CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Corporate Loyalty is an short pseudo-science adventure a la the 1950’s. Its science is unlikely; its people and their motivations are not. When a leading ‘bug’ researcher is returned to normal size early, he discovers the science which alters his size has a flaw. Can his best friend help him out of the trouble he’s in? Corporate Loyalty is one of the short stories that will be incorporated into An Anthology of Pseudo-Science . It is currently available as a stand-alone short story, and can be found at Smashwords and Kindle . It will shortly be available from Kobo, Nook and iTunes . Fir st Page:  I had been placed in a different section to the others, but it made no difference; I was here to study, and the data I required could not be found anywhere else. My research was in its final stages and soon I would be free. I allowed my mind to dwell on my impending success for a fraction of a second, before returning my attention to the task that lay before me. The...

The Theory behind the Challenge   Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenge on the Terribleminds blog, this week was to write a short story, in 1,000 words or less, in response to, and including, a prompt created by this random sentence generator . My random sentence was: Should the mum divert the drill? I received the sentence on the morning of the 11 th of March, 2013, and completed a rough hand-written draft of the story at around midnight, just before I went to bed, after spending the day mulling it over, in fits and starts. I made very few changes when I typed it up on the 12 th . I admit to being a little consternated as to where the story was in this sentence, but then I broke the sentence down. A ‘mum’ could be a mother, while ‘mum’ also had the meaning of ‘silence’, as in to ‘keep mum’. If you really stretched it, ‘mum’ could also be considered a diminutive of the term for mimes, or actors in silent plays, known as ‘mummers’. I decided that all these terms c...

This Week's Challenge So, my random sentence for this challenge is: Should the mum divert the drill? And now I have 1,000 words to play with, and a deadline of 15 March 2013. The Why behind the Challenge So, why, when time is so short, am I back to undertaking these challenges again? Because I miss them; Because I can; Because they're fun; Because they challenge me to try something different; Because, when I was going through the work published last year, the pieces created for the Wendig challenges were amongst the better pieces produced; Because I get to see how others tackle the problem and learn from them; Because I get to hang, even if it's only virtually, with a bunch of other writers;  Because, with a little time management and prioritization, they're achievable within the timeframe set; And because the challenges make me write, and complete, something every week. Seriously, as a tool for actively working to develop your craft, these challeng...

The Theory When I wrote my goals for the year, I tried to make it so I could cover each genre I wrote in, at least in passing. Because I write in so many genres and under so many pen names, I realized I had to plan my time carefully. In doing that, I also realized it was not physically possible for me to have four releases a year in each genre for each pen name… at least, not while holding down a full-time job. So, I came up with a set of tiered goals and wishlists. Tier 1 is the minimum of what I think I can do. At the end of the first week, it seemed to be holding. At the end of two months, not so much; I’m way ahead of schedule, but I’m not producing new words <sigh>. Tier 2 was what I hope to achieve in good conditions. Tiers 3-4 were my dream tiers, the projects that I really wanted to do, but couldn’t work on, due to time constraints. So, every week, I planned to advance Tier 1 by a revised chapter or 1,000 words a day, Tier 2 was the same progression, if I could...