CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Here is my entry for this week's Flash Fiction Challenge from the terribleminds blog. Barring the title, it is exactly 1,000 words long. Blood and Iron “Every woman he touches. The only thing they have in common is you.” Haft knew Stan would tell him they had to leave and Haft had his eye on the prettiest wench yet. Stan did not know about her; Haft liked it that way. He glared at Stanislau. Stanislau was a tall man, dark-haired and bronze-eyed, handsome and smart enough to turn his hand to anything, but not smart enough to back down. “You know I’m right, Haft,” he said. Haft curled his lip in a snarl. He knew no such thing. They had left the last city because of the killings, and Haft now had a price on his head. “Haft will be blamed,” he said. “Like before.” The words rang like a truth, and the bar stilled. Stanislau looked surprised, and Haft suspected the sneak had known, but chosen not to share. He reached for the wine bottle, contemplating whether...

So, I’ve decided I might just have to make the time to play with the flash fiction challenge s Chuck Wendig posts on his terribleminds blog . They just look like too much fun to ignore any longer. This week we had to pick one word from three lists. I used a d10 for mine. From Column 1, I ended up with: Sword and Sorcery (so far, so good; it could have been ‘erotica’ or ‘body horror’ and then where would I have been?); From Column 2, I ended up with: Serial killer (not too bad, but I was secretly hoping for ‘dinosaurs’ or ‘insects’); From Column 3, I ended up with: Man Versus Himself (YIKES!!!) So, I rolled these at around 09:50 AEST on the 9 September 2012, and then I let it stew while I worked on a couple of other projects (I know I should ‘finish my shit’; I’m doing that, but I can’t do it by writing one thing at a time – sorry, it’s just not how I roll). Anyway, I wanted to make sure I avoided the clichés, the biggest one of these being the serial killer ending up...

Some of you know that I read a lot of blogs; it’s why I’ve decided to go indie rather than follow the traditional route to publishing. Anyway, even though the decision’s been made, I still read the blogs. Sometimes I even stop and read them slowly instead of skipping over them. Here are the entries that have made me stop and take a second look this week:   Susan Kiernan-Lewis’s blog about writing habits of some famous writers ( http://susankiernanlewis.com/2012/09/05/daily-creative-habits-of-the-rich-and-famous/ ); Susan Kiernan-Lewis’s blog post about how changes she made to one of her books helped it to sell, and the role of social media ( http://susankiernanlewis.com/2012/09/05/daily-creative-habits-of-the-rich-and-famous/ ); The Galaxy Express blog had a steampunk-type adventure romance cover that caught my eye, so I stopped. Here’s the link: http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2012/09/exclusive-steampunk-romance-cover.html The Next Web on how to price your service...

So, it’s been another really quiet week, but I think I managed to crack the first of the challenges in rewriting DarkFantasyNovel1A . Current Projects This week I made the following progress on my current projects: DarkFantasyNovel1A: + 5,000 words; first four chapters revised; Publishing Tasks DarkFantasyNovel2A: commissioned cover artist; RomanceNovel1A: progressed cover art with artist; Updated blog 3 times; Added links to The Simpson Anthologies page.   New Arrivals  Only one new arrival this week: ·          Poem31: Another series of haiku to form a poem, this one about hitmen.