NaNoWriMo Supporter

AggroChat Episode 28

Last night we once again rallied the troops and recorded another episode of AggroChat.  This week Kodra was saddled with the dual burdens of illness and family…  and as such could not attend.  However we had Ashgar, Rae and Tam.  The number one thing on all of our minds was experiencing the 2.4 patch content in Final Fantasy XIV which landed last Monday/Tuesday.  During that time Tam has pushed up a rogue from level 1 to 50 and is now gearing it for raiding purposes.  I have mostly spent my time running Syrcus Tower trying to get bits to gear out my warrior and dragoon.  All of us have been slowly working our way through the brand new dungeon content.  Yesterday shortly before the show Ash, Tam and myself finished the last of the three new hardmodes and I have to say I am really damned impressed.

Even more impressive is where the main storyline seems to be going.  This is one of the aspects I find the coolest about FFXIV is that the story just keeps evolving and not in an artificial way.  The problem with Star Wars the Old Republic is that when you reached 50… especially as a Jedi Knight or Jedi Counselor you had solved the galaxies greatest threat.  There was nowhere to go but down from there.  In FFXIV when you finish the main story, it is just the beginning and everything about the game tells you… you didn’t solve shit.  You took out one pawn in a far greater game.  So every three months or so when we get a major patch, I am always amped to see where exactly the story is going to go.  Right now I am only a couple of hours into the new story content, and already they have thrown out some allusions to past Final Fantasy games that have me spooked as to where we might be going with this.

NaNoWriMo Supporter

At this point hopefully all of this years participants have at least broken ground on their new novel.  Throughout the month of October I mulled around the notion of doing NaNoWriMo 2014, but in the end I have decided not to.  Last year if you recall I essentially live blogged my novel and used each days writing as the next days posting on my blog.  In the intervening year I have done absolutely nothing with it.  I’ve not even cracked the original drive document to even begin editing it.  This more than anything else tells me I am not quite ready to undergo the challenge again.  Last year I won, and by winning I mean I actually finished my 50,000+ words by the end of the month.  The problem is I have a chrysalis for a novel and not really something worth publishing.  I need to put at least as much effort as I did writing it into editing it.  At least once a week I think about digging into it and ripping things to shreds as I sort bits out that I slammed together in a rush.  It just seems so damned daunting to unravel what I was only able to pull together through sheer will.

The other reason why I have decided to skip NaNoWriMo this year is that it took a hell of a lot out of me.  My world for the month of November revolved around making sure I got my words done for the day.  In the end nothing else mattered, and I pretty much abandoned everything else that I enjoyed.  It was during the month of November that I faded away from FFXIV in the first place, because the game required too much effort from me to keep playing it while pouring out 1500 to 2000 words a day.  Additionally my blog suffered because I could not keep up my daily blogging AND write that many words a day… was just not something I could juggle.  This was the point that I got back into World of Warcraft, because WoW was a game I could play entirely on auto pilot.  Nothing about the game made me think, and I could live in this blissful muscle memory zone where I got enjoyment without having to acknowledge the world going on around me.  NaNoWriMo was all consuming, and while I think it is something that everyone should complete at least once…  I have done that.  I completed the competition last year, and wrote a novel… something that I can check off my bucket list.  I don’t feel the need for a repeat performance…  at least not quite yet.

What I plan on doing is being a cheerleader for the folks who ARE planning on doing the struggle this year.  The folks that need inspiration or support as they struggle to keep up with the waterfall of words that NaNoWriMo is.  Be it a word of encouragement or a swift kick in the ass when I see they haven’t done their words for the day…  I will try and be there.  So while I am not a participant I am very much a supporter of the process.  Having actually gotten my novel finished on time last year I might even be able to provide a source of advice.  I would never have finished last year were it not for the other people struggled through the process with me.  They were a source of inspiration and I am hoping some of them will be taking up the challenge this year as well.  It is an awesome thing, and hopefully I can play match maker between groups of friends entering the fray together.

I realize this is the second of November and not the first, but we are going to temporarily ignore that fact as I introduce a new thing that I am going to do all this month.  In truth it was not until yesterdays post that I was made aware that this was a thing.  My wife usually skims my posts each day to see if I have written anything about “us” in the blog, and after doing this yesterday she turned to me and said “you should have done a month of thankfulness post”.  So yeah… I kind of wish I had thought about that before making my post yesterday.  So this morning I pulled together a logo and am setting forth on this adventure.  I’ve always liked Thanksgiving the best of all of the holidays because it isn’t about commercialization or how much you can spend to show your love… it is just about a simple thanks for the awesome things in your life.  I am not going to make this out to be a big thing like Blaugust was, but I think it would be awesome if it spread a little bit around our community.

My Wife

I figured I would start off my series of posts with a post about my wife.  Not only did she give me this idea but she is pretty much a constant source of support in my life.  More important than that she keeps me grounded.  I get absolutely engrossed in the things I am into, be it my blog, the podcast, streaming or whatever the latest video game I am obsessing over.  She has a way of pulling me outside of all of this and focusing me on the real world outside of my computer and consoles.  There are a lot of couples that game together, and I have always thought this would be a cool thing…  but I also know it would never actually fly for me.  If I had a gamer spouse  the bills would never get paid, the chores would never get done… and I would ultimately end up losing my job.  My wife helps me keep one foot firmly planted in reality, and keep from slipping down that slippery slope.

More than this we compliment each other nicely.  She is all of the things I am not.  She is a creature of logic and I am a creature of passion, and together we make this awesome pair.  I can’t necessarily say that we are opposites, because we have just enough in common to make it work, but we definitely complement each other.  The other strange thing is that we rarely actually fight.  I mean we bicker back and forth, but there is rarely any spat that isn’t resolved by bed time.  We are in fact an old married couple, and have been able to complete each others sentences for years.  There are so many times we will just say a word or two before the other person agrees… because after almost two decades we know exactly what the other is thinking.  Without having a place of love and stability, I wouldn’t have the courage each day to put myself out here in front of you all.  For all of this and more I am very thankful for my wife.