Why the hell, I wonder, do great story ideas hit me when I’m already overworked and stressed and at the end of my rope?
And yet…

Incidentally, I normally fail to make friends when I point out that if you find yourself short of ideas, you are probably a tourist in the wonderful world of writing. If it is undeniable that a writer is one who writes – as opposed to one that talks about writing¹ – then it is also true that a writer is one that

1. is never short of ideas
2. knows what ideas are worth pursuing and what are better filed away for later use

And both skills can be learned, and exercised through time. Leave the muse in her boudoir, to paint her nails.

Case in point…
I did one of those silly games that get posted on Facebook and that probably exist only to reap your personal data so that obscure companies will be able to use them to hijack the democratic process somewhere.
In particular, I was toying with this thing here…

Now, I was born on the 29th of May 1967, and therefore the title generator gives me

The Metaphysical Wanderer That Doesn’t Know Mercy

And let’s admit it, it’s a kickass title for a series of stories.
And while I do not care for grimdark and all that stuff, my brain started rattling like a broken down engine, and I got this idea for a series of dark fantasy/sword & sorcery shorts.
Wasn’t K.E. Wagner’s Kane called the mystic swordsman, after all?
And just two days ago I was talking with a friend about John Brunner’s The Traveler in Black.
And really, the idea of a wizard/swordsman wandering the lands to bring merciless retribution to the forces of evil is simple enough and yet solid enough to deserve some consideration. Warlocks are to me and under-represented minority in the fantasy canon.
I could even recycle the idea of the Swordsmen Scholars I mentioned in my story for Zappa & Spada.

And I do not know when I will ever have the time and the right state of mind to work on it, but I know I will work on it.
It would be fun.