So I was listening to an interview with the author Steven Erikson. One of the questions was about the epigraphs of each chapter. For those who haven't read the books, each chapter starts with a short poem or an excerpt from a history book. The question was if he wrote the chapter or the epigraph first, and the wild thing is that he wrote the epigraphs first! They touch on the themes of the book in some way, so apparently those also served as his notes for what this chapter is going to be about.

Here's the interview: media.transistor.fm/1ed1542b/589021ca.mp3

Great Malazan read-along podcast btw.