Well, week one of National Novel Writing Month has passed… and I wish I could say I’m on pace to hit the goal of 50,000 words by the 30th. The truth is I’m not, but when I started this I decided it was going to be a way for me to challenge myself and do something I’ve never done before and the final word count isn’t really important. What’s important is that I’m writing a real story, with characters and plot and action and drama and it’s all from inside me. I don’t have a whole story yet, or even an outline of one. But I’m making progress, paragraph by paragraph.

As of last night I was through 11 chapters and had written 6,954 words. It’s easily the longest story I’ve written now, and the characters have had some time to grow into themselves and also grow on me. I’ve also described much of the design and lore of my setting, the City of Il which I’m pretty proud of. I hope the remainder of the writing goes as well from a creative standpoint as this first part has.

Alik Steel asked in a comment to the last post about a title, and I have to admit I haven’t thought of one. I really think it won’t have a title until the story is well into its final chapters, until then if I give it a title I feel like I run the risk of letting the title influence the story. So, instead of a title how about an excerpt?

~~~

1
“Another poem Thomas?” Randolph’s eyes twinkled a bit, betraying the true sentiment behind the harshness of his tone. The older man bent down, his barrel chest only allowing the large red nose on his face to get a few inches closer to the desk before blocking his stoop. “What is it this time boy? More sweet verses about your lady friend?”

The boy turns his head and brushes his dark hair out of his eyes. “You know that’s all I’ve been able to write about this past year.” He looks back at the desk where his pen sits on the journal in which he writes all his verse. The battered leather binding shows how much use it has seen. “I think this one is the best yet Rand! Perhaps the bards can run it to her on their next trip to the commons.”

“Perhaps they can. How does the verse go this time? More of the ‘hair shimmering, eyes of auburn’ you’ve been using?” The older man drops his tone to one more playful and leans his heavy form against the wall.

“Oh come now. You know you’ve told me that’s no way to win a woman’s love. I’ve set a different focus for myself this time.” Thomas reaches and repositions the lightstone a bit closer to his work. The pages take on the cold blue of the magical light.

Obviously pleased at the complement, the older man puffs out his chest. “Well then, lets hear it and I’ll judge whether she’ll be wooed by your sweet sentiments.”

“Not yet, it’s not finished. I want this one to be just right Rand. It’s close, but it’s not ready.” Thomas closes his journal and tucks it under his arm. He walks to the window and looks out toward the street where the geomancer’s spells still have left a red haze blanketing the center of the plaza. “Looks like in a few hours the stage will be done. Looking forward to the festival?”

Eyes twinkling again, Randolph grins his affirmation. “It should be quite a show this year. I hear Bethanie has a new recipe for locust wing crisps she’s using.” Patting his stomach he adds, “Some of those would be great right now.”

Thomas looks out the window again, catching glimpses of others looking out their windows at the nearly completed stage. “It’s always a good year for the Droughtsend festival Rand. Let’s take a break for a while and find something to eat.”

“Perhaps Bethanie would like a visit from two strapping lads then!” Randolph chuckles and claps Thomas on the shoulder. “Come along, my treat.”

~~~

Your comments are welcome! Until next time, everyone.

NaNoWriMo officially starts today, and I did some writing for my novel. Three chapters of about 400 words each, starting to develop my characters a bit. It’s a beginning, and I’m pretty happy with it so far.

When I have a little more written I’ll post an excerpt here for you to read. I want to be sure I have a story and not just an introduction before I do that though

Been playing alot of Vanguard this weekend, working on Diplomacy in my solo time and using the new mentor system to help out a friend too. I’ve been doing the diplomacy web quests in Qalia, and finished all of them so now I have an Ahgram clothing set to compliment my New Targonor set. I’m a level 16 diplomat now, so I’m looking forward to working on prestige faction and collecting gems to make myself a mask to wear.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and has a good monday too!

I’ve decided to try and participate in NaNoWriMo this year, after seeing how much fun someone had doing it last year. I don’t know how far I’ll get, or if I’ll even be happy with what I write but I’m excited about it nonetheless.

The goal, if you haven’t heard before is to write a novel during the month of November. The website has lots of tips, no editing or rewriting being the biggest of course but also lots of others. They also send out weekly pep talks, have an official podcast and host some regional writing events too!

The whole thing is sponsored by the Office of Letters and Light, a nonprofit that contributes materials and lesson plans to interest schoolchildren in writing. It’s a great charity with a great mission, and with last years and this years donation I’m proud to be a part of it.

I’m on the NaNoWriMo website as Kasul, and hopefully I’ll be posting updates on my progress here as well as there. If you want to donate to the OL&L, then please consider using Stargrace’s donation page.

Good luck to everyone who is going to write, and wish me luck too… I’m going to need it

Sarnak know how to party, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I spent the afternoon going through the Nights of the Dead content in EQ2, both old and new. Of course, halloween comes with costumes and masks, and as last year I thought I would have the scaly one model some of this fall’s fashions for you. Above is one I didn’t pick up last year, the arrow mask reward from the old haunted house in qeynos/freeport. Looks good, it’s a classic gag and it works well.

Also returning from last year is the nightblood mask, which I think looks extra creepy on a sarnak because you can see my snout poking out of the mouth. My horns also give the side of the nightblood head a little extra pointy flavor. Overall, a really nice effect. This is one of the mid level (75+ points) prizes for trick or treating.

The one I’m really excited about (and wearing now!) is the skeleton mask you can pick up in the old haunted house zone. I didn’t do it last year so I have no idea if it’s always looked this way on a sarnak but WOW! How cool do I look? I was hoping that the cursed skeleton mask reward from the trick or treat quest would also have this graphic but with the green and black effect, but unfortunately I was disappointed. This is cool enough to build an outfit around though, definetly!

The new high level reward for trick or treating is this one, the snarling werewolf mask. As you can see, it’s very broken for sarnak… my horns are visible without a head for them to be attached to. On a non sarnak this one is really very cool, so kudos to the team for giving it too us. If the skeleton were a big goofy skull on me I might have been disappointed, but the skull helm graphic is so cool that I’m forgiving this one.

I also had the chance to do the new Hollow Hedge instance a few times today. In addition to a plushie with the new scarecrow graphic and one of a black colored harpy (very cool) I picked up an appearance-only Axe of Decapitation that I’m using in offhand appearance now. Check it out, the Headless fellow in the instance wields two of these and looks pretty sweet.Next time, more fun in Norrath! See you all then.

I got a few of my closest friends from instances together for a group photo tonight… I’m building up quite a collection now The Chronomagic Chronomissions are unbroken now, and I’ve been doing them every day to get the plushies for my collection. So far I’ve been able to solo everything shy of Nizara… the Nektropos: Tribulation zone was quite tough but I got through it.

I love this new concept. It refreshes those old zones and lets people go back and do them again… and it gives people some realization just how strong they have become. I don’t think it’s a mistake that the task giver tells you each time that hopefully you learned something about yourself. I think it’s true.

Recently I’ve been interested in getting appearance weapons. Either things that I can solo, such as the Burning Beam above from Mines of Meldrath, or something from a more difficult zone. I’m looking for suggestions on this, I want something that will go well in the offhand with my epic, and or match other things. On my list already are a few things from Emerald Halls, and the dagger from Dracoliche (which I can’t solo, heh…) and Essensia, from the SoS quest (I think it will go well with Greenmist, if I ever finish that quest.) If you all out there have other ideas let me know!

Back to working on our little guild on Oasis, dinged 23 today. Not much more to go until we have a guild hall! Hope everyone is having a wonderful night.

The new game update went live last week, and there’s lots to love! But I’ll talk about that later… first I want to crumb a little about something that’s been on my mind since last week.

So I’ve done some posting of helms that display on the sarnak here, and I’ve appreciated that most of the new appearance armor that has been made available in the marketplace has been visible on the sarnak model, so kudos to Sony for that.Speaking of, there are a couple new ones now:

This is the Circlet of Mums, which is also the graphic for the Circlet of Daisies and Circlet of Deathly Daisies, which are white and black respectively. I like the flower circlet look.

And this is the Crusader’s Helm of Rovellan. It’s odd that just the faceguard from the normal graphic is reproduced, but it does look like it would be good protection for scaly sarnak snouts. The graphic is shared by the helm in the Fleshwound Platemail crate as well.

What bothers me though, and it’s just me probably is that there isn’t a hood. The recent Tier’dal Executioner armor set included a cool hood and mask, similar to an assassin class helm but it shows as generic leather on me. I also recently finished my Hoo’loh helm on the sarnak, something I hadn’t considered a high priority because I knew it didn’t look like a hood on me. What does it look like you ask?

Yeah, it looks like Hoo’loh flew over me and pooped all over my head. Thanks Hoo’loh.

So now comes Shards of Destiny, which I am really enjoying and the new changes are great. One of the big ones is the Chronomages, who will let you mentor for a fee without having someone of the appropriate level there with you. There are representatives in every city, and Gorowyn is no exception. And the sarnak who gives quests with the Gorowyn chronomages?

He has a hood.

I tried asking Claurk where he got it, and he said the Quellithulians make them… then I asked if the merchant there beside him sells them, and he said no. I was heartbroken, because his hood looks so cool!

Devs, please please please give us a hood sarnak can wear! Maybe I’d be the only one who would wear it, but I would wear it with pride. It would be the piece of gear I build outfits around. It would be my best dress armor. I’d be a sneaky assassin with it. Please?

There actually is one hood with this graphic available in the game, but I can’t wear it. It’s the cloth that the Order of Rime armor merchant sells. And it’s mage only.

Maybe as a kind gesture make the cloth on the Rime merchant wearable by all? Please?

More Shards of Destiny talk next time.

It’s something you just can’t explain to non MMO gamers, something they think can’t happen or they just find disgusting. You get the feeling most game companies would rather ignore it, and some of them even have specific language in their EULAs against other companies encouraging it to happen. But happen it does, and when it does I don’t think anyone who plays in that world can deny it’s a beautiful thing.

I think it’s something about making a beautiful world that brings people together that gives MMOs the spark of magic they have. It’s refreshing to see in the recent update to the EQ marketplace that SOE is offering a special Wedding Chapel instance to players who want to make their in game romance something official. When I played Everquest I was blessed to attend two wedding ceremonies, both of which were incredibly beautiful and special. In those days, the Game Masters themselves would turn out to officiate, and hand out treats to everyone for the celebration afterwards.

Now that they’re offering Wedding Chapels perhaps the ceremony will be a less public event, but with the choice of light and dark settings and beautiful flowers it will be even more magical. Big thank you to SOE and everyone involved with this for what you do, you understand what these worlds you create mean to the people who live in them.

This is part two of my Gen Con pictures, for your viewing pleasure!

The SOE Meet and Greet was on Thursday night, and though my phone camera was not good enough to take pictures at the event I do have this picture of my Phat Lewts! Got to meet Zatozia, Grimwell, Brasse and several cool players of EQ and EQ2. Also got to talk with Chuck and Daryl of SOE Denver about LoN, and the old days. Had a really great time, thanks to everyone who was there!

Beckett had a booth at the con as well, and I got to meet the editor Doug Kale (who you might also know as Stargrace’s boss!) They were there selling the latest copies of MOG and their new offerings, Twilight Magazine and Beckett: Bakugan. Anyone who bought a magazine got a spin on the prize wheel for free goodies! It was great to meet Doug and tell him how much I like what they’re doing with the magazine and website.

Humor me, I put in another picture of the Serra Angel because I think it’s just so cool.

Have a great gaming day today everyone! Gen Con 2009 is long over, but I’m already looking forward to 2010!

Went to Gen Con in Indianapolis last week, and had a really great time playing games and meeting people. Going to separate my pictures into two posts I think, so this will be the first!

There were so many people there, the estimates I heard were between 30,000 and 35,000 over the four day weekend. If attendance was down because of the economy or anything it certainly didn’t seem so to me! This image is in the Dealer Room just looking over the mass of people there.

It seemed like there were many people there specifically to play TCGs, and Magic and WoW were both having tournament events all weekend. I also saw Chaotic, Cthulhu, Legends of Norrath and many other games being played. Even had a chance to go to an event hosted by the Continuing Committee, a fan group keeping the Star Trek CCG alive. If I’d known I would have brought my old cards to play again!

The Wizards of the Coast folks had this amazing statue of the Serra Angel sitting at the top of one of the escalators in the convention hall. Really fabulous, and I’m glad this picture turned out as well as it did.

Check back tomorrow for more pictures!

Sent in an email from Turbine this morning, Lord of the Rings Online is having another free play event this week. Play for free now through next Monday! Actually thinking a little about taking advantage of this, since it has been quiet in EQ2 lately. Maybe not, haven’t decided yet.

I’ve been thinking about dropping my second EQ2 account as well. It’s not useful to use both accounts on one computer, I can’t switch fast enough to play a healer/dps combo. The extra money could go toward LotRO, or maybe WoW or something completely different. I dunno.

Hope everyone is having a great tuesday.