CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

When I designed the cover for this novel, I put in a tentative series title. Today, I realised ex actly how much I needed that. The story is complex and I hadn’t realised just how much. This will definitely be a series, and I entered the plotting stage, to day. If you’re wondering what the ETA will be, I have another project that will replace this one, if it is approved. If that project is approved, then I’ll be looking at around 9 months for that series, during which there will be minimal writing on this one. If the other project falls through, then the main Dockmaster series will take around six months to write, once I have the outline sorted—which should be by the end of the week. Either way, unless the other project is approved earlier than expected, this novel will be complete by the end of the month, and should release at around the same time as Mack ‘n’ Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9 , which I’m also writing, right now. ----------------------------------------------------------...

I finished going over the first 37,000 words of The Dockmaster , today—and then started the writing. Given today’s first words seem a bit boring, I decided to share one of pieces I edited that almost made me cry. In this extract, Tescha is shown her quarters in the sevarthin citadel: ---------------------------------------------------------------- The queen brushed an antenna across Tescha’s cheek, and turned away, her body guards forming a defensive perimeter around her, as she moved between rows of kashta grass that was close to flowering. Tescha did not need a mirror to know more pheromone dust glittered on her cheek, and she found she did not mind. She could not have hidden from the sevarthin, forever, and she did not like to live in fear. They could have kept her as their prisoner, while the queen pulled the information they needed from her head, and, while Tescha knew it was better for them to have it willingly, she could not find it in herself to resent it. ...