I took a photo the other day that immediately made its way into my story notes.
Cheyenne Mountain.
If you’ve ever watched Cold War films or read nuclear-era fiction, you probably recognize the name. Buried deep inside that mountain is one of the most famous hardened military installations in the world, built during the Cold War to survive the kind of nuclear exchange everyone hoped would remain theoretical.
When writing about nuclear escalation, it’s a strange experience to stand somewhere that has been part of that real-world infrastructure for decades. It stops feeling like a setting from a movie or a distant piece of history and starts to feel very immediate, especially in light of the uncertainty of global tensions of late.
Inside the granite was housed the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD); the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was designed to withstand nuclear attack and continue operating if the unthinkable ever happened. Although the day-to-day operations of NORAD are now run out of Peterson Space Force Base, the mountain itself is still maintained as a hardened backup command center.
For a writer who spends a lot of time imagining worst-case scenarios, that realization hits differently when you’re actually looking at the mountain itself.
It’s a reminder that the systems we write about in fiction aren’t entirely fictional, but part of the world we live in. And at the heart of those systems are still people—analysts watching radar feeds, technicians interpreting satellite data, and commanders trying to make sense of information that may or may not mean the world is about to change. Technology matters, but in the end, it is still human decisions that shape history, and that human element is the thread that interests me most when I’m writing stories like this.
That very thought has been creeping into the chapters I’m releasing here on Patreon right now—showcasing the human element.
Writing Collapse… While Building Resilience
What makes this week even more interesting is that while I’m writing scenes about geopolitical escalation, my real-world schedule is focused on something that explores the opposite side of that equation.
I’m currently in Colorado working on preparations for the Thrive Self-Reliance Summit, which is coming up this August.
If my fiction explores how systems fail, Thrive is about how communities endure.
The event brings together instructors, authors, and exhibitors focused on practical self-reliance—everything from preparedness and homesteading to outdoor skills and sustainable living. The goal is not to dwell on worst-case scenarios but to give people the tools and knowledge that help families and communities remain resilient in uncertain times. With hands-on demonstrations, classes, and opportunities to learn, it offers the other side of the story for some of our characters.
Working on the summit while writing an apocalyptic storyline creates an interesting contrast. One side of my life is imagining the worst. The other is helping people learn how to face the future with capability and confidence.
The Strange Balance of Writing Apocalyptic Fiction
There is something oddly grounding about working in both spaces at the same time. On one hand, I’m writing scenes where global systems are under enormous strain, and the possibility of nuclear conflict hangs over everything. On the other hand, I’m helping prepare an event where people are learning skills like food preservation, emergency preparedness, wilderness survival, and homesteading—skills that strengthen communities rather than break them apart.
It’s two sides of the same coin.
One explores how fragile systems can be. The other explores how resilient people can be.
Standing there looking at Cheyenne Mountain, that contrast felt especially powerful. Inside that mountain are decades of planning for worst-case scenarios. Outside it, everyday people are quietly building knowledge and skills that help families navigate whatever the future holds.
A Question for You
Many of you reading here are following the chapters in the Year of Ruin series, the first era in the Age of Fire & Ash as they release first on Patreon, and you know that the story isn’t just about the initial disaster. The broader arc of the Age of Fire & Ash follows humanity across decades of survival and rebuilding after a global nuclear catastrophe, eventually becoming a multigenerational story about the world that rises from the ashes of the old one.
That means the characters you are reading about right now are not just trying to survive the moment when everything begins to unravel. They are unknowingly shaping the world their children—and eventually their grandchildren—will inherit. Entire settlements, alliances, and cultures will grow out of the decisions made during those first desperate years.
So I’m curious what you think.
When you imagine a major global crisis—whether that’s war, economic collapse, or natural disasters—what do you think actually matters most?
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Is it large systems and advanced technology?
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Individual preparedness and practical skills?
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Strong local communities that cooperate and share resources?
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Or something else entirely?
A Small Sneak Peek
One of the points of view takes place inside Cheyenne Mountain, where confused and terrified people are trying to interpret a series of conflicting alerts. Satellite feeds and radar anomalies begin to appear, each one potentially harmless on its own but deeply troubling when viewed together.
The people watching those screens are trying to answer the most difficult question imaginable: the first sign that a chain reaction of events has already begun, and now survival begins.
Standing in Colorado with Cheyenne Mountain visible in the distance made that scene feel far less abstract than it once did. Sometimes, the most unsettling part of writing fiction is realizing how close some of it sits to reality.
But the part of the story that fascinates me most has never been the disaster itself. What truly interests me is what comes afterward. Because long after the fire fades…someone will still be living in the ashes.
Since many of you are reading these chapters here on Patreon before they appear anywhere else, you’re also seeing the earliest moments of this world unfold in real time. That makes this a fun place to speculate a little. If you imagine the world ten years after the collapse—once the initial chaos has passed and survivors begin trying to build something stable again—what do you think rises out of the ashes? Do small cooperative communities take root, or do fortified settlements control resources and territory? Does technology slowly return, or does the knowledge of the old world start to fade into something closer to legend? I’d love to hear what you think that future might look like, especially knowing that the choices being made in these early chapters will echo forward through generations of the Fire & Ash world.
More shenanigans soon!
