An Introduction

I was fourteen for most of 1997, and working through all manner of things, as most fourteen-year-olds do. As well as having lots of fun at times and pushing boundaries, there were some less than great moments. In many ways, it was one of the most pivotal years of my life, and some of the strongest foundations of the person I am today were laid that year.

It was in 1997 that I first put pen to paper (and it was pen to paper, back then) and sketched out an element of what would, eventually, morph over the years into TessaHedron.

Originally, this was a single story. A rather sensational story, as one might expect, scribbled before I realised that much of what I loved about reading and writing was the quiet nuance rather than the more dramatic beats.

Over the years that followed, this developed into something bigger. Specific characters started to form in my mind and muscle their way to the fore, often based on aspects of my own personality or by considering how I might respond to certain circumstances. An initial idle musing of motivation and response would develop into an entire person.

At some point, TessaHedron itself as a place started to take shape, a home for the stories and characters that I had been amassing in my mind (and sometimes on paper or digitally). It was based on a version of Edinburgh, a city I eventually moved to in 2014, staying there for a handful of years.

As TessaHedron as a concept grew, so too did the possibilities. This wasn’t just capturing a series of stories, this was worldbuilding at scale. I thought about how I wanted to share these stories and I sketched out a detailed plan for the nine novellas I was writing, but the more I wrote the more they refused to be contained. Everything kept growing. All the while, my research continued, throwing up interesting titbits and nuggets I wanted to incorporate.

I’m sure this will be familiar for many people who have been negotiating with a work in progress, trying to mediate a way forward. At times, I found the process frustrating, but once I acknowledged how much I loved the reading, researching, and creating, I relaxed into the fact that my biggest problems had been with trying to force TessaHedron into something it was not. I had to give her free rein for a bit.

I have spoken elsewhere about how much I enjoy sharing works in progress – my notebooks – and how much I enjoy engagement and collaboration. I also very much benefit from capturing reflections and progress in terms of creative practice. It occurred to me recently that the missing piece in all of this was the fact I was constraining myself by imagining that I would only share some of these ideas once they were fully formed and ready to be experienced as conventional stories.

So, here I am, on the cusp of sharing TessaHedron via the medium of a writer’s notebook. I am not telling the story (or stories) in a conventional chronological manner, though excerpts of drafts will certainly be included at times; I am working through my own thoughts and experiences as I continue to craft and worldbuild. One week I might focus on a character’s motivation, the other I might talk about a slither of information I found interesting during my research and really want to include. I don’t profess to be an expert in the many different things I will be focussing on, in terms of craft or topic; but I am having fun thinking about the potential for sharing all of this, letting it eventually and iteratively solidify into a final product.

For probably obvious reasons, I have no intention of sharing this notebook with the wider web world, it being a work in progress, so all notebook posts will be paywalled. I am quite content with the readership being at a (very!) modest level, and I realise with some irony that over the years I have actively walked away from various platforms which might help me promote this project; but to focus on metrics would be missing the point of the entire creative exercise.

I do not want anyone who already happens to support my projects elsewhere to feel like they can’t also follow along here if they so wish without having to pay to read the posts, so anyone signing up before the end of 2025 will be gifted a perpetual free subscription once the paywall kicks in.

I intend to share a post weekly, starting on the first day of 2026. The time has come for me to finally live and breathe TessaHedron for a while. I would love it if you chose to follow along.