CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Way back in August, I started the Back-on-Track Challenge whose sole aim was to be back on track with my publishing and writing by the end of the year. Along the way, I learned a lot, about the time I had, the time it took to do things, and the demands of the things I had committed to, the priorities of what I’d committed to, and the challenge checkpoints changed—as they were always bound to do. Did I fail? If you look at the checkpoints I didn’t hit, then, yes, I failed, but, if you look at the overall goal, then, no, I didn’t fail. And I succeeded in ways I didn’t know existed. Successes: Discovering the real demands of my activities: in other words, I had no idea of the real time and effort my studies would require, or what my family would need, or even the real time it would take for me to design covers or write the poems, short stories, flash fiction and other things I was writing. I also discovered exactly how tricky some of those short-piece collections can be ...

Well, my Story Match Challenge finished on the 2nd August. It wasn’t the greatest of finishes, but I can’t complain. I learned a lot, even if I didn’t manage to complete the 28 stories I was aiming for. I managed 10 new tales, completely finished. With a bunch of stories unfinished, a pile of editing to catch up on, and five titles still in the publishing queue, I think my next challenge is pretty clear. I think I’ll call it the Back on Track Challenge. The aim is to be back on track by the end of the year. I’ve broken the tasks down into sections and given each title a tentative publishing date. It’s a pretty scary list, and doesn’t include everything I’ve started, but it helps put things into perspective and give a priority work order. At the moment, I’m defining ‘back on track’ as having everything ready that has a publication date of February 2016 or earlier. The good thing is that this will give me a clear idea of what I can do while at university and what I can do when I d...