I used to think I had a focus problem.
For years, while working on my novels and screenplays, I'd veer off in unexpected directions, as curiosity took hold and I'd disappear down rabbit holes.
I've been working on my latest fantasy novel for three years now. I'm working with an amazing editor who is really pushing me, and along the way, I've taken some fascinating diversions to learn the information I need to give my world depth.
To the outside world - to myself a lot of the time - it looked like classic creative procrastination. The novelist who keeps finding clever ways to avoid actually writing the novel.
But here's what I finally realized: I've been doing the same thing the whole time.
The Workshop Problem
Most writers research by reading. They read history books, travel guides, psychology textbooks. They absorb information and translate it into story.
I build things.
When I wanted to understand political ideology for my characters, I didn't just read political theory - I built Political Circle, a complete framework for mapping political beliefs. When I needed to understand how our brain and subconscious works, I created BrainSync. When I wanted to grasp how language shapes thought, I made Babel Tales and invented my own languages.
This isn't ADHD chaos. This is my workshop.
A carpenter doesn't apologise for building jigs and fixtures before tackling the main project. A scientist doesn't feel guilty about calibrating instruments before running experiments. But creative people? We're supposed to just . . . write. Read some books, then write. Anything else is 'procrastination.'
Twaddle!
Learning by Making
There's a particular kind of understanding that only comes from building systems. When you create a political framework, you can't ignore the edge cases. When you design an app about how memory works, every interaction has to reflect actual cognitive science. When you build a language system, the grammar has to hold together.
This forces a depth of understanding that passive research never achieves.
My characters don't just have political beliefs, they have beliefs that exist in coherent relationship to their psychology, their culture, their personal history. Because I didn't just read about how political ideology works. I built a system. I know where it breaks. I know what questions it can't answer. I know what it reveals about how people actually think.
That knowledge lives in my bones now, not just my notes.
The Long Game
I'm playing a different game than 'finish the novel as fast as possible.'
I'm building an intellectual infrastructure that will support not just this novel, but everything I write for the next thirty years. Every system I create, every framework I develop, every tool I build are all load-bearing walls for a much larger structure.
When my novel comes out, people might ask: 'Why did you spend years building all these other things instead of just writing?'
The answer: Because I wanted to write something that couldn't have been written without doing that work first.
The Invitation
If you're reading this and thinking, 'oh thank god, I'm not the only one!' You're not.
If you're a creative person who learns by building, who can't just passively consume research, who needs to make things to understand them - this is your permission slip.
You're not procrastinating. You're not scattered. You're not avoiding the 'real work.'
You're building your workshop. You're calibrating your instruments. You're creating the infrastructure that will support everything you make.
What This Means
I'm going to keep building systems. I'm going to keep exploring frameworks. I'm going to keep creating tools that help me understand how people think.
And I'm going to write fantasy novels that couldn't exist without that work.
This is andycoughlan.com - where I document both sides of this process. The storytelling and the systems. The fiction and the frameworks. Because they're not separate things. They never were.
Welcome to the long game.