CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

  Country Rush is now available! Country Rush is the first book in the Bookstore Romances series which centers around the characters who work in, or pass through, Highway's Book Emporium, a bookstore in a city very much like Melbourne or Canberra. When Taylor helps a tall, dark stranger hide from men pursuing him, she embroils herself in the seedier side of city life. With her mother watching over her seriously injured father in hospital, Taylor has dropped out of university to help pay the bills, taking on a second job to do so. The last thing she needs is a rapid exit from the city and a quick trip to the country, but that's exactly what her tall-dark-and-handsome insists on. With a nasty criminal element on their heels, the pair of them take a fast train and a slow bus out of town, before fleeing to a country property to try to work out how to escape their dilemma. Country Rush is the first book in the Bookstore Romances series, and will be available from Sma...

So, I'm not so sure how uniquely 'Australian' this one is. I do know it was deucedly difficult to photograph. Apparently, butterflies have pretty good eyesight. In the first shot, I'm trying to gain a little focus and get a little closer. So far, so good. And than I adjusted focus in. Amazingly, the butterfly is still there. I adjusted the focus out. Now, I'm starting to think it's too scared to move. So, I try a different angle. And then another, thinking this must be either a very brave or very tolerant butterfly. I spoke too soon. apparently that last lot of shots was all it was willing to take and it flew away.

Country Rush is now available for Pre-Order from Smashwords ! Country Rush is the first book in the Bookstore Romances series which centers around the characters who work in, or pass through, Highway's Book Emporium, a bookstore in a city very much like Melbourne.   When Taylor helps a tall, dark stranger hide from men pursuing him, she embroils herself in the seedier side of city life. With her mother watching over her seriously injured father in hospital, Taylor has dropped out of university to help pay the bills, taking on a second job to do so. The last thing she needs is a rapid exit from the city and a quick trip to the country, but that's exactly what her tall-dark-and-handsome insists on. With a nasty criminal element on their heels, the pair of them take a fast train and a slow bus out of town, before fleeing to a country property to try to work out how to escape their dilemma.

Welcome back to my exploration of poetical forms. For the next few weeks, we’re going to be focussing on the cinquain. A cinquain is a five-line poem that has a set number of syllables (or word types) per line. Sometimes the title of a cinquain acts as a sixth line. The person who created the cinquain form was an American poet named Adelaide Crapsey who was inspired by the strict rules governing Japanese poetry forms. Many of her cinquains can be found in Verse, a collection of her work published in 1915. The first type of cinquain we’ll look at has no name, so I’ve called it Crapsey Form 1, after its creator. This form has one syllable in the first line, two in the second, three in the third, four in the fourth and only one in the fifth. Here’s an example, inspired by looking out my window at the park: Dogs Walking Playing ball With their owners Friends And here’s another one. Ghosts Screaming Souls bereft Of all life’s joy Weep Why...

This week, I realised I had to step up my study in order to do more than ‘okay’—well, gee, who’da thunk? As a result, my writing has suffered. I know, check out the word count, but remember I had a long weekend last week, so I got a whole day extra. When you look at it that way, it’s not so much extra. I also slept more than wrote on the bus, so I’m a bit behind in my daily flash fiction and poetry. On the upside, however, I finished of a 60,000 words novel, made progress on two anthologies *and* had a new idea I’m pretty excited about. I also passed three mini-tests, handed in a 500-word assignment and started prepping an in-class assessment. I’m starting to realize I’m not slack, just very, very busy. And that word count? It doesn’t include the words I use in bloggery, so I guess it’s not so shabby, after all.   Overview New words produced: 10,093 Old words revised: 0 Works completed: 14 (1 assignment, 1 novel, and 12 shorter works for incorporation into 2 longer...