CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

It's not all launch parties and champagne, or creating worlds and discovering the stories of the characters that live inside them. Sometimes being a writer is actually work - and not terribly exciting work at that. If you enjoyed watching the formatting process for 365 Days of Flash Fiction , then there's more. Today, I'm formatting 365 Days of Poetry and you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WegmMlfw10c .   From dragons to starships to lost colonies and deadly mermaids, this collection of poetry wanders through genres and settings and poetic forms with happy abandon. It explores worlds and settings and reflects on the way things might have been or might become.   2ND EDITION NOTE: This edition is a renewed version of Edition 1, with the main changes being the new cover, new front and back matter, Americanization of spelling, and some minor word changes. Outside those changes, most of the content remains unchanged. You can find this book at: https://...

This week’s verse moves from a fantasy poem about some emergency repairs for a sleigh to a fantasy verse about trolls and dragons. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2016. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Allies in the Deep Night Deep in the shadows, the dragons are sleeping, noses tucked under tails, muffling their snores. Deep in the shadows, the cave trolls come creeping, move quietly and quickly, on stone-rattled claws. Deep under the blankets, the villagers are dreaming, hoping to gather the harvest, before the snow falls. Deep in the night, first comes the screaming, then comes the rattle of armour and swords. Lit by the torchlight, village defenders are fighting, shouting and cursing, in the face of troll roars. Lit by the gold gleam, the dragons wake, sighing come to the cave mouth, ...

This week’s verse takes us from  a verse that plays with repetition and rhyme spoken by a person by a waterfall to a series of Crapsey cinquains. It is taken from 366 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2016. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Vampires Uncut Vampires stylishly dressed swingingly sashay, seduce fear cut by desire bloodsuckers Nightstalkers curvaceously bestowed smile, eyes calling calming, allaying fears, soothing, soulsuckers Dracs bloodied, pale crumbling to dust fears fading, regrets growing Sun-burnt ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can find the first two poetry collections at the links below - although there are plans to reissue them with more genre-appropriate covers in the future. The third collection will be released later in the year. ...

It’s National Poetry Month , and I’m trying to write, and post, a poem a day to celebrate it. So far, I’ve managed to miss two days, proving I’m not super-human after, but only ordinary, average human. Here’s the poem for today, late today, like the rest of today’s tasks, but here, nonetheless. In Romeo’s Wake Written on April 6, 2018, for the February 17 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry , this piece of fantasy verse was started as part of a response to the first of the 30Days of Writing Activities set by Shut Up & Write . "I’ll see you in the world below," said the age-old Romeo, and with those words he did descend, and left me to on my own defend. I felt jilted, angry, owned, and I vowed then I would not roam to seek a way to the world below, or the treach’rous arms of that Romeo for, although he’d wooed me from dusk til dawn, he’d left me to defend, then mourn, the village, and its dead, alone. If I sought him, t’would not ...

2017 was a pretty busy year, as I worked towards scheduling stories twelve months in advance of their release dates. These are the stand-alone titles and collections of short stories and poems I released as C.M. Simpson in 2017. January 2017 6th Ebook cover for Road Trip.   When Melange feels the pull of utter dread emanating from a road train parked at a rest stop near her home, she investigates. She had no intention of being trapped in the cab on the driver’s unexpected return, nor of being stuck in the truck when he is murdered during the first delivery. But she can’t stay there. She’s discovered the prisoners that were the source of the dread, and the trolls are coming to take them away. With time running short, she must find a way to avoid capture, and summon help, and that means getting past the troll and humans standing guard. 20th Ebook cover for Men of Sand and Light It was meant to be a surprise for Allan’s farewell, but the only person w...