C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 127

A Writer’s Life: More About the Process of Going Pro

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the first little steps of transitioning from full-time-student-looking-for-a-day-job to full-time writer, and I’m going to talk about it some more, this week. The process for turning into a professional writer is going to look different for everyone, but I’ll share bits and pieces of my journey, in case anyone else can find something useful for their own.

The last week of November, was the first full week of putting those first steps into practice—and they worked really well. I liked the results, and the way it looks to be a sustainable workload… and then Friday arrived, a disrupted day, where my work schedule fell apart in the morning and never really put itself back together, which left me in a bit of a quandary come Saturday.
I had words from Friday to do, and a book that had decided it wanted to go over the planned length, as well as a competition I’d been reminded about, and the tasks I had decided needed doing at the start of each month. Foremost among these was the legal requirement to upload anything I had published to the Australian National Library. (For those curious, it’s in the Australian Copyright Act.)
According to that requirement, I was well overdue, and I had slated the task for once I’d gotten my publish schedule for the end of the year back on track… which happened late last week, which meant Saturday was the day if I wasn’t to fall behind in other areas of my schedule.
Priorities-wise, the missing words weren’t too much of a problem, because I do a few extra every day, and they add up enough to cover the shortfall before the due date. No biggie there, unless I miss three or four days in a month, and then things get interesting, so I pulled up the administrative tasks, and set to work. It was educational, letting me know my storage system for covers and book files was exactly what I needed, but it took a while.
I wanted to either skip the competition, or put off making the entries, but I knew I’d be entering a few items and that the judges would prefer more time, rather than less—and it’s one of two competitions I hope to be entering on a regular basis. I bit the bullet on that one, and got the entries in. This kind of thing is going to be rolled into my submissions schedule, once the publishing schedule is on-line. More about that another time.
The first nine days of December consisted of more writing. I completed the young adult novel I wanted to release in January, and followed up on a novella that had been promised to me by Eleanor, under her pen name, Ellie Moonwater. That arrived this week, just as I started work on a chapter book in a series I started a couple of years ago.
This week, is officially my third week in December (although, in reality, it’s the second), and the priorities are shifting in ways I knew would happen, but hadn’t really taken into account time-wise. I need to finalise the publication process for December’s last release, and then push through January’s publications. After that I can finalise what I’m writing for February, and start on March… and I’d still like to add that chapter book into January’s schedule.
So, basically, there’s still a lot to learn about what writing for a living looks like for me, and most of that will come out in the doing. What I’ve learned these last few weeks is this:
Storing your files in a logical way that makes it easy to find them when you need them, and is vital to maintaining your workflow. Work out what works for you, and stick to it.Consistency in your naming conventions is important for reader expectations, and for enabling you to maintain your product quality – I noted a few titling discrepancies that can be fixed by using a standard approach to sub-titles, and I’ll be implementing that approach.
Building in extra time for tasks, and working ahead where you can, is not a waste of time. Life can throw you curve balls at unexpected moments – and it will. By giving yourself a little more time than you need, and doing a little bit extra when you’re able, you can reduce the stress of deadlines and give yourself room to be flexible even when your workload’s heavy. I’ll be working on doing that even more as I move forward.
Uploading a final manuscript for pre-orders at the time you create the pre-order is vital for minimising stress and the chance of the wrong file being released to your readers. I will not be creating pre-orders until the final manuscript is ready to be turned loose. It prevents some of the file errors I’ve seen other authors suffer.
And that’s all I have, so far, beyond this: it’s all a learning curve, and the landscape shifts, so you have to be prepared to shift with it.

New Cover: The Queen's Game

And we're on fire! This is the cover for January's short story release, The Queen's Game . Loving it!


Never get involved with the Otherworld Fey. Take my word for it. I saved the Queen of Summer, and was betrothed to a lord of Winter by way of thanks—and then the human underworld got involved. So what do I do, when every choice is bad? What would youchoose: death by troll, or the mercy of an elf?

PokemonGo Tips: More About the Weather

So, yesterday I noticed that pokemon affected by the weather had a little weather symbol attached to them in the screen. I also noticed that some pokemon not affected by the weather still showed weather effects on their attacks. It took me a little while (mainly because the first few pokemon stats didn't display correctly, but then I noticed this:

Sunny Day:
















 




Look at these stats of pokemon of types not affected by the weather:





















Notice how the grass-type attack has the weather bonus, but the fighting-type attack does not? And also take note that these are normal-type pokemon so they are not affected by the weather, except where they share a type of attack  related to the pokemon types that are weather-affected.

So, yesterday, when I coudn't work out why this minum, an electric pokemon not affected by cloudy weather, had bonuses on its attacks, it was simple: the attacks were normal-type attacks, and they were affected by cloudy weather, so they received a bonus.


Now, look at the stats, of the pokemon of types that are affected by the weather:
























See how the attacks that are of the type to be weather affected are boosted, while those that are not of the type affected by the weather are not boosted? Yeah. Even when the pokemon is boosted by the weather, some of its attacks might not be.

This is probably going to be important to remember when choosing pokemon for your next gym battle. You need to choose the pokemon of the right type and pokemon that have the right attacks, depending on the weather.

Very cool, Niantic!

New Cover: 366 Days of Flash Fiction

Just popping in to say the new cover for 366 Days of Flash Fiction has arrived - and here it is!



Inside these covers is a short story for every day of the leap year, some of which tell of the fantastic, others which take us to the stars and a myriad of other world, and still others that horrify with creeping tales of the undead. Every story is an exploration of something that might have been and never was, or something that might yet be. Take a break from the world that is, and explore other possibilities.

This Week's New Pokemon: 03-10 December 2017

The last week has been a good one for new pokemon... okay, the last two days have been especially good, and the last week saw only one new pokemon, but as I was finally able to evolve a blissey, and it was a strong one, I'm not complaining :-)


That was last Tuesday. I caught nothing new until Saturday, after the Hoenn release went live. Yesterday, I caught treecko in some open grassland beside an urban public walking track, and the slakoth further up the walking track under the shade of some pines.







































Sunday morning, I tried walking in a more central urban area in the early morning, and I was surprised by the variety of new pokemon I found amongst the rattata, pidgey, and hoot-hoots.  They were as follows: a poochyena (of which I saw three or four, but didn't stop to catch them all as I was doing an Ingress mission);
















a zigzagoon, some of which, as you can see from the catch screen were affected by the weather (and there were several of these on the radar, as well);

a minun which I almost ignored, because it looked a bit like a weedle on the screen,





















which was followed by a skitty (making up for yesterday's escapee);





















and, last but not least, a gulpin (of which I saw two, both not far from a local swim centre).



All in all, not a bad day's catching. I also think the density of new pokemon appearing is a little bit less than when the second gen was released, so it may take a little longer to catch all the new pokemon in this generation than it did the last time.

PokemonGo: Changes in the Scanner - Weather and Catching Pokemon

I didn't do a lot of catching yesterday, so I missed this little thing that makes the pokeweather app so cool. Yesterday, I noticed the weather picture above the pokemon radar, and how it showed the effects the weather in your playing area was having on the pokemon encountered. Well, today, the weather looked like this:



















What I didn't notice yesterday was that any weather-affected pokemon have a little weather symbol above their CP in the catch screen. This is a good indication that the little beggar you are facing just might take a little more effort to catch.


The second thing I didn't notice yesterday, was that any weather effects also show in the pokemon's stats. Take a look at this little minum, for example:


Yeah, I know this little guy's an electric pokemon, so I'm not sure why it's showing the effects for cloudy weather, but this is where I noticed the bonuses being added. It gives you an idea of the changes you'll see in a gym. The little weather icon can also be seen next to the attack name, and the bonus next to the usual attack stats.

It's another interesting wrinkle in the game - and I like it!

Progress Report: Week 2, December 2017

This week just gone I tried varying a couple of routines. The weather cooled down, so I chose to work first thing, and then walk after school drop-off. I also decided I’d use Ingress missions to give my walks some purpose, and settled on a couple of mission series, as well as some singles to complete the line of six I’d started. This worked well.
Fitness settled, I got into my writing, and finished A Planet's Ransom, which was the last project I had planned for January. I also got in touch with Eleanor to see if the novella she’d promised for January was finished—and she turned it in on Friday, which means January’s line-up is complete. I worked up the base covers, and only have to finish them, and then do the editing, formatting and uploading to be on track.










Given I’m starting to run ahead, I’ve decided I’ll try to finish a short chapter book to fill the remaining week in January, but we’ll see how that’s going by the end of the week. This week’s priorities are to finish the publishing process for 366 Days of Flash Fiction , which is due out on the 29th; finish writing In Full Flight , which I’ll slot into January; finish the second book in the Aggie & Tams series—or get it close to finished. I’ll also be restarting work on Babes , so look for that on Friday.
Week 5 ProgressNew words produced: 26,928Outlines and Notes: 113Works completed: 1 ( A Planet’s Ransom )Works edited: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0 Bloggery: 5,301

Progress Report: Week1, December 2017

Last week was a short ‘week’ for me, as I’ve rearranged how I do things regarding weeks. I count the first week of a month as being from the 1st of that month to the first Saturday after that date, inclusive. The last week of a month is from the Sunday before the end of the month to the last day of the month, inclusive. This means my first week of December was exactly two days long.
Friday was a very disrupted day with me dealing with a last-minute school issue, and then putting out small administrative fires as I re-tooled what I need to build into the schedule at the start of each month. Also, I got paid for my writing, which was a very nice curve ball, but still threw me as it’s still a bit of a novelty, albeit one which I’m working towards making a normal thing in the future.Saturday I had scheduled the start-of-month tasks. The biggest one of these was uploading everything that had been published over the last 12 months to the Australian National Library, which is a legal requirement for writers here according to the Copyright Act. I had let it slide this year as I tried to get my head around university, so I had a bit of catching up to do. 29 titles later, and it’s all caught up, including the next release for this month. I also decided I would enter a competition that I’d forgotten about, and was still undecided over, so I worked through the titles eligible for that, and finalised it, as well. Now, I’m building both those tasks into the start-of-month process, so they never get to be as big, again.Saturday, also saw me go back to the words I hadn’t gotten written on Friday, and start work on catching up on those, but it was fairly difficult to gain traction, and I was just under 4k short on my projections for the week. It also didn’t help that the story I was working went well-past the projected length and was going to carry into the next week’s writing.

December Week 1 ProgressNew words produced: 4,259Outlines and Notes: 0Works completed: 0Works edited: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 1 (19 entries across 7 categories)Bloggery: 773

PokemonGo: Changes in the Scanner - Special Attacks in Gyms

I know, I really should be doing these on the day I find them, so you don't get swamped with ninety million pogo posts when you're looking for writing posts. I'll try to be better.

Anyway, the gym scenery changed earlier this week, and I discovered that the special attack bar for your pokemon had totally disappeared!

Okay, not. It had just moved - to the bottom of the screen.


If you look closely, you'll also see the faded out button just above it. That's the special attack for my magneton. When the bar fills, and the attack is available, the button glow and you can tap it as you battle.


And, finally, if your pokemon gets multiples of its special attack, the bar splits into however many attacks your pokemon gets with its special attack, and you can see how full each bar is. I really like this development. The circle glows as soon as the first attack is ready to go, but each tap only uses up one attack, provided the attack is ready.


For the curious: No. I did not defeat the cloyster. Apparently, I need bigger pokemon to take on this kind of raid alone. I'll work on that :-)

PokemonGo: Changes on the Scanner - Weather

Shortly after the Hoenn pokemon started appearing, today, my son noticed a new icon on the scanner. It was a little cloud just above the pokefinder bar in the bottom right corner - see?



It's pretty cool - especially if you tap it, to get the next screen. See? A pokeweather app! I've no idea how that is going to affect gym battles, but it's a good indication of what you'll find when you're out walking.



Or, if you prefer fire and grass pokemon...