CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

It’s National Poetry Month , and I’m trying to write, and post, a poem a day to celebrate it. So far, I’ve managed to miss two days, proving I’m not super-human after, but only ordinary, average human. Here’s the poem for today, late today, like the rest of today’s tasks, but here, nonetheless. In Romeo’s Wake Written on April 6, 2018, for the February 17 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry , this piece of fantasy verse was started as part of a response to the first of the 30Days of Writing Activities set by Shut Up & Write . "I’ll see you in the world below," said the age-old Romeo, and with those words he did descend, and left me to on my own defend. I felt jilted, angry, owned, and I vowed then I would not roam to seek a way to the world below, or the treach’rous arms of that Romeo for, although he’d wooed me from dusk til dawn, he’d left me to defend, then mourn, the village, and its dead, alone. If I sought him, t’would not

Dreams of the Serpent , a short science-fiction story about alien contact and negotiation, released today on Smashwords, and will soon be available on Amazon, DriveThruFiction, and via Smashwords and Draft2Digital distribution. When the contract’s done, and you’re fleeing for your life, the company’s supposed to be on your side, right? Am I right? So, you tell me what happens when the company understands the contract wrong, and you get stuck somewhere you really don’t wanta be. You tell me how I’m gonna make it back to the stars. A short science fiction story set in the Odyssey universe.

I had a quiet Ingress month, partly because PokemonGo ran several events, and partly because I was focused on finding the discipline I needed to achieve the writing and publishing goals I have. Medal Milestones: This month, I achieved the Onyx Translator medal: Mission Milestones: Oops. None to report. Results for March Goals: FAIL: Platinum Recon— I lost sight of this goal, and have not been doing regular recon activity for the last month. I’ll add this to April’s goals. FAIL: Complete one more mission mosaic —I lost sight of this goal, after one attempt at a mission mosaic, that had to be aborted due to building works that put a portal in the first mission of the series out of hackable range… and then I forgot completely to put time aside for another one as I focused on my writing goals. SUCCESS: Onyx Translator: achieved during normal play. Goals for April:     A chieve the Platinum Recon milestone; Complete two more mission mosaic

Of all the options, I chose this one. The others… well, some I can’t imagine, and some are too close to home—and I have reached an age where my responses to the questions aren’t going to change. When I was a child, however, the early morning when we lived in remoter parts invited exploration, before the sun and the heat of the day made being outside intolerable. Exercise 5: With Age, Comes Wisdom Two sentences on how I respond to waking up early. I lie there, having reached out quickly and shut off the alarm on my mobile, hoping it hasn’t disturbed the sleep of my husband, or the child that’s snuck into my bed—again. Gathering my thoughts on what needs to be done, what I will write, and the order each task must be undertaken, I close my eyes, knowing I won’t return to sleep, but will be up in three, two, one... Two sentences on how I responded to waking up early as a child. The air is cool and the light is grey, and I might see a kangaroo! Creeping outside,

The final 30 Days of Writing Activity I completed first thing this morning, was the activity for yesterday. I think this one is also going to double up as my second flash fiction piece for the day. Activity 4: Choose Your Own Adventure It’s morning, early by some standards, and I’m sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee set carefully between my forearms as I type. One careless move, and it’ll be everywhere. Outside, the roars of the trolls have died away, as the big monsters seeking shelter in the world beyond the bridge—and I don’t mean in the park on the other side, although that’s one of their favourite hunting grounds; I mean that they pass under the bridge and through a portal to the Other Lands. Outside the window, I can see the ornamental whatever-they-ares, bare of fruit and with their leaves turning yellow at the top. Soon I will have nothing but bare branches to protect me from the curious gazes of strangers using the walking path beyond. Soon, I will be able

Day 6 (April 5th): More walking, and my back is feeling much better. I started the day with the following missions left to do - and was very relieved to spin up a new Field Research task. It was quickly completed, and I scored my sixth sticker. The next stop replaced task. By the end of the day, I had found, and almost completed, a third Field Reserch task, but, in spite of catching innumerable Rattatas, Pidgeys, and Whismurs, along with a couple of Taillows and Zigzagoons, I had yet to come across one. I had also seen only one ghost-type, outside a raid, and that one appeared at a time when I had an errand to run. All in all Day 5 saw no progress on the fifth part of the Special Missions since I'd lost my third ghost-type raid on Day 4. On the upside, I had seen three Skitty in the scanner: one when I had no balls and no way to get any in time, one that was at a stop I could not reach due to errands, and one that disappeared before I could reach the stop it was at.

From the second day’s activity for Shut Up& Write’s 30 Days of Writing , I rolled straight into Day 3’s activity, and had to take a minute to contemplate the problem. I write in first person in a number of my books, and in a lot of my flash fiction, but I’ve never really deliberately sat down to write a journal entry, and not from the perspective of an animal… so I bent the exercise, a little bit, using a third person narrative to set up the journal entry, and then adding a tiny twist. Day 3 Activity: Eye of the Tiger Temperance eyed the world with a jaundiced eye. She felt sad, neglected, and homeless, and that last was even though she had a home. As she lay on the path leading to the back gate, enjoying the morning sun, she composed a journal entry for the day: Today, I woke up and looked for private place to pee. I was never meant to be a completely outside pet, but my people don’t quite get it. It took some time for me to find the right spot, out of sight, with