CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

As with the books read this month, I didn't get to read a lot of bloggery. Here are the few I got to: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/08/18/polling-your-intestinal-flora-how-a-writer-cultivates-instinct/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/08/17/progress-report-penmonkeys/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/08/15/flash-fiction-challenge-color-title-challenge/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/08/09/in-which-amazon-calls-you-to-defend-the-realm/ You might notice a theme here, but, hey, there are some days when I just need to be challenged, or to gather courage, and this is one of the first places I go.

I finished the pre-edit draft of Annual 13— 365 Days of Poetry this month. It is on schedule to being edited, formatted and uploaded on time. To celebrate the occasion, here’s one of my favourite poems from the night of completion:   The Fairy and the Pixie Flew The fairy and the pixie flew, through the grass tops, o’er the stream. Flew they low, and hard, and swift, small wings beating, hearts a-fit to burst, to save the goblin king. Why strove they to save his life, to bring the light, back to his eyes? Why flew they so hard, so swift, hearts fit to burst, wings fit to split? Why did the good of fairy kind strive to save an evil line? To save the goblin king they flew, hard and fast, swift and true. To save his kingdom, and their own, to keep the right kings on their thrones to keep the good, o’er power to sway, to keep the evil, from the day, the pixie and the fairy flew, swift and hard, fast and tr

Not a lot of reading happened this month—well, not a lot of not class-related reading. Still, I managed to chunk my way through the last Laurell K. Hamilton I own and was pleasantly surprised. This book is something special. Yes, there’s a lot of sex in it, but it all serves a story purpose, and some of those annoying kinks were ironed out—the werewolf boyfriend starts to show grown-up traits, the main character starts to work herself out, relationships are explored and deepened. It’s a book to enjoy, and it’s a book with the added dimension that I was able to learn from it…<sigh> and it’s a book that has made me determined to go out and buy the rest of the series. It’s also a book, I nearly turned around and started re-reading straight away; there is just so much to savour, so many things the writer does right, so much I should take note of as a writer and apply to my own work. It is, of course, Incubus Dreams. You can find out more about Laurell K. Hamilton and her

It's coming up to Spring in Canberra, and the cherry trees are out in bloom. There will be cherry blossom festivals - one in Cowra and the Nara candlelight festival in Canberra itself. Worth going to, if you're in the area. I can't make the Cowra festival, but I have hopes for this year's Nara. In the meantime, we're having a lot of visitors to the garden that love the nectar to be found in the cherry blossom. This is a red wattlebird. The one's in our area are very shy so I was pleased this one decided the nectar was more important than worrying about me. At first all I could see was movement, and then I realised I had a visitor. He was cautious, at first, and stopped feeding to take a good look at the pest with the camera, but soon, the cherry blossoms caught his eye, again, and he went back to feeding, before flying away to investigate the blossoms on another tree. You can find out more about wattlebirds at the follow

Busy week this week, but I *did* get some writing done—I even managed to get the minimum 7,000 words done, so I’m pretty pleased with that. I completed the first draft of 365 Days of Poetry with editing time in hand, and I progressed 365 Days of Flash Fiction . Assignments were handed in, and I started on the next ones that are due, because they are quite large. AND I got some photography out of the way, so, overall a good week. And work was good. Now to see what next week brings—and to bring something of my own in return.   Overview New words produced: 7,156 Old words revised: 0 Works completed: 1 major, 18 minor (for inclusion in 3 other works) Works revised: 0 Covers created: 0 Works published: 0 Works submitted: 0 Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 185 Tier 1 Tasks Annual 13: Added 673 words—COMPLETED Annual 14: Added 3,068 words Annual 23: Added 1,845 words Publishing Tasks Created 1 blog posts for this blog; New Arriva

An englyn is a form of Welsh or Cornish verse, with a reputation of being hard to master. It has several different variants, all of which are governed by strict rules. This week, we’ll look at the englyn proest cadwynog. The englyn proest cadwynog consists of a four-line verse. Each line has seven syllables. The first and third lines rhyme and the second and fourth lines half rhyme on the same vowel sound as the first and third lines. The Troll Lord’s Queen The troll lord’s queen came stalking Set beasts and babies bawling into the darkness walking Behind her alarms calling We followed her through night dark We followed her to sun start We followed her to lair dark And then tore her world apart Why don’t you give it a try? Try writing at least one englyn proest cadwynog for each day of the week. You can find out more about how to write englyns from the following sites: http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/englyn.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englyn

The week before last was a very busy week—two weekends ‘eaten’ by study commitments. Last week I completed one exam, one assessed short play with questions, and one in-tutorial presentation. And I worked, and hugged my family, and found time to sleep. This weekend I did homework and prepped for the coming week. No assessments, thank goodness, but the study won’t stop for another 11 weeks, so… slow writing progress can be expected.   Overview New words produced: 2,185 Old words revised: 0 Works completed: 0 Works revised: 0 Covers created: 0 Works published: 0 Works submitted: 0 Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 114 Tier 1 Tasks Annual 13: Added 208 words Annual 14: Added 586 words Publishing Tasks Created 1 blog posts for this blog; New Arrivals The following ideas arrived this week: ShortStory351— In Memorium : The Starfarers’ Graves): a piece of flash science fiction about starfarers’ graves; ShortStory352— Troll Night