CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Or “Wouldn’t it be faster if you just focussed on a single story?” Frankly, no. No, it wouldn’t, and the quality of my work would suffer. Firstly, these stories don’t come easily and I need to take the time to get them just right. Secondly, because these stories aren’t easy to write, I sometimes just need to step away from them and give myself space. CrimeNovel1 is a prime example. It’s graphic. It speaks of violence that’s happened, might be happening, and could happen again. It deals in subject matter that I find hard to face. Because I hadn’t worked on it for a long time, I’m going over it chapter by chapter so I can reacquire the story in order to finish it without missing anything important. I’m doing this one chapter a night. When I started on it a couple of weeks ago, each chapter was difficult to read, and I was glad I don’t have to go over another in a night. Don’t get me wrong, the story is there; it’s just very hard to write without flinching, and I need to take time to...

“Don’t just put your nose against the grindstone: rub your entire naked body against the grindstone . And then film it. And put it on Youtube.” (17 January 2012; Terrible Minds Blog; Chuck Wendig, novelist, screenwriter, freelance pen monkey) I laughed out loud. Yes, it has context for writers and in that context, this says it all. If you don’t like swearing, don’t read this post… or the blog, for that matter, but, if you can cope with a little cussing out for some good writerly advice, go read this blog. It’s a timely kick in the pants.

I have three writer names. This is the only one I share, and I’m even uncertain about that. As you know, I’ve been looking at the changes in publishing and weighing up how I’m going to approach my writing career. It’s not an easy set of choices, for all the reasons in my previous post ( Changes, Changes, Changes ), and even now it’s not set in stone. I’ve decided to keep my currently published writing name with the publisher it’s with now. I like them as a publisher, and I’m happy to keep that writing name with them. I hope they feel the same way about me as I’ve been on hiatus until now. No doubt my other writing name will blog about it. My other writing name has placed in a writing competition run by the publisher for which her work was originally pitched, and she was asked to submit it to the editor of that line. I’m still working on my decision with that. On the up-side, if they publish that writer name, I garner ‘respect’ from writers who value such things, and gain th...