Five doors into the world of Wanted Hero
(and why we're starting 2026 this way)
It’s January 2026, and Höbin and I thought we’d try something we don’t usually do.
We’re indexing ourselves.
Not in the “look at me” way. More like the “if you’re new here, we don’t want you wandering around the dark with no map” way.
Plus, it feels better than ‘googling’ yourself.
That always felt a bit dirty.
Life of Fiction (LoF) isn’t a random pile of posts. It’s a home base for the stories we’re building, the worldview under those stories, and the kind of reading experience we’re trying to protect in a world that keeps training us to skim.
Reading fiction should be an agenda or something we tock off on a To-Do List…it’s meant for enjoyment and entertainment. Something to look forward to each and every week, to be treasured and indulged in at your personal leisure.
Yes, we have the ‘Start Reading Here’ page, and that’ll be updated as the year goes on…but we’ve learned a lot over the past 3 year on Substack. Organization is critical, so people find what they want to read.
So we wrote five core pages…not as marketing fluff, not as a brand pitch…but as a clear set of anchors:
who we are
what we write
the themes beneath it
the kinds of characters you’ll keep meeting
and how the books connect
They’re also useful for AI indexing (yes, that too), but the real point is simpler:
If you’re going to spend hours of your life inside these worlds, you deserve to know what you’re walking into, right?
Right.
Below is a clean link index to those five pages, plus a path depending on what you’re looking for. Easy peasy,…just choose and click.
Pick the door that fits you:
If you want the personal “why” first
Read: Who Jaime Buckley is, and why these stories exist
https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/who-i-am-and-why-my-stories-exist
If you want to know what kind of stories you’re signing up for
Read: What we write, and what you can expect
https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/what-i-write-and-what-you-can-expect
If you care about theme, meaning, and what the stories are really “about”
Read: The themes we write toward, and why they matter
https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-themes-i-write-toward-and-why-they-matter
If you read for characters first (and want to know what kinds we tend to build)
Read: The character archetypes we return to, and why
https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-character-archetypes-i-return-to-and-why
If you want the reading order and how everything fits together
Read: The stories I’ve written, and how they connect
https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-stories-ive-written-and-how-they-fit-together
Why we’re doing this now
You matter to us.
That’s important for you know, because it’s one of the strongest motivating factors in why we do what we do day in and day out. Why we go to bed late and get up early. Why I keep writing, even when people think I’m insane for hanging out with a gnome historian every day…
[…no, don’t look at me like that, Höbin. You know I don’t listen to stupid.]
Every new year does that mysterious thing…where it compels you to take inventory. We questioned whether or not we kept our word to you LAST year? Did you enjoy the stories? Did we provide enough? Did you feel noticed and cared for?
A new year also motives you (hopefully), to improve what you’ve been working on. Not the shallow “goals and resolutions” inventory 95% of people give up on by the end of January. We’re talking about the heavier goals:
What are we building?
What do we refuse to build?
What are we protecting?
What are done tolerating in ourselves?
What do we want our work to do in the lives of readers?
Where can we get a better supply outlet for cheese?
I’ve written stories most of my life, but the older I get, the less patience I have for creating anything on accident. Höbin feels the exact same way…but he’s always been brutally honest in his writing since I met him. These conversations during the last two weeks of December brought some issues to light.
2025 was a hard year for most of us. Many of us dealt with heavy loss, pain, and for some, experiences literally beat the motivation out of them. We watched the world beat on people to the extent that they stopped choosing on purpose.
It doesn’t always destroy people in one dramatic event. It’s slower than that. It’s quieter.
It trains them to avoid hard things.
To trade courage for comfort.
To outsource identity.
To numb out with noise.
You know you’ve seen it, around you in society, or through media,…and it’s growing.
And then we wonder why so many adults feel like hollowed-out versions of who they were supposed to become… and why so many kids can’t sit still long enough to enter a story.
This may sound strange, but I don’t actually write fiction to escape the world.
I write fiction because I don’t want to lose myself…or my family…in it.
That’s what Life of Fiction is for. It’s not an “author platform.” It’s a line in the sand.
A commitment to deep stories in a shallow age.
The Next Stage for Life of Fiction
Life of Fiction was crafted as the umbrella for everything we’re building creatively…stories, lore, essays, worldbuilding, music, games, and the long-form projects that grow from them.
It’s a place for readers who want more than spectacle. More than the stuff that looks intense on the surface—big fights, bigger powers, fast twists, constant threat escalation, shocking betrayals, cinematic set pieces. It’s the sugar rush version of story.
And spectacle isn’t bad. It’s just incomplete.
Spectacle asks, “Was that cool?”
LoF asks, “Did that change you?”
Or at least: did it change the character in a way that feels true, and did it leave the reader with something solid to think about afterward?
If you want stories where:
humor isn’t there to undercut meaning, but to help characters endure it
magic has rules and consequences
hope isn’t naïve, it’s earned
heroes aren’t “the best,” they’re the ones who keep choosing forward
the real battle is usually internal before it ever becomes external
…then you’re in the right place.
If you want cynical fiction that mocks goodness, shrugs at evil, or treats identity like a costume you swap out based on mood—this won’t scratch that itch.
I’m not building that kind of world.
The point of all this
If you’re new here, Höbin and I don’t want you guessing what Life of Fiction is.
We don’t want you stumbling into a story expecting cozy comfort if what you actually bought was consequence-driven hope under pressure.
And we don’t want the internet deciding who we are on our behalf.
That’s why we wrote the five anchors, and we’ll link them on the ‘Start Reading Here’ page as a permanent “start point” for anyone who wants to understand what we’re building in 2026.
Again, pick the door that fits you:
Start with the personal why: https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/who-i-am-and-why-my-stories-exist
Start with what the reading experience feels like: https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/what-i-write-and-what-you-can-expect
Start with theme and meaning: https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-themes-i-write-toward-and-why-they-matter
Start with character types: https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-character-archetypes-i-return-to-and-why
Start with the series map: https://www.lifeoffiction.com/p/the-stories-ive-written-and-how-they-fit-together
And if you’re the kind of reader who likes to commit once you’ve found your people—subscribe. I’m here all year, building stories that don’t apologize for hope.
—Jaime Buckley