Well, There Goes My Weekend...

Apparently - and now this may just be a rumor that some odd person went and posted on the official site, you can't be too careful with these things - the XP for capping elites is going to be doubled over the weekend.

Since you normally get 5k per cap that's a whopping 10,000 experience for doing something I'm going to want to do anyway. Since every elite you cap gets you that much closer to catching the next one and all with this if you capture 3 elites you'll have enough skill points for two free ones (Minus, you know, the gold it takes to buy the SoC and all. But, actually, I think I found a good way of getting some money from all my snowballing so that might not be much of a problem.). I was hoping to just stumble into these things as I played along but, now, I think I'm going to have to hit up a place like Guildwiki or Xennon's so I can maximize my time. Figure out what I want and where to get it, that sort of thing. I'll also have to find a way to drag my older characters over to Elona and see just how hard it is to get them to a place where they can cap elites - I saw, for example, the drool worthy Master of Magic in Consolate Docks and a few other choice ones just doing the primary quests to get from there to the next mission. I don't think I'll have to grind out any skill points for them, not with how easy grabbing mission bonuses have been so far.

Anyhow, this means I'm going to be spending an ungodly amount of time PvEing this weekend, I'm sure. While on one hand, it's nice to see that the game's continuing to have events and special activities to keep people interested I also wanted to, you know, have a life. I'm sure this has something to do with the success of the Wintersday event. First they extended it. Now they're saying it was a record breaker. So, as soon as it ends they're going to pump some free XP into the system to keep people going in PvE. While, at the same time, there's the looming rebalance and shift to the tournament system for the PvPers to look forward to. So, smart move if you ask me. Just don't expect me to be getting much done.

Which, of course, I'm not doing anyway. I've been trying to go through my ghostfiles and clean away the deadwood for the past few days. It's a long, slow process because I've left it go for too long but I really need to get better organized or things are going to collapse. Along the way I've been trying to finish off the odd thing here or there but for some reason I've returned to churning out dross. Just cannot seem to get anything worthwhile done. And knowing that whatever I write is going to suck is keeping me from writing more.

So, no, haven't gotten anything done creative writing wise towards this month's goal of 100k. Not for lack of trying, mind, but the story I'm working on is just struggling for me to find a way of telling it. I keep writing and rewriting and what comes out is nothing but awful. None of my NaNo tricks are working. Even tried a few writing exercise today and could barely get through them - and don't hold your breath waiting to see the results. I think what's happened is that I'm not terribly interested by what I'm writing anymore and I need to find something new to write.
I can, on the other hand, drone away in a blog post or an e-mail like there's no tomorrow. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Oh well, this is like hitting a bad streak in the Arena or the snowball fights. Or a bad streak of shooting or hitting the ball. It doesn't mean that I'm a bad writer or anything just that I'm having problems. The only way to get better is to correct my mistakes and just keep plugging away. Things will turn around eventually if I can ride it out. I can do better, I will do better, and not being able to do so right now is only going to encourage me to do so in the future.

At the moment, though, I'm just going to call it a night because I can't do anything right at the moment. And grinding away at the millstone is only going to frustrate me. I'm just, sigh, worried that this is just a self-made excuse to get back to the snowballing.

Outlook: I know it's weird coming from someone who kicks out as much as I do but I think I've come down with a case of writer's block.

Oh, and someone asked the other day so I guess I'll explain. The small text with the number at the end of posts like these is how long it took me to write it.

Anything labeled "Dear Diary" is a form of writing called "writing practice" which is something like stream of consciousness free writing where you just start writing and don't stop to censor yourself. The difference is that it's a more meditative process, though, and you try to remain conscious of what you're doing even as you just let yourself go and just do it. It's a zen thing and if you're interested in more check out where I first heard about it, Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones". It's an interesting writing exercise and I'd say anyone who's interested in writing as a kind of spiritual expression would benefit by looking into it.

And although I don't set a time limit for myself I try and keep track of how long it takes me to do these things. Both as a guide to how much I'm struggling to write. And I can also come back later on, count up the words, and figure out just how fast I'm writing. Weird, I know, but there it is.


[1] - 25 minutes. But I did have to track Xennon down.