CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Right, I was going to push these through until December 16, but I’m going to call it now. Yes, it is , technically, a challenge fail, but it is also an important point on the learning curve. Put simply: there are other things I want to do. I could push this challenge through, and maybe catch up what I was supposed to have written during the challenge, or I could stop pfaffing about and get on with what I’ve decided I really need to do. I don’t like failing, but I never was one for pfaffing. So, I’m calling it now. Here’s what I achieved in spite of myself. The Story-A-Week Catch-Up Challenge: In the Story-A-Week Challenge, I wanted to try and write a story a week (originally from December 13, 2015, through December 17, 2016), hence the title. I didn’t manage to keep writing once the university semester started, so, in July, I thought I would try to catch up by writing two stories a week, beginning with one brand new story, coupled with completing the stories I’d sta...

Even writers with 40 years’ experience feel self-doubt: Another thing I noticed was that Dean Wesley Smith pushed himself to write, and that he never assumed that what he produced would be publishable. By the sixth day of his challenge, he had repeatedly expressed amazement that the story he’d produced worked for his very experienced beta reader. And this was encouraging. If someone who had produced so much quality work could doubt that what he created had worked, then all those times I’d felt the same way were perfectly normal. It also meant that it was more important than ever that I not rely on myself to judge the quality of each piece of work I produced. Damn, that last was going to be a hard ask when I didn’t have a writing group to turn to. I guess I’m going to have to rely on my readers to let me know what they like and don’t like—after all, they’re the ones that matter.

So, it’s the end of the challenge, and I must say that I’m basically happy with the results, but still disappointed that I failed to complete it successfully, if totally unrepentant. Tomorrow, I will post about the lessons I learned during the challenge. Today, I’m still catching up with my study, so I’ll just give a quick overview. Stories Completed: #2 Goal:3,000; Hammer and the Trolls ; Final: 3,676 #4 Goal: 2,950; Miss Delight’s Mistake ; Final: 6,030 #5 Goal: 1,250; Tischa’s Rescue ; Final: 2,078 #6 Goal: 2,400; Melerom Joins the Dance ; Final: 4,607 #8 Goal: 1,900; Autumnal Threat ; Final: 4,301 #9 Goal: 2,400; In Service to the Pinnacle ; Final: 3,402 #10 Goal: 1,650; Earth and Lunar Dreaming : Final: 5,316 #12 Goal: 3,350; The Taleteller’s Slumber ; Final: 5,926 #13 Goal: 3,600; A Legacy of Elves ; Final: 6,400 #20 Goal: 2,800; The Heights of Winter ; Final: 5,146 Stories to be Completed #1 Goal: 3,000; The Sevarine Sidestep ; Current: 2,315 ...

Final day of the challenge and I still have lesson prep to do. Word goal is 4,450 and the title should be 60- Ships of the ; 94- Beginning . That’s one tricky title. I still have two and a bit subjects to go and an 1,000 word document analysis to go, so I’m not sure I’ll get to it, today. I think I may have already moved on from the challenge onto the next phase, which I spent much of the morning planning. Now I know how much writing I can do, and that I can organise my day, I just can’t wait to get started. So I think I’ll draw the line early and say today’s a bust—but it’s a bust by choice. I know where I want to go, and what I want to do to get there, and I want to start now. I think the main purpose of the challenge has been served - even though I didn't realise what it was, when I started: to work out what I could do, what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. The challenge has done that, and I'm ready to move on to the next phase, or challenge of this writing l...