CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

I honestly thought yesterday was the last day of the challenge, and that I’d completely missed it so, when I went to Dean’s blog, I discovered the entry was for July 30, 2015, which meant there were two stories to go. Today’s randomly rolled title was: Lord of the Vortex , and the word goal was 2,700. It’s 1400 and I haven’t started yet. I’ve spent the morning doing odds and sods and am about to get into more reading for university. I really need to write. Not writing is making me grumpy… aaagh! So writer admin got done, and I caught up with the stories and poems that had ended up in my notebook, and got them drafted onto the computer. Total Words Today: 3,000

Today, the challenge was a total bust. I felt unwell and, after yesterday, I had to catch up with the study and the first half of that took all day. But it was still a valuable learning curve. I had to accept that life is full of choices, that sometimes stuff happens that we have to swing with. Could I have focussed on the challenge and written another story? Sure, and I was hoping to. Would that have been the best thing to do? If I wasn’t trying to walk two life paths at once, sure. Do I really want to write full time? Yes, but I have to finish this first. It’s important. I can’t explain why. It’s important to me that I complete the degree I’ve started. Why, when I might not use it? I have no rational explanation, save that it is something I will regret if I do not finish it—and I am aiming to keep my regrets to a minimum. And I will use what I’m studying in my writing. I’m using it already. An understanding of international relations is helping me understand the politic

I woke up at 0500 and got straight into the readings for my first class for next week. The plan was to clear two classes’ worth of readings and then reward myself with fiction. I had the first class’s readings complete along with a load of washing before I had the little one off to school. A good start—and then had to take my biggest to see the doctor with suspected appendicitis. That was at 1100, after the second load of washing and starting the notes for the second class. I got home at 2030 and spent the next hour and a half reassuring and settling the littlest, doing some quick house chores and wondering why I was feeling so tired. No writing got done. At 2250 I still hadn’t checked out the word goal (2,300) or random-rolled the story title: 35-column 1- Season of , and 66-column 1- the Starman . Good title—I’m looking forward to writing this, but it won’t be tonight. I did a quick catch up of the past few days of Story Match and headed to bed after posting the blogs. Word

Another 0500 start. Very quickly looked over the word goal—3,200— and random-rolled the title: 03-column 2-Souls and 85-Serpent, which I morphed into Souls of the Serpent. No real time for short fiction today. Tuesdays are my long day, but Wednesdays are the days I run. I did more research for my essay, realising as I did so that I could apply the research to my steampunk setting and maybe even RPG development. Yay—but right now, I had an assignment to right. Spent two-and-a-half hours studying Russian history. Wow. Got the littlest off to school and left the oldest at home, not feeling well at 0850. Caught my first bus at 0912, hit the library at 0940, my first class at 1000, my second class at 1100, my third class at 1300 and my bus at 1408 so I could eat (1430) and pick my littlest up at 1500. Got home and got straight into doing the readings for next week, in preparation for getting the next assignment done. Somehow I managed to start a piece of flash fiction on the morning bu

Tuesday, I was hoping for a repeat of Monday’s success—and maybe an advancement—so I checked out Dean’s blog early. The word goal was a nice 1,250 and the title was 61-column 1- Cloud and 50-column 1- Door , so that was easy. But the bus trip consisted of two short hops and the lecture and tutorial weren’t conducive to writing something unrelated… and I got side-tracked by the assignment and started reading the books I had borrowed. Home late (after nine-and-a-half hours out of the house) to children, dinner and assignment prep. My choice, I guess—I could have written the short story instead, but it might not have been the best decision. My choice. Total Words for the Day: 954-Lesson preparation