CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Well, that fortnight sure went fast. Serpents' Souls & Dragons' Hearts released today on all platforms. You can find it at Smashwords , Amazon , DriveThruFiction and via Draft2Digital distribution. It's a science fiction short story set on the world of the lizardine, some time after the events in The Reptiles' Blade. Mankind has legends of intelligent serpents, dragons and vampires in almost every culture, and now mankind is out amongst the stars. When an emergent psi of lizardine-human descent dreams of a many-legged threat and serpents walking the skies, mankind might just have a chance to discover those legends made real.

Well, I seem to have drowned you in pokemongo reports over the last few days, so by now you must be wondering just how serious I am about this writing business. I'm very serious, but I use Pokemongo – and Ingress – as motivation for my fitness regime. They get a run, when I go for a walk, or when I run errands, and very rarely does either game choose when that is – and only when I know I have everything else nailed down. Walking, on the other hand, is essential to my health, which is essential to me being able to write, and I’m trying to ensure I do it every day – a bit like taking vitamins, only much more time-consuming. This week, I managed to walk every day, in spite of trying to give myself a day off on the last day of November. Tomorrow, things might get a bit dicey with the severe weather front that’s moving across, so we’ll have to play that one by ear, but, today, I walked before the storms were due to arrive. This month, it's taken a bit of time to get my feet u...

This one's easy... as long as you're in an area where there are lots of rattata. There is only one rule - Catch Them All! ...and, eventually, you'll catch enough that are Size-Small that you will earn your medal. I am not going to say how many I've had to catch just to reach the 50 needed to achieve the silver level of this medal - and that's not because I'm being difficult; it's just because I've lost count. If we use Pratchettese troll-speak, you're talking 'many, many, lots'. On the up-side, you only need 25 candy to evolve them into raticate, which means you should have lots of opportunities to gain XP and move yourself along in level. I'll try to remember to keep a rattata tally on how many I need to catch in order to get to the 300 I need for the gold level of this medal, but I won't promise to remember. If you're curious, here's what the silver Youngster medal looks like - shiny, right?

My break is over. Lunch is had. Walk is walked. Farfetch'd has been fetched. I've caught three and will just have to be content with that. Here they are: The first farfetch'd hid out in a local pokemon gathering point where the pokemon just don't show up on the scanner. For some reason he thought I should not pass, so I stuffed him in a pokeball, and went looking for the next one. It helped that he needed improvement in battling.   The second one was just a short walk up the path - in another blind spot on the scanner, although, granted, these guys will occasionally show up as being 'nearby'. This one also needed to improve in battling. The third one was a surprise. I took a diversion up a path near another local pokestop. There are usually 3-4 pokemon along here, and they never show up on the scanner, so I thought I'd give it a final check, even though there'd been no farfetch'd there on the trip out. ...

...and then it went away. It's only around in the O.Z. for the next 48 hours, and it's Sunday.  Guess what I'm off to do, now?

Last week started with a whirlwind visit from my dad, which was nice, and then it settled down a little. I decided I had to focus on my publishing obligations for December, finish the publishing for November, and then see if I thought NaNo was a wash for the year. Because I’d reached the last 10 days of November, December’s publishing moved to the top of the list. According to the original schedule, I had 1 short story ( Serpents’ Souls & Dragons’ Hearts ), 1 erotic novella for my friend, Ellie ( The Trading Game ), and 1 young adult science fiction novel ( A Planet’s Ransom ) to publish. Of these three, the first two were written, but needed the full process of editing, cover design, formatting and uploading. The last one needed to be finished. I also wanted to get my long-overdue flash fiction collection out, as well, because I’d let my flash fiction and poetry writing slip during my university years, but that was going to be a long-shot. Finally, I wanted to ge...