I suppose it would be easy just to use your hometown as a setting, but I feel kinda...weird doing that. I don't know, it's like it becomes somewhat autobiographical and too close to write about. A writer should have some distance from their story unless they're writing a memoir.

Normally I would use a similar world over and over again with slight changes. I do it a lot in rping because I can throw it out quickly. Basically the same mostly wooded, human and fanstasy populated, non-urban world.

But as I try to create more complex places yeah, I run into those problems. I'm having oodles of trouble with my new novel even though it's set in the real world and near present time, because it's so governed by it's own rules. There's all the effort that has to go into making sure everything adds up and doesn't contradict itself.