The past week there has been more to write about than there has been time to write. I’ve tried to capture most of it in shorthand notes in the writing journal I keep with me in hopes that the inspiration will still grip me when I come back to it at a later date.
Friday Raconteur Press released Wyrd Warfare: Forgotten Fronts, which features my story Winter Ghost. I have ordered my author copies and expect receipt by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, I’ve continued forging ahead with my upcoming anthology submissions. Tuesday I put the finishing edits on The Nuclear Option for Raconteur’s Giant Killer Kaiju anthology. Personally, this is my favourite submission so far. Submitted it this morning.
Last week, I finished my post-apocalyptic sports story. Though not a fit for the targeted anthology, I was quite happy with how it turned out. I put it in the editing queue, then got to work on my second stab at the Wyrd World of Sports theme, this time with a PG rating. Monday I hit a block at 3000 words, but overnight, I realized it was due to prematurely revealing the heart of the story. Tuesday morning, I woke up and cut a couple characters, cut a couple scenes. Unblocked, the story began to flow again. Wrote about 1500 more words and like my chances of bringing it to resolution within the next couple of days.
Tuesday morning I read the editor’s guidelines for Raconteur’s last anthology of 2026: Deep Blue. Had no ideas for it. Even considered giving it a pass. But while out doing sprint repeats with my wife, a story materialized. This one is a horror story with a delightful ending. I don’t usually start with the ending in mind and rarely know how the story is going to turn out until I am past the midway point, but this one just all fell into place start to finish coming together before we had run our last sprint. Now we’ll see if I can flesh it out to carry the reader’s interest through 5000 words.
I’ve spent a couple of hours editing the first instalment of my Sword & Sorcery adventure, but that puts me only about 6 pages in. It’s been slow going, and I’ve found my time and attention lacking this past week.
Some weeks the muse threatens to dry up and disappear, but this week my cup runneth over, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to capture all the wealth of words on the page. For a writer, there are worse fates.
This week’s Substack is a short scifi piece: Firestorm.
https://brainsoupfic.substack.com/p/firestorm
Overflowing
July 24, 2026
