CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Long week and busy. Starting to think I need to cut goals even further during term time. Next week will be the decider. Writing Me: 1.       Short Story1: re-familiarisation complete but the story is refusing to cooperate. Revised an alternative short story (1,300 wds) – science fiction stand-alone start in to an anthology set in my own universe. Over half-way through the second story to the anthology (800 wds). 2.       Project1: Chapter 1 edited. 1 new class drafted and almost complete (took out 400 wds, added 300). May lose more words as I refine the project's focus and move what will become supplementary material into supplement drafts. 3.       Project2: New class idea added. 4.       1 blog entry a week: 4/4. 5.       Bob Mayer and Jen Talty’s Self-Publishing Options course: Week 3 complete. 6.       Continue reading and working through Bob Mayer’s Write it Forward: From Writer to Successful Author and Joy E. Held’s   Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to H

As well as reading the likes of David Weber, Lois McMaster-Bujold, Anne McCaffrey, Alan Dean Foster, Elizabeth Moon, Andre Norton, John Christopher, Ben Bova, Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazney, Tanya Huff, Rob Thurman, Jan Clarke, Tara K. Harper and Mike Shepherd, I also read romance and this has led me to discovering a number of other authors I really like, Nalini Singh among them. Recently, however, I read a novel called Grimspace . When I bought it, I thought it was a science fiction romance, one of the genres Writing Head #2 is writing. As there’s not a lot out there, I thought I’d read a little of what was. I would not call Grimspace romance. It has romantic elements and a very short (not too explicit) sex scene, but it is primarily one of the best science fiction action adventures I have ever read – and I’ve read a lot. Grimspace is definitely up there with works I’ve read by mainstream authors, and Sirantha Jax as memorable and tough a character as Alan Dean Foster’