Posts Tagged 'Writing'

Wow Magazine Canx

Published September 17, 2011 World Of Warcraft 3 Comments
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So the news that the Wow Mag has been canceled  has been floating around.  I’ve never read one,  was not a subscriber,  and  would never have been for 4 issues a year, the price,  and the content.

I also wasn’t keen on what they did to Matticus. As a person who has written, stories, poems, song lyrics, even 50k odd of a novel that were all based on original thought, and even here  767 posts published posts.  I understand feeling disappointed when you cannot lay a claim on something you have written.

Were bloggers part of the problem? Willing to give away for free what they were charging for.  I should reword that,  my blog has a yearly cost to me, even to the point that I pay WordPress to keep ads off my blog. So not only are bloggers writing content for free, we are also paying for the privilege.  Some,  not many though may make their costs back due to advertising or merchandise,  but most do it for free, and a lot pay some sort of fee to someone  to do it. Eg hosting, domain name, ads, custom css ect.

Then you have a collective of organized bloggers/writers like on Joystick  who do get paid small amounts for producing the content, whose ideas can be as original as any magazine feature writer; have a massive audience, and  easy deliverable content.

So not only is everyone else providing the content to the reader for free,  it’s more regular,  has better? or comparable articles,  and does it more often. It’s kind of hard to compete with that.

Don’t forget technology; there seems to be an awful amount of sites that suggest that you can download one of the mags for ‘free’   that kind of production  needs to turn a profit to or provide a service of sorts to justify its continued existence, and a publication that is polished,  pretty,  typeset, and all the fancy things that a real magazine goes through. Has a real cost.

In addition most of  the internet doesn’t have that polished requirement ( possibly to the detriment of language  ( I say that as I butcher English for the millionth time  and I can’t afford to pay for the service of an editor you see)

I do this is my spare time,  when I feel like it, when I feel like I have something interesting to say.

And lastly the player base is changing,  with supposedly there are more people used to play Wow,  the people who currently do.

I’m sure they have lots of reasons for discontinuing it,  but I am also sure if it were profitable to continue  then there would have been no good reason to stop.

So stay tuned to the next – freely provided blog from myself at an un-determinable time and of a unpredictable topic.

(Will work for Coffee and chocolate – or chocolate coated coffee beans = double win!)

Blah Blah More Nano

Published November 10, 2010 World Of Warcraft 6 Comments
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I need to tell as many people as possible my progress on Nanowrimo, because it means I will have to tell that many people again when I fail, and the idea of admitting defeat so publicly seems like more hard work then actually meeting a daily deadline, of course this is also easy enough to say when I am a head of my deadline.  18100 words as at post lunch.  If I can keep my FB updated with my progress I can annoy you with it too.

It’s now 1/3 of the way. 2o more days to go.  My has it flown, and now I am only feeling really happy about the story.  I had to fill in all this backstory – how would they set up an abandoned  underground train station to live – how do you seal it off? Shower,  Sleep? Cook? Could they really keep two cats down there. ( of course there are cats)  What d0es the sound of a city falling sound like?

I discovered that the person who was going to be my main strong male character was/is actually a wuss.  He let my Heroine kill a guy with her mothers Kitchen knife all on her own  before waiting to reveal himself.  I am hoping to redeem him by  having him doing a Leeroy jenkins type distraction into a marauder camp so our heroine can rescue  a captive girl, but I am struggling with  how I am going to make him the same ‘man’  that Kess  ( my heroine) rides willingly into danger with  when the story gets to the juicy point,  When they get attacked by a mad max stylised  group while out on a salvage mission. Maybe I can have him stay a Wuss,  but ‘grows up’ after the AI takes him over – which would mean that Kess does not feel safe around him and maybe she only took him with her on that salvage because she had to  ( Marcus got stabbed in a streetfight – and is recovering and he was normally one her gunners.) She could blame him for why they were caught off guard. Poor Ralph.  These names are not permanent.  I like Kess though. As a name.  Ralph, Marco, Pete.   Don’t seem to fit  Not important right now though, Alt E: e  Ralph – Replace with  Bert. ( kidding) that simple.

At the moment I have “It’s crap – why are you bothering” bouncing through my head,   The reality is is probably is crap,  but not many writers get their first serious attempt at a novel published – it sits in their hope chest untill they have a few more under their belt,  then they can pull it out slyly and tell their publisher,  I would love to get this published.   It’s a learning process. Though, and not hard to churn out small goals.  I still get to play Wow, and blog,  and as long as don’t get lunch on my laptop keyboard, there is still time to eat – and because I am a head,  I can stop when I want to.

Apologies for the non wow content.   So I shall say a few random things.

Priest stuff

I have been playing with Chakras in Dalaran on both my priests holy specs. Mainly the Chakra POH  – Trying to see how long I can keep the state up, and cast circles of pretty light, and make celtic knot pattens out of the over laps  ( will post pics when I perfect it)  I can keep three circles  up briefly if I am close on mycool downs Chakra: Renew seems mostly easy to keep up, however if I don’t keep casting POH or COH my  Chakra POH falls off. The State drops so fast, and I can only get 4 circles cast before I lose the ability without trying to POH or COH,  I have pushed it out to  6, but  I need practise keeping the state up for when it’s needed.  I tried using a holy spec in a BG, but people kept moving out of the circle, and my effective heals were crap.

Druid

Bging and Lfging on my Baby druid ( 54!)  telling the party/bg  that  “DRUID GOO IS GOOD GOO” 

Tamarind from Righteous Orbs had a very funny story  about torturing a boomkin that was scared of efflorescence  I understand why the boomy would afraid of it.  It’s been drummed into our raiding heads that Fire is bad.  Green is bad ( see  Keeva’s “Name the green goo” post for examples of the kind of green that is bad  that we have been taught to avoid. I would be questioning why green stuff was appearing under me though if I wasnt expecting in an encounter.  

Still getting one shot in any pvp situation.  Might have enough honor by 60 odd to get some real pvp gear.  AV has been awesome again for xp. An Arathi win was worth half an level for me once ( as long as they ignore the healer)   It ads variety, and LFG, and Bg’s are a safer way of leveling on a Pvp realm – I also see it as developing necessary survival skills for when I do need to be out in the world.  I tried questing a little in the hinterlands thinking no one goes there  but alas.  Jab Jab. Dead.

I finally have some stuff in my cat form bars.  Mainly Dash and Prowl. Though its useless against rogues that are higher level them me.  They can stealth better than me.

AussieCon Squeee

Published August 27, 2010 World Of Warcraft Closed
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I have to share how excited I am about Aussiecon in Melbourne this year. 

There are so many things to do! Readings, discussions, panels, lectures   Book launches, movies, awards, Sciencefiction, fantasy,  Horror its all going to be there.  I think I shall be otherwise occupied long enough to be completely exhausted

Stuff to do includes,

Light saber making and training (Mmmm ok that’s tagged as for kids)

Building Lego Daleks (awe  kids again.  hang on..   there’s an adult session woot!)

and as for the panels..

Everything from Cyberpunk to Feminism, Technology and Gaming Narratives, Fantasy, World Building, Creating fictional wildlife, and Monarchs, history, science , Horror..  and so on,  my head is going to explode.

I know most people have holidays to have a holiday..  but I think this is going to be fun!

They have about 10 or so things on at the same time, and picking what to do is going to be hard sometimes.

This means there may be a period of silence from me, and no raids for a week. ( woot!)

It’s supposed to be a cosmic cross now according to my starsign,  and this is supposed to be a period  of significant change  – so I am hoping it will kick my butt into gear to motivate me to write other stuff.

Is your Passion is enough to turn profit.

Published August 12, 2010 Gaming , MMORPG , World Of Warcraft 5 Comments
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Making a living because of something you love /enjoy doing is something I want to aspire to,  and I would say most Wow bloggers enjoy/love playing Wow because they write about it, but they do it for free.

I’ve mulled over legitimizing my writing  a little more by attaching my real name.  Making money from my blog is not what I intend, but I call myself a writer.  I’ve been paid and published, but I  haven’t quite worked out  if  I want  this blog to sit on my Writing bibliography. 625 posts, and about 2.5 years of writing. I’m a little proud. Actually I’m very proud.  It’s my greatest body of work – I feel like I would be omitting something from my writing history if I didn’t ‘claim’ it.

I also think about some of the great talent we see that uses  WOW as the axis idea, and motivation.  Blogs,  RP, Comics, Mechanima, music, craft, podcasting, add on developers. We use wow to practise, and apply a  craft, or talent.  Most people don’t get paid. All of these rely on donations,  or ad revenue if they choose ( which surely can’t be a lot)  and  people’s free time to produce.  The only thing I can think of that people get paid for,  would be for submitting /writing for a tech mag with a budget to pay,  or places like wow.com, or MMO champion.   I know a couple of bloggers that have paypal donation buttons,  one, Tobold uses it to buy things that he writes about, others to cover things like hosting costs, domain registrations, and so on.   A contributing reason for me not wanting to earn money from this blog is it has a very low  upkeep cost. Just the yearly name registration and mapping fee.  I’m happy not to host it for now,  and I didn’t even need to have my own domain,  but I wanted to.

I don’t want a paypal donation button, and I can’t see it being worth the compromise from the little money I would earn to put my own ads on here.  Though I really should pay to remove WordPress ads.  ( but that becomes another expense.)

I need to work on polishing my writing a lot more, and some better more generic topics, maybe try to find more than WOW to write about,  and I think I am doing that a lot more lately.  Or tying Wow back to bigger issues.  625 posts though is  a lot of practise.  I think I’m getting better.  The idea being is that I would like to write worthy enough stuff to get paid for it.

It’s annoys me feed stealers can plonk my entire post on their website,  surround it with ads, and make money off what I don’t, but that’s another issue all together.

It’s also  little sad creatively,  that even though the words in this blog are all mine,  my ideas are all mine  they would not exist but for the creative talent,  and copyrighted ideas of other people. I stopped writing fan fic when I was into Voyager.  I have the potential to create my own original ideas,  and get full credit for it,   I don’t need someone elses characters to work with.

I also only have my audience because of someone elses talent,  and copyright ownership.  I can’t even claim original illustration – I only have this ‘freedom’ under a creative commons,   As for my audience. Wow has made what I write about interesting enough to read by  more people than I could have ever dreamed.  I don’t think my real life is exciting enough for people to want to read about it.

It’s all well and good to have a passion, and I know people have hobbies that don’t make them money. My weirdest hobby was  waving a wooden stick (Bokken) around a local park for 12 months doing sword lessons.  Fun, but yes people thought I was odd – I spent a bit of money.  Lessons, grading,  and two bokkens that are  on display  in my lounge room to scare my dates, but  I stopped my singing lessons because I couldn’t justify the expense for that that hobby when I had a mortgage.  

I worked out  that while  I love playing WOW  my passion  is actually  Writing,  and I use writing about wow as a substitution for writing about other things, but I don’t think that without being able to stretch my writers wings by blogging about Wow,  I would have ever tried to write  more than fiction.  I am very much aware how closely tied my gaming is with my blogging about Wow.  If either were to stop, the other would, unless I could find a topic I was interested in enough to come up with new things  to talk about.

I have a passion for writing – probably should knuckle down and learn to be  a better one.  We used to call self publishing authors as vanity publishers.  You weren’t good enough for a real publisher to take you so you did it yourself.  Blogging is a form of vanity publishing.  guaranteed a space  on the internet.  I’ve made some money from writing. Not lately though, but yes I want to earn money from my passion for writing.

Just need to write  more stuff that does not bounce off someone elses ideas.

Musings on Blogging / Writing

Published February 25, 2010 Gaming , World Of Warcraft 18 Comments
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No Wow.   This be about blogging.

I’m edging closer and closer to 500 posts.  Think there is about 14 more to go.  Maybe 13 after this one. 

I’m a paid and published writer ya know –  When I was writing more back at Uni  – I remember sending out some work to places for publishing – and as part of the submission you sent a self-addressed envelope so they could send you back rejection letters and your submitted work.

I kept a pile of those rejection letters  on a spike.  The spike filled up. 

I threw the spike out when 3 of my poems got accepted on a radio show, and they paid me $80 – which at the time,  and for a Uni student was a nice little bonus. Over the years I have had small pieces published in random places, poems, stories for various sums, entered some competitions that required writing something for a prize and won them.

I write mainly short stories now, Sci fic, Spec fic, fantasy, I got in a local small press book published last year of short stories  – and even attended the semi swanky book launch.    Poetry  was mainly about feeling, and I’ve not been feeling much lately so haven’t written poetry lately, and of course I blog.

But the best thing anyone said to me was ” I want to know what happens next”

You also don’t get rejection letters when you blog. 

I do have a personal journal – It’s not worth sharing the link – Mostly  loads of dribble –  It’s not meant to entertain/inform.  It’s more of a brain dump then a brain sorter.  For example todays entry was

Feb. 25th, 2010

She unplugs herself to listen for her coffee order. Plugs herself back in, and walks off papercup warm in her hands.

Doesn’t remember when her middle part in her hair become a side part, falling slightly over the eyes

It’s a little droll .

I started Pugnacious priest because  I had found something I loved and wanted to write about it. Never expected people to read it.

I am still surprised people read me – some of you I have forced my link upon you –  others found me – and It’s awesome to get random people and people I didn’t know  – knew I blogged say  in game saying ‘ Hi.. by the way I read you’

thankyou!

I really appreciate that you read me – and keep reading me.

I’m the only one of my real life friends thats writes.  I used to go to writers meetings for motivation but never connected with anyone enough to ever become friends.   The meetings were either too ” lets destroy each other”  or lets just pat  each other on the back”  Dating a writer didn’t work out either,  but I get a lot out of reading other bloggers – makes me feel like the need to communicate as I do – is not so strange and lonely.

My gaming is very much tied up into this blog.  I write therefore I play – I play therefore I blog. If one where to stop then so would the other.  No this isn’t a goodbye I guess just brain drivel and me formulating where my head is at. 

 I NEED to write.   Some people who know me might get that –   some don’t – that I have a respectable job – and have been grown up enough to get a mortgage  still doesn’t negate that I won’t let go of something like my writing – and that I hope one day to make a living off it.

I don’t think I am a particularly good writer but It’s like how I feel about music. I breath because I sing,  because I write.  Writing to me is as essential as breathing.

I don’t leave home without a notebook, and if I find myself without one,  I end up buying one at a news agency and a black felt tipped pen – because I love the feel of that type of pen on paper.  Some of my best stories have been written standing up on  a packed train notebook in hand scribbling furiously.

But I am  proud of this blog – and it’s almost been 500 entries – hence this sentimental drivel that has been slopped onto the white space above.

So yeah – I might forget to mark my 500th – but it doesn’t matter cause it matters to me now – and its been slow, two years of blogging but I’ve stayed motivated, think I only skipped a week once. Wish I could apply the same motivation to other things.

Nanowrimo day 5 – New Guild – New Flat – and More writing..

Published November 5, 2008 Gaming , Guild , World Of Warcraft Closed
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I fell by the wayside on day 5 – I have a deficite of a couple of hundred for day 5  – Trying to do too much.

I have been busy.  This week I have

1. Changed my mains guild. AGAIN.  I am back with some of my old  raiders  differnt guild name, alot of familar faces. – I still don’t know all the reasons why my old raiding guild blew up as it did.  I left at the right time, and I feel a little bad for leaving the guild I went to after the big break up.  They are good – happy people,  just  I didn’t want to stay, and Ive been told I think too much, so I went with my Gut…    Being back in an active raiding guild means that i am playing my main more, and have been leveling my holy priest slower.  She is 66 now, and I really want to get her to 70 – So this weekend is my last quite weekend for ages So I will try my hardest.

I’ve already done a Kara clear with my new guild,  we had random Afks throughout so we were 8-9 manning alot of it, but when we came together everything died so quick.  Even though I had been doing Kara clears before nerf, it feels disapointing how easier some of the encounters have become even when were were sorta of gearing 1 or 2 people in the run.   

A question came across guild chat ” remember the crappy rogue such and such…” 

I reply “yes,  but he wasn’t crap.”

“really?”

‘Yeah he was pretty good..  ”

It turns out it was the crappy rogue on an alt – fishing to see what i would say.   /slap  and I did mean what i said he was good, and a decent guy..  i did a couple of runs with him a while back, but he was one of those people i’ve keept on my flist for ages.

2.  have found a flat to buy! – It has city views ( not really – on a clear day with Binoculars maybe.. ) but I LOVE the kitchen, it has a cutout space which I could make into a breakfast bar, a seperate dining, two bedroom, the Strata is ok with 1 cat, so I am jumping to the moon!  Saw it available on Monday – inspected tuesday and am signing thursday to take it off market. Its the right time to buy! – I found a place I want to call home. It also means I can get ADSL. wootage!

3. Entered a Sci Ficcy writers comp for a sci Ficcy event thats happening on the weekend.  ( i have to attend to be elligible for prize money ) So I will see how that goes.

4. I have a a singing concert at the end of November I am practising for / have to attend extra rehersals closer to date for..

5. Am halfway through another writers comp piece ( only 500 words this one, so i’m happy where its going…  so theoretically I have written  my allocation of fictional words today,  just not all on the same thing.

6. I am now off to try and read some before bed.  Have finished Mike Shepards Series, and am now onto Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I didn’t read them when they first came out because i had just finished reading a couple of young adult vampire books and I needed to read something else, but I’m enjoying it. Lamenting i will need to cut my book buying budjet with a mortgage..  Library here I come!

Lunatics – and Wow? What an interesting mix.

Published October 7, 2008 World Of Warcraft 1 Comment
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I’m a Lunatic I have signed up for
Nanowrimo

If you have ever toyed with the idea of writing a Novel, Sign up! and there is a Warcraft support community already started by Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick

I’ve done an 80k word story before – and thats sitting unfinished. It was my fault for letting a boyfriend be a Muse, grant him his due he was the one who also wanted to know “What happend next?”

but 50K in 30 days I can do it! 1666 Words per day –

It will mean that I will need to take my laptop to work, and try and write on train to and from.

Mmmm is that an excuse for a new laptop –

I was waiting for a Netbook to have an internal modem, as my 17inc LG notebook is a bit big for the lack of elbow room that is Public transport.

and I have untill Nov 1st to come up with a workable plot.

What better way to spend Wow downtime.

Edit: Apparently all this madness was started by Vonya from the Egotistical Priest
Oh… there is a Widget… mmmm

Best of luck peoples!

The importance of being Ernest ( Or at least grammatically correct.. )

Published September 11, 2008 World Of Warcraft 10 Comments
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I have terribadterrible grammar – I know. My spelling is appalling. My typing also puts capital Letters in random Places. I will use 1st instead of first ect ect ect,  and I think I put too many ……… in my posts too.

ButAdmiting your problems has to be one of the 1st first steps right?

I sometimes manage to catch the spelling – but  the WordPress spell check is a bit fiddly and If I click the wrong place to fix a word the the whole spell check thing wears off.

No excuses.

I blame that I was reading books as a kid that were more advanced then the language and grammar I was being taught at school – so my comprehensive was way ahead of my language skills. The school librarian tried to take a book off me when she saw I was reading Pillars of the earth by Ken Follet when I was 10ish  and also my school generation seem to have had the least amount of attention paid to grammar as possible.

Yes English is my first and only language – unless you can count the swear words in about 10 other languages ( Due to the Multiculturalism that is Aussie High schools) and a smattering of beginners Nihongo

A short story I got published first went through a rigorous red pen slash and circle exercise before making it to the newsletter. I hadn’t realised how bad I was – and the lesson imparted on me was “Your ideas are great – but you need to work on selling those ideas in a more presentable format.” He also suggested I buy Eats Shoots and Leaves which I did and I read it once. Now its somewhere lost in my bookshelf amongst the writers guides to crime writing, private investigation, murder scenes, knot tying, and Stephen Kings “On writing” book
Which is funny considering my writing is all Sci Fic or Fantasy themed based, and a Cheese stealing office ninja type story.

The speed I read means I also miss a lot of spelling as I don’t need to read the whole word to get the meaning.
Like the following meme has been around since 2003 according to Snopes

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

But I promise to work on getting better.

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