BANFF, Alta. -- The creator of HBO's dark and brooding crime drama "True Detective" says fans of the popular show had better not get too attached over the long term.

"Each season I'm essentially creating a brand-new TV show and it can't have any growing pains like a regular first season. It has to work right out of the box and that's incredibly exhausting," Nic Pizzolatto said in an interview Wednesday at the Banff World Media Festival.

"I'm writing every episode so I can't imagine I would do this more than three years. I'd like to have a regular TV show with fixed sets and regular actors," he said with a chuckle.

The first season starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, who were both executive producers, as well as Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts and Tory Kittles. It used multiple timelines to trace the hunt for a serial killer by two Louisiana State Police Criminal Investigations Division homicide detectives over 17 years.

Pizzolatto said he's written two scripts so far that's he's happy with. But he has a message for people who believe rumours about who will be cast in season 2.

"Not a single rumour about casting that has been printed anywhere has any truth to it whatsoever. I've seen entertainment reporters say 'my sources say' and there are no sources. There's me and two other guys and they don't even know what I'm doing," he said.

"We haven't approached anybody yet. When I get back we're going to be meeting with directors and get the casting process into full gear," said Pizzolatto.

"We have four primary POV (point of view) roles we will really need to focus on and once those are in place we'll know the shooting schedule for sure. Right now we're planning to start in the fall."

The newfound attention and success has been a bit difficult for Pizzolatto, who is notoriously reclusive and does his best to avoid any social media.

"I'm pretty hard to actually get a hold of by design," he said.

"This has all been very new to me and what I've had to do is just find a distance for myself. We got here by me working in a vacuum towards my own vision for better or worse and then not compromising on it," said Pizzolatto.

"I'm not going to allow that sort of speculation to influence the way I work, and at the same time in order to work the way I work I cannot be engaging total strangers on the Internet to explain my work to them. I even kind of think it denigrates the work a little bit."