CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

Shadow Life is the final release for November 2024, and is now available for pre-order. Releasing in two day's time, this dark urban-fantasy short story follows a hunter's investigations into their lover's murder, and the lengths to which they're willing to go in order to solve it. What's it About? Shadow Life is a short story about a murdered lover…loved by all, and a creature neither vamp, nor were. Can I catch Nicola’s murderer before he kills again? And what price will I pay to do just that? How Does It Start? I took a short cut down the alley. The moon was full, the night was late, and I was alone. None of these things worried me. There were things in the night, and in being alone, that would have made me tremble had I not known them so intimately. Things that still gave me shivers in spite of, and because of, my knowing them so well. My lover waited for me in the alley but, by the time I reached where she was to meet me, she was dead. I saw the blood, on...

A response for a Chuck Wendig Flash Fiction Challenge . I keep forgetting how much I love the way these exercises ignite a creative spark. This week I rolled a d20 and got to set a story in a penal colony built by elvish astronauts. A thousand words isn't a lot of space to build a character, a history, and establish a setting, especially when you know nothing about it when you start. Now, I want to know a lot more, to explore this new universe of mine and see what other stories lie within. And this is why I love these challenges. This response, excluding the title, is exactly 1,000 words long, so come and meet Hasken: Hasken's Choice The first guard doubled over at 1800 hours. Dusk. According to one movie, ‘magic hour’. None of the inmates had heard of the movie, let alone seen it. If they had, they would have recognized old history – an entire species wiped out by the ingenuity of man. No wonder the elves had been angry. The dragons had been a trap – an elven trap,...