CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

This is the sojourners medal. It’s probably the easiest and hardest medal to achieve in Ingress. Easy, because all you have to do is to go out there, find a portal, and hack it. Hard, because there are days when the last thing you want to do is go anywhere, whether you are sick, busy, behind schedule, or the weather is more than unpleasant. Those days, where you just ‘don’ wanna’. The sojourner’s medal is earned by hacking an Ingress portal once a day, on consecutive days, or, as the medal says: “hack a portal within consecutive 24-hour periods”. Here are a few tips on how not to miss a day. Hack Every Day Sounds obvious, right? And easy. Just remind yourself of that, the next time you’re making excuses not to go out, whether they’re valid or not. While it only takes 15 days to earn the lowest tier of this medal, it’s going to take almost a year to achieve the highest tier, and that counter resets if you miss a day. Hack Twice a Day So, if hacking onc...

To be a writer, you have to write. You have to write regularly. And you have to finish what you write. To be earning a living from your work, you have to publish your work and have it available for sale—and even that might not be enough. The only advice I have on this, is find time to write every day, but don’t kick yourself when life happens. After that, I would say decide what you want to publish and when, and look at what you are working on. If you don’t write short fiction, then a fortnightly schedule might be a bit unrealistic. If you can’t write more than a thousand words a day, then expecting to release a 100,000-word novel each quarter is probably too much. Look at what you want to achieve, and then break it down into the time-frame you want to achieve it in, but keep your capabilities and real-life demands in mind. Build in a little bit of flexibility, days for being sick, family holiday, time for fitness. I call this ‘fudge time’, and I don’t mean the chocola...

Free - just like the program. Here is a very basic run-through of what I learned about building a cover using GIMP. I hope it helps.

Take a look at your scanner. Down the bottom, in the right-hand corner, is a button marked COMMS. Open it up. Now, see how the agent names are kind of in bold with a line under them? Press on one. Keep pressing until two options appear on your screen: View Player Profile, or Send Message. Touch View Player Profile. Now, you can see that player’s badges, their mission badges, and their stats. Wait! Can’t see their stats? They must have their profile locked down. Why would they do   that? Well, I keep mine locked down, too, and I have done since choosing the portal I was hoping to get to black guardian with, but there are a number of reasons. To Keep it Private. Some players like to work quietly towards their goals. They don’t like the stress of comparisons and competition, or they’re just very private people. Locking down their profiles means only the basics of their progress can be tracked, and not every little detail. I’ve kept mine locked down, because I like it quie...

If you decide to go independent, don’t expect to get rich overnight. It takes on average 5-10 years to make a living and that is if you do everything right. Again, there is a lot of advice out there, but it boils down to this: Produce a professional, well-written, enjoyable, well-presented product. And therein lies the rub. You can control three of those four elements. You can produce a professional product; you can control the quality of writing within your ability, and your editor’s ability; and you can present it well. What you can’t control is if a reader finds it enjoyable, or not. Also, beyond your control, is if a reader picks up your book in the first place. Depressing, right? Those are just the facts you have to live with. You can do your best, but you cannot guarantee sales, or enjoyment, because you are not your readers. All you can do is tell a story you enjoy, and tell it well. The chances are good that someone else will enjoy it, too. There are als...