CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

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...

Last week, exams happened. No writing happened from the 8th through the 11th, but a ton of study and exam sitting did. Results are still not in, but I find myself wondering why I couldn’t get all this to click earlier. I also caught myself suppressing stories in order to be ‘disciplined’ and ‘focus on one thing at a time’. This is a bad idea for me, as I could write much more effectively on the focus project once I had the interest projects out of my head. A point to note for another day, but one I already do when I study. Overview New words produced: 569 Old words revised: 0 Outlines and Notes: 543 Works completed: 0 Works revised: 0 Covers created: 0 Works published: 0 Works submitted: 0 Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 0 University Prep and Assignments: 3,204 plus uncharted hand-written notes, lecture watching, and rereading. Back-on-Track Challenge: Design covers for, edit, format, and upload the following: Nil Finish Nil ...

Exams were happening in the next week. This week I had one assignment to do. I got a little admin done and tried to do some writing. I knew the next week was going to be a total wipeout, as I had three exams in three days. Overview New words produced: 10,314 Old words revised: 0 Outlines and Notes: 2,018 Works completed: 0 Works revised: 0 Covers created: 0 Works published: 0 Works submitted: 4 Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 0 University Prep and Assignments: 3,204 plus much uncharted reading and hand-written notes Back-on-Track Challenge: Design covers for, edit, format, and upload the following: Nil Finish Nil New Writing Nil Publishing Tasks Nil New Arrivals The following pieces arrived last week and were completed: Poem650— Best to Shun the Mermaid ’s Tail : a poem about the curse of pursuing mermaids; ShortStory608— Stepping Lightly : a flash fiction piece about having to move fast; ShortS...

In November, I published the following collection of science fiction, fantasy and speculative genre poetry as an e-book on Smashwords and Amazon: You can buy it from Smashwords for a 50% discount until December 15, 2014 using the following coupon code: SN58W Welcome to this gathering of poetry. It comes in a variety of styles and genres, and is arranged in no particular order save that there is one poem for each day. I have played with traditional forms such as the cinquain and englyn, and worked with free-form verse and rhyme. I have written about the world around me, and about worlds that probably don’t exist. I have tried to write poetry from the perspective of someone in the distant future writing about a new world, and I have written poetry with fantasy themes. Welcome to the worlds in my head. The cover photograph was provided by photographer and science-fiction romance writer Greta Van Der Rol, whose work can be found at: Dreamstime , CanStockPhoto...