]

I once let it talk me into writing three hundred and sixty-eight thousand words in a single month to beat a leaderboard.

Dead serious.

If I could have figured out how to put hot coffee through an I.V., I probably would have tried it.

Hurt myself so badly, I ended up in bed for two weeks.
What hurt even more,…was when I found out who I was actually racing.

Kummer Wolfe and I sat down and took the whole thing apart...

WHY comparison is a losing game for everybody, and WHAT you build instead…once you finally put it down.

Episode Overview

Kummer and I go back to the World Anvil days, and we both landed on Substack the same way a lot of writers do...

By accident.
Chasing something else.

…and then never leaving.

So this one starts where two friends usually start: a rough tech day, a house full of grandkids, and the small relief of the right tool finally working.

The spine of the whole conversation is a simple one:

Kummer says it best...

We got honest about money, because encouragement that ignores the rent is just…well, stupid.

I lay out the way I actually think about income (which I rarely do), and share how to add up to something that feeds a family.

It isn’t a lecture or a pep talk, so don’t worry.

It’s just two working authors who love this life, talking about how to survive it without losing your mind to a stupid scoreboard.

This Episode Answers

• How do I make a living as a fiction writer if I do not have a bestseller?

• Why does comparing myself to other authors keep making me miserable and broke?

• What do I do instead of chasing volume or one big break?

• How does the way AI recommends books change what a small author should do right now?

Highlights

• The 368,000-word month... the World Ember leaderboard, two sick weeks, and the gut-punch reveal of who was actually “ahead”

• Kummer’s castle-wall reframe... every writer running the same hill, and why reaching back to pull someone up never costs you the climb

• The Trickle Strategy... learn to make one book trickle, then build a hundred trickles, until it is a stream, a river, a flood

• The hard truth... comparison is a losing game even for the person who thinks they are winning

• The free advantage most writers miss... readers now ask AI who to read, and you can feed it the accurate, true version of you

  ---

Key Quote

Episode Goal

Put down the scoreboard.

Stop measuring your career against writers who may not even be in the race. Instead, start measuring it against your own last chapter.

Then trade the fantasy of one big break for the quieter, kinder math of building trickles you actually control.

From Jaime

If this one loosened something in your chest, do the thing the whole episode is about... reach back and hand it to another writer who needs it.

Then go deeper.

The free article opens up the comparison trap and how to walk out of it.

The paid deep dive hands you the Trickle Strategy step by step with a worksheet to map your own.

The free Round Table Discussion guide is there so you can work it through with your own writing people, or come do it with us live.

You are MORE than you THINK you are

…and so is the writer sitting across the table from you.

Join Us

- Free Article: Why Comparing Yourself to Other Writers Is a Losing Game
- Paid Deep Dive: How Fiction Writers Turn One Book Into Steady Income: The Trickle Strategy
- The Round Table Discussion (free guide + live GoBrunch) 👉🏼 Why Do Writers Beat Comparison Faster Together Than Alone?

…and visit my buddy Kummer. You won't regret it, I promise.

Worlds of Kummer Wolfe

Hi! I’m CB “Kummer Wolfe” Ash. Here on “Worlds of Kummer Wolfe”, I write fantasy adventure, alternate history, dark fantasy all with a dash of science fantasy thrown in for fun! Interested in my books? Head on over to The Book Vault on the newsletter!

About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the monthly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring candid conversations with working authors. We go after the real questions fiction writers actually search for ... craft, identity, mindset, publishing reality, money, and creative survival ... without sugarcoating and without performance.

If a writer is looking for an honest answer, these are the conversations you want to listen to.

Jaime Buckley
Nothing about this is safe, but it’s worth it.

Share

Leave a comment

Reading this episode alone will teach you something.

Talking it through with other writers will change you.

That is not a slogan.

It is how craft has always actually moved...not down from a stage, but across a table.

Writer to writer.

Each one teaching what they know, and admitting what they do not.

So here is your table.

Take everything from this episode...the podcast, the free article, and the deep dive...and put it to work in a real conversation.

I pulled the biggest ideas into a Round Table Discussion Guide you can download, print, and bring to your writing group.

No gimmicks.
No tricks.
No charge.

There is no guru at the head of this table.
Everyone brings something.
Everyone leaves sharper.

The Round Table Discussion Guide

4.82KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Do not have a writing group?

You do now.

This is a new idea and I'm crossing all my fingers (AND toes) in the hope that this will help you and those you know.

I've provided an open Round Table on GoBrunch, it has 12 seats available, and you are invited.
It's open 24/7/365 for you and fellow writers to use.

It does not matter where in the world you live...if you have a camera and a microphone, you have a seat. Invite your friends, bring them here, use our resources.

Not sure how long I can provide them, but for now…enjoy.
I want you to succeed.

Take these same questions and dig in together, face to face, writers teaching writers.

Join the live Round Table on GoBrunch

Come hone your craft.
Come teach someone else theirs.

That is the whole point...

You are more than you think you are, and so is the writer sitting across from you.

I need to explain some history.

About twenty years of it, so I’m going to do it microwave style.

In 2005 I started building a world online called Wanted Hero.

I couldn’t get my dream job with Marvel, DC, or Image comics, so I decided to build my own idea online. For the record, it was my 86 year old father’s idea. He said,

You already know the choice I made.

Many told me I couldn’t do it. Even more mocked me.
I proved them all wrong.

Twenty years, one world, through comics and novels and games, growing a family of fifteen...and a ‘few’ disasters.

I’ve written about those elsewhere.

Somewhere in those years, I stopped guessing.
I’d love to tell myself it’s because I got smart.
Uhhh, no.

Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious.

In fact, I STILL don’t want to teach…I want to write and create.

My children, and readers, and even other writers wanted to know how I was doing what I was doing…

WHY didn’t I ever suffer from ‘writers’s block’?
HOW was I cranking out so many stories and ideas (long before an AI showed up)?
WHAT was I doing to seamlessly interconnect these addictive ideas?

So I reversed engineered what I was doing by habit, so others could do the same.

That’s it. That was my whole plan.

Just share, NOT TEACH.

When I sent my formed idea to my friend, David Farland, he said, “You have to write this, Jaime. Your generation of writers needs this.”

So I wrote a book about it, published it, and went back to writing.

Sigh.

Writers wanted more.

It’s taken me a year to get here, but you’re worth it:

Advanced Worldbuilding.

56 lessons, with a companion worksheet for every one...everything I know about building a world. Fictional worlds that feel alive and a stories that readers love, become addicted to, and want to return to over and over again.

This is the exact material/methods/principles I use every day in my writing.

Something you should understand: You will not find this material elsewhere. This is the only course built from decades of doing it for a living... turned into a system that engineers a world strong enough to survive its readers.

UPDATE: We had writers contacting me, saying they wanted the course, but just couldn't afford it at the $700 mark. So I talked with Kindlepreneur, and suggested we offer a deeper discount for the few remaining days.

UNTIL AUGUST 8th writers will receive a $500 discount through Kindlepreneur.com coupon below, then $1,000 after.

Same deal for you, same window.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

Use their coupon: DAVEROCKS

• If you’re just starting out and want a ‘super serum’ for creativity, this is it.

• If your world is a beautiful pile of fragments with no spine...this is the fix, and I built it from the scar tissue.

• If you’re a writer of fiction, including game designers (yes, I’m talking to you, TTRPGers), this course will change the way you view writing and story creation for the rest of your career.

That’s the whole pitch.
No countdown timers, no fake bonuses.

Back to the craft on schedule this week.

The launch doesn’t change what this place is.

Jaime

Share

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

I had a meltdown.

Substack rolled out AI detection, and I went and read the comment sections.

Big mistake, I know.

Somebody in there was asking for a button so they could destroy every writer using AI.

?????!

I have been doing this since 1990.
Everything I have built, I built without AI.

And the first year I finally have a tool that lets me get the stories out of my head faster than my body is failing...somebody tears the front door off my house and tells everyone walking by to come check whether they approve of what I’m doing.

What…the…hell.

So I called two friends and hit record.

Episode Overview

This is not a defense. I’m done being defensive about this, and you should be too.

is a librarian by training and an author by trade, and she says the quiet thing first: detection is not information literacy. Information literacy asks who wrote this, where did it come from, is this person reputable, how did they work. Detection asks one question, badly, and calls it a verdict.

She fed her own hand-written post into Pangram and it came back 100% AI.

, author and publisher, drops the line the whole conversation turns on. When you paste somebody’s post into a detector, you are feeding that person’s content into an AI. That is what the tool is. So the anti-AI crusade has been handed a machine that runs on exactly what it claims to be protecting...and the more zealous you are, the more you feed it.

And here is the second half of it, the part that should stop you cold: we already want to be scanned. We want the AI librarian to find us and recommend us. Nobody in this conversation is anti-machine. We are just refusing to pretend the reins are not in our hands.

Then it opens up: The tools that promise to make you “sound human” by inserting errors into work you spent twenty years learning to make clean. The writer who spent $40,000 on marketing. The kid who is brilliant and dyslexic and forbidden the one tool that would let him be read. The student with no hands who is the sharpest person in the room. Alicia’s granddaddy’s granddaddy, who would not get in the motor car.

This Episode Answers

• Does running someone’s post through an AI detector actually feed their writing into an AI?

• Are AI detectors like Pangram reliable enough to accuse a writer with?

• What should a platform ask about AI instead of “human or machine?”

• How do I write an honest AI disclosure without apologizing for my own work?

• Is using AI as an author a shortcut, or is it a leveler for people without money, time, or working hands?

Highlights

• The irony at the center: to check whether a writer used AI, you must hand that writer’s work to an AI. Deleyna named it and the room went quiet.

• Alicia’s 100% AI score on a post she sat down and wrote herself, by hand, from her own questions.

• The “sound more human” industry: paste your clean prose in, get broken sentences back, and pass the test. You are being sold the right to write worse.

• Detection versus literacy. The librarian’s list of questions nobody at any platform is asking.

• The unsafe turn: the readers may not care at all. Alicia knows of three studies where audiences preferred the AI-assisted work... and nobody asked the readers before this rolled out either.

• The leveler. $40,000 marketing budgets, publicists, editors, cover designers. Some writers have that. The rest of us have a tool.

• Jaime’s line in the sand: everything on Life of Fiction and everything on jaimebuckley.com is his. All of it. The world, the words, the twenty years of notes and thousands of drawings it is trained on and nothing else. Scan away.

• Why he is not defending anymore. “I’m not going to be defensive. I want to be excited... because I am excited.”

Questions for the Table

I did not write articles for this one.

I wrote questions.

And I want to be straight with you about what these are.
These are not gotchas.

I did not build them to corner the people who disagree with me, because I have watched that happen for two days now. It has not made a single person think... it has only made people dig.

So I tried to write questions that are worth sitting with no matter which side of this you are on.

• If you are all in on AI, some of these should make you uncomfortable.

• If you will never touch it, some of these should too.

If they only sting one direction, I wrote them wrong, and you should tell me so.

Take one to a friend. Take one to your writing group. Take one to somebody who thinks the opposite of you and see if you can both get through it without raising your voice.

That is the whole point of this episode.

1. Have you considered that checking someone feeds the machine? Running a post through a detector uploads that writer’s work into an AI. If you are against AI, is that a price you are willing to pay to catch someone? If you are for it, does consent still matter when it is someone else’s words?

2. What happens to the person the machine gets wrong? Alicia wrote a post by hand and it scored 100% AI. Whatever you believe about AI, what do we owe a writer who gets accused and cannot prove a negative? Who fixes that, and how?

3. Where is your actual line, and can you say why it is there? Spell check. Grammarly. A search engine. A research assistant. A human editor. A ghostwriter. Your CELL PHONE. All AI. Most of us have a line somewhere in that list. Have you ever tried to explain to someone else why it sits exactly where it sits?

4. Have you asked your readers, or are you guessing? Not the internet. Not the comment sections. Your actual people. Do they care how the work gets made? Would you still want to know if the answer was uncomfortable for you?

5. Who is not in this conversation? The dyslexic kid whose teacher will not let him use it. The student with no hands. The writer who does not have $40,000 for marketing, or $4,000 for an editor. When we set a rule for everybody, who pays for it who never got a vote?

6. Detection, or literacy? A librarian would ask: who wrote this, where did it come from, is this person reputable, how did they work. A detector asks one question and returns a verdict. If you ran the platform, what would you have asked writers instead?

7. What are you afraid of losing? Say the real thing. Craft? Income? The years you put in? Your voice? The proof that a human made it? That fear is usually pointing at something true and worth protecting, on either side. Name it out loud and see if the person across from you is actually afraid of the same thing.

8. What would change your mind? If nothing would, that is worth knowing about yourself before you argue with anybody else.

9. Who benefits from writers fighting writers? It is not the writers.

10. What will you not hand over, ever? Everyone at this table has one. Even the people using AI hardest have a thing they will not give up. What is yours, and why that one?

Answer in the comments. Answer on your own Substack and link it back here. Ask them at your next writing group and tell me what happened.

And if you disagree with me...say so here. I would rather have you at the table arguing than reading somebody’s pitchfork thread. That is what this show is for.

Jaime Buckley
Nothing about this is safe, but it’s worth it.

Share

Leave a comment

In 2005, I started building a world online called Wanted Hero.

I was a comic book artist with a wife, a growing pile of kids, and a character named Wendell who wouldn’t leave me alone.

When I started this creation, my desire was to craft something that would produce a career.

That was over twenty years ago.

I’m still building it.

Twenty years is long enough to make every mistake worldbuilding offers...and I made most of them twice.

Heh. Apparently I’m thorough.

I built languages nobody asked for.
I mapped places no story ever visited.
At one point I spent weeks creating a menu at my Roadkill Tavern, then cooked those dishes a dozen times in my own home. It worked so well, I had to create the fantasy version of each food, the ecosystem that allowed those foods to grow underground, and then the civilization that would farm them.

You know what nobody tells you when you start down this path?

Almost none of it matters.

Not to readers. Not to the stories. Not to the world itself.

Out of twenty years of building...twenty YEARS...only three things actually moved the needle. Everything else was scaffolding I eventually tore down, or trivia nobody ever asked about.

1. The world had to matter to somebody

Not “be detailed.”

Matter.

Early on I thought depth meant detail.

I just had to pack in more history, add more cultures, and tack on more trade routes between mountain clans.

Hell, I could tell you what my gnomes ate for breakfast.
(still can, BTW)

Nobody cared.

When I created Dathern Istul, a little old book keeper, it was because he reminded me of a family member I love very much. He doesn’t have a big role in my books, and only appeared in one chapter of my series. Yet a reader wrote to me because he reminded her of her grandfather.

Detail is not depth.
Depth is when a piece of your world connects to a person... a character who needs it, a reader who recognizes it.

One connected detail beats a hundred orphaned ones.

Build the things your people touch.
Let the rest stay fog until a story walks into it.

2. Everything needed a Why

Readers can smell a world that was invented yesterday.

Writers often get annoyed when I say this, but it’s true.

They can’t tell you HOW they know.
They just know...

The city feels like a stage set;
The religion feels like a menu option;
The magic feels like a rulebook stapled to a novel.

The difference, every single time, is causation.

WHY is the city here, and not ten miles up the river?
WHY does this faith exist...what fear or hope birthed it?
WHY does the magic cost what it costs?

You don’t need more answers than the story requires. But the answers you have must connect. When they connect, the world feels DISCOVERED instead of decorated...like it was already there, and you just wrote it down.

That’s the feeling readers stay for.

3. I had to keep showing up

This is the one nobody wants to hear, so I’ll say it fast.

This world got good because I didn’t stop.

It’s not about being talented. That might not make sense to say out loud, but I’ve watched builders more talented than me quit in year two.

Several of my friends, brilliant writers, simply gave up and walked away because they didn’t see the exact results they were hoping for. Things didn’t happen as fast as they wanted.

It’s not how this works.

Pause.

This makes me VERY emotional, so I want to say this again, because I want YOU to SUCCEED.

'Fast'….is not how this works.

It's twenty years of Tuesdays.
It's producing chapters when nobody read them.
It's note files older than some of my children.
It's endless pots of coffee consumed to get that last idea onto paper.

A world doesn’t become real in a burst of inspiration.
It becomes real the way a friendship does.

Time, and showing up.

The part I didn’t expect

As I showed up day after day, month after month, year after year, I noticed something interesting.

The world wasn’t the only thing getting built.

Every ‘‘Why I answered taught me how things connect...in fiction, and in my own life.
Every character who needed something showed me what I needed.
Every year I refused to quit built a man who was harder to stop.

I set out to build a world.

The world built me back.

Yeah, I know...sounds strange, but it’s true. That’s the secret sitting under all three lessons, and it’s the one thing I know for certain after twenty years at this table:

You are MORE than you THINK you are.

Your world...the one sitting in your notes, the one you’re embarrassed about, the one with a hundred fragments and no spine...it isn’t just a project.

It’s a forge.

And you are what’s being forged.

So build it.

Badly at first, sure, but that’s what we all go through.

Connect it where it counts.

One Tuesday at a time.

Jaime

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The ugly truth about most story problems is that they don’t show up while you’re writing.

They show up in chapter seven, when a reader sets your book down on the coffee table...and doesn’t pick it back up.

Let’s stop and think about that.

It’s not because the story was boring.
It’s not because the character was unlikable.
It was because something didn’t hold.

Something felt wrong and they couldn’t name it.
Somewhere in the architecture, there was a crack.

They fell in and never climbed back out.

Did you know there’s one question that finds every single one of those cracks before your readers do?

Three letters. Total devastation.

Why?

The Question Nobody Asks

I’m serious. Ask ‘WHY’, right now, about whatever you’re working on.

“The king controls the city.”
...Why?

“The villain wants to destroy the world.” .
..Why?

Not in the abstract, villain-monologue sense.
Why, specifically?

What did the world do to him that made this the only logical conclusion?
What resource does he control that lets him pursue this without getting stabbed in a back alley on Day Two?

“Magic is illegal in this kingdom.”
...Why?

Who decided this?
Who enforces it?

What do the enforcers get paid, and how does enforcement work when magic is the very thing you’re trying to suppress?

Most writers have never actually answered these questions.

They have the idea of an answer.
A vague impression.
A feeling of backstory that never got built.
And that gap...that’s where readers fall.

The most...how should I put this...’wonderfully frustrating’ experience I’ve ever had as a writer, was handing my very first manuscript over to my wife.

She is wicked smart.
A teacher.
Clever, thoughtful, and exceptionally well read.

She’s also not one of my fans.

Oh, she loves me of course, and loves my world, even loves the story, but fantasy just isn’t her genre. So when I handed her my first book, she had a great deal of questions.

All of which started with ‘why’.

In my frustration (and her amusement), she told me, “You know these are the questions your readers are going to ask you, don’t you? The holes they WILL see and WILL question? ‘It’s magic’ won’t be good enough.”

She was 112.7% correct.

It all came out in my first wave of reviews.

Did I mention that my wife is wicked smart?

What the Question Is Actually Testing

‘Why’is not a trivia question. You’re not being quizzed on your own lore.

When you ask “why?” about any piece of your world or story, you’re stress-testing the logic. You’re acting like a detective who just walked into your story and doesn’t believe anything until they’ve seen the evidence.

When I built the gnome civilization in Chronicles...the political and religious structures, the way Father Noah consolidates power under the Church of TGII...I had to ask “why” about every single brick in that wall.

Why do the gnomes follow Noah?
What does he give them?
What does he withhold?

If the answer is “because he’s the religious leader,” that’s not an answer.

That’s a placeholder.

Real power doesn’t flow from a title.
It flows from control of something people can’t do without.

Noah controls information. He controls resources. He controls the story that the gnome people tell about themselves. That’s why they follow him.

When I knew that, the whole character snapped into place. Every choice he makes from there is logical. Even the brutal ones.

Especially the brutal ones.

Bluffs Are the Enemy

When you say something is true in your world without being able to defend it, that’s a bluff.

Bluffs feel fine at first. You write past them. You figure you’ll come back. But you don’t come back, because the story is moving and there’s always another chapter to write.

Then chapter seven happens.

The reader falls in.

The good news: bluffs are easy to find.

Just start asking “why” and don’t stop until you run out of answers.
The last answer before you run out...*that’s* the bluff.

“The ancient order of knights protects the realm.”

Why? What do they get in return?

“They’re bound by honor.”

Why is honor a binding force in this culture?
What happens to someone who breaks it?

“They lose their knighthood.”

What does knighthood actually give them? Status? Resources? Access?

“...Status, I guess.”

Right. That’s the bluff.

Status is the answer you give when you haven’t built the actual system yet.

Go build it.

What does status do in this world?

Can it be traded?
Inherited?
Stripped?
Who controls it?

Ask “why” four or five levels deep and you’ll find the bluff almost every time.

How to Run This on Your Own Work

Pick the single most important structural element in your story. The power system, the villain’s plan, the protagonist’s core wound, the magic rules... whatever holds the most weight.

Now ask “why” until you can’t answer.

Write down the last answer you have.
That’s your starting point, not your ending point.
That’s the thing you now need to build.

This is not comfortable.

You’re going to discover things you thought were solid are actually held together with narrative wishful thinking.

But that’s not a failure, my friend.
That’s the work.

Every bluff you expose during this process saves you from three broken chapters later.

Here’s the other side of this coin: when you can answer “why” five levels deep, something shifts.

The writing gets cleaner.
The scenes get more specific.
Characters make harder choices, because now those choices are attached to real systems with real consequences.

Readers feel that.
They can’t always articulate it, but they feel it.

It’s the difference between a world that feels lived-in and a world that feels like a movie set.

One has walls.
The other is just painted canvas held up with wire.

The most powerful session I’ve ever had within my own world, was when I asked ‘Why’ my main antagonist sought for power.

No, I’m not going to tell you the answer.

Go read the books.

The Honest Version of the Question

Sometimes “why” isn’t the right lens. Sometimes what you really need to ask is the harder cousin:

Your king has power. What are the three specific things he controls that make it impossible to remove him without catastrophic cost?

Name them.
Not in the abstract.
Name them concretely.

Your protagonist is haunted by their past. What did they do, specifically? Not “something dark.”

The thing.
The name.
The room.
The choice.

Your magic has rules.

Walk me through what happens the first time someone breaks one.
Not in theory.
In a scene.

Concreteness is the test. Vague answers are bluffs in disguise.

If you can answer the “what holds this up?” question with three specific, concrete, defensible facts... you’ve built something real.

If you fumble it...you know what to do.

Go ask why.

When “Why” Breaks Something Good

One more thing, because I’ve seen this happen and I want to prepare you for it.

Sometimes you ask “why” and you realize the answer requires you to rebuild something you already love.

A worldbuilding detail you were proud of.
A character history that felt solid.
A plot mechanism you thought was working.

That’s the hardest version of this.

When “why” doesn’t expose a missing piece...it exposes that an existing piece doesn’t fit.

Do it anyway.

Here’s why: the thing you built on top of that broken foundation?

It’s also broken.
You just can’t see it yet.
Your reader will.

Not in a way they can articulate, but in that chapter-seven moment when they set your book down.

Tearing out the bad foundation and rebuilding it is never fun.
It’s one of those writing weeks where you feel like you’re going backward.

But you’re not.
You’re the only writer in the room who actually checked.

Most writers skip this step and pay for it later, in reviews.

[*cough* *cough* Never personally experienced that, of course. *cough*]

You’re not most writers.

Ask why.

Follow it all the way down.

Build from what survives.

After years of building (NOT just up to chapter seven), I had to rip down an entire race and belief system that half my world was based on.

I know that pain.

...but I also know the rewards on the other side.

It’s transformational.

Do the work.

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If you want to run this kind of stress-test across your entire world, not just one element at a time, the UP-CHUCK system is built for exactly that. It’s one of the core frameworks inside the Advanced Worldbuilding course, and it’ll take you from “cool idea” to a structurally sound world in a way that changes how you write permanently.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The Real Problem

Most authors believe discoverability is something that happens to them. A machine somewhere decides whether readers find you, and you either get lucky or you do not. That is the most expensive belief in publishing right now, because it is wrong, and because acting on it hands your entire future to a retailer’s algorithm and a shrug.

Here is the truth and I circled for the length of the episode:

The first is the volume brand.

Hundreds of titles, discoverability rented from Amazon, betting the bank on how much you can produce.

It is a real path, and for some writers it is the right one.
But its ceiling is set by the retailer.

And as those platforms close their doors to outside AI crawlers, everything you built lives and dies inside a walled garden you do not own.

Your reach is not yours.
You are renting it.

The second is the depth brand.

Fewer, richer works and a story world readers want to live inside.

It is discoverable by AI precisely because it is specific, layered, and unmistakably yours.

It earns more per reader.
It travels beyond any single store.
And it is the one thing a machine cannot manufacture.

This is the path this framework builds.

The Framework: The Calculated Choice

Five steps. Work them in order. Do not skip the last one.

Step One: Name What Only You Can Claim.

Old branding was a headshot, a tagline, and a color scheme.

That is decoration.

Real branding now is a position: your themes, the beliefs living under your stories, the lived experience that shows up on the page whether you intend it or not.

On the show, Alicia described reading her great-great-grandfather's handwritten autobiography. A man born into slavery who taught himself to read and write, and realizing her themes carry legacy, history, and ancestry that no other author can copy.

That is a brand.

Another writer can share your genre.
Nobody can share your record.

Find the three or four themes that are load-bearing in everything you make, and name them out loud.

Read more

Something told me this would work.

From the moment I set that pencil to paper, sketching out the first picture of Wendell, I knew it would be a success. He had the right name, the right age, the right intent and need for growth…everything was perfect…to create an epic adventure to share with the world.

Life of Fiction is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

That’s why I turned my back and screwed it all up.

It’s taken me until now to realize how powerful fear can be. But not the fear I thought it was:

• The fear that I couldn’t draw the pictures.

• The fear of not being able to write the story.

• The fear that people wouldn’t like the story or the artwork.

• The fear that people wouldn’t buy the eComic at all.

• The fear that I couldn’t be consistent enough to make it work.

No.

The genuine fear…was that I would succeed.

What would I do if everything went right? If after all the pain and pressure and pushing past all the nay-sayers and roadblocks, I actually made it all work, and the comics took off?

If it all did work, the only place to go from there might be down.

Oh, criticize me if you wish, but that’s where I felt terrified. I’d been used to struggling. Been used to fighting for my life, to be seen, to stand up under the weight of criticism and mockery. To getting up one more time than someone knocked me down…

So what would I do if there wasn’t that fierce opposition?

The thought made my hands shake.

…then they broke.

The End of Wanted Hero

Distractions can put a stop to our progress if we’re not careful.

I was never careful.

The story changed when I started to admire people online. You know those intense rabbit holes we get lost in from time to time, where you look for a DIY project and end up watching the latest bad auditions on American idol instead?

Yeah, that’s when I discovered some amazing people in real life, who I thought would make amazing characters in my comics, and if I was lucky, sell more comics. So I reached out, pitched more than a dozen folks, and got a ‘yes’ from everyone. That’s when the Nethinim came to life. A group of characters, meant to be myths and to stay in the background, now took a front-row seat next to Wendell in the comic books.

With each issue, those real life people told their circle of influence, and my readership grew.

Yes, that’s a good thing. Did I technically hurt anyone? No. But I should have done this for more honorable reasons. I should have been a better friend to these people I admired and wanted to promote to the youth of the world.

I think that might be why Karma showed up, noticed I hadn’t been returning her calls from our last date, and exacted a petty revenge.

…and my hands stopped working.

Literally one morning, I woke up, went to grab a glass of orange juice from the counter…and the glass shattered on the floor. I’d lost the fine motor skills of my hands and could no longer make comic books. Concerned, I set an appointment with a neurologist, and went in.

My father drove me and sat in the waiting room…a small closet with three chairs and a coffee table scrunched up against our shins. The doctor walked in, towering over us like some bald-headed cave troll in a white lab jacket. Guy had to be close to seven feet tall. With a low, gravel-rich tone, he grumbled, “Jaime? Jaime Buckley?”

My dad peeked over at me from behind the magazine. “He’s not calling my name.”

I gulped and stood up.

The doctor put a hand out as I approached the door.

“You need to know three things before we got back. First, I’m going to insert a lot of needles into your hands, arms and back. Second, it’s going to hurt like hell …but if you move or flinch, we’ll have to start all over again. And third,” he leaned down to smile into my face, “I love my job.”

I gulped again.

He wasn’t kidding. When he was close to the last five needles, he inserted one between my fingers and I cried out, nearly bouncing off the table. The doctor grunted, swore something in a language I didn’t recognize, and started yanking the needles out. He started over, as did the pain.

This time, I gritted my teeth.

Turns out that car accident killed 29% of the nerves in my back and arms, and there was nothing they could do for my hands.

My world caved in on my hopes, and depression set in. Without a single word to my readers, I stopped drawing Wanted Hero and walked away.

I needed to look for a job.

How Fiction Can Feed A Family

Drawing was my whole life. It’s what I had always done, and all I truly wanted to do. It was my way of connecting with people. So it came as a complete shock when I went to an MLM meeting and found my new purpose. All I was trying to do was get out of the house to shake off my depression.

Yet there I watched people lined up, wanting to hear about a Money Merge Account, from a company called United First Financial, or UFirst for short. It was a chance to help people, and my mind saw all the possibilities online, using the skills I’d developed crafting my comic books.

My best friend almost gasped when I said, “I’m in.”

Little did I know this was the hard path the Universe would send me on, to get me back to Wanted Hero.

My skills in developing my website allowed me and my three partners to dominate the internet and all Google results. In fact, when UFirst said ‘no’ to my initial request for special positioning within the company, I showed them why it was in their best interests to agree with me. While sitting in the boardroom with the two owners, I pulled up the search results for their company under their own software terms. They were in ninth place.

The rest were mine.

When they asked what it would take for me to get those results for the company, I asked for my original placement for our company…and a job contract. I would build the SEO for UFirst over the next 90 days, for $87,000.

They agreed.

Cause, ya know…no one wanted to go to the library and learn how to do it on their own.

(wink)

On another occasion, I stopped by the head office and saw that one owner was frustrated and angry. The company was trying to take training materials and make them into a popular new thing called a ‘podcast’ for the agents in the field. Apparently, the company they’d hired took three weeks per episode, for a cost of $3500 each.

“I’ll do it for $1500 each,” I said plainly, “…and I can get an episode done in 72 hours, not three weeks.”

At first he didn’t believe me, but I explained I had all the equipment to make it happen. I’d created my own podcasts for kids with Wanted Hero (listen to a sample below).

Their legal staff had also trained me, so I was more qualified and able to find the correct edits than the hired company. He agreed when I offered to prove myself. I’d take one episode, get it edited, and if he liked it, he’d give me the rest of the training sessions or $1500 each. This first one was a ‘gift’.

I took the disc back to my office, got the edit done over lunch, and delivered it back to him before he left the office for the day.

He gave me the ten remaining sessions the next morning with a, “Damn, you’re good.”

Before the end of the workday, I completed editing, refining, and converting both tapes into mp3 and mp4 formats, and loaded them onto his personal iPod. When I showed up at his office, a satisfactory grin on my face (and one hell of a migraine from pushing so hard), he just laughed and shook his head.

He wrote me a check for $15,000 on the spot.

Money Often Brings Out A Person’s True Nature

I went from barely making a mortgage payment and having enough food on the table to making six figures a year. I’d become good at what I was doing. My partners and I, known as the Jubilee Project, gained a measure of fame in certain financial circles. In fact, what I was doing online was such an asset, my partners and I were soon brought into corporate meetings behind closed doors. They informed us about certain issues and challenges and requested our help to solve them.

Before long, they asked me to be an online hitman of sorts.

To go after certain companies and individuals who were stealing information from UFirst and using it. They shifted my role to focus on exposing the lies of competitors, so our mother company, UFirst, could thrive. I was ready to crack my knuckles and hunker down to an online war, but there was a problem.

Research, meetings and close listening showed us the opposing company wasn’t the devil.

We worked for him.

I don’t remember ever feeling so sick to my stomach, so angry, or wanting to drive my minivan into an executive building before. Luckily, my partners were more mature and calm than I. “It’s okay. Now we know. We’ll just resign and switch companies.”

Yeahhhhh, nope. Doesn’t work that way.

In fact, UFirst was so afraid of what we would do, what we could do, they went for our throats. They sued us, both our company and us personally. All but one of us lost our homes, our other businesses…and they kept hitting until they put our lawyer out of business. To this day, I remember taking the served papers and confronting the UFirst lawyer.

“We know we don’t have a case. Utah is a right-to-work state. But we have unlimited pockets, so good luck.”

Where was John Wick and his pencil at that moment, eh?

I went from six figures to bankrupt and homeless with eleven children before you could say, “Oh, shit.”

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Why Not Suffer For Your Own Dream?

If you have never been homeless, I don’t recommend the experience. Especially if you have a family.

We’ve done homeless three times.

If you don’t have enough love to drown out the hopelessness, pain, and suffering, bad things can happen.

At one point, I woke up with a terrified feeling wrenching my gut. I went from bed to bed, checking to make sure everyone was safe.

Someone was missing.

Racing into the night, I screamed their name and then listened. Over and over I yelled, moving further away from my sleeping family. To this day I thank God I was on time. She was sobbing, curled up in the middle of the road, waiting to be run over.

If you ever encounter a homeless person, please, be kind.

I promise, no matter what they look like, they are hurting in ways you don’t understand.

We experienced sudden and repeating blows from life, making me believe once again that the Universe had something against me. But why did it hate my wonderful wife and innocent children?

I’d tried to do the right things, for the right reasons, but here I was, lost…without a job, or the ability to find one…and no idea what to do next. All the creative tools I had left fit into a simple backpack, where I kept my Mac laptop from Jubilee, and an external hard drive.

I also still had my company phone.

Thankfully, someone from church soon saw our situation and offered us a couple of rooms in their basement. My wife and I slid a small wall-to-wall mattress into the laundry room, the boys slept with grandpa in a small side room, and the eight girls slept in the single bedroom. What little we owned was in boxes, piled in a corner, next to a cooking stove. It wasn’t much, but we were safe, and we were together.

My depression got so bad, my wife asked me to take my oldest daughter out on a date. Barnes & Noble and then maybe an ice cream on the way home.

“Hun, we only have $50 left.”

My wife kissed me on the cheek. “You need to get out. She needs your attention and strength, so this is perfect. Just give me your word. Please, do whatever she asks you. No, don’t look that way…trust me on this.”

Do what a child asks me to do? What the h….. “Fine,” I grumbled.

When we got to Barnes & Noble, my favorite bookstore, my daughter brought me a small box collection. The packaging and artwork was magnificent. I’d never heard of the story before, but she insisted I buy it. Lucky for me, it was on sale. I still felt the pain of our last income leaving my wallet.

When we got home, my daughter thrust the books into my hands. “Read these,” she said through her beautiful smile.

“Me? I thought these were for you?”

“No dad, we bought these for you. Trust me.”

A bit pissed everyone wanted my trust, but didn’t want to explain, I went to lie down in my closet of a room to read. Each book was only 75 pages, but the art was magnificent, the story brilliant, and by dinner, I was done with the box set.

“What did you think, dad?” My daughter openly gave her mom a wink.

“I loved it. Fast-paced, fun, and I was shocked that as an adult, I enjoyed it that much.”

My daughter sat back on the couch and grinned. “That’s how you write.”

I scoffed. “Whatever.”

“It’s true, sweetheart,” my wife chimed in. “And I’m thinking, if we’re going to struggle to survive anyway, then why not struggle to achieve our own goals?”

That’s when my wife and daughter insisted that since I couldn’t draw comics, why not write the story as novels?

I took any job I could find, while writing freelance, and every spare moment I had, sat in a cement corner to write Prelude to Hero, my first Wanted Hero novel. To make the process less depressing, I’d snagged a free calendar from a local bank, ripped out two delightful pictures and taped them into either corner.

Next best thing to actual windows.

Trust me on this one.
It works.

I Say Unto You, Love Your Enemies

To this day, I don’t remember crying so much, or trying to be so strong when in the presence of my children. Prayer was a constant in my mind and heart, and when I had a private chance to drop to my knees, I stayed there. One afternoon, while my wife took the kids to a park, I poured out my heart and begged God to forgive me.

I should have been more kind, more charitable. Been a better Christian. My heart pleaded for deliverance, so I might better care for the blessing He had given me in a loving wife and family.

“Amen.”

My phone rang at my side as that last word left my lips.

“Brother Jaime, this is Roger Anthony.”

“Roger?” I was both confused and flabbergasted. This was THE man I was paid a small fortune by UFirst to destroy online. To ruin his reputation and hinder his progress in the financial realm at every turn. Sadly, I had done an exceptional job.

Then he said something that changed my life…forever.

“God tells me you need a job. Would you like one?”

I could hardly breathe, I wept so hard. The hand of mercy…a prayer mightily answered…from a man I had openly mocked and sought to harm.

It was a few moments before I could choke out, “Please.”

His voice was kind and warm, like a rising sun in spring, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m happy to hear it. I need a personal assistant, and I think you’re the perfect man for the job.”

God Does NOT Hate Us

I will praise Roger M Anthony, and love that man with all my soul, for the rest of my life. He taught me about people. How valuable they are, and how you can love AND like absolutely anyone, if you know how to ‘see’ them. Take the time to hear another’s story, the choices they made, and how they came to this moment in time. Chances are great you’ll find compassion within you.

Roger started my healing by forgiving me.

We became the best of friends, and I made sure he could count on me. Yet he never knew about our living circumstances…until they flooded.

In the middle of a meeting with the board of directors, my wife called.

There had been a flash flood near the house where we had our little basement space. The clay ground didn’t absorb any water, causing the runoff to fill the window wells until the glass shattered. Our entire living space filled with water, mud, and an overflowing sewer. Our few belongings now sat in the water calf-deep, and she didn’t know what to do.

“I’m so sorry, I have to go. My home flooded.”

Next thing I knew, the owners of the company were getting into their vehicles and heading over to assist me. One look at where we lived, and peering into my daughter’s bedroom where the eight girls crammed together, two of the women started crying.

“You live…here? Like this??” Dianna asked me.

I nodded.

“My friends don’t live like this,” sobbed Glenna.

I shrugged. “I can’t afford anything more.”

That’s when I noticed my little boy wading thigh deep in the muck. He just stood there, watching all the adults trying to bail water back outside, or moving boxes away from the moisture. I went to him and kneeled down in the brown water.

“What’s wrong, son?”

His gaze shifted to me, worry apparent on his face. “We’ve been naughty, daddy. So, so, so naughty.”

I frowned. “Why do you think that?”

He pointed out the window, where friends had placed stakes into the ground, supporting wood planks to redirect the water still falling from the sky. “You said the people around Noah were naughty, so God flooded them…and LOOK,” jabbing his tiny finger at the sky, “WE’RE FLOODED!“

It took me a few minutes to explain the differences so he could understand and believe me. That this wasn’t rain from God because we were naughty, but water into our home because men didn’t build the house or grounds properly. A nod from mom backed my explanation, but he didn’t stop crying.

“Emergency meeting,” called Glenna. “I propose taking a portion of owner wages to increase Jaime’s income specifically to enable him to rent an appropriate house for the needs of his family.”

In less than 60 seconds, my wages doubled, and by the end of that week, we moved into a farmhouse.

We were happy, safe, and we lived there comfortably.

Until Roger died of cancer.

Homeless, Take Two

I remember the last time I saw Roger, and kissing my dear friend on the forehead. Here was a man so strong in his late 60s, that he could climb up the circular staircase outside his home faster than I could run up the stairs on the inside. Yet in a matter of months, he passed, leaving his wife in charge, whose entire support network was in Australia, not the USA.

The business closed, and I was once again without a job, and without a way to pay $2150 a month in rent. As with the first time, friends and family wanted to help, but couldn’t…so I called Ondi, my closest friend. I told him we were three days from living under a freeway.

“Don’t be stupid. No, you’re not. You come live with me.”

“You have a tiny house, you don’t have the room,” I sobbed.

[Hey, he knows me,…and I can sob manly tears, so shut up.]

“Then we roll out sleeping bags and use the floor. So what? You’ll be warm, fed, and with people who love you. That’s what matters. Come live with me and heal, okay?”

You have to understand my friend.

I’ve met no one as kind, as gentle and thoughtful as this man, except my mother…or Roger. We are diametrically opposite to each other. When I asked him why we were best friends, having almost nothing in common, he replied, “When we’re together, I feel like a whole person.”

Yeah.

Being rude to Ondi is like kicking a puppy.

…you’re just evil.

So we put our belongings in a storage unit and drove an hour south. As we pulled up to his home, our only vehicle gave up the ghost. Lisa, his wife and another best friend, hugged my sweetheart and took the children inside. When Ondi tried to guide me in, I pulled away.

“I’ve been through this before,” I said soberly. “We need to have an understanding.”

“Okay?”

“This is your home, not mine. I will obey your rules, as will my family. If you have any problems, I want your word that you’ll tell me, and I will correct it. Assign us chores and duties in the home, so there is no burden upon you or your girls. Because when we leave, I want it to be a tearful goodbye…because we won’t want this situation to end.”

Ondi gave me a hug. “Agreed.”

People who knew us never understood harmony like this was possible. Most can’t do it in their own family. We heard a few rumors and lies spoken about us, but that’s what jealous, ignorant people do. We ignored them. Working together as a family, we moved into a new home less than one mile away roughly a year later.

Both families cried.

…because we’d miss each other.

The Final Fall

Telling my entire story would take a complete book, but the next decade was hard for Wanted Hero. I struggled to make a living, which turned my attention to profit, not truth. If it wasn’t for God’s mercy, my artistic talent, my oldest son and the united efforts of our whole family working together, we would not be here now.

I had written eleven books for Wanted Hero. There was an audiobook, a popular card game, and I’d even started building an online world for readers to meet their favorite characters. When funds got low to publish, I made a deal with Death, asking him to sell immortality for cash. Yet nothing…worked.

I’d sold around 24,000 copies of Prelude to a Hero, and that book had remained in the top 20 books in its category on Amazon for over three years.

Our game, GoSmiley, based on Wendell’s animated shirt, had sold thousands upon thousands of copies on Amazon.

Yet something was always wrong.

Always off.

Until one man came into my life and showed me the problem.

He was kind, polite, and never insulted me. I don’t know why I listened, or why I gave him so much credibility, when all I had was his word. But I listened, I let him convince me, and after all I’d been through, after all I’d accomplished, for right or wrong, I believed him when he said the problem was me.

He told me I couldn’t write.

Not sure how to explain, but it was weeks before I could take a breath without pressure on my chest. My mind fractured into a million pieces as I tried to make sense of my whole life, before this new truth that I could not write. What’s worse was the sheer terror I felt…because I no longer had a purpose…something I was always so sure of.

But I knew one thing for certain: I was never meant to be a writer.

On June 1st 2022, I began pulling everything I had written and published from the internet. Every website, blog post, book, short story, game…except for the Prelude to a Hero audiobook (Amazon, your 7 year contracts suck) the Wanted Hero Chronicles of a Hero series was dead.

Success Is The Purpose Of Our Design And Creation

It took me an entire year to learn about myself. To crawl out from this black hole of despair and self-loathing.

To heal.

I have a loving wife, amazing and supportive children, kind friends and yet, without a purpose that is my own, I’m hollow. Writing Wanted Hero is what I do, despite being able to fulfill roles such as a husband, a father, a grandfather, a brother, and a friend..

The stories are in my mind, and mine alone.

Why should one opinion, or even a thousand negative opinions drown out the tens of thousands who found happiness in the stories offered?

After countless hours pondering on my life and these situations, I realized the Universe had to break me.

…because I wasn’t listening.

There is a story in me, and it’s always been there. Novels, short stories, novellas, and games include hundreds of pieces that offer the story. A story that must be told in its entirety…and in its truth.

That’s where I varied from the path. I stopped telling the truth.

Instead, I went after the money, or the popularity and attention, taking a thumbs up over an open heart. All the while, I sacrificed my time doing the least important things because I felt busy.

She doesn’t know this, but when I felt my lowest, and I lacked even the desire to live, I heard the loving voice of my sweetheart. The love of my life, whispering to my broken heart, scooping up the fractured pieces and holding them tenderly in her hands.

“Just be you, my love. Just be…you.”

That’s when I let go.

I don’t honestly know yet what will happen, but here’s what I believe NOW…and what I WANT…

I want to tell you a story.

It may not be perfect. I can’t even guarantee it’ll be good.

But I can promise you here and now that it will be honest. I’ll share the complete story to the best of my abilities with whatever talent I have. It’ll take some time to tell it. That’s why I chose substack. It fell in my lap less than two weeks ago, when I needed to share these stories.

It’s how I found you.

That’s got to mean something, right?

So here’s to fresh starts. To the Universe not giving up on a soft heart and open mind. Well, cracked-open, anyway. Here’s to wanting to do the right thing, for the right reason…with a desire to bring happiness and perspective to the lives of others.

Here’s to Wanted Hero.

There’s an amazing power that comes from pursuing your dreams.

Nope. I put that wrong.

Going after your dreams might be the wrong thing to do. I’m thinking of all the American Idol shows I’ve seen, where the judges try to break the truth to youth who have less talent than a fire hydrant.

“You can’t sing,” they say.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!“

“The sound of cats fighting is more melodic than you,” Simon Cowell might chime in.

…and that’s the truth. They can’t sing. Professionals in that business, who know what they’re talking about, said so. You are walking into their ring of expertise and they said “no“.

It happens to many of us from time to time. Frustrating, but that’s life.

Don’t focus on pursuing your dreams — but take your dreams with you — just in case an opportunity opens up.

There’s an amazing power that comes from pursuing your purpose.

Ahhhh, that’s better.

I was always meant to be an artist. From the age of two, that was fact. Every creation in my hands proved it. No lessons, no schooling, but I’ve still made some kind of living as a professional freelancer since 1985. It hasn’t always been my ONLY way to make a living, nor has it always been the most PROFITABLE way to make a living. It has, however, always been a moneymaker for me and a joy of my life.

I also knew I was meant to be a writer.

That’s where it gets sticky for me and so many other writers. Everyone uses words, in some form or another. So most people naturally feel they can comment on, critique, confound, or just flat out blast a writer’s work. Any writer they choose.

Anyone can be a critic.

Try that with an artist:

“That picture of a man flying from the top of a building doesn’t look real,” a person might say.

Me, being the sensitive and gentle personality that I am, would laugh hysterically and reply mockingly, “Is that so? Doesn’t look real? A man flying from a rooftop. Okay, smart ass, then you draw it better.”

“But I don’t draw,” would be their reply.

“Then shut up.”

This isn’t about “I don’t LIKE that piece of artwork.” Everyone has things they like and/or prefer, certain tastes. That’s all fine and dandy, and completely normal, even expected. But to walk up to the statue of David and spew, “That doesn’t look right,” you’d better be able to make a better version.

We can’t, you and I, so we keep our mouths shut.

But not with words.

We all talk, we read, we can write words down, form basic sentences, and something in us believes that qualifies us to be critics. That, my friend, is one of the main things that makes writing hard. Dealing with people who aren’t peers, but closer to hecklers.

When you know your purpose is to write and to craft a story to uplift, inspire and entertain, you expose yourself. You take your thoughts and feelings and place them on the open altar of life. Any schmuck or nay-sayer can walk along with a framing hammer and smash the shit out of whatever you’ve constructed.

In today’s society, there are many who won’t even tell you why they hammer you. They just show up, look at what you’re writing, grunt, strike repeatedly with the claw end of the hammer and walk away. Ask any author who gets a single star on Amazon, with no explanation why or how to improve their work.

What I’m trying to say here is that it takes guts to write anything. But when you know it’s your purpose, you’re required to endure.

All of it.

…but how do you know your purpose is writing?

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It Might Not Be Great, But It Isn’t Horrible

I had given Wendell birth, and there was no end to the ideas about his path and potential story. My life up to this point had always compelled me to carry about a drawing pad. At any moment, I could flip to a clean sheet of paper and draw an idea with a pen or pencil.

Now I was carrying around a notepad.

This is when I learned about my first mental handicap: I was not a linear thinker, but I was a linear reader. I had all these ideas, but struggled to write them down because of my need to have them organized.

After going through dozens and dozens of expensive notebooks, tossing one aside to start another with a new topic, I simply…ran out of money. I couldn’t support such a stupid habit, and it financially forced to come up with a solution.

The solution was to say, “To hell with it. Just write it down and worry about organizing it later.”

It worked.

The most important thing was to record the ideas. The rest would take care of itself. When I allowed my mind to just info dump whenever it wanted, magic happened. The baffling creativity prophet in me has this uncanny ability to write solutions to problem which won’t surface for months, even years.

I’m not joking.

Even today, I can go through my library of notebooks and find the perfect solution for a story hiccup. I’ll discover things written years ago, and they fit like I created them yesterday. I have friends that also do this all the time, so I’m not alone.

The second most important thing was to develop the drawing style I would use for the comic books. My hands still didn’t work the same as they did before the accident. They’d tire and shake, or I might lose my grip on the pen I was using, so the style had to be simplified. I’d already decided on black and white, mainly because I didn’t know how to color at the time…I was a penciler and inker by choice.

So I sketched hundreds of drawings. Then hundreds more.

When I felt it was good enough to share, I combined my story script with the artwork. The result wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t horrible. Both my wife and my mother were constantly calming me down and pointing my attention to how much the children loved it. It helped keep me on track.

The process of creation was traditional. I used Bristol paper, sketched out the comic book, then inked it. Once the page was complete, I’d scan it with a flatbed scanner — in two pieces — splicing them together and adding text using Photoshop. You could read the PDF on any desktop.

That might not sound impressive today, but you remember that this was 2004, and PDFs were cutting-edge technology. Flatbed scanners to scan this size of paper started at $6,000, where today a free app on my iPhone will do the job. I’d also like to point out that as far as I knew, Wanted:Hero was the first eComic online. If nothing else, it was still years before they created the Kindle.

My plan was to figure out how to sell these PDFs on the internet for ¢.97 each, making it affordable, encouraging readers to talk about the comics and share them. The entire process was slow going, mainly because I didn’t have the funds to purchase the right tools. So I did the best I could and saved the PDFs until my situation changed.

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Don’t Speak To Your Mother That Way

I said in the beginning that I was a momma’s boy. Tease me about it and I’d punch you in the throat, but it’s true. I love my mother. She was as perfect as a mother can be and still be mortal.

Mom understood me. She listened to me. Counseled me.

She loved me.

Mom offered my abuser a ride home from school because they’d missed their bus, even though they had beaten me several times and she was aware of it. After being punched, she would pick the flesh from between my teeth. She drove me to the hospital for stitches and broken bones. She didn’t even complain when I broke both my forearms…four times each.

In fact, she explained to the doctor that the casts wouldn’t have to be replaced if he’d given me fiberglass ones as I originally asked.

It turns out I was right. Fiberglass casts don’t powder when you use them to defend yourself.

Mom was proud of me, and that meant something — because she had fostered this creative skill since I started drawing Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street at age two.

So maybe you can imagine how her sudden death affected me.

I woke at just before 5am on April 4th to the phone ringing on my side of the bed.

“Mom’s dead,” my dad choked out.

“That’s not funny,” I replied, sitting up.

My father just sobbed. I had never heard my father cry before. Cried so hard I could hear his body shaking through his voice.

Something in me just…broke.

Mom had taken a trip with my little sister and her twins. A road trip to go see my Nana in Oakland, California. Just outside Reno, mom fell asleep at the wheel. Startled awake, she over-corrected the vehicle, and it flipped.

End over end.

….nine times.

….

(…sorry, can’t see the keyboard…)

The crash was so bad it made national news.

We lost my mother, one twin…who was a week from her first birthday…and they rushed my sister to emergency.

Take a breath. My sister and a daughter survived. Both are still with us. My niece just had her first child. All is well there. But I had to tell you this story, because it’s connected to why I’m so broken.

I had a fight with my mother the day she left on that trip.

………

(I f—-ing hate writing this part…)

She was calm and kind, as she always was, and I railed and shouted, completely out of line. I was…mean.

TO MY OWN MOTHER!

The whole thing had eaten away at me, and I had planned exactly how I was going to apologize and beg her forgiveness.

It rained hard at the funeral.

My oldest son, gripping my oversized hand, stood with me in that cold rain, as people wept under the tents, and brothers carried the casket to her last resting place.

Alcohol, Cigarettes, and Prostitutes, Oh My!

My priority was making sure my family was okay. Everyone grieves in their own way, and I was there for everyone. My dad, siblings, and especially my wife and children, all of them close to my mother. Before the end of the first year, I’d gained 60lbs, still didn’t have the funds to put Wanted Hero into motion…and I was ready to crack.

Apparently, my friends noticed that as well.

Next thing I know, me and Uncle Bob (my mom’s only brother) were being shipped off to Wendover, Nevada, for a night on the town. My wife explained to friends that I wasn’t willing to grieve in front of those close to me. I felt my mother had abandoned me, and I was angry. Bob hadn’t grieved either — and being career Army, retired — at six foot plus, we elected him to be my guardian while away from home.

“No drugs, no women, and don’t let him end up in jail. Let him do everything else,” my wife instructed him, just before getting on the tour bus.

Bob gave her a big hug. “You got it.”

For the record, I had zero experience with casinos up to that point. I had no idea what to expect. When I noticed that smoking was allowed in the casino, I went to the nearest vendor, bought a pack of cigarettes, and started smoking. I had quit cold turkey the day I met my wife.

I smoked all 20 cigarettes end to end without stopping or coughing once, then bought another pack.

Uncle Bob and I got a table in a back corner, where we could talk about my mom, swear, cry, and laugh until we cried again. At one point, our kind, pregnant Hispanic server asked why I was weeping so much. Bob replied in Spanish that I had lost my mother. She pulled my head into her rather enormous chest and hugged me, crying with me.

The manager, a kind Hispanic man, offered his sympathies after the server shared our story. The kitchen staff then graciously offered to stay for two extra hours. Anything Bob and I wanted to eat, they’d make for us on the house.

Never doubt if there are kind people in this damnable world.

I’ve met them.

Over the next three hours, Bob would turn to watch a beautiful blonde walking about the casino floor. She passed the wall we were sitting behind, separating the restaurant from the slot machines. Now, there are many attractive women in this world. Not as beautiful as my wife, but I’m biased.

This woman my uncle was watching? She made the rest of them look homely.

“Bob, why isn’t anyone paying for their drinks?”

He looked back at me. “Sorry. What?”

I pointed. “All these people, playing the slots — I see women bringing them drinks, but no one pays for anything.”

Bob rolled his eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

Then it sank it. The more they drink, the more they put into the slots. “Ohhhhhh.”

“As long as you’re gambling, the drinks are free.”

Knowing my addictive nature, I’d left my wallet at home, only bringing my driver’s license. The tour package included a $7 voucher, which you could change for cash to gamble with. A nibble to get you hooked.

“Let’s get drunk,” I grinned.

I’ve heard all my life through TV and movies that ‘the house always wins’.

Not that night.

Uncle Bob and I sat side by side, and no matter where I dropped a coin, the machine would spit out more. Over and over I won, filling a little plastic bucket, then another…and another. It was kinda fun. Cigarettes constantly going in my mouth, one server stayed close, bringing me a never-ending flow of alcohol.

When we got the 20 minute warning for the ride home, I had to pee like a horse. So I exchanged my coins for bills and made my way to the restroom by the front doors. Had to lean against the stall wall for support, and I’m pretty sure the poor janitor had to clean up a mess that was my fault.

As I emerged from the bathroom, I came face to face with Uncle Bob…and that beautiful blonde I mentioned earlier.

She was sitting on his lap, arm around his neck.

Have I told you that Bob is one of my heroes?

One of my issues since my mom died had been my growing weight. Before mom died, I was 240lbs of fighting muscle. At 300lbs, depression set in. That helped that last 20lbs find me. My wife never stopped telling me she loved me, but I felt more like a blob than a man.

…until the blonde stood up, looked me up and down…and openly expressed her desire to take me to her room, right in front of Bob.

His mouth dropped open. I laughed so hard I almost fell over.

Won’t repeat the things she said, but I explained I was happily married and showed her a picture of my wife. The woman stared at the picture. Then she stared at me, for a bit too long.

“You’re a lucky couple,” she sighed. (Yes, she actually sighed.)

“We are,” I replied. “Goodnight.”

Bob was so frustrated, he gave me the last four coins in his hand. “Here. I haven’t won a single thing tonight. I’m done.”

Stopping at the last slot machine nearest the doors of the casino, I dropped them in and pulled the handle.

…and hit the jackpot.

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Wanted Hero Studios is Born

I love telling people a single pull of a slot machine initially funded Wanted Hero. It sounds like a fictional story, doesn’t it?

100% true.

Cool, huh?

I felt stronger after grieving, letting out my anger and frustration, and giggling when I told my wife a beautiful stranger wanted to take me to bed.

Yeah, the woman didn’t know I’d left my wallet at home, but it was still good for my diminishing self confidence.

“My husband is handsome,” my wife kissed me. “Now go shower. You stink.”

I’d won enough money to pay my bills, get all the computer software and hardware I needed, and to register the new business. I set aside the rest for expenses over the next couple of months. My first order of business was to get a website up and going, so I could display the story to the world and find readers.

This was at the time of dial-up modems. AOL and EarthLink were THE kings, and all things on the internet bowed to the power of the programming wizards who knew this archaic language called HTML.

Oh, shut up. It was cool.

All I wanted was a way to show my artwork, to ‘blog’ (still relatively new concept) and to sell the PDF’s as downloads. With a bit of effort, I found some companies and programmers who made websites and I got bids.

For the low price of $12,000, I could have what I wanted.

Well, shit. That wasn’t gonna happen.

“I’ll do it myself,” I told the sales rep. He just laughed at me.

“You can’t do that.”

Oh, he sounded sooooo smug. I wanted to poke him in the eye with my 2F pencil.

“Are there books on HTML at the library?”

“Uhhhhhhh.”

“Yeah, get out. I’ll do it myself.”

…and I did.

Took me a little while, but the internet has this outstanding thing called the “Wayback Machine”. Those of you 50+ will understand that reference, linked to a white dog with glasses ...and I found THIS:

This started the adventure I’m still on today. A website showing artwork, comic book pages, and links to purchase them with Paypal. I don’t honestly know when I truly launched the website, and I can’t find the records. Since I’ve always told the story as being about mid 2004, we’ll stick with that.

What still seems amazing to me, was once I set up a phpBB message board, people flooded onto the website once I posted samples of the comics. Within 90 days, there were tens of thousands of registered users, and by the end of 2005, over 15,000 daily users. It was insane. By December 2005, we did a count and recorded the countries people were coming from. Over 275,000 visitors to WantedHero.com from 60 countries.

…and I did not know why.

I’m not complaining, I just don’t know how it happened, why it happened, and no idea how to replicate it. Fact is, I never have been able to replicate that experience — both the traffic and immersive interaction with readers.

(HINT: It’s why I started Life of Fiction, BTW)

Nothing seemed to make sense during this time. I was just grateful.

My first customer became one of my good friends for nearly a decade. She was a 50-year-old woman, who had never read a comic book in her life, but was curious about how I addressed kids. She bought the PDF,…and overnight, became one of my greatest advocates. She got me on podcasts, linked to Wanted Hero from other websites, even starred in my first audio commercial.

Hear it for yourself…

Cool, huh? Deborah is a wonderful person.

Another person who bought my comic was NYTimes and International Bestselling Author, Barry Eisler. He sent me a brief email and said, “Great job. Loved the comic. Your style reminded me of old Eerie Comics.”

I remember that day, too. Did not know who this joker was, comparing my art style to Eerie Comics, so I looked up his name on the web. That led me to screaming for my wife.

“Whaaaaat!?” she screamed back.

I pointed at my desktop monitor. “This guy. A guy who likes my comic books, he’s famous!”

Okay, he’s famous NOW. Though he was doing pretty well for a new author back then. While writing this article, I decided to buy the movie from Amazon (affiliate link), based on my favorite character of his, John Rain. Barry and I became friends and bump digital elbows once in a while online. If you like assassins and CIA adventures, you’ll enjoy his books.

Funny thing is, after a decade of knowing Barry, I’d never read one of his books.

I felt so bad about it after an email exchange with him; I went to the local library. As I mentioned, my family is all about books and reading, so we knew Robyn, the head librarian. I was burned out from drawing, so I asked her to pick something for me to read. “I just need to expand my reading horizons,” I told her.

“Any genre?”

“Go wild. You choose.”

She was gone maybe three minutes, and brought me Rain Fall and a huge smile. “I love this author so much. If you like spy thrillers, Barry Eisler is amazing.”

I started laughing.

Robyn thought I was being mean.

My daughter walked up to me, took one look at the book and said, “My dad knows Barry.”

Robyn got upset. “He does not.”

I took the book from her and smiled. “I’d love to try this. Seriously.”

Took the book home, read it, loved it. So much so I did two things:

1. Bought three copies to give to friends, hopefully to get them hooked, and

2. Contacted Barry for a signed copy for the librarian as an early birthday present.

I was shocked when Robyn walked up to me, absolutely aghast. “You DO know him!”

I nodded.

Barry had signed:

…followed by a note in parentheses:

I doubt he’ll ever see this post, but thanks Barry.

NEXT TIME:

How to Succeed at Fiction By Failing: Part 3

Here goes everything…

I hope you don’t mind, but I made myself a promise in starting this path that I wouldn’t hold back or hide the things burdening my heart. That if I committed to growing Life of Fiction, I’d do everything possible to see it through.

Yes, I know we're on Jaime Buckley, but the promise remains.
Authenticity or nothing.

The challenge to that is there are places in my mind and heart I’ve avoided for nearly 50 years. Places often dark and confusing, because they hurt.

These perpetual bruises and gaping mental/emotional wounds are also the key to much of my creative ability. So I’d like to share some things I’ve rarely talked about.

…since it’s just you and me.

The Truth I’ve Lived With

I never believed I would be someone great.

There were never dreams of being a basketball star, or setting some world record…and I was never the kid who wanted to be an astronaut, firefighter, or policeman. That just wasn’t me. As a child, I was a small, quiet boy who loved to please and listen to grown-ups. I wanted to make friends and be liked by someone..

While most kids around me went on to play sports, win trophies and get the attention of the cutest girls in school, my head was usually down, hovering over a notepad. My fingers gripped a #2 pencil like my life depended on it.

Because it did.

The world hated me, and I knew it.

No, that’s not right — it was the Universe, and everyone in it — that hated me.

Oh, I know now that it wasn’t true, but try to convince a ten-year-old boy he’s not hated:

• After a kid walks up and shatters his forearm with a baseball bat in front of their teacher.

• After a stranger in a truck curses at him and then runs him over just outside his neighborhood.

• After a dog rips his face open, requiring two adults to pull the hound off…and all he did was ring a doorbell to say ’Trick or Treat’.

• After an adult shoves a loaded revolver in his face and says, “Go steal that moped and bring it here, or I’ll kill you.”

• After he gets punched and kicked unconscious by a dozen boys, all for trying to protect his smaller sibling.

Drawing was my way of coping.

It was my ability to hang on to life for just one more day. To not give up. Even after the cuts, the bruises, the blood and the stitches…I could always find a measure of peace and happiness in drawing. Because those drawings always led me to something more.

That’s when I realized it was okay that I would never be someone great…because there was no doubt I would DO something great.

For every wound and every beating I received, another door opened in my mind. Funny, now that I’m an ‘adult’, I wonder if those were cracks, rather than doors. A way to allow my attention to slip away, quickly and silently, wrapping the cool shadows around my battered and broken mind.

I saw things other kids couldn’t imagine.

While teens played soccer or football, I received royal invitations to joust with Knights and Kings. I preferred designing mech-warriors with crews of gnome mechanics, or playing croquet with ancient dragons to fitting in with the popular kids. Who cared about school dances when there were wars to be won and dark magic to dispel?

We both know such a life couldn’t last. Reality eventually crashed through my coping mechanisms.

The good news is that the sweet smiles of the female species kept me there for more than a decade. Luckily, there was a place for sweet nerds who were kind and not too bad looking.

Feeling like I was a babysitter not getting paid, I graduated at age 15 from High School with a 4.0 and two full-ride scholarships. Neither of which I accepted.

Oh, don’t look at me like that.

I’d spent my entire childhood being pummeled by bullies…why would I subject myself to the wrath of insecure college students?

My attention turned instead to my artwork, and I ran about Sacramento, California, drawing caricatures in shopping malls. It was a balance between making money without a license and avoiding the constant accusation that I was truant. I got it down to a science, though, collecting $8 per couple in under four minutes, before sprinting from overweight and over-enthusiastic mall cops.

Afternoons were better.

That’s when I’d take custom orders from rich kids behind the local schools. T-shirt and hat designs, hand painting skateboards, jackets, drawing D&D characters on poster board. Anything creative for a handful of cash.

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The Discovery of Stories

When I got tired, I’d always retreat into the local Pizza Hut, just a block away from my grandparents, where I lived. I could buy a small personal pizza, soft drink and all you can eat salad for under ten bucks and still take home between $70-$100 on most days. It wasn’t always that good, but often enough for me to keep at it, and that got the attention of the Pizza Hut owner.

Even though I’d take a break, kids would come and find me. The younger teens who had money and wanted to see what I could do. They’d often come in groups, sit at my table and look through my drawing pads, asking questions about what they saw on the pages.

…and I’d tell them stories.

I’m not even sure I could tell the truth in my life. The moment you asked me why I’d drawn a picture of a bearded woman, you’d hear about a dwarf merchant who’d married wealthy to fund his business. Unfortunately, his love for traveling earned him the wrath of his wife — so he’d commissioned me to draw the true beauty of her soul. That if you held the picture up to the light at just the right angle, the subject of the sketch would see the loveliest part of who they really are.

Kids would hold up the drawing pad, trying to see something that wasn’t there. But when they questioned me, “That’s stupid. It’s all fake.” I’d reply, “Prove it.”

They knew I was just telling a story…but they doubted enough for it to be exciting. I was the crazy kid who told cool stories.

The owner made me an offer — allowing me a safe place away from the cops to work — and he gave me my regular order each day for free. All I had to do was draw and tell my stories, in the corner of the Pizza Hut, at my very own table. He made money by posting a sign that any teenager who came into the place to see me had to buy a soda to stay. Most bought food, though, to sit around and talk with me, and I think that was his plan all along.

The setup was amazing. I had this enormous round table, so I brought more of my pads — some to draw in and some to let folks look through — and I’d tell stories to the kids who came in. The best times were when a sports team came to celebrate over pizza, and the younger siblings were in tow. I’d have those kids timidly come over to find out what I was drawing. Parents would apologize to me for the disturbance, but I’d say, “It’s okay, I’m the oldest of eight. They can stay if they like. I don’t mind at all.”

• The eyes would turn to questions.

• The questions would turn to stories.

• The stories would turn to requests.

• This requests turned into smiles…and a lot more cash.

Playing With Rats

The best part about working in that Pizza Hut was having so much free time to create new things. There’d be hours between the rush of customers, of the kids from school, and I well used that time. I crafted characters and worlds, things from my imagination.

Like Chester the rat.

Imagine Garfield the cat, but as a rat — and he could actually talk out loud, along with a snake and a whole selection of talking animals. It was a whacky crossbreed version of Garfield meets Bloom County.

BAM! I had a comic strip.

…and I became addicted to writing jokes.

I look back now and just shake my head, embarrassed. People seemed to like the comics, so that’s fine, but I don’t honestly know why it worked. All I was doing was writing simple, time sensitive jokes, and drawing silly characters, but people liked them. So much so that my dad, as my biggest fan, actually got investors and published $250,000 worth of books to sell.

One of my dreams had come true. I created something great.

Crazy, huh?

It was a wild ride, writing comic strips, and I enjoyed it. Until what I loved doing became the foundation of arguments between family and friends who’d put money into its publication.

There’s something about being in the center of anger and accusations, which have nothing to do with me, but I cannot escape. That makes me cringe.

…so I stopped drawing Chester.

After all, if I hadn’t invented the damn rat, none of this would have happened, right? That’s how I saw it, and as soon as I stopped drawing Chester, I could leave the room. So I turned my back on the broken relationships, the constant fighting and stress, kicked the dead rats’ corpse to the curb…and walked away.

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It’s Painful To Meet Girls

I had a successful job, a house with my best friend Tony — so — let’s just leave it at that. Life was going well.

Okay, well-ish.

Man is not meant to be alone, or so I heard the Lord, or someone important, say as I was growing up. It’s something I believe, because I always felt more complete with a girlfriend. Someone to love, to care for, to protect and adore. But nothing lasted for me. I’d get dumped inside a year. Why? I was told I was too nice.

Me? Nice? The girls were delusional. I’ve never been ‘nice’ in my life. ‘Kind’ is what I try to be, but nice?

Yeck.

Point is, it took me a long time to find the right girl, and I almost lost my life.

On a Friday afternoon, Tony and I decided we wanted to take our younger brothers out on a play-date. Movies and an arcade adventure until our fingers fell off from pushing buttons. So that’s what we did. We grabbed Damian (age 10), and Jonathan (my brother, age 6), and had a blast. Movie, ice cream, pizza, then a place called Nicklecade — all the video games you can play for $.05 each.

As we drove east on State Street, a Ford LTD came speeding down the hill and attempted to turn left in front of us.

First thing I remember was screaming, “Boys, hold on!“

The Ford hit our little Hyundai so hard, we bounced into the air, the hood of the vehicle folding in through the windshield, towards my face.

My hands, trying to brace myself, folded back towards my wrists as they went through the dashboard, and my seat belt around my waist snapped. All that kept me in the car was the shoulder strap…which went through my collar bone. Damian, who was the only one not wearing a seat-belt, had slid himself down, bracing his knees against the back of my seat.

Didn’t work.

His flesh mushroomed as that kid hit with such force, his legs went through the lower part of the seat, and into my back.

Damian screamed.

We crashed to the ground; the engine dropping from the car, and everything went silent except for Damian.

I suddenly felt weak,…and tired.

It had something to do with the broken and nearly protruding bone near the side of my neck.

It was hard to breathe. My chest hurt. Damian, that poor kid, was screaming so loud, I kept trying to reach for him. His blood was between the seats.

Tony was up and alert, the panic in his eyes darting back to the boys. Making sure both were safe — my baby brother had luckily just bounced against cushions — Tony darted from the car in fury. All I recall was a growl, and, “I’m gonna kill him.”

Barely able to hold my head up, I saw a guy throwing flares across the road, darting to my side of the car. It was so hard to stay awake. From nowhere, a cop ran in front of the Hyundai and grabbed Tony by the shoulders. He’d gotten the teenage driver by the shirt, and was pulling him through the drivers window.

The last thing I remember happening was the off-duty medic leaning in with a set of scissors. My hand automatically grabbed his wrist.

“No,” I complained, “I just bought this leather jacket today. I’ve saved up for so long to buy it…just help me slip it off.”

He shook his head, “Sorry buddy — can’t risk hurting you. Has to be cut.”

“I hate you,” I breathed. “You’re not even gonna take me to dinner before you cut my clothes off, are you?”

“Shut up.”

Turns out I had a broken clavicle, cracked ribs, three cracks in my lower spine, and I’d mangled both my hands and wrists. That last fact was the reason I lost my job, then lost my house, had to move back into my parents’ home at age 20 for my mother to care for me, now unable to use my hands.

A bit depressed, I went to church for the first time in years…where I met my future wife that day. We were engaged in about a week, which as of this writing (2023), is 33 years, 13 kids and 25 grandkids ago.

Car accidents are an outstanding way to meet girls.

…if you can survive them.

The Birth of a Hero

So here we are, roughly 2300 words into this story, and you’re probably wondering how Wanted Hero came about?

It started in a comic book shop in West Valley City, Utah.

I’d always collected comic books. It was a way of life for an artist nerd. My hands had healed enough to draw again, and I went back to freelancing. My monthly collection was available, and I got the call from the store that I could pick up my order anytime. So I grabbed my oldest son, only 2-3yrs old, and headed down.

They set comic stores up for displays. That’s how comics grab you — the cover art — drawing you in, so you pick it up and check it out. The main counter typically has the most popular titles to remind customers of the classics. This place had half a dozen comics like X-Men, Ironman and Avengers, and as many comic magazines next to them.

My son had noticed the painted cover of a Conan the Barbarian magazine.

When I started going through my stack of comics to purchase, I looked down to find my boy staring at a front nude drawing of a woman being held by Conan. It had never offended me before, the artwork, but this was my son. My tiny boy who didn’t know exactly what was looking at, had cartoon porn going into his brain.

…and that mattered to me.

I slid the comics across the counter. “Close my box. I’m done.”

Something in me broke that day. The sleeping father in me, the guy who wanted to raise children better than I was — free from the stupid mistakes and even dumber choices I’d made — woke up. I was determined to show them the potholes in my life and point them to better examples by boldly admitting to and fixing my terrible examples.

Yeah, for all you parents out there, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t work exactly that way, regardless of your good intent. At about age 12, kids become little turds. Oh, I love them all, but that doesn’t make them anything other than little turds. Here’s why (and yes, this is going somewhere with Wanted Hero):

At about age 12, kids start asking question. Hopefully, you’re having conversations with them so they can ask you, but if they’re silent, they’re still asking questions, just not out loud. They are questioning everything you’ve told them. What they learn in church, in school, at home — and this is the age when the world, as in ‘society’ — REALLY grabs their attention.

Seriously, this is all across the board, boys AND girls.

They are testing and comparing what you have told them to what the world is offering them in the fashion of mermaid songs. The lure of fun and play, and pleasure…all to rip that kid from your protection, so they can be initiated into the system of the stupid, vulgar, and dangerous.

This world is batshit crazy, and it wants to convert your kids, or eat them alive.

That’s what I noticed at this stage in my life. It’s also what I had experienced (even the trying to kill me parts of life), and it pissed me off. All that repressed anger, and fear, and desperation to survive life and not give up, came out in a tsunami of determination and creativity. I had to save my kids…and any kid that would listen to me.

…and I had a plan.

Comic books had taught me so much — not all of it good — but solid foundational character traits of heroes were what Stan Lee specialized in. So what would happen if I took those examples, and then merged them with a character kids could relate to? If the character had challenges in life like I’d had, and learn how to get past them, like I had, but infuse the whole adventure with magic and adventure? Create a whole new world, so readers wouldn’t have to deal with ‘real life’. They could discover amazing things about themselves without being encroached upon or preached to!

Oh, hell yeah. Could…I do that?

Uhhhhhhhhhh.

YES!

I knew how to make comic books. I’d been too chicken to throw my hat into the ring with Marvel, DC or Image, so why not try to do this on my own? My dad kept telling me to try this crazy fad thing growing in popularity called the internet.

Now all I needed was the right name. Something that would make me smile as I wrote about him.

…and Wendell was born.

NEXT TIME…

How to Succeed at Fiction By Failing: Part Two

There is a lie the publishing world taught you so early you never thought to question it.

It goes like this: to make it as a writer, you have to reach everyone.

Sell wide.
Go big.
Chase the numbers.

Get thousands of people to click buy, and someday it adds up.

Uhhh, no.

Here is what that lie costs you.

• You pour years into being seen by strangers who forget your name the second they close the tab.

• You price your book at ninety-nine cents because you are afraid to ask for more, sell a few hundred copies, and wonder why you are still broke.

• You mistake being everywhere for being wanted.

And the whole time, the retailer takes its cut, pays you three dollars and change (sixty days later), and owns the relationship with your reader instead of you.

I lived this.

I sold tens of thousands of books at bargain prices and felt common the entire time. Then a friend who actually understood business told me to raise the price.

That's it…just raise the price.

I moved a book from ninety-nine cents to five ninety-nine, braced myself, and…sold more overnight.

Not fewer.
More.
Way more.

Because value is a signal, and I had been signaling that my own work was cheap.

Here is the turn.

You do not need thousands of people to buy one book.

You need ten people who would gladly spend a hundred dollars to live deeper in the thing you made.

That is not a fantasy.
It is math, and it is far kinder math than the kind you have been doing.

Ten readers who love your world will out-earn ten thousand who scrolled past it, and they are easier to find now, because AI has quietly changed how readers find anything at all.

The writers winning right now are not the loudest ones.
They are the ones with depth...a world, a voice, themes only they can claim...because that is exactly what AI can see, understand, and recommend.

That is a choice.

You are making it whether you know it or not.

Volume or depth.
Rented reach, or a world that is actually yours.

In the newest episode of Nothing About This Is Safe, author Alicia McCalla and I walk both roads and the real cost of each. Listen here:

🎙 EPISODE 13 – How Do Fiction Authors Get Discovered by AI Without Chasing Volume?

And when you are ready to find your own lane on purpose...your themes, your world, the ten readers already looking for you...the deep dive lays out the whole framework, step by step, with a worksheet to do it yourself.

Read the deep dive:

→ Paid Deep Dive: How Fiction Authors Build a Story World AI Will Recommend

Your Turn

What would change in your writing life if you stopped waiting for the breakthrough and just focused on the next piece of work?

Join Us

If this hit home, subscribe for more unfiltered truth about writing life, mindset, and creative courage.

If you want the deep-dive framework that shows you how to build a sustainable audience without chasing algorithmic favor, it’s waiting for you in the paid companion article.

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About This Podcast

Nothing About This Is Safe is the weekly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring honest conversations with guests like .

We answer the kinds of writer questions that show up in AI prompt searches — craft, clarity, mindset, publishing, and the emotional resilience every writer needs.

Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

Answer me something.

If you were seven years old and had unlimited power, what would you build in your backyard to keep the neighbors out?

I’m serious.
Answer it.
Don’t overthink it, don’t make it writerly...just answer fast, like a kid would.

A lava moat with drawbridges?
A forcefield dome only you can pass through?
A castle with watchtowers?
A mechanical dragon patrolling the perimeter?

Pick one.

Got it?

Good.
Hold onto that.

We’re going to use it to expose the single biggest lie in worldbuilding.

The Lie Every Writer Believes

Here it is:

Nope.

You can describe a magic system for twenty pages and still have no depth. You can map fifty kingdoms, name three hundred NPCs, invent four calendars and a tax code...and your world will still crack the first time a smart reader leans on it.

Detail is not depth.

Depth comes from causation... understanding why something exists, and what it forces to happen next.

That’s not a slogan.
It’s a test you can run in the next five minutes.

Watch.

The Three Whys

Take your backyard answer. Let’s say you picked a tower only you can enter.

On the surface? Cool wizard tower. A detail. A museum piece.

Now ask why. Three times.

First why: Why can only you enter?

“Because the door is blood-activated. It only opens for my bloodline.”

Second why: Why is it blood-activated?

“Because magic in this world is hereditary. It runs in families.”

Third why: Why is magic hereditary?

“Because power has to stay within bloodlines to remain pure. If it mixes, it weakens.”

Stop.

Look what just happened.

You started with one image... a tower. Three whys later, you’re holding:

• Magic is exclusive. Only certain bloodlines have it.

• Purity is valued. Mixing weakens it.

• Outsiders are resented. They can’t touch power.

• Revolution is inevitable. The excluded always push back.

You didn’t add a single detail.
No architecture, no spell lists, no tapestries.

You followed causation...and causation revealed structure.

Culture.
Conflict.
Story.

That silly backyard answer you gave? It wasn’t random either. A fortress means you crave safety. A kingdom means you crave belonging. A dragon means you want to be dangerous. Even childish imagination reveals adult values, and those values are worldview material.

Worldview becomes culture.
Culture becomes conflict.
Conflict becomes story.

You thought you were playing.

You were building.

The Other Confusion That Sinks Worlds

While we’re breaking things, let’s break one more...because most writers confuse these two completely, and it costs them the whole middle of their book.

The inciting incident is where your story starts. The moment your protagonist’s normal world gets disrupted.

The Event is why your world exists. The explosive convergence point everything is building toward, or recovering from.

Harry Potter’s inciting incident: Hagrid arrives, tells Harry he’s a wizard.

The Event: Harry sacrifices himself and love conquers death.

Star Wars: the inciting incident is Leia’s message reaching Tatooine.

The Event is the Empire falling and a father coming home.

The inciting incident starts the journey.

The Event is the destination.

In my own stuff...Wendell getting yanked out of his ordinary teenage life and dropped into Elämä? That’s an inciting incident. That’s the doorway. The Event? Well, I can't tell you that yet…I'm only on book 7!

(grin)

Why does this matter to you?

Because if you confuse the two, you build a world that serves your beginning instead of your ending. You start the story in the wrong place. And somewhere around chapter fifteen you wonder why the middle sags.

It sags because you had no destination.

If you can describe fifty locations but can’t name your Event in one sentence, you don’t have a world. You have a museum.

Museums are pretty.

They don’t tell stories.

Trigger Questions: Chaos With Causation Built In

So how do you generate ideas that come with their whys already attached?

You interrogate your world like it’s hiding something. Because it is.

I use a set of questions I call trigger questions... questions engineered so you can’t answer them without creating causation. Here are three from my collection:

1. What rule in your world gets someone killed?

Not “what are the rules.” Which rule is enforced with *death*? That tells you what the culture values above life itself. “Speaking a god’s true name gets you executed.” Why? Names have power. Spoken wrong, the god wakes. Cities burn. And the structural consequence writes itself: someday, someone will speak it. By accident... or on purpose.

2. What secret would collapse your world if revealed?

Every culture is built on a lie somewhere. Find yours. “Magic is a gift from the gods.” Except it isn’t. It was stolen from a race the gods exterminated. Now there’s proof out there, and your entire religious system is one discovery away from collapse.

3. What’s running out?

Scarcity is desperation, and desperation is conflict. “The magic is fading.” Why? The source is depleting... or being hoarded. Either way, people will fight over what remains.

Notice what these have in common. None of them ask you to *describe* anything. Every one of them forces a why, and every why drags a consequence behind it.

That’s the difference between collecting ideas and designing consequence.

Do This Today

Here’s your assignment, and it takes fifteen minutes:

1. Dump for five minutes. Every world idea in your head, messy, no filter. Nobody’s grading you.

2. Pick one idea. Doesn’t matter which.

3. Run one trigger question against it. Use one of the three above.

4. Ask why three times. Write the answers down.

5. Look at what surfaced. Values. Tensions. A conflict that wasn’t there fifteen minutes ago.

I built you a free worksheet for exactly this... same design as the tools my course students use. Print it, scribble on it, tape it to the wall:

Advanced Worldbuilding Free Lesson Three Whys

4.77KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Where This Goes Next

What you just did is the front porch of a much bigger house.

The three whys and the trigger questions are the ignition. The full system is a five-step method that takes you from raw chaos to a world that holds its own weight: the Event, the Core it revolves around, the Why beneath it, the Questions that scaffold it, and the expansion that fills it in... plus the stress tests that tell you whether your world survives pressure before your readers apply it.

If you want the questions, all of them, they’re in the book. If you want the whole method...the tests, the tools, the discipline...that’s Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course.

Fifty-six lessons.
It’s not fluff, and it’s not gentle.
It builds architects.

But start with the worksheet.

It’s free, and fifteen minutes from now you’ll know something true about your world that you didn’t know this morning.

Detail is not depth.

Now you know what is.

Go craft a world readers will be addicted to!

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

Subscribe now

Every writer I talk to is scared of the same thing right now.

AI is going to bury them.

The internet is screaming two answers, and both are useless: pump out two hundred books a year, or burn the whole thing down.

Nobody is just... having the conversation.
So Alicia McCalla and I sat down and had it.

And what came out of it is the one thing I wish somebody had told me twenty years ago.

You are not helpless in this.
You are making a choice.
You just might not know you are making it yet.

Episode Overview

This one picks up where Alicia and I left off in Episodes 4 and 5, where we landed on a truth that still holds:

AI isn’t replacing writers.
It’s replacing the gatekeepers.

And that is a good thing.

From there we go somewhere new...the fork in the road that every author is standing on whether they see it or not.

On one side is the volume brand: hundreds of books, discoverability rented from the retailer, betting the bank on how much you can produce.

On the other is the depth brand: a story world readers want to live inside, lore and games and audio and characters that feel like family, discoverable by AI because it is unmistakably yours.

Alicia lays out the real economics of both, and they are not close.

We get into perceived value, why raising a price can sell more instead of less, why you need ten true readers instead of ten thousand casual ones, and the single thing no machine can ever copy from you.

It is not a lecture and it is not a pep talk.
It is two working authors who love their worlds, talking honestly about how to build a real living in a world that changed under our feet.

This Episode Answers

• How do I get my work discovered by AI, and not just by the Amazon algorithm?

• Should I build for volume, or build for depth...and what does each one actually cost me?

• Why does raising my prices sometimes sell more books, not fewer?

• What part of my author brand is impossible for AI to copy?

Highlights

• The calculated choice ... volume/retailer brand versus depth/IP story-world brand, and the trade-off hiding inside each

• The math nobody shows you ... $3.28 from a retailer paid sixty days later versus $24 to $125 from a single reader who found you

• Perceived value, live ... the book that jumped overnight from 99 cents to $5.99, and the doodle that climbed from $5 to five figures a job

• The hard truth ... AI will not make you a writer, it will only amplify what is already there

• The one thing AI cannot copy ... your themes, your record, your lived story (and the Juneteenth post that proves it)

Key Quote

"Your brand is your record. We need to author that, or AI invents a wrong you." — Jaime Buckley

Episode Goal

Stop treating AI discoverability as weather that just happens to you. See the fork, understand what each road costs, and choose your lane on purpose...then know that the deeper, more human road is also the one that can actually pay your bills.

From Jaime

If this one punched you in the brain in a good way, do the thing the whole episode is about: pass it to another writer who is ready for the truth.

Then go deeper.

The free article breaks open the choice we keep dancing around, the paid deep dive hands you the framework and a worksheet to find your own lane, and the free conversation guide is there so you can talk this through with your own writing people.

That is the whole point.

You are more than you think you are, and so is your work.

Quick Favor

Please take 10 seconds to leave a 5-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It helps more writers find these conversations.

Join Us

If this episode reminded you why you started writing in the first place, don’t stop here:

→ Free Article: Why Fiction Authors Don’t Need Thousands of Readers to Make a Living
→ Paid Deep Dive: How Fiction Authors Build a Story World AI Will Recommend

→ Missed the origin?

Find Alicia McCalla

Alicia McCalla

I write badass women in badass stories.

By Alicia McCalla⭐️

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Nothing About This Is Safe is the monthly writing-truth podcast hosted by Jaime Buckley, featuring candid conversations with working authors. We go after the real questions fiction writers actually search for ... craft, identity, mindset, publishing reality, money, and creative survival ... without sugarcoating and without performance. If a writer is looking for an honest answer, this is the conversation they were looking for.

“Real writers. Real conversations. No masks. No ego. Subscribe.”

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Course

You can feel it when a world is hollow. So can your readers.

You have poured years into your world. The maps, the names, the history nobody asked for yet. And still there is that quiet fear that it is a beautiful set with no foundation...that a sharp reader could push on it and the whole thing would wobble.

Detail is not the problem.
Structure is.

That is exactly what this course fixes.

Inside, Jaime Buckley hands you the same system he used to build a world people have followed for over thirty years. Using the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you will learn to:

• Design catalytic Events that force your story to move

• Define a living Core so every choice in your world traces back to something that matters

• Find and cut the structural weakness before a reader ever feels it

• Build a world that holds up under scrutiny...and lingers long after the last page

This is not a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders. If you believe your story deserves more than surface detail, this is where you stop decorating and start engineering.

Your readers will never see the framework. They will only feel that your world is real.

Build the world that outlives you.

Become a Trigger Architect™

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The Thing Nobody Advertises

The internet will sell you faster.

Faster outlining.
Faster drafting.
Faster worldbuilding.
Faster publishing.

Every tool, every system, every course promises to compress the timeline between you and the finished thing.

And look...some of that is real.

Systems help.
Tools help.
Learning from people who’ve already made the expensive mistakes helps.

But there’s a kind of knowing that none of it can give you.

It’s the kind that lives in your hands.

In your gut.

The kind that makes you stop mid-sentence and know something is wrong with a scene before you can articulate why. The kind that tells you a character is lying...not because of what they said, but because of what they didn’t. The kind that makes a reader feel like your world is real because to you, it already is.

That knowing doesn’t come from shortcuts. It comes from the long way.

And the long way is worth it.

What the Long Way Actually Builds

Here’s what I mean.

Back in 2009, when I first started writing Chronicles of a Hero, I wrote scenes I knew weren’t working.

Flat dialogue.
Pacing that dragged.
Characters who said the right things but felt hollow.

I rewrote them.

Still not right.

Rewrote them again.

No shortcut was going to fix that.

Because the problem wasn’t the scene...the problem was I didn’t know my characters yet. I knew their names and their backstories and what they wanted. But I didn’t know how Wendell’s voice changes when he’s embarrassed versus when he’s afraid. I didn’t know which arguments Alhannah walks away from and which ones she can’t let go of.

I learned that by writing badly for a while.

That’s the thing about the long way.

It doesn’t feel like learning while it’s happening.
It feels like struggling.
It feels like writing scenes that don’t work and wondering if you’re the problem.

You’re not the problem.

You’re building the knowing.

The Difference Between Knowing About and Knowing

There are two kinds of knowing in writing.

Knowing about...that’s information.

You can get that from a book, a course, a YouTube video. You can know about three-act structure, about the hero’s journey, about how to write a villain with genuine motivation. That knowledge is real and useful.

But knowing...that’s different.

Knowing is what happens when you’ve written enough bad villains that you can feel in your chest when a new one rings false. Knowing is what happens when you’ve wrestled with a broken chapter for three days and finally found the thread that was missing...and now you recognize that feeling in other chapters before they break.

Knowing is the craft becoming instinct.

You cannot download instinct.
You cannot shortcut your way to it.

I started out with a wild, world-changing goal in my head…all inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. The very thought of crafting a dynamic, fun, interlinking world, and then living int that world for the remainder of my career seemed impossible.

Could I do it?

I wanted to, but I didn’t ‘know’ if I could.

Then I wrote a book.
Then another.
And another…and on, and on….and on…all linking together.

'Impossible’ soon became possible…and then probable.

I knew I could do this.

The writers who’ve been at this for years have something the writers just starting out don’t yet.

Not talent...talent is distributed pretty evenly.
Not even work ethic.

It’s accumulated reps.

They’ve been wrong enough times, in enough different ways, that they’ve built a kind of internal calibration that’s hard to explain and impossible to fake.

That calibration is what readers feel when a book works.

They can’t always name it.
They just know it feels true.

Shortcuts Have a Hidden Cost

Here’s where it gets sticky.

Shortcuts feel efficient in the moment. And sometimes they are...using a template to structure your outline saves time. Using a beat sheet to check your pacing saves time.

None of that is wrong.

The problem is when shortcuts replace the reps instead of supporting them.

If you’ve never written a chapter that didn’t work and figured out why...you don’t know how chapters fail. If you’ve never built a world from scratch and discovered three chapters in that your magic system has a logical hole...you don’t know how to stress-test a world before it breaks in front of readers.

The shortcut skips the failure.

And the failure was the lesson.

I’m not telling you to be inefficient on purpose. I’m telling you that some things can only be learned by doing them wrong first. And if you shortcut past the wrong, you also shortcut past the understanding.

How to Use This

Practical takeaway...because this isn’t just philosophy.

When you hit the part of the process that’s slow and frustrating and not working... before you look for the hack, ask yourself one question:

What is this difficulty trying to teach me?

Not every difficult thing is trying to teach you something. Sometimes a broken scene is just a broken scene and you need a fresh set of eyes. But a lot of the time, the friction is the signal. It’s the craft telling you there’s something here you don’t understand yet.

Sit with it a little longer than feels comfortable.

Not forever. But longer.

Because the knowing that comes out of that...the thing you figure out in the mess of it...that’s yours permanently.

That goes in your hands.

In your gut.

And the next time you see that problem in someone else’s work, or in your own first draft three manuscripts from now, you’ll know it on sight.

That’s what the long way builds.

That’s what shortcuts can’t buy.

“The Long Way” is Track 8 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series, each one built around a line from the album.

Have a listenL THE LONG WAY

If you want to go deeper on craft systems that support the long way without replacing it ... that’s exactly what Substack for Authors is built around. The framework doesn’t skip the work. It just makes sure the work you’re doing is the right work.

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The Advice That Doesn’t Work

“Write without fear.”

You’ve seen it.

On mugs.
In writing books.
In the keynote speech at every writing conference ever held.

Write without fear.
Be fearless.
Let go of what holds you back.

Great advice.

Blah-b-blah-blah-blah….

Completely useless.

Because fear doesn’t leave when you tell it to. It doesn’t respond to inspirational posters or positive self-talk or the decision that today you’re going to be brave. It just...sits there.

In the passenger seat.
Arms crossed.
Fully buckled in.

The question was never how to get rid of it.
The question is who’s driving.

What Fear Actually Does to Writers

Fear in writing has a specific shape.

It doesn’t usually show up as “I am afraid.”

It shows up as delay.
As perfectionism.
As the chapter you’ve been “almost done with” for six weeks.
As the Substack post you drafted, almost published, then quietly moved back to drafts because something about it felt too exposed.

It shows up as research.

Writers are champion researchers when they’re afraid to write.

Suddenly the magic system needs another three weeks of development. The timeline has an inconsistency that needs resolving before chapter twelve can be written. The character’s backstory needs more depth before the scene where she breaks.

None of that is wrong on its own.

Research matters.
Consistency matters.
Depth matters.

But fear is an excellent mimic. It will wear the costume of diligence and professionalism and craftsmanship right up until the deadline passes and the thing still isn’t done.

The Passenger Seat Principle

Here’s the reframe that actually changed how I work.

Fear is not the enemy.
Fear is information.

It shows up loudest around the things that matter most...the scenes that are most personal, the stories that are most true, the work that has the highest chance of connecting deeply because it came from somewhere real.

Fear has good taste.

It tends to cluster around the good stuff.

So the goal isn’t to silence it.

The goal is to stop handing it the keys.

Fear in the driver’s seat makes every decision. It decides which scenes get written and which ones get endlessly “prepared for.” It decides which posts go up and which ones stay in drafts. It decides how honest you are, how far you push, how much of the real thing actually makes it onto the page.

Fear riding shotgun is different.

It’s still there.

Still talking.
Still pointing out every pothole and questionable turn.

But it doesn’t control the vehicle.

You do.

And you can choose to hear it and keep driving anyway.

That’s not bravery.

That’s just a different relationship with the passenger.

Three Places Fear Shows Up in Your Writing

Knowing fear’s disguises helps you catch it early.

In the blank page…the paralysis before starting. Fear here usually sounds like “I need more preparation.”

The move: write one bad sentence.

Just one.

Fear hates momentum...it prefers the clean stasis of not-yet-started.

In the middle.

This is where most manuscripts die.

The beginning energy is gone and the end isn’t visible yet.

Fear here sounds like “this isn’t working” and “maybe I should start something new.”

The move: identify the next smallest scene you can write.

Not the next right scene.
The next writable one.
Keep moving.
To the finish line.

The draft is done and suddenly there are seventeen more things it needs before anyone can see it. Fear here sounds like “it’s not ready.”

The move: set a deadline with a real human attached to it.

A beta reader, an editor, a publishing date.

External accountability is fear’s natural predator.

The Practical Test

Next time you’re stalling on something...a scene, a post, a decision about your publishing strategy...ask yourself two questions.

First: Is this delay coming from a genuine craft problem that needs solving? Or is it coming from discomfort with how exposed this piece of work makes me feel?

Honest answer only.

Fear is counting on you to misidentify it as diligence.

Second: If I knew this piece would connect deeply with the right readers...if I knew it would matter to someone...would I still be waiting?

If the answer is no...you already know what the delay is actually about.

Write the thing.

Let fear ride along.

It’ll calm down once you’re moving.

It always does.

“Run Toward” is Track 5 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: RUN TOWARD

Learning to recognize fear’s disguises in your own creative process is foundational work ... and it’s one of the first things we dig into inside Substack for Authors, because it shows up just as much in publishing decisions as it does in the writing itself.

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We’ve talked about what Excitable Value is.

We’ve talked about how to build it inside the story itself.

Now for the part that most writers get wrong.

Not because they’re not working hard.

Because they’re working hard at the wrong thing.

They write the book.
Then they market the book.
And those two things are treated as completely separate activities.
First you create.
Then you promote.
The story ends, and then the selling begins.

That model is broken.
Not “suboptimal.”
Broken.

Because readers don’t experience stories that way. They don’t receive a product and then decide whether to recommend it. They enter a world. They explore. They find things. They bring people back to show them.

The question isn’t how to market your story better.

The question is: what is there to find?

The Difference Between a Gimmick and a Layer

I want to make this distinction clearly before we go any further, because confusing these two things will send you down a road that wastes your time and alienates your readers.

A gimmick distracts from the story.

It says, “Look over here instead.”

It’s a marketing trick dressed up as content.
Readers feel it immediately.
They don’t know why, but the thing feels hollow.
It’s chasing attention instead of deepening connection.

A layer deepens the story.

It says, “There’s more here, if you want it.”
It takes something already in the story... a character, a place, a moment, a question... and gives the reader another way to go further in.
It assumes the reader cares, and rewards them for caring.

The test is simple: does this point toward the story, or away from it?

If a reader encounters this thing and it makes them want to return to the story, it’s a layer. If it makes them think about your platform or your brand or your launch, it’s a gimmick.

Only build layers.

What Layers Actually Look Like

Here’s where writers get intimidated, so let me be specific.

A layer is anything that answers a reader’s natural desire: I want to know more. I want to feel that again. I want to share this with someone. I want to belong to the kind of people who love this.

That’s it. That’s the test.

Lore and world depth.

Readers who love your story want to know things the story didn’t have room to explain.

• The history of a place mentioned in passing.

• How a system works in daily life, not just in the dramatic moments the plot required.

• What happened in the thirty years before the story started.

• A character’s childhood.

• The war everyone references but nobody fully describes.

This isn’t bonus content.
This is the world proving it exists beyond the edges of the page.

Character perspective and voice.

• A letter from a character to another character.

• A journal entry.

• A scene from a secondary character’s point of view.

Not because the plot requires it... because the reader has attached to these people and wants more time with them.

Readers always ask me questions about Morphiophelius Smith (a.k.a. Chuck).

No matter how much I reveal, they want more…constantly more.

Discussion and questions.

Give readers something to argue about.

• A choice the protagonist made that could have gone differently.

• A moral question the story raised without resolving.

• A mystery that’s still open.

Readers who are talking about your story are inside it.
Questions keep them there longer.

Artwork, maps, music.

Visual and audio representations of the world aren’t merchandise.

They’re portals.

• A map of a city the protagonist walked through makes that city real in a different way than prose can.

• Character art gives a reader’s mental image a reference point and a conversation starter.

• Music tied to a character or a place creates an emotional anchor that pulls the reader back every time they hear it.

Community.

Readers who love the same story and find each other... become something.

• They’re no longer just readers.

• They’re part of a thing.

That’s a different relationship with your work, and it creates a different kind of loyalty and word of mouth.

Experience Is Not the Same as Content

This is the part I want you to sit with.

There’s a version of “build layers” that turns into “post more content.”

More articles.
More updates.
More behind-the-scenes.

More, more, more until you’re exhausted and your readers are numb and none of it is doing what you hoped.

That’s content production.
It’s not the same as creating an experience.

An experience is something a reader moves through, not past.

It has depth.
It has layers that reward multiple visits.
It creates a feeling of discovery, not consumption.

Content says, “Here is a thing. I made it. Please engage.”

Experience says, “Come further in. There’s something here worth finding.”

The difference is whether what you’re offering points toward the world or toward yourself.

Start Small and Build Outward

I am not telling you to build a transmedia empire before your book launches.

I’m telling you to ask one question: if a reader finishes my story and wants more, where do they go?

If the answer is “nowhere”... you have an opportunity.

Start with one layer. The one that’s most natural to you.

• If you love writing character voices, write a letter from a character.

• If you love worldbuilding, write a lore article about something your story glimpsed.

• If you love discussion, write a post that asks your readers a question the story raised.

One layer, done with genuine love for the world, is worth a hundred pieces of hollow content.

Then add another.

Not because a content calendar told you to.
Because you found something in the story that deserves to exist in a different form.
Because readers asked, and you have an answer worth giving.

The layers compound.

Each one gives new readers more to find, and existing readers more reason to stay and bring someone back.

That’s not a marketing funnel.
That’s a world.

The Only Thing That Doesn’t Work

You cannot manufacture Excitable Value.
You can only build the conditions for it to exist.

You can write characters worth attaching to.
You can build choices that cost something.
You can create emotional stakes, memorable moments, mystery, wonder, humor, and payoff.
You can add meaningful layers that let readers go further in.

And then you step back.
The readers decide.

Word of mouth cannot be commanded. It is not the outcome of a strategy. It is what happens when readers receive something real and want other people to have it too.

Your job is to make something real.

Not louder. Not more. Not more aggressively promoted or more cleverly packaged or more strategically positioned.

Real.

Write stories with Excitable Value.
Build layers that reward the readers who love them.

Give people an experience worth entering, worth returning to, and worth sharing.

The rest follows from that.

It has to.
Because nothing else works.

Jaime Buckley

This is the third and final article in the Excitable Value series. If you found these useful and want to go deeper into building a story-first publishing strategy, the Substack for Authors course is where I teach this framework in full — from craft to platform to reader community. Everything connects.

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Advanced Worldbuilding: The Trigger Architect™ Masterclass

Build Worlds With a Heartbeat — Not Just Details
What separates a forgettable world from one that lingers in the mind long after the final page?

Structure.

In this advanced masterclass, author and creator Jaime Buckley shares the system he developed to build worlds that breathe — worlds anchored in cause, consequence, and emotional gravity. Through the Up-Chuck Method™ and the discipline of Trigger Questions, you’ll learn how to design catalytic Events, define a living Core, eliminate structural weakness, and construct stories that withstand scrutiny.

This is not just a creativity workshop. It is architectural training for serious builders.

Perfect for fantasy and science fiction writers who believe their stories deserve more than surface detail — and are ready to build them accordingly.

Become a Trigger Architect™

The Writers Who Break

I’ve watched writers quit.

Not because they ran out of ideas.
Not because life got too hard, though sometimes that too.

A lot of them quit because something hit them sideways...a bad review, a failed launch, an editor’s notes that felt like an attack, a chapter that wouldn’t work no matter what they tried...

…and they had no give in them.

They were rigid.

If you didn’t know, rigid things, when the wind gets strong enough, don’t bend.

They snap.

The writers I’ve watched stay in this for the long haul have something different.

It’s not toughness exactly...though they’re tough. It’s more like...flexibility. They move with the pressure instead of bracing against it. They absorb the hit and come back upright.

They have roots.

So they can afford to bend.

I’ve been hit so many times, I’d almost identified as a punching bag.

Yet I knew that what I was striving to achieve…the goals and passion I had…allowed me to bend in situation after situation, because I had a clear view and understanding of the long game.

What Roots Actually Look Like

Here’s where writers get confused.

They think flexibility means being open to everything. Changing direction every time someone has an opinion. Rewriting the ending because one beta reader didn’t like the villain. Pivoting their whole publishing strategy because one post underperformed.

That’s not flexibility.
That’s rootlessness.

And rootless things blow away completely.

Real flexibility requires knowing what you won’t move on.

For your writing...what is the core truth of your story?

Not the plot.
The thing the story is actually about underneath the plot.

That’s the root.

Everything else can move.

The structure can change, the pacing can be reworked, a character can be cut or combined or deepened.

But the core truth stays planted.

For your publishing...what do you actually believe about how you serve your readers?

That’s the root.

Platform strategies can shift.
Posting schedules can adjust.
A series that isn’t connecting can be paused.

But your commitment to the work and the readers stays planted.

Know your roots.

Then you can move everything else freely.

The Problem With Hard Shells

A lot of writers build armor instead of roots.

Armor looks like strength. It keeps things out...criticism, doubt, feedback, the uncomfortable possibility that something isn’t working.

And for a while it feels protective.

But armor is rigid.
And rigid things break.

The armored writer can’t take notes from an editor because every note feels like an attack.

Can’t hear reader feedback because it threatens the version of the story they’ve decided is correct.
Can’t adapt when the market shifts or the platform changes or their first approach doesn’t land...because adapting would mean admitting the armor has cracks.

The rooted writer can hear all of it.

They don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but they’re secure enough in what they won’t move on that everything else is just information.

Notes from an editor?

Information.

Some of it useful, some of it not, all of it worth considering.
A launch that didn’t perform the way you hoped?

Information.

What did readers respond to? What didn’t connect? What does that tell you about the next one?

Armor keeps the information out.

Roots let you process it without being destroyed by it.

How to Build Roots

Three questions. Answer them before your next project, before your next launch, before your next major creative decision.

One: What is this story actually about?

Not the premise.
The truth underneath the premise.

Wendell P. Dipmier isn’t just about a boy becoming a hero. It’s about what it costs to become the person you were made to be...and whether the cost is worth it.

That’s the root.

Everything in the story can shift.
That doesn’t.

What’s yours?

Two: What do I owe my readers?

Not what they want from you in the moment. What you’re actually committed to giving them. Honesty?

A specific kind of emotional experience?
A world they can escape into?
A story that doesn’t flinch from hard things?

Name it.

That’s your publishing root.

Hold it when the wind picks up.

Three: What am I willing to be wrong about?

This is the flexibility question.

Everything that isn’t your root is fair game.

Your chapter structure.
Your posting schedule.
Your genre.
Your cover design.
Your series order.
Your platform strategy.

Be specific.

List the things you’ll actually move on when the evidence suggests you should.

Roots plus flexibility.

That’s the combination.

When the Wind Gets Strong

It will.

That’s not pessimism...that’s just how long careers work.

A book won’t land the way you expected.
A platform will change its algorithm.
A story arc you loved will need to be scrapped.
A reader will say something that gets under your skin and stays there.

The wind gets strong.

And when it does, you’ll find out whether you built armor or roots.

Armor holds until it doesn’t. Then it fails completely.

Roots hold through everything.

The tree moves...sometimes dramatically, branches whipping, leaves flying...and when the wind passes, it’s still standing.

Still growing.

The tallest trees move in the wind.

That’s not weakness.

That’s exactly why they don’t come down.

“Soft and Strong” is Track 6 on the Gear Girls album Wide Open. This article is part of a ten-piece series built around lines from the album.

Have a listen: SOFT AND STRONG

Understanding what you won’t move on ... your creative roots ... is one of the core frameworks inside Substack for Authors. Because building an audience long-term requires knowing exactly that: what stays planted, and what gets to bend.

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