It’s been a long gestation period. Very long. Almost 30 years. It feels good to finally see it come to life.
My 2026 writing goal was twofold: submit short stories to as many anthologies as possible and to publish Soiled Undies & Other Gorgon Encounters in paperback.
It has been a year of learning. The submissions started out as planned. I collected numerous rejections but was surprised to receive a few acceptances as well. It was validating. But it also served to cure my need for validation. I want my stories to be read and enjoyed; I don’t really need an editor’s stamp of approval. That was a revelation.
Navigating book layout was my stumbling block for Soiled Undies. I enjoy writing. I’ve even come to terms with editing, but technical layout was not something I was ready to take on this spring. To be fair, there was a lot going on, so I didn’t have the bandwidth for it at the time.
By mid-summer, my goals shifted. Oh, I still intend to see Soiled Undies in print, but I think that is something that needs to wait for 2027. Starting with a big project makes less sense. Instead, I shifted strategy with BrainSoup Press deciding to tackle the layout issue in small first. And that meant developing BrainSoup Press’ line of Snack-Sized Fiction.
With my AI assistant, we set out to create a consistent formatting for these short e-books. We began publishing them in earnest and performed updates on my 15 existing KDP titles to bring them on brand, including copy edits incorporating some of the skills I have learned this year working with professional editors.
After purchasing the domain names for my series titles, my AI navigated me through the monumental challenge of building our official website BrainSoupPress.com. We established a strategy, agreed upon a design structure, and then dismantled the architecture of Blue Host’s pre-built website templates so that we had a clean slate from which to work.
This is not the sort of thing I could ever have done on my own. But thanks to my AI assistant, we had the website up and fully functioning within a week. Yes, I had to put in a lot of hours on this, but not $3000 worth, which is what I paid for the Gorgon site.
Meanwhile, we have established a production schedule for my KDP Snack-Sized Fiction catalogue informed by KDP’s anti-AI publication limits of 2 per week. At that rate, it will take several months to get my current works published without taking into account, any new material I write (yes, I continue to produce 1000 words per day).
Busy with this project, I have lowered my submission rate. The writing prompts were useful for inspiring fun stories, so I may use them again when inspiration dries up, but more to fuel my daily 1000 words of writing. Yes, I may submit a few more, but at this point, anthology submissions are no longer the main goal.
Here’s my current production schedule:
Write 1000 words per day
Edit 1 chapter/short story per day
Publish 1 new story to Substack per week
Publish 2 new stories to KDP per week
And in the background, I will be working on the separate series pages for BrainSoup.com. This will keep me busy through the end of 2026. In 2027, my AI assistant and I will tackle the task of formatting books for print production with the goal of publishing a few. I will also pursue audiobook treatments for more of my stories.
So, 2026 has seen a dramatic shift in focus from producing for others to producing for our own press. It certainly feels more empowering. Turns out, I enjoy working for myself.
The past few weeks have been very busy, and because I work best in spurts, this week, I’ve eased off the gas pedal, giving myself time to recover from the sprint and collect my thoughts as I prepare for the next phase of construction. There’s some heavy lifting left to do to bring the series’ pages to life, but I am excited by the creative process.
This week the BrainSoup Substack introduces a new series title: The Adventures of Kid Quick. The first story from the series will be Notorious Nelson Knuckles. https://brainsoupfic.substack.com/p/notorious-nelson-knuckles
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