The Waning Days of Dragonflight

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Back in December I made a post debating about whether I would unsubscribe or not – What’s your Game? – and ultimately I think I was unsubbed for all of a couple of weeks. The sub ended December 28th and the blizz announced the Seeds of Renewal patch (with Reclaiming Gilneas) and I just couldn’t resist. The Gilneas starting zone is one of my favourites. Back in Cata days half my alts were worgen.

Anyway, I was still on a raid break. I sat Season 3/Amirdrassil out. I put in that blog post that I was trying to play more casually and remember why I loved the game. That I had got hooked achievement hunting/collecting mounts, pets etc. and to go back to that. This ‘attempting to play casually’ is something I have kept doing in the last few months.

Before I continue one last note about another blog post, the one I did on the Waning days of Shadowlands. In that I talked about some of my issues with the Shadowlands expansion and a bit about the upcoming Dragonflight – what I liked the sound of, what I was hesitant about, and what I wished was coming but wasn’t. I think I noted in that blog post that I had done a similar post pre-Shadowlands (it’s becoming tradition it seemed) and that it was interesting how much I still agreed with my past self – how much had actually come true. That is very much what has happened this time.

My big concern with Dragonflight before it launched was the profession rework – what do I hate the most now? Ah yes, the profession rework. The whole quality star system should go die in fire. I haven’t succeeded in levelling any profession bar fishing and skinning I think? And it pisses me off having to buy enchants from the AH (they are expensive).

But before I get too much into that how am I feeling about the game these days? I said above I had considered taking a break, and was trying to remember why I liked playing. Six months later – have I remembered?

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WriYe: Author Admiration

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The question this month is simple:

What author do you admire the most? Why?

And the answer is thus quite simple. Only because it’s me I’m going to take a little segue first and explain my thinking behind any kind of admiration.

I joke sometimes about certain people being “who I want to be when I grow up”. Now obviously I’m 33 and so I should be grown up but it’s more about the dream they represent I guess – an ideal in some way. I don’t know if I’m unusual in this approach because I feel (possibly mistakenly) that most people would equate author = writing, and talk about the books that have touched their soul, the wordsmiths who transcended the written word to weave something magical.

Now don’t get me wrong that’s good too but when I think of the authors I admire the most, it’s less about their actual words (though I like those too!!) and more about what they have achieved in their career. Essentially, they are where I would like to be.

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Assassin’s Creed: An Overview – UPDATED!!

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I should be writing but /cough just let me ramble for a second.

On October 9th, 2021 I made this post, so that’s like 2 and a half years ago? And I feel like doing a little update.

It’s funny what experience changes. I hadn’t had my PS5 long when I wrote this and was still playing all of the AC games on the PC through Steam. The PS5 controller was a million times better than the Steam controller I had previously been using but I was still struggling. I didn’t grow up with a console/controller. I played a few PC games as a kid but wasn’t really a ‘gamer’ until I discovered Warcraft and that as an MMO with keyboard/mouse is a very different beast.

Anyway since this game by game breakdown there have been developments!

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WriYe: Let’s Talk Revision

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So I skipped February’s blog topic because I didn’t think I had anything really to contribute (it was about writing ‘hacks’). However, this month the topic is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – The R’s of Revision” and if there’s anything I have opinions about in writing, it’s revision.

I have had a pet peeve for years of people saying revision when they mean editing. I have tried to get less grumpy about it because we are all entitled to use whatever words we want. One persons editing might well be another persons revision – I shouldn’t judge. Yet it’s one of those things that annoys me anyway.

So what is revision?

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January – Your Future Author Bio

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So last year I managed a sum total of 2 blog topics for WriYe (January and December). I am aiming to do a little better this year. I probably won’t write all of them because some of them don’t speak to me, but I have made a note of the ones I think I could write a post on, and I intend to do a post for all of those.

Anyway the topic this week is to “write your future author bio / FAQ page” and I honestly laughed when I read that. Back in the day I had one of those pages, during my first attempt at publication. I got somebody on Fiverr to write it because I found it so awkward. Now I could cheat and just look in the depths of my hard drive and post that one, but I think I will make an honest attempt myself. It’s been… well lets not think how long its been, but a while, and I’m older and maybe want to say different things I don’t know.

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Goals for 2024

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Look I’m actually making the post! I’m not sure I have done this ‘properly’ in a few years so let’s do this. What do I want from this year?

Now goals need to be SMART because when it’s intangible, how do you know when it’s been achieved? I can want inner peace, contentment, some amount of happiness etc. but that’s a feeling and an end result. Maybe I will get it one day, maybe I won’t, but I need to target things I can actually do something about.

This is the time of year I usually get an infusion of hope/optimism – wishful thinking – and I hope, hope with all my heart that the upcoming year will be different. I want it to be better, I want to feel better, so badly and then it never works out. It’s always a disappointment and I hate getting to my recap posts and going “well that was another sucky year”. It always seems like there’s some kind of external reason, but a lot of that is just excuses. I have depression, I have intense anxiety. I am autistic. I have physical symptoms even if I am unsure if I have actual physical issues (the mind likes to screw with the body). Life can be hard but I need to make choices that serve me.

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Art 2023: Year in Review

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In my WriYe 2023: Year in Review I quoted a couple of times from my 2022 review post, and I think there’s something important to quote from the Art 2022 post.

I just want to be good at things. I want to be good enough. I don’t feel like I ever will be, with writing or with art, and so it’s a constant crisis of faith everyday. I try and persist even as I ask why. I have dreams, of art supplementing writing – two careers in a sense. Which is perhaps why I am struggling to balance them as I want to work both of them full time, but I am incapable of doing anything full time due to my disability.

Art 2022, Year in Review

As basically that’s probably accurate. It’s a struggle.

This year I did not go through courses how I would have liked. I did not implement a regular habit. I did not act with discipline when it came to learning and improving at all. It was another year that I did not do those things. But I did make some pieces of art (posted about some of them):

First two are digital. Done in Clip Studio Paint and Procreate respectively.

Next three are markers and coloured pencils.

Final four are watercolour/watercolour pencils, plus maybe a little regular coloured pencil or gauche for cleaning up.

I think I learned some things and at least I kept my hand in. There is still so much to learn, and I am so far from where I would like to go, but I did something. I could have made nothing. There are 9 pieces in and I remember when I used to set a goal for “a big piece per month” and so in that light, I’m doing ok.

Plus there’s always next year. As always I have hopes and dreams. Hopefully next year I will have a lot more to show off – key word, hopefully.

WriYe 2023: Year in Review

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So here we are again.

To be honest I could copy and past a lot of last years ‘year in review’ and it would apply. I’ve got to the end of another year and I feel like I’m no further forward towards my dream.

I started the (2022 goal post) by saying that in my review of 2021 I had put “that I really didn’t want to get to the end of the year and be disappointed again – but I was.” – that is the dream and it is yet to be obtained.

2022, Year in Review

And as I said – here I am again. Another year, another disappointment.

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What’s your game?

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I’ve never been as good at blogging here as I hoped. In the beginning this was my Warcraft blog, and then I expanded it to Swtor and Marvel Heroes (and not bothered changing the header since). I now ramble about all kinds of things. I mean let’s not pretend otherwise, these are rambles. I pretend like there’s a difference as I separate out my copied over tumblr rambles from the ‘real’ blog posts, but really they are much the same stylistically. In the beginning I think I tried to make them more legit – just as I tried to keep a blog theme – but this is what it’s become. As this is basically my private ramble spot, as I don’t think anyone reads these even if they are technically publicly accessible, I guess it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, I’m not too sure why that was on my mind as an intro but it feels related somewhat because this is a blog post about Warcraft, and about approach I guess.

I have made a number of posts about Warcraft over the years. If you track back through them you’ll see I change my opinions about some things. I’ve been playing this game on/off for a long time (since January 2010) and as I have changed, the game has changed. There have been times I’ve felt the game has become incompatible with me, and that was the case recently.

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Victory Number Ten! (of a sort)

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So I ‘won’ NaNo.

The inverted quotes are because I got the 50k (and for the 10th time in November) but if I look back at my intentions post, I didn’t really get what I wanted.

“my primary motivation this November is to try and find my joy again.”

“I wanted to feel excited to write it, I wanted to obsess over it, to have my mind wander to that world – like it used to years ago.”

That’s what I wrote. That’s what I wanted. That is NOT what happened.

NaNo usually follows a pattern of sorts. I have zero days, and then I have high word count days to make up for it. While there was some of that this month the graph was actually more stable than I think I have ever seen it – consistently a little below par. Usually when I approach the end I get a real whoosh and my final day is a downward hurtle to the finish line. I’m pretty sure on almost all NaNo’s I finish before Day Thirty due to that headlong whoosh. Well it was Day Thirty and it was a double day (3k) because that’s what I needed to scrape the 50k and so that’s what I did.

It was a total slog, and the only thing similar to the downward whoosh is when I got a “fuck it” mentality and just embraced the crap. There wasn’t any moments of joy, there weren’t any moments where I felt it flowed well. I had one brief moment where I felt I might have captured one characters voice, but that lasted for a single writing session and hasn’t repeated.

The only moments where I felt any kind of ‘magic’ were when I had to plan. I did like the idea generation for the episodes. Starting with nothing and then coming up with the episode plot and I think I came up with some cool stuff. It’s implemented very badly but there’s some cool ideas there I think.

I ended up with basically discovery drafts of the first three episodes, plus the first couple of scenes and half an outline for episode four. So I have something to build on I guess.

I knew going into this that joy was a state of mind, and that my lack of it isn’t really related to the writing – it’s me. So I know I shouldn’t be surprised at this result, and I’m not I mean I flat out said in the intentions post that I doubted it was possible to find the joy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed. I really would have liked to enjoy this month. I really, really, REALLY, wanted to remember why I do this writing thing, to feel some smidgeon of hope again.

I wish I had something more positive to say in this NaNo wrap-up but right now this is how I feel. In December obviously I need to think about my goals for 2024. Finding joy is likely to be my top priority but I really don’t know how to do that. It’s not about what I write, it is about me, and I don’t know how to change me. I really wish I did.