I always work from outline and almost always write out of sequence. It just works for me.

The Forgotten Realms is arguable the most detailed, intricate fantasy setting ever created this side of Middle Earth. It's a setting for many D&D game products and lots of fiction. It is vast, historically and geographically and so contains just about anything you might imagine, at one place or time or another. Created by Ed Greenwood. And, for the record, Ed Greenwood is one of the smartest guys I've ever met.

I enjoyed The Mirage by M. Ruff. I'm reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess Of Mars right and loving it.

Shared world has done some world building and brings (in the case of FR and SW) a big audience. With your own work, you're more creatively free. In a way, the shared world stuff has a high floor but a ceiling.

Cale is my signature character in the Forgotten Realms. The most popular character I've written. He's a thief, an assassin, and eventually, a priest who stabs his own god in the chest. Always trying to slip his past, but never succeeding. Dark dude. Brooding dude. Born killer. But honorable, still.

The Sundering is a world spanning event that creates ripples all across the Realms. The books in the series are connected in that they take place against that backdrop, showing different aspects of it. The stories, however, are not sequels or intertwined, though there are some Easter Eggs across books.

I'm unstuck in time. Also, I juggle like mad and have made myself efficient.