C.M. Simpson's Blog, page 169

Blogs Read in April 2015

Thanks to the study break, I was able to read a few blogs, and do a little on-line research. As follows:
Writinghttp://kriswrites.com/2015/03/11/business-musings-the-importance-of-routines/#sthash.HTqaJm37.dpbshttp://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/guest-post-by-tracy-sharp.html http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/the-path-to-success.html http://kriswrites.com/2015/04/08/business-musings-the-freelance-scramble/#sthash.NeF86hvB.dpbs http://kriswrites.com/2013/01/30/the-business-rusch-hiring-editors/#sthash.8iRf2vjn.ylxv5mD4.dpbshttps://writeitforward.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/traits-of-successful-authors-i-craft-tuesday-at-write-on-the-river/https://writeitforward.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/traits-of-successful-writers-ii-craft-tuesday-at-write-on-the-river/https://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/against-all-odds-whats-our-real-chance-of-becoming-a-successful-author/http://kriswrites.com/2015/04/02/business-musings-the-hard-part/#sthash.BicXiWLf.dpbshttp://kriswrites.com/2014/12/23/business-musings-things-indie-writers-learned-in-2014/#sthash.stqCM5cl.r8pNYQaY.dpbshttp://russellblake.com/the-new-landscape/http://kriswrites.com/2015/04/15/business-musings-the-freelance-scramble-part-two-the-actual-scramble/#sthash.VY0i9kw6.dpbs http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/writing-into-the-dark-last-two-chapters/Writing Newshttp://kriswrites.com/2015/04/05/news-news-news/#sthash.81AovkBk.dpbshttp://russellblake.com/40-books-in-43-months/http://www.dianapeterfreund.com/omega-city-cover-reveal/http://www.dianapeterfreund.com/how-i-write-what-i-write/ http://kriswrites.com/2015/04/14/and-now-things-get-rough/#sthash.pcUzZY5B.dpbshttp://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/grandma-part-2.html Jokeshttp://jakonrath.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/self-published-authors-guild.htmlStoriesI don't often stop to read stories, but I needed a little time and this was a good way to spend it. When I read it, it was free fiction, but it will now need to be bought and paid for. I recommend it - or maybe the Fiction River Anthology you will find it in: Sole Survivor   read at http://kriswrites.com/2015/04/13/free-fiction-monday-sole-survivor/#sthash.R0aGUswE.dpbs Writing Challengeshttp://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/04/17/flash-fiction-challenge-pick-an-opening-sentence-and-go/ http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/04/10/flash-fiction-challenge-time-again-to-write-an-opening-sentence/comment-page-1/#comments

Covers Created in April 2015

... or recreated as the case may be. The first thing I worked on this month was the cover for Anna and the Rock Dragons. I wasn't happy with the way it had turned out, so I went back over it and came up with this:

Titles Released in April 2015

In April, 2015, I released the following titles:

Large-print print-on-demand version Normal-print print-on-demand version
















OmniLit Version
Smashwords OmniLit version

Books Read in April 2015

I did manage a little downtime, and got some recreational reading done. I've read both these before, and I'll read them again.

Ducky now available from Amazon

The Kindle release of Ducky went live on Amazon today :-)




Three characters, a dead duck, and a plague-devastated city. What more could you ask for?
A post-apocalyptic short story of a ghostly girl, a pandemic and regret, told from three viewpoints.

Progress Report: Week 4, April 2015

Three tests this week, and a catch-up on the subjects I neglected in order to study for it, put paid to much of my writing hopes for the week. On the flip-side, I am learning to prioritise my writing, so I can write and study in a more balanced fashion. Let’s see how *that* goes.
 Overview
New words produced: 2,931Old words revised: 0Works completed: 0Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 100 Tier 1 Tasks
TweenNovel2A—Anna and the Rock Dragons: edited, uploaded to SmashwordsShortStory407—Ducky:uploaded to Smashwords, Kindle
Publishing Tasks
Created 7 blog posts for this blog;Created 2 blog posts for the C.M. Simpson Publishing blog;Created 3 blog posts for the C.M. Simpson Art and Photography blog;
New Arrivals
The following ideas arrived last week—and were completed:
Poem485—Starlit: about the promises of stars;Poem486—Cloud Giants Dancing: as for the title;Poem487—Dragon Trap: about an alliance and a trap involving dragons;Poem488—Star Light, Sky Knight: about knights in the future;ShortStory408—The First to Remember: the war on Aquapearl is over but its wounds are still fresh. A tale of honouring the dead—youcan read it here.  

A Story for ANZAC Day 2015

I’ve been wanting to write a story for ANZAC Day for weeks, but just couldn’t think of anything that brought together the ideas that the dead must be remembered, and their deeds not forgotten, that the service of a warrior is not degraded by the fact that he fights in a war, but that a warrior’s honour is upheld by the manner in which he conducts himself in that war and the reasons for which he fights—and by the idea that all wounds heal, that enemies can find a foundation for mutual respect and understanding, even if friendship comes generations later. Today, the scene in the first two paragraphs came into my head and combined with images from the dawn services, the ideas above, and nation-wide memorials to produce this. I can only ask forgiveness that it is not a historical piece. This story is set on Aquamarine, the lizardine homeworld, after the events described in The Reptiles’ Blade.
 

The First to Remember

A shot rang out, earlier than those scheduled to honour the dead. Melisand jerked around, her eyes darting to the hills, her hands reaching for weapons that had never been there. She hit the ground in a crouch, scanning for danger. Hana watched the display.
“What is that?” she asked. “She’s never been near combat. Where’d she get reactions like that?”“Empath,” Drugan said, but his focus was on the surrounding hills.“What—” Hana started, but Melisand cut her off, reaching up to jerk the consul and her guardian to the ground.“Get down!” the girl screamed, belly crawling to the stunted bushes lining the parade ground.Around them, soldiers scattered. Melisand ignored them scuttering into the bushes, before rising into a low crouch and heading for the crest of the nearest rise. Hana and Drugan in tow, she stumbled into the gully beyond it, as a roar shook the air behind them.“Well, that is really going to stuff things up,” she muttered, ignoring Drugan’s look of surprise and Hana’s raised eyebrows. “We have two hours to evacuate the island before they start killing everyone on it.”“They, who?” Drugan asked.A handful of soldiers crested the rise, terror in their faces as they fled the chatter of small arms fire and screams behind them.“Frack!” The expletive shocked them to silence; Melisand didn’t swear—ever. It was a habit she’d gotten out of, she claimed, by sheer dint of will, and here she’d just dropped one of the worst words in the vernacular. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she said it again.“Frack! They’re here already.”Three soldiers fell, tumbling down the slope towards them, their rifles flying from their hands. Two others were picked up and flung overhead by an unseen force.“Well, crap.” Melisand hurried over to collect one of the fallen rifles.She collected two more, tossing one to Drugan, before looking at Hana.“Know how to use one?”Hana held out her hand and nodded.“You?”“I think I’ve got it.”“You think?”“I didn’t have a lot of time to pull it from his head, okay?”Drugan caught the edge of tears in her voice, knew she’d touched a dying mind.“Stay with me,” he said, but Melisand was staring up the slope.Her next words chilled him.“I can stop them.”She flung the rifle to one side, and stepped forward, shrugging Drugan’s hand from her shoulder, sliding beneath Hana’s outstretched palm. Drugan, looking at her, felt a thrill of fear. Melisand had always been pretty, but now she was beautiful—and remote, as though she was channelling some alien princess.She met the invaders half-way up the hill, raising her hand to halt the vanguard—and not speaking as they froze, staring at her. But she demanded, Drugan was sure of it, watching as the lead warrior stiffened and then scurried back the way he had come. He felt Hana shift beside him, and placed a hand on the consul’s arm. She drew breath as though to speak, but Melisand cut her off again.“You stole me from my mother,” she said, and Drugan swayed in shock.How had she known?“This is my guardian—he-who-stood-as-my-father-and-is-tied-more-closely-than-blood.”And where had she learned Lizardine? Drugan felt her touch his mind, sensed a smile, tight and warlike, the one that meant sheer capricious mischief. Oh, gods, no.“We came to remember.” Melisand’s voice rang out before Drugan could work out what to say.“You had no right, after what your kind has done.” The newly arrived lizardine officer was adamant. “Your kind has been ordered not to trespass here again.”“We have permission, and I have every right,” Melisand asserted, “for the dead of all are mine.”“But he does not.”Melisand dropped her chin to her chest, and Drugan felt his heart plummet.“Oh, lords.”Hana gripped his arm.“What?”“Trouble,” Drugan muttered, but Melisand spoke again.“Our men followed orders.”“They were butchers,” the lizardine officer said. “For that all here will die.”“Not all.” Melisand’s tone was smugly superior, and Drugan felt her come and tear his head apart, sharing its contents with everyone in range.No, he wanted to protest. Please. Don’t.But Melisand was pure ice, chilling in her merciless search through his mind, kicking in every door he tried to bar, smashing dams that held back oceans of pain. Drugan lost the feel of the wind, lost sight of the sky, the tangled bluebush, the sand, heard the hunting cries of men beyond control, heard his own harsh protests at the indiscriminate slaughter, felt sharp fangs puncture his hand as he pushed the hatchling into a hollow between two stones, wondered if it had survived.But Melisand gave no pause. She ferretted out every memory and laid them bare—his mercy, the mercy of other men, soldiers following orders in a war they were told they had to win, there were colonists at stake, the lizardine were barely sentient savages, the lies they found and lived with, the lives they lost and saved. She left him gasping in the sand, Hana weeping beside him.“I did not know,” she whispered. “Forgive me. I did not know.”Drugan had no reply for that, as Melisand sacrificed a few memories of her own—her childhood, the one she’d had before Drugan had found her in a lizardine scientific facility. The loss of her parents to blood-drenched butchery for trespassing where they’d been told they could tread. And, finally, how she and Drugan had brought a contingent to honour the dead, to remember their own, and to ask forgiveness of those they’d fought, to recognise the warriors of both sides, the price they’d paid for permission.Melisand took those memories and broadcast them just as far as she was able.“This war is not something to be swept into a corner and hidden,” she declared. “And the warriors who fought in it will not be forgotten. We will remember them, and we will honour them. And I dare you to say otherwise.”The lizardine officer raised his hand, spoke a word into the broadcast mic and, for the second time in a century, the killing stopped.“Now, there are more dead to honour,” he said, but the hand he held out, offered support. Melisand took it, looked back at Drugan and Hana. When she answered, her voice held more of the girl they knew.“Then let us honour them together.”

Anna and the Rock Dragons is now Available on Smashwords

I've just finished putting Anna and the Rock Dragons out on Smashwords in all formats. It's not a bad way to start the day.





When Anna heads out to her family’s country cottage for the holidays, she has no idea what lies in store. Chosen as the Key Bearer and Door Finder for a race of exiled dragons, Anna soon finds herself being hunted by a nightmare from local legend, while racing against a mining magnate set to make his fortunes by turning the dragons into crystal. Will she survive long enough to find both key and door in time to help the dragons escape, and then live to tell the tale?

Progress Report: Week 3, April 2015

Well, not much of a break – study took over the last week and did not show results justifying the effort put in. The gamble of not dropping the subject has not paid off, and a lot of writing time has been lost. I am switching focus.
 
Overview
New words produced: 0Old words revised: 0Works completed: 0Works revised: 0Covers created: 0Works published: 0Works submitted: 0Competitions Entered: 0Bloggery: 400
Publishing Tasks
Created 1 blog posts for this blog;Created 0 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Publishing blog;Created 8 blog post for the C.M. Simpson Art and Photography blog;Completed the Anna and the Rock Dragons release on CreateSpaceCompleted the cover on Ducky
New Arrivals
The following poems arrived last week:Nil

JUST RELEASED - Ducky on Smashwords

Yay! Ducky is now up at Smashwords and available in multiple formats :-)





Three characters, a dead duck, and a plague-devastated city. What more could you ask for?
A post-apocalyptic short story of a ghostly girl, a pandemic and regret, told from three viewpoints.