Written by Anna | Posted January 30, 2012 – 7:28 am Heads I Win…

On Wednesday, Annata prepared.

Clothing was casually purchased in Goldshire, a few herbs in Westfall. She used the extra time to make sure various poisons were ready as well, not that she thought she’d need them, but you could never…

May your Blessings be Bountiful
comment Comment Written by Anna on November 24, 2011 – 8:26 am

Happy Feast of Pilgrim’s Bounty! (Also, Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers)

pilgrimfeast

Last year my kitchen passed the “crazy test” – and this year will probably put it through its paces once again. Today’s meal is being hosted by SSH and I, for both my family and his, and it should be a wonderful time. I’ll definitely need a nap though!

I hope, regardless of the holiday, that today you enjoy good food and good company with friends and family (whether related by blood or by choice).

A New Crop of Annas
comment 2 Written by Anna on November 23, 2011 – 8:45 am

Sometimes you happen on something really really lucky. In my case, the name of this blog was pure dumb luck.

It’s not only allowed me to blog about raiding, RP, PVP (on rare occasions), and expansion content, it’s let me blog about whatever character I want to play at any given time, without worrying about anyone finding it odd that my blog title is about Shaman healer raiding and I post about Paladin RP.

Looking forward, I think it’s even more fortuitous, as I’ll be able to have a space to talk about other games. I’m really looking forward to Star Wars: The Old Republic, Diablo III, AND Mists of Pandaria. While I have no plans to leave WoW, for the first time I have interest in two new games that will be coming out soon, and it’ll be nice not to have to shoehorn that information into another blog (or, gods forbid, create yet another one).

The naming scheme will continue – it’s followed me into D&D – and so there will always be Many Annas. WHICH Annas? Well, I don’t know either, but it should be fun.

Because there will never, ever, truly be too many.

Finding My Writing Mojo
comment 1 Written by Anna on November 22, 2011 – 7:51 am

After taking so long away from blogging, it’s been almost a relief to be posting again. It feels a little bit like an old coat that fits – something about it just makes sense, and I’m really enjoying the creative process of writing.

Unfortunately writing fic is just not that easy. While blogging is something that feels pretty natural, writing fic is like pulling teeth for me these days. It’s not that I don’t have ideas, I’m just so very very rusty when it comes to fiction. Dialogue doesn’t flow easily, characters are a little less familiar, things like that.

I’ve done a bit of writing – all of it posted here over the last two weeks – and managed to make it work, but it still doesn’t have the same flow or spark that I had when I was writing fic all the time.

What have I learned from this?

Well, your writing chops are essentially muscles – if you don’t use them, you lose them. While it’s easier to build back than it is to build up the first time, taking 10 months off can definitely leave you feeling rusty.

I’m hoping that if I continue the metaphor, and continue to to try to write little ficlets, the familiarity will come back. Along those same lines, it feels kind of like rebuilding a friendship after a long absence – characters are just easier to write when you work with them all the time. It’s easier to get into their heads.

Along those lines, I’m going to try to post ficlet ideas here again – the return of the Friday Five/Friday Fiction challenges. Yes, I know for a lot of us this week is Thanksgiving, but the wonderful thing about writing fiction is that maybe you won’t write it this week, but a little nugget of an idea might turn into something later!

Oddly enough, talking about writing a Thanksgiving/Pilgrim’s Bounty themed fic has me looking forward to writing it. I’m not sure which character yet (or characters) will be featured, but I’ve got a few ideas rattling around.

Do you have any tricks for getting the writing flowing? What about ficlet ideas that we could all do here, as part of Friday Fiction?

Monday Mutterings
comment Comment Written by Anna on November 21, 2011 – 7:41 am

Dusting off the Alts…

  • Aely!Priest is level 81, specced Discipline and slowly working her way through Hyjal. She may eventually be for healing, but there are a shit ton of buttons on a priest that I don’t remember how to use. Still, it’s shiny.
  • Aely!Pally is level 85 and <thisclose> to being geared for heroics. She’s ret. Maybe I will learn pally healing instead of priest healing.
  • Annie Mae is all ready to start leveling as a prot warrior, and will start in Vashj’ir before going to Hyjal, since having two characters in Hyjal at the same time might make me crazy.
  • Annata is level 63, and will hopefully make an appearance at RP night.
  • Annylais is waiting for 4.3 and the drop in XP needed to finish the zones in Northrend. I have no idea how I’ll level her, but if past leveling is any indication, she’ll be feral. Stealth is just too hax.
  • Ancelyn is still in the mid 30’s, something I need to remedy. Same with Cuanyin, in his mid 20’s.

I… have a lot of alts.

Also going on with the Annas…

  • I’m learning how to PVP again with my hunter. While I’m not any good at killing people, I am definitely good at being an annoying pain in the ass while other people kill things, so I’m having a good time. Also, PVP sucks a lot less with friends. I still don’t much like Arenas though.
  • Annorah is finally wearing a full set of MATCHING Firelands gear, and has her 2piece T12 set bonus now. We’re working on Ragnaros, which isn’t such a bad start for a raid that did T11 for a total of about a month.
  • I’ve done a little bit of occasional raiding with Angoleth as well, in TRI Hangover (they run Saturday mornings, hence the name). It’s a lot of fun, and a little disconcerting to see my 350 iLevel beastmastery hunter do the same overall DPS as my geared out elemental shaman.

Hope you are all having a great week! Since I work retail and then will be having about 10 people at my house for Thanksgiving, it’s going to be crazy around Chez Anna – not nearly as much gaming as I’d like!

The Second Time Around

January 31, 2012 – 7:37 am

I am, officially, strange. Not that this is news to any of you, but I was reminded of it again this week while playing Ana’leth and Annata.

I like content better the second time I complete it. When I’m new…

Heads I Win…

January 30, 2012 – 7:28 am

On Wednesday, Annata prepared.

Clothing was casually purchased in Goldshire, a few herbs in Westfall. She used the extra time to make sure various poisons were ready as well, not that she thought she’d need them, but you could never…

The People of RaidFinder

January 27, 2012 – 9:09 am

Having done a few RaidFinder groups, I’m starting to notice patterns. Sadly, they’re not really GOOD patterns. For whatever reason, the players who show up, do their jobs, get loot and go on their merry way don’t seem to stick…

There’s No Place Like Home

January 27, 2012 – 7:25 am

I was reading a post the other day from Ask a Jedi, about how his characters in other games had places that felt like “home”, where in Star Wars they kind of didn’t.

It’s a good post, and an…

Brain Heals

January 24, 2012 – 8:11 am

I redid my gems. I re-reforged. I redid my keybinds. I set up clique and totem timers.

And then we went to Firelands.

My first foray as a healer wasn’t horrible though, once I remembered I had Healing Rain (which…

When the writing gets tough…

January 23, 2012 – 7:59 am

I don’t have a witty ending to that statement. But it would probably be something like “… the writer gets a beer.”

Anyway, what happens when you want to be writing, but the ideas won’t come? When you have a…

Form of Healer – ACTIVATE!

January 20, 2012 – 11:04 am

So my as yet nameless raid* is going through another reset cycle. We’ve lost a few people, are raiding on a new night, etc.

One of the people we lost was our paladin healer.

As such, since I like my…

SWTOR Resources (General and RP)

January 20, 2012 – 7:26 am

For my own use as much as anyone else’s:

Wookieepedia – Star Wars Lore Database. Enormous, but good for getting answers to lore questions. Also good for sucking up your afternoon without you noticing.

SWTOR Wikia - Star Wars: The…

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