CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

...the good news is that I am slowly getting back into the swing of things. The year has been a bit turbulent, with a lot of Life events, leading, as they do, to Life changes. I have written more work-for-hire than I planned, in order to cover an unexpected employment shift, and my parents have both been very sick in the last few months, although one is now recovering as well as can be expected, and the other is doing okay despite being in palliative care. These events and the time taken to look for a more regular day job, have impacted my own writing, which slowed to a complete stop, even though I've completed four joint projects and am working on a fifth. As well as that, I'm also sure those of you who've been following my YouTube channels have seen the effects of these changes, there, as well. Don't worry; we're working to change that, and you'll see some of those changes this month, one of which will involve this blog, which has been long neglected and will ...

This last week, I have been publishing—ALL this last week—which drives me absolutely crazy, because I’d rather be writing… Plus it gives my mind far too much time to think about things. This week, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t getting enough done, that there were things I could do better, and my non-writing chore list has grown. I started this year with some goals. They’re going to get done, but they’re going to look a bit different. Firstly, I don’t like having perfectly good anthologies and collections lying around doing nothing, so to speak. They need to be out in the wild where my readers can decide if they’d rather buy short work singly, or in a single collection. I’ll do a more in-depth post on the changes I’m making there, but you’ll start seeing a format change in progress reports from here on out. Secondly, I discovered I work better in blocks, and, while that’s frustrating because it means there will be blocks of time when I’m not writing, it will also mak...

This morning, when I checked in with Ingress, I noticed a key beside one of the local portals. Usually when you click on one of these there’s this little entry underneath to tell you what it’s a key for. Today, it was also accompanied by a picture of the portal to which it connects. Way cool, Ingress.  

I didn't do a lot of catching yesterday, so I missed this little thing that makes the pokeweather app so cool. Yesterday, I noticed the weather picture above the pokemon radar, and how it showed the effects the weather in your playing area was having on the pokemon encountered. Well, today, the weather looked like this: What I didn't notice yesterday was that any weather-affected pokemon have a little weather symbol above their CP in the catch screen. This is a good indication that the little beggar you are facing just might take a little more effort to catch. The second thing I didn't notice yesterday, was that any weather effects also show in the pokemon's stats. Take a look at this little minum, for example: Yeah, I know this little guy's an electric pokemon, so I'm not sure why it's showing the effects for cloudy weather, but this is where I noticed the bonuses being added. It gives you an idea of the changes you'll se...