Beginning and Inventing Worlds

I blame you Diana Gabaldon, you wonderful, impossible creator of worlds! And possibly fall. And the long drives through the mountains to visit my parents, which give me entirely too much time to think.

I had avoided watching the “new” Outlander tv adaptation for almost ten years. I love the books, and I had very definite ideas about what those people looked and sounded like. I wasn’t particularly interested in having those ideas replaced. But I finally gave in at night on a trip through the mountains, cozied up in my camper van and I freakin’ fell in love with the characters and the world all over again, and when I finished, I was left with this ridiculous longing. Longing for more, more, more.

Which is, of course, why I read.

I wanted something sweeping. A world rendered in enough detail that I could settle into it, learn how it worked, and care about what happened there. I wanted a romance in all senses of the word: the adventure and beauty and terror of stepping beyond the life you know, and a relationship that might defy time and logic and maybe even death itself. Something to get thoroughly, hopelessly absorbed in again.

And I could not find it.

There were plenty of books I could read. But you know when you’re craving something very particular, and everything you try is almost it? Meanwhile, the books you know will do the job are old friends. Kushiel’s Dart. Game of Thrones. The Name of the Wind. The Dark Tower, which I have read sooooo many times that I hesitate to read it again … what if I wear it out the way you can a good song, you know? The Magicians, Narnia, The Eye of the World, Jane Auel. I love them for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve all given me worlds I was reluctant to leave, big juicy worlds that have swept me away.

Apparently, loving all those worlds has done nothing to make me less greedy for another one.

So somewhere on those drives, I started inventing one.

I had time to follow a thought and see where it went. To take a “what if” and let it blossom into the next “what if”. To wonder about the people who might live in this world, what they wanted, what they believed, and what would happen if someone arrived who didn’t share any of their assumptions. Kate took shape. So did the people she would meet. The more I worked out about the world, the more I wanted to know—and the more I cared about what happened to everyone in it.

That became By Chance.

Writing it has been a way of spending time with the things I was craving as a reader. An unfamiliar world with a history of its own. People with lives and loyalties that don’t conveniently begin when the protagonist shows up. Beauty, and sincere appreciation for it, worth stopping for, even when there are excellent reasons to keep moving. And love, with all its painful and wonderful complications.

Eventually, I started thinking about sharing it. I can’t pretend I’m going to give someone what my favorite authors have given me. Those are some damn enormous shoes. But maybe there are other readers out there with the same itch, and maybe they’ll find something here that scratches it.

Also, I’m a software engineer by day. Putting a book on my own website is very much within my particular collection of questionable impulses and practical skills. I’m writing it anyway. Why not let people read it? As someone recently said to me, by way of casual encouragement.

So here we are. :)

By Chance the Stars Speak is the first book in the trilogy, and Chapter 1, “Disturbances,” is available now. I’m publishing it serially, free to read on this website. Starting with Chapter 2, Patreon members get each chapter one week early. At the end, the whole book will be here for anyone who wants to read it and maybe someday it’ll get into electronic format or even … heavens to betsy - ye olden’ paper tome. I do so love the smell of paper.