CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Only one cover created in February, although another is now on its way. This month's cover was for Carlie Simonsen's , first young adult fantasy novel, Anna and the Rock Dragons . EBook Edition Cover for Anna and the Rock Dragons When Anna heads out to her family’s country cottage for the holidays, she has no idea what lies in store. Chosen as the Key Bearer and Door Finder for a race of exiled, Anna soon finds herself in a race against a mining magnate set to make his fortunes by turning the dragons into crystal, and being hunted by a nightmare from local legend. Will she survive long enough to find both key and door in time to help the dragons escape, and then live to tell the tale? CreateSpace Large Print-on-Demand Edition Cover CreateSpace Normal Print-on-Demand Edition Cover

I didn't release any new titles in February, but I did release a January title, Basofi's Choosing , onto a new platform: Amazon-Kindle . There comes a time when a young person has to decide which path they’re going to take. There comes a time when conflicting tides of family influence break against the shores of the future and the first step towards independence must be taken. Basofi has reached that time, but will his family support his decision, or will his choice tear them apart? Basofi’s Choosing is set in the same world and features some of the characters from Palmyra’s Ridge .

Before university started, I finished reading two novels. I’m currently reading a collection of short stories by Bruce Stirling, but I’m not sure I’ll get through it before the month is out. I’ll update this post if I do, otherwise look for it next month. In the meantime, I read my first Chuck Wendig, and my not-so-first Matthew Reilly.  

I have a cover for Carlie’s first young adult fantasy novel, Anna and the Rock Dragons . Here it is:   EBook Edition Cover for Anna and the Rock Dragons When Anna heads out to her family’s country cottage for the holidays, she has no idea what lies in store. Chosen as the Key Bearer and Door Finder for a race of exiled, Anna soon finds herself in a race against a mining magnate set to make his fortunes by turning the dragons into crystal, and being hunted by a nightmare from local legend. Will she survive long enough to find both key and door in time to help the dragons escape, and then live to tell the tale? Oh, and there will be print-on-demand editions from CreateSpace. Their covers look like this:  CreateSpace Large Print Edition Cover CreateSpace Normal Print Edition Cover  

So, way back when, I did this post on gardening and how it was very good for your fitness. I stand by that, but I want to add a caveat and change my mind about a few things. Gardening is great, but it does require a certain base level of fitness. For example, my gardening has looked like this over the last two months: Days1-3: ·          prune 1-2 metres squared of bush ·          weed 1 square metre of garden using weeder and hands Days 4-7 ·          sore back, resting Days 8-10 ·          walk for a half hour once or twice a day. Days 11+ Not sure what happened when. I did a few days walking, interspersed by resting and, in the new year, I braved the garden again. I composted—and I’ll blog on that another time. I then headed out with a garden fork and took to about three-square metres of weed-ridden clay-riddled soil, completely forgetting to take before and after shots. By the end of that, the soil was turned, I’d forked through two 60-litre garbage bins of