Episode 90: Keeping the Creative Spark Alive

Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of the Saved as Draft podcast. This week, I’m joined by writer, artist, and animator James Nethery, who runs BrewBob the (not so) Beer Snob here on Substack. You can also find BrewBob on TikTok and Instagram if you’d like to check out more of James’ videos and craft beer reviews. Here are your timestamps for this week if you’d like to jump to a specific segment: * 4:05 - Community Spotlight * 7:41 - Writing Discussion * 46:21 - Comedy Segue (Featuring Lord Devereaux) * 50:13 - Weekly Shout Outs * 58:02 - The Second Indulgence Week 1 Recap * 1:15:50 - Next Week on Substack Community Spotlight This week’s community spotlight is on michelle ray! Michelle recently released her memoir, which I discussed during the episode. Grab your copy here. As I also mentioned in the episode, Michelle read one of my poems to her class last year and sent over their feedback. That piece was Funhouse Mirror if you’re curious to check it out! You can find their feedback in this thread. A huge thank you to Michelle for all the support! Writing Discussion This week’s writing discussion thread was all about keeping the creative spark alive when life gets hard. You can find all the responses here. Weekly Shout Outs * You’re an Animal by Alexandria Fergusson * The Fall of Crows: Non Serviam by Kairos and Friends * And you don’t seem to understand by Prachi The Second Indulgence: Week 1 Stories Leaderboard And now, for the part you’re all waiting for. In this episode, I looked at the top performing stories from week 1 of my ongoing horror writing challenge. These are the individual stories that scored highest. The final winners of the challenge will be chosen based on their total author score, but those numbers will remain a mystery for now. And now, a look at our three brackets, plus some Wild Card stories I selected, and of course a few stories from the Unranked bracket! Keep in mind, these scores were captured on Thursday of this past week, so they may have gone up since then. 1. Johnathan Vance - The Golden Sequence * Total Score: 24 points 2. Alexander Aviles - Chapter 1: Chimera * Total score: 23 points 3. Victoria "Moueska" Buritsch - Ritual * Total score: 17 Points Wild Card My wild card pick for week 1’s lightweight bracket is He Brought Back What? by Fritz Fallen! 1. Beastly 𖤐 Being - Salt Tumor * Total score: 44 points 2. Felix Thornfell - Anthropic Identity * Total score: 21 points 3. Arlo Vell - Hope is a Funny Drug * Total score: 15 points Wild Card While this person is submitted unranked since they work on the challenge, they would most likely join the middleweight bracket if they were competing. For that reason, my wild card pick for middleweight this week is A Proud and Bloodstained Family Business by Leeron Heywood! 1. Verdant Butterfly - Devereaux’s Masquerade Pt 1 * Total score: 99 points 2. Gary L Taylor - Eyes * Total score: 80 points 3. ReBe - Opening * Total score: 46 points Wild Card For our heavyweight bracket Wild Card, I’ve selected The First Smokesmith by Richard Pack! The Writer's Journey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Writer's Journey at bradleyramsey.substack.com/subscribe