CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

I honestly thought yesterday was the last day of the challenge, and that I’d completely missed it so, when I went to Dean’s blog, I discovered the entry was for July 30, 2015, which meant there were two stories to go. Today’s randomly rolled title was: Lord of the Vortex , and the word goal was 2,700. It’s 1400 and I haven’t started yet. I’ve spent the morning doing odds and sods and am about to get into more reading for university. I really need to write. Not writing is making me grumpy… aaagh! So writer admin got done, and I caught up with the stories and poems that had ended up in my notebook, and got them drafted onto the computer. Total Words Today: 3,000

Another 0500 start. Very quickly looked over the word goal—3,200— and random-rolled the title: 03-column 2-Souls and 85-Serpent, which I morphed into Souls of the Serpent. No real time for short fiction today. Tuesdays are my long day, but Wednesdays are the days I run. I did more research for my essay, realising as I did so that I could apply the research to my steampunk setting and maybe even RPG development. Yay—but right now, I had an assignment to right. Spent two-and-a-half hours studying Russian history. Wow. Got the littlest off to school and left the oldest at home, not feeling well at 0850. Caught my first bus at 0912, hit the library at 0940, my first class at 1000, my second class at 1100, my third class at 1300 and my bus at 1408 so I could eat (1430) and pick my littlest up at 1500. Got home and got straight into doing the readings for next week, in preparation for getting the next assignment done. Somehow I managed to start a piece of flash fiction on the morning bu...

Tuesday, I was hoping for a repeat of Monday’s success—and maybe an advancement—so I checked out Dean’s blog early. The word goal was a nice 1,250 and the title was 61-column 1- Cloud and 50-column 1- Door , so that was easy. But the bus trip consisted of two short hops and the lecture and tutorial weren’t conducive to writing something unrelated… and I got side-tracked by the assignment and started reading the books I had borrowed. Home late (after nine-and-a-half hours out of the house) to children, dinner and assignment prep. My choice, I guess—I could have written the short story instead, but it might not have been the best decision. My choice. Total Words for the Day: 954-Lesson preparation

Monday. First lecture at 0900. I got up at 0500 and checked out the word target (3,150 words) and Dean’s blog, and then decided to try something new for the day—hand-writing the story while at university and on the bus. With that in mind, I random-rolled the title 65-column 1- Fate of , and 03-column 2- in the Sun , which morphed to Fate in the Sun . Once that was decided, I wound up my emails and got stuck into making sure my littlest was ready for school, and so was I. I said goodbye at 0730 and caught the bus. The story writing started fine. I even wrote through my first lecture and by the end of the day estimated I was close to 1500 words. Going home, I realised I had more readings to do for Wednesday and that I should select books from the library   for the next assignment, and that was the end of creative writing for the day. Total Words for the Day: Unknown, a typed word count will be done towards the end of the week.

Up at 0700 with the little one. Breakfast and so forth and then back to the computer. An hour of pfaffing about with Facebook, blogs and email, and then at 0830 I settled to write. The word goal is 2,800 and I rolled 28- The Heights of , and 28- Winter for my title. Should be interesting. After a stop-start pull that ended around 1330, I had 4,800 words. Went back to it while cooking dinner and ended up with 5,146 words. It was weird, given I was convinced at 2,600 that I wouldn’t go much past 3,000. The tale started out as a Medilo story and reached out to include Odyssey and Miss Delight. Double bonus—I should have never expected it to be simple. So – on to the poems and flash. Done. Story Match Challenge: Complete— The Heights of Winter (science fiction – 5,146 words) Poetry: Complete—3 pieces; 384 words Flash Fiction: Complete— 3 pieces; 774 words Word Total for the Day: 6,475

I woke with a headache, today. I managed to complete another two classes of prep today (and another 1,300 words of study-related matter) before the headache got me and I had to go soak in the tub and then nap. Woke about an hour later feeling much better and did a few chores before sitting down to type before watching Dr. Who with my littlest. The story grew to 500 words in a half hour, and then it was Dr. Who time, followed by a spot of knitting and the bedtime-story routine and then I sat back down to type. A paragraph into it and I remembered I hadn’t posted the last two blogs, so that happened, and then I got back to it. Tonight’s story is aiming at 4,400 words and the randomly rolled title was 93- Years of and 89- Voyage , so Years of Voyage it was. It’s another story about a recently established colony. Tonight, I will have to listen to my body and stop when it says to, or I will be sick tomorrow, so I probably won’t complete the story, but we’ll see how it goes. Dean ...