CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Yesterday’s word goal was 2,400 words… and the day before’s was supposed to be 1,900. Oh well, I doubt the story would have listened, anyway. I had a stop-start sort of day, constant interruptions from my five-year-old, and university administration to undertake. I swear they throw the lecturers in at the deep-end. I managed to sign up to all my classes, and take a look over all the readings I needed to do, and I made a start on the first essay and readings for next week’s classes. By the time the dinner routine came around, I had reached 1,600 words by 6 p.m. I got side-tracked by family and the bed-time routine and then managed to fit in some language learning before getting back to the writing around 10 p.m. By midnight, I had 3,400 words of story complete, and the feeling that this one might grow into something longer at a later date. Today’s title started out as a randomly rolled Servants Pinnacle , before morphing into The Servants of Pinnacle Rock , which changed to In ...

Today’s word goal was 2,600 words. Before: I woke late, but not sick, which put me ahead on yesterday, and I allowed myself to get sidetracked by some of the admin I needed to do to keep track of the short work I’ve been working on. I also got into a few house chores that have been a bit neglected over the last few weeks, so it was midday when I sat down with the aim of writing the story. I used my new title generator for the title, rolling 11-Man of and 29-Autumn . All righty, then. During: The title, Man of Autumn , quickly changed to Man of Autumn’s Fire , and then to Fire Man of Autumn , and finally ended up at Autumn’s Flame . At a thousand words in, I knew this wasn’t on any of the worlds I knew, but it reminded me of some of the flash fiction tales I had written. I wondered if this colony would feature in future tales. Somewhere around 1 p.m., I remembered that this was the week before university was due to go back, and that my materials might finally be availa...

Before: I woke and checked out how Dean Wesley Smith was going on his July Story Challenge . He’d completed another story, amongst all the other publishing things he does, and then he talked about short stories and how they’re helpful in discovering novels. On this, I have to agree. I have found three or four different worlds in writing my flash fiction and poetry pieces, and there are several of those that are demanding to have novels of their own. Today’s word goal is 2,400, match or minimum, depending on what the story wants, and then I hope to catch up on some other work. I also didn’t want to still be typing at midnight. During: I started writing at 09:30 with the opening line: Serpent by name, serpent by nature , and the idea that I wanted to revisit one of the worlds I had discovered. My mind was hedging towards the pixie dust or Odyssey settings, and I ended up finding myself writing about one of the lizard creatures from yesterday’s story. I tried to keep the story ...

I originally wrote this for the Dark Side Down Under's regular Magic Thursday Feature , but I've added a little bit more and thought it worth repeating here. Enjoy. Promotion. Regardless of whether or not you’re independently or traditionally published, it’s a nightmare, a time-eater, a word-creation-time thief. But there are ways of reducing the amount of time you spend preparing each promotion and blog post. The simplest of these is to create an Excel spreadsheet or Word document capturing the information you’re going to find yourself needing to repeat for each and every title you produce. Arranging it in alphabetical order makes it easier to find in a list, or document. The following is a list of the information I find myself looking for every time I write a post to promote a particular title: Title: Well, duh. Helps you find it on the spreadsheet or Word document Author Name or Pen Name: for those of you who write under different ones. Trust me, when you’re in a...

Scalzi-Hines Aicardi Pose-Off http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/25/pose-off-with-jim-c-hines-round-two/ Vale Gerry Anderson http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2012/12/rest-in-peace-gerry-anderson.html Author News: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/26/here-comes-the-blizzard/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/26/boxing-day-blizzard-update/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/26/more-boxing-day-blizzard-photos/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/27/editing-a-book-today/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/12/27/book-editing-update/ Book Reviews: http://darkfaerietales.com/day-christmas-true-love-gave-3.html Christmas Greetings and Traditions: http://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/merry-christmas/ http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/merry-christmas.html http://historicalhearts.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/christmas-food-and-fun.html http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5leav?Goblins-Burn-Goblins-Fight-Goblins-Wish-You Craft: http://crimeficti...