CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

I got a lot done last week – never as much as I wanted, but enough that I should be content. Here’s what was achieved (in addition to the partial cover designs below): Progress: July 8-14, 2018 New words produced: 30,131 Outlines and Notes: 539 Words compiled: 0 Works completed: 22 (17 x poems; 2 x flash fiction, Mack ‘n’ Me: The Transporter’s Favour, River’s Edge, Harper & the Unicorn ) Works edited: 0 Covers created: 0 Works formatted: 0 Works published: 0 Works released: 0 Works submitted: 0 Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 2,722 Hours at Desk—July 8-14: 69 hours 48 minutes Hours at Desk—July 1-7: 35 hours 36 minutes June Hours at Desk: 230 hours 5 minutes May Hours at Desk: 302 hours 6 minutes April Hours at Desk: 167 hours 41 minutes March Hours at Desk: 201 hours 43 minutes February Hours at Desk: 183 hours 50 minutes January Hours at Desk: 180 hour...

Last week, I ran across a couple of short-story submission opportunities - and I also had an omnibus to release. The initial time budget was a day for each short story, two days to finalise the release format, and three days to add words to the chapter book that decided to become a novel, and the next novel in the Mack 'n' Me 'n' Odyssey series. Well, that was a bust. The first short story refused to cooperate. Point blank. Nuh uh. No way. No how. I wrestled 3,000 words into it, and then worked out I'd written the beginning wrong. That took three days. During that time, I took a lot of breaks so I could think out what to do next, and I made sure not to waste the time. I updated the titles missing from Kobo, reformatted a couple of Smashwords titles, and got my Pinterest boards up to date. I even went for walks, and did household tasks. And NONE of it worked... until I worked out, and accepted, the story needed a total rewrite. After that, it was two days to co...

Last week, I was still working catch-up. I’m happy to say that part of recovering from being sick is almost over. I finished a novel, published a novel, and did the word count for what should have been another completed chapter book… it’s not going to be a chapter book. It was also a disrupted week, which included Mother’s Day, two outside appointments, and a couple of family and social engagements. Catch-up aside, I need to give myself a little more lead time so I can absorb more things like this, more easily. That should be built in, inside the next two months. These two factors have made me revamp my publishing schedule. There’ll be more news on that, and on how this affects my goals, later on this week. In the meantime, things got done, and this week, I will get more things done. Here is a brief summary of what was accomplished in the week just gone: Progress: May 13-19, 2018 New words produced: 22,226 Outlines and Notes: 2,385 Words compiled: 0 Works...

Well, the first week of April went well, right up until the seventh, when my back tweaked, and set me, literally, on my back. From that time, right through to the end of the second week of April, things got tricky. I could only sit for limited lengths of time, so I had to triage what I could and couldn’t do. Projects of a lower priority were dropped, including the work I was doing for National Poetry Month, and both the poetry and flash fiction collections. I also dropped the 30 Days of Writing challenges by Shut Up & Write, but didn’t stop writing every day; I just had to be more focussed, so I could hit my publishing deadlines. I’m hoping to pick up some of the short fall in the third week of April, but we’ll see how we go. My back is still not a hundred per cent, so I’ll be pushing it, but very, very carefully. In the meantime, here’s what got done over the last two weeks. Progress: April 1-7, 2018 New words produced: 28,466 Outlines and Notes: 3,792 Words...