C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 151

Progress Report: Week Ending October 8, 2016

Very busy week, with the commencement of a 3,000-word assignment and taking notes for a second—two books I wanted to reference for the second essay were recalled early, so I had to go through them early and commence the second essay. Before that it was school holidays and family visits and life in general. Today, we’re back to normal.OverviewNew words produced: 7,226Old words revised: 0Outlines and Notes: 0Works completed: 2Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 157University Prep and Assignments: 138
Story-A-Week Catch-Up Challenge UpdateThis week I completed two short stories for this challenge.Stepping Up Challenge UpdateLanguages: Slow to non-existentNon-Fiction Reading: 2 books on ISIS and university readingsIngress UpdatesNo new challenges for me.Publishing TasksCreated 1 blog post for this blog;New Arrivals
The following pieces arrived last week and were completed:ShortStory72—The Stars to Guide: a short science fiction piece

Miss Delight's Mistake Released Today

Miss Delight and Odyssey universe came out of some of the pieces in my first flash fiction collection. They were unexpected, and a lot of fun to write, and a new writing universe was born. This short story sets the stage for the entry of yet another character, Melerom, whose story is due to release in a fortnight, and it ties it to the universe of "The Reptiles' Blade". "Miss Delight's Mistake" is another short story to choose this setting as its home, and it released today.


People are disappearing on the close archaeological world of Jehornak, including an Odyssey operative’s sister, but that’s not why he’s there. It seems other people have gone missing, too, people with relatives rich enough to pay Odyssey to discover exactly what is happening in the mysterious cavern known as The Ballroom. However, when things go south on the mission, can Agent Delight keep her reputation, and make sure her operative comes out alive
Miss Delight's Mistake is available from Smashwords, Kobo, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit, and, shortly, from Amazon, as well.

Progress Report: Week Ending October 1, 2016

Very busy week. Still having trouble balancing everything, with the recommencement of university classes, but getting closer.
 
Overview
New words produced: 8,597Old words revised: 0Outlines and Notes: 0Works completed: 0Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 1,249University Prep and Assignments: 639
Story-A-Week Catch-Up Challenge UpdateCompleted the Week 5 short story, an urban fantasy set in the Australian bush, which came in at 8,615 words.Stepping Up Challenge UpdateLanguages: progressing, but patchy.Non-Fiction Reading: class-related stuff only.Ingress Challenge UpdatesVia Lux Medal Progress: 340/300 medals earnedPublishing TasksCreated 3 blog posts for this blog;Uploaded all outstanding short story titles to DriveThruFiction;Updated sales and title records;Updated poetry recordsNew Arrivals
The following pieces arrived last week and are awaiting completion:Working YA Title: My Name is Shawna

About Ingress: What’s So Important About Badges?

Badges? I hear you ask. You keep banging on about badges.
What’s so important about them?
Well, up until Level 8, you advance on the AP (or experience) you earn, and that’s all you need to move from one level to another, BUT once you hit Level 9, you’re going to have to have badges to show that you’ve earned the right to advance to the next level. Think of it as having proof that you know what you’re doing.
Wait! What? Where do I find out about this?
Well, you can look at your scanner. When you hit Level 8, you will notice a line just above your medals. It will have something like: LVL 9 Req: (picture of a blank silver badge) 0/4 (picture of a blank gold badge) 0/1. Take a look at the screen shot below; I used it to show a Spec Ops badge last week, but you can see the requirements listed just below the agent insignia, and above the badges.

From the looks of it, Agent LittleBlackDuck has all the badges needed to get to Level 12, but needs almost 400,000 AP. (You can see the AP listed below the level. How much the agent has earned is in yellow, and how much is needed is in smaller, green print after the slash beside it.)
You will also notice that the Spec Ops badge has the requirements for the badge under the title, and then how much of the requirement has to be completed for each level. It also has where you're at under the main picture of the badge. For example: LittleBlackDuck has completed 200 missions (the platinum badge), but needs to complete 500 to get to the next level (the badge with the lock on it). According to this shot, LittleBlackDuck has finished Mission #238, and has 262 missions to complete before achieving the next level - the black badge.
Yeah, but I want to plan ahead.
And so did I. I was lucky that another agent pointed me towards THIS SITE, which not only lists what you need to advance, but has a bunch of other very handy tips for playing Ingress:
http://decodeingress.me/ingress-manual/leveling/
You should go check it out. Work out what you will need, and how soon, and then get onto it.
It’s time to move.

Progress Report: Week Ending September 25, 2016

So, life changes; it’s the only constant you can count on. This week, I kicked my exercise program into gear, aiming for 10k/day. My ankle blew on the second or fourth day… and I was doing around 17.5k. So, my body says it’s not ready for that distance yet, at least not on a daily basis. I’ll start again, when the ankle’s better. Right now, it’s had a week’s rest, but it got knocked last night, and, after a short walk today, the tendons running up the front of the shin are creaking – that’s the closest I can get to the sensation – every time I move. Even with strapping. Even after icing. So, doctor’s is next. The next major change comes to my study, with future plans requiring a refinement to the Step Up Challenge. More of those below. Surprisingly, enough, writing got done, and, while it’s not as much as I wanted, I’m still fairly happy with that.
Overview
New words produced: 7,714Old words revised: 0Outlines and Notes: 1,855Works completed: 2 (for inclusion in two separate collections)Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 0University Prep and Assignments: 7,726
Story-A-Week Catch-Up Challenge Update
Started back into the challenge. Not sure I can make up the ground I’ve lost, but I can at least try for two shorts a week.
Stepping Up Challenge UpdateChanges to future study plans meant I tore this sucker down and rattled it about. Hopefully, this will remain the only major change for a while.
Languages: Dropped Mandarin as a focus language, and increased time allotted to Russian and Indonesian. These languages now have two hours a day on the days I have no classes, and a half hour a day on the days I do. DuoLingo has been temporarily dropped, but will be re-incorporated at a later date.Non-Fiction Reading: This is now guided by my research into Russia. I hope to start publishing short pieces to this blog in the next few months.
Ingress Challenge Updates
Via Lux Medal Progress: Added 15 new, unique portals to the tally for a total of 340/300 unique portals for September.
Publishing Tasks
Created 0 blog posts for this blog;Created 0 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Publishing blog;Created 0 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Art and Photography blog;
New Arrivals
The following pieces arrived last week and were completed:
Poem822—The Dark Horse: a short poem about being different;FF595—Oops: a piece of speculative flash fiction about an ill-timed meeting;

Progress Report: Week Ending September 17, 2016

Yes, this is the week-before-last’s report. Yes, it’s late. Yes, a lot has happened. And, yes, <sigh> my routine and priorities have changed, again. This week was the week where the change began. The week just gone – see tomorrow’s report – is the week where things changed… again. And, well, we’ll see…
Overview
New words produced: 1,862Old words revised: 0Outlines and Notes: 0Works completed: 10 (10 short works for incorporation into two collections)Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 3,948University Prep and Assignments: 0

Story-A-Week Catch-Up Challenge Update
Nil. Poetry catch-up was the focus.
Stepping Up Challenge Update
Languages: DuoLingo commitment made up to Friday, when things changed.Non-Fiction Reading: Nil
Ingress Challenge Updates
Via Lux Medal Progress: 325/300 new, unique portals visited for September.
Publishing Tasks
Created 6 blog posts for this blog;Created 0 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Publishing blog;Created 0 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Art and Photography blog;
New Arrivals
The following pieces arrived last week and were completed:
FF590—When Women Fight: a story set in war time – fantasy, future, or present, you decide;FF591—The Osiran Flight: a piece of science fiction flash set on a world that needs help;FF592—Mission’s End: a piece of science flash fiction about law enforcement;FF593—An Encounter with Unicorns: a piece of urban flash fantasy about unicorns;FF594—The Curse of Foresight: a piece of science fiction flash about a generations-passed ‘gift’;Poem817—Politicians): my first attempt at an epigram;Poem818—Farewell to the World I Knew: a Horatian ode that farewells an old life and world;Poem819—Trolls at Full Night: a kyrielle about a battle with trolls;Poem820—Ode to a Starry Night: an ode about space exploration, from the perspective of the space explorer; Poem821—Santa’s Hummingbirds: a short science fiction verse about adapting old traditions to new worlds, set in the world of the previous poem Ode to Hummingbirds

Ingress Walking: About Missions

One of the main reasons I started playing Ingress was because I needed to work up some extra incentive for exercising—yuh know, because better health just wasn’t enough… Anyway, the missions in Ingress have given me a reason to travel distances I wouldn’t usually have travelled, and to visit places I wouldn’t have visited. They’ve helped me orient to new locations, and learn new bus routes, and they’ve given me a reason to get out besides having to do so because it’s good for me.

What are missions, you ask?
Well, missions are a series of portals grouped together that you have to visit and take a specific action at. Every portal is linked to a real-world location, and every action is taken through the scanner. Once the scanner logs that the action has been taken, it’s ticked off the list. When all the tasks have been completed, you’re awarded a mission medal to mark the fact you’ve completed that mission.
Is there an agent badge linked to missions?
Yes, the Spec Ops badge is the ingress medal is the agent badge linked to mission completion, so doing missions has the added dimension of counting towards this medal as well.



What kinds of missions are there?
There are several types of mission available, but the two most common types of missions—the ones available all year round, and not linked to a special event—are: single missions and pictorial, or series, missions. Single missions are stand-alones that can be done in any order, but pictorial missions should be done in a specific order to complete a picture, with each mission badge a part of the picture mosaic – hence why they are called ‘pictorials’ or ‘series’.
Is there anything special I need to know about pictorial missions?
Your scanner is set up to accommodate 6 adventure medals or badges in a row. If you are doing single missions, it doesn’t matter where along the row you start; the badge won’t look out of place, BUT, if you start a pictorial half-way along a row, then the picture won’t look right when you finish it, so, if you want to undertake a pictorial series of missions, then wait until you have filled the sixth badge position in a row before starting the first pictorial mission.
How do I know if a mission is part of a pictorial mission?
You can usually tell if a mission is part of a pictorial series by the fact it has some sort of numeric marker in its title. Be careful to read the mission descriptions, though, as I have come across at least one series mission that is missing the number.
What if I do a pictorial mission out of order?
You can redo the mission in the right order by simply doing it again. This moves the mission badge to the next position on the scanner. Be careful when doing this, however, as it will alter the position of every badge that was situated after it, so, if you’ve done a series mission by mistake, then don’t start the series at the beginning of a new row, but one badge in from the end, as that will become the end of the row, when the pictorial badge is moved.
If you do a part out of order, and you’re part-way through the mission, just do the parts you missed, redo the mission you’ve done out of order, and then complete the series. This happened when I was doing the Lake Tuggeranong series, where I misread the ‘5’ for a ‘6’ in the rain and did 6 before 5. This made my mosaic look like it had finished early.




I did part 5, and now you can see how the mosaic looks wrong:



So, I went ahead and re-did part 6, and the badge ‘moved’ to the last position in the row, correcting the mistake, so that the mosaic was complete and looked how it was meant to.




As you can see, once you undertake more missions after completing your pictorial series, the picture will be pushed out of shape.



This will be fixed once you have completed 6 singles, at which point it will look exactly as it did when you finished it.
Well? What are you waiting for? Go find yourself a mission or three; it's time to move. 

Writing Rambling: Why do I Write in ‘Set’ Forms?

I don’t always write in specific forms of poetry, but I like to try and master the older styles of poetry because it teaches me discipline—like writing word-limited flash fiction. It teaches me to think about my words, and my word choices. It makes me think of alternative ways to say something, rather than to just change the poem form to suit.

It’s easy to be creative when you don’t have to obey the rules, but only when you strive to achieve your goal within a somewhat restrictive framework can you truly be creative. This is because restrictions make you think. You can’t just go from Point A to Point B in one easy step; you have to figure out a viable path. As with real life, when there are obstacles to your path, creativity can spark a new solution you would not have thought of otherwise.
Restrictions bring about discovery; they force solutions to be found that might not have been uncovered otherwise, and these discoveries feed into the array of tools that can be applied to other problems and situations. It builds our ability to face and overcome new problems. It gives our writing new perspective. It makes our writing stronger.
Or, at least, that’s what it does for me.
I have to admit that the reduction in writing speed, from over 1,000 words an hour to under 500 words an hour, is frustrating, but the pay-off that I see in being able to untangle story lines, or make a paragraph read more smoothly… that’s magic.

Ingress: The Via Lux Adventure Medal—Days 13-16

I’ve made my 300. It was surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be, but it’s done. The only problem is that I’m really going to struggle to get another batch of badges in a similar time-frame ever again… unless I move cities—but that’s a problem for another day.

Day 13

Day 13 saw me finish the adventure series this challenge had caught me in the middle of, and then head down to the Tuggeranong town centre the Tuggeranong town centre. It was an unfamiliar area, so I enlisted the aid of a series of 6 adventures to try and make sure I didn’t miss any portals, but got very confused between adventures two and three, and went to work methodically to make sure I picked up as many portals as I could before heading home.

The three adventures I did complete were:

After that, my inventory filled up and I just had to blast and capture a field of green portals to empty it out a little. Fully deploying and modding each portals was essential, and linking helped, too.
139 portals later… and I was sitting on 290 new portals hacked for the month, just ten shy of what I needed. Still, there was always another day.
Day 14
Day 14 saw me staying close to home, as domestic tasks needed to be sorted. No new portals, but I recaptured and relinked four of the locals and remembered to hack for my sojourner’s badge. Nothing exciting this day.
0 new portals…
Day 15
Day 15 saw me back in the Tuggeranong town centre again, this time with an idea of where I’d gone wrong with the missions. The idea was to pick up any portals I’d missed, finish the series and nail a few single missions to round out the day. This worked pretty well.
These are the missions I completed:



I only picked up 3 more portals this way, so I moved on to another urban shopping centre a bit further north, working back along the bus route. The aim was to do 2 missions in this area, but the first one was so large that I only got through that one before I had to head home.
(Note to mission designers: Walk your missions through before publishing AND when covering a lot of portals in an area, think about having the portals done in a set order that guides the agents through the shortest route to avoid frustration over double-backs. You may prefer agents explore the area blind, so that last one is your call, but balance it against the odds of mission completion and the time constraints some agents might face when trying to fit missions into a visit to a new town or area.)
Anyway, I headed to Woden town centre, and worked through one more mission there—this one:




It added another 32 uniques to the collection and brought me over the 300 mark—yay!
I’ll try adding more, but university goes back this week, so it may not happen. We’ll just have to see. 
Day 16
I had time constraints, today, so I went for a 17 km walk and hacked my way around Lake Ginninderra. Unfortunately, I’ve done all the missions in this area, and all those along the Belconnen foreshore, so I’ve covered the area pretty thoroughly and there were no missions completed, and no new portals. The next few days look similar, but Day 19? We’ll have to see about Day 19.
Via Lux Progress:Days 1-3: 0 unique portals visitedDay 4: 5 unique portals visited and 1 mission completed (5/300)Day 5: 30 uniques visited and 1 mission completed (35/300)Day 6: 2 unique portals visited and 0 missions completed (37/300)Days 7-11: 0 unique portals visited (37/300)Day 12:  114 unique portals visited and 2 missions completed (151/300)Day 13: 139 unique portals visited and 2 missions completed (290/300)Day 14: 0 unique portals visited (190/300)Day 15: 35 unique portals visited and 8 missions completed (325/300)Day 16: 0 unique portals visited (325/300) TOTAL: 325/300

Stepping Up: Language Update

I know I haven’t been writing much about how the languages are going, but they aregoing. I’m still working out the kinks, but summer is coming and daylight is arriving earlier, so I have added in a listening component to my walking. Hearing a language outside language drills and set texts is important.

What languages am I working on?
As anyone who knows me, knows, I like languages, so it was hard for me to shrink what I do down to three to start with: Russian, Chinese and Indonesian. Also, because I didn’t want to give up the others, I kept my DuoLingo languages, but made a few rules.
Right now, my language program looks a bit like this:
DuoLingo: Do a minimum of 5 individual language lessons each day on each of the chosen languages BUT do not stop if a language block is incomplete unless it is the first time working through that lesson block. This takes between 1-2 hours a day. Flexibility: If real-life commitments are particularly, then do one individual lesson in each language, and you are allowed to stop if the language block is not complete – just do one. I find this last thing hard to do, but it does stop me from killing myself on heavy days when other commitments must be given a higher priority. DuoLingo languages are as follows: Russian, Norwegian, French, Portuguese, German, Danish, Ukrainian, Spanish and Turkish. I will add Indonesian to these when the course comes on line; it’s currently in development.
Listening: While walking, have headphones in and be listening to Russian, Chinese or Indonesian, depending on which language is the focus language for the day.
Book Work: This involves using a text book, language cds, translating on-line articles for the focus language of the day.
Progress: I’m still establishing the routine, but I’ve managed to maintain the DuoLingo target since Monday, and to add the listening component in, with a new walking component. Book work has been sporadic with only 2 days managed. I will work on this. Regular study is quite difficult to make time for, but it can be done. I want to add in a language activity design component, where I work up lesson plans and work sheets to go with the focus languages, but that’s a little ways off. I’m qualified to teach Indonesian, but only have a minor in Chinese, and not even that in Russian, so I have a little bit more to do with those.
And that’s that – except for the point that Fridays will be my language update day, starting with progress reports, and later linking to lesson plans, or activity sheets aimed at different age groups. Baby steps.