I Did It!

November is over and so is NaNoWriMo. And I did it! I wrote fifty-thousand words in the space of thirty days. \o/ I learned a lot more about my habits and failings than I had expected to, and about what works and what doesn't for me as a writer.

I did not, however, finish the whole story I was writing. I'll still be working on that, but I'll be taking a much more relaxed approach.

As for the in-character postings, I have had a few ideas and yesterday some things happened in game, so expect a flurry of posts in the near future. For those of you still reading, sorry for the hiatus and thanks for staying with me :)

NaNoWriMo

Just letting everyone know that I am not dead in some ditch <.< I have been taking part in National Novel Writing Month, which means that I spend most of the day climbing the walls in frustration at how slowly my story is coming along and headdesking each time I realise that I am, in fact, a crap writer >.<

I'm mostly focusing on NaNo, so blog posts may be few and far between during November. Also I still have a couple of unfinished drafts for events that happened in October, so I may release those (and tamper with the release date on said posts *cough*) at some point in the next few weeks.

Now... 50k words in one month. I can do this! I can. I hope. I gotta! >.<

Fanfest (3)

First of all, my apologies for the delay. I'm used to sitting in front of a computer all day and doing little else, so the whole Fanfest experience drained me of energy toward the end, making me skip on my writing. I'll pick up where I left off, which I believe was me bitching about the weather.

After the miserable time I'd had on Friday with the weather, Saturday dawned such a gorgeous sunny day that it actually made me forget about going to the morning presentations and instead I took off for a walk by the seaside. No gloves, no scarf, and I even had to open my jacket some \o/ The bay was looking beautiful, with the mountains in the distance having been coloured a bit whiter the previous day.

So the first session I did find my way to was about Storyline Processes. Mostly Q&A, while I was hoping they'd actually talk more in detail about storylines and story-making within the game. It was still interesting, but most of it a repetition of what I'd already heard previously.

After that I hooked up with Adrielle and Mori again (my trusted companions in this year's foray into Iceland) and we settled down for a few hours in tranquility for the final presentations. Hilarious, as usual. Oveur's beer ship has been branded into my mind :D

I have to say I was a bit disappointed that we got no earth-shattering announcements as has been the hallmark for Fanfests in the past. Nevertheless, the glimpse into Dust 514 only reinforced the temptation to go buy a console, which is something I've never owned in my entire life, and play a FPS which is something I'm generally really bad at.

Of all the things I heard and saw at Fanfest I have to say the news about the new mail system and the upcoming T3 frigates are the two that really have me jumping for joy. The new sovereignty system being brought to us in Dominion, while very interesting in and of itself, isn't really something that affects me at this point in time. As for planets? I couldn't get in the room for that presentation on Friday :( By the time I got there the room was so full that people were spilling onto the lobby and craning their necks to peek inside. I'm not exactly tall so I went to lounge on one of the bean bags nearby and sulked on the interwebs ;)

I have to say by the time the party started I was already very tired. Also I hadn't dropped by the hotel to drop off my stuff, so I was going around with my satchel on my shoulder. Not very comfy.

Röxör were amazing, of course. I still remember how sceptical I'd been about this dev band back in '07, having played in a band myself and having seen many terrible bands in my time. They surprised me then, and I have to say they were even better this time around. Hell, they almost had me dropping my bag somewhere and going off to jump by the stage, despite this being extremely unlike me. Almost. But not quite. By then I was so tired I could do little more than nod to the music and yell some lyrics.

After Röxör I hugged Adri and Mori one last time and took off for my hotel, exhausted, a bit deaf, but happy. And definitely wishing I could afford going to Fanfest every year, which I can't. So maybe in two years I'll make it back once more.

PS:
Shyness is truly a curse. Despite seeing around a few names I recognised and who might even recognise my name back (depending on how good they are with names, I guess, since I'm not exactly an Eve celebrity) I confess I didn't have the courage to go up to them and say hi. I saw Verone, whose corp I seem to remember sponsored one of the past racing seasons, usually surrounded by a Veto posse ;) Roc Wieler, whose writings I read on and off, was seated not far from me at some of the storyline presentations. Lacrimae, who I met at a roundtable in '07, was going around posting stuff on twitter as it happened.

But I did end up making a new acquaintance. I'm shy, but I'm not rude ;) The guy sitting next to me on the plane from Heathrow to Keflavík turned out to be an Eve player - I think 90% of the passengers on that flight were, to be honest. He struck a conversation and it turns out his corp is more or less neighbours with some Nox Draconum people, even if they're *ahem* on different sides of the law. So a shout out to Darius Falc, who I really enjoyed meeting in real life, and who I hope to meet and not get shot at by ingame :)

And of course, last but not least, I really loved having someone to hang out with this year. My fun would have been greatly hampered without the company of my travel buddies Adrielle Firewalker and Mori Felding. I loved meeting you for real, guys. Maybe next time we can hook up at Heathrow again ;) And now we do know where to find cheap, warm food near the venue after hours *grins*

Fanfest (2)

Now that I do have shower gel and shampoo in my room, the hotel doesn't feel so crappy. The wonders a nice, hot shower will do.

There should really be an official designation for the current weather over here. I propose the term "miserable fucking weather" should as of now designate what I had to go through to get to the Fanfest venue this morning. It's cold (which is in and of itself enough for me to dislike it) and then there's a sort of rain. How to describe it? It's like the rain hasn't really decided what it wants to be when it grows up, and is trying to make up its mind between hail and snow, but is failing to be either. It stings when it hits my face :P

Not very pleasant when you've just climbed out of bed. Ah, the things we do for internet spaceships ;)

I realise this post could do with some actual news, but I can't really come up with anything remarkably coherent, since I had no breakfast and am just now at lunch time finally getting a bite to eat after listening in to the morning lecture/welcome stuff. Maybe later I'll have any actual content beyond weather whinage <.<

Fanfest (1)

It was freezing when I hopped off the plane, my hotel is a bit crap (not that I plan on spending much time there, come to think of it), but Fanfest venue looks awesome,

And I don't use the word "awesome" very often.

I've been too shy to sign up for something with the tempting title of "Battle of the Bands"... Hmmm....

Anyway, despite the freezing cold (seriously, I wasn't made for this weather!) I'm having tons of fun and finding it easier even than last time around to just talk to complete strangers about the game, Iceland and traveling :D

Still Here

So I'm not dead. I'm still around. However, some real life has conspired to pretty much keep me terminally uninspired to write anything much, nor have I been playing a lot.

I am taking a two-week break, off to the beach to catch some sun. Maybe recharging batteries will do me well and I'll come back with some stories to post.

Booked for Fanfest

So a couple of hours ago I did it: booked myself passage to Iceland and got me a Fanfest ticket. So I guess I'll be there come October \o/

At least this time it seems I'll actually know some of the people attending. I really hope so, because with my crippling shyness if no one I know goes I'll miss half the fun :P

Having a Bad Day

I'm having one of those days when quite frankly I'd be better off not getting out of bed. Let's see...

Didn't get much sleep - partly (I suspect) because my sleep cycles are a little messed up, as Apocrypha goodness has kept me up late gawking at stuff. Went off later than I'd like for archery practice. I was there for a whopping hour and a half to two hours, or so, and in that time managed to lose an arrow and break or damage three others. I won't even get into just how appalling my aim was, today. To finish the practice session with a bang I had a little episode with low blood pressure. Just great.

Having recovered from that, we went to lunch. On a miraculous lucky break Fiancé and I actually bumped into some friends with their little daughter, and lunch was actually nice. But later on as I tried to make dinner it all went pear shaped and dinner consisted of warm-ish steaks with half-burnt potato salad. Just great.

I've just now logged in to Eve and i'm not sure I dare undock, to be honest. I'm afraid if I do I'll get killed in a freak accident mining in 1.0 space, or something >.<

I hope things go better tomorrow. Kayleigh has a race to run for the League and in this luck I'd get stuck at some stargate and be overtaken by everyone, I'm sure.

Alliance Tournament - Finals

Ah well, Electus Matari got eliminated by Star Fraction on their very first elimination round, which was such a shame. It left me with no one to root for from then on.

However, EM put up a hell of a fight. Good to see some racers out there - hi Teo and KillJoy! - and even refusing to die *grin* That was the first time I heard the term 'Hero Tanking' and to me it'll always be associated with EM. Way to go, guys.

As for the rest, I was left without favourites so congratulations to Pandemic Legion for pulling some surprises out of the box when they really were needed. I'll still be there to watch whatever happens in the next Alliance tournament.

Alliance Tournament - Days 3 & 4

Meh, overall a rather disappointing weekend in the Tourney for me. All the Militias lost rather spectacularly, poor guys. I still haven't seen the final rankings to see who does make it through officially, but from browsing the forums shortly after the Sunday fights were over it doesn't seem likely even the Gallente might have pulled through. Damn and blast.

On the upside, EM did quite alright and have managed to assure a place in the elimination rounds. Well done, guys!

Ooh, and speaking of which, I noticed CCP has finally put really HD videos of Day 3 on YouTube, and I can finally read pilots' names when reviewing the fights! \o/ Nice indeed. I saw Teo Kiesh in the EM team out there. Go racers!! ;)

So.. assuming the militias are all eliminated, I'll be rooting for EM only from now on. *\o/*

Alliance Tournament - Day 2

As predicted I missed quite a few matches, sadly, being away from home. But I did manage to steal my dad's laptop and tune in to Eve Radio for some commentaries.

Stuff I remember:

-- Frustration over Amarr Militia losing by one single tiny point. Five more seconds and they would have popped that ship! Damn you, CCP Claw! :(

-- Woohoo to Gallente Militia for a very convincing win!

-- Oh dear.. Matari Militia seemed to have a very poor match, the only one of the militias to not really put up much of a fight, from what I could glean from the commentaries.

Will now spend a week speaking to friends I know in some of the alliances trying to figure out just which pilots flew exactly for the teams I'm following. I can't make out the names even on the HD videos already on YouTube and the commentators usually don't care enough to enlighten us on that respect.

(Would be funny if a football commentator ever forgot to let us know at the start of a game who exactly was on the field :P)

Alliance Tournament - Day 1

The tournament has kicked off with the first half of the preliminary rounds.

As I thought, I'm having a hard time visualising just what is going on in the arena from audio commentaries alone. It could be (well, almost certainly is) because of the quality of the commentaries. I am convinced of this because I was having troubles on the first half but had a much easier time on the second half, and I attribute that to Verone being a much better commentator than KIA Eddz. And I'm not even talking about the fact Eddz seems to stick his foot in his mouth about five times a match >.<

Comments like "we really must thank the organisers of this tournament... because it makes for great viewing... although you can't view it" are really not very helpful, let me tell you, Eddz.

Anyway, I managed to stay online all afternoon long listening to commentaries. I'm not going to be able to do that tomorrow, but it seems not all is lost. Word is CCP is filming and will make the matches available on YouTube in the next few days.

This is great news to me because I like to try to pick out names I know from the teams on the arena and see how they do. And I really really want to see who flew for the victorious Electus Matari team \o/ I wanna be able to buy them a drink in one of the many bars in Eve! Good start for EM!

Tomorrow there will be more, though likely I'll miss a bunch of matches. Lunch with parents will do that :/ I'm already going to get weird looks by insisting on tuning to Eve Radio from dad's laptop at 15h precisely to see how the Amarr Militia does. I have an alt there (the Militia, not the Tournament team, of course) and some friends might be in the arena, so I'll want to be rooting for them too.

For tomorrow: Go Amarr! Go Gallente!!

Alliance Tournament - no Eve TV?

Blah, I just found out the 6th Alliance Tournament is only going to get TV coverage of the finals. I'm not just disappointed, I'm downright annoyed and yes, a bit angry. I mean damnit, I finally knew people who might be fighting, and I certainly had reasons for rooting for some teams, but now I get no coverage? This sucks! >.<

Yes, I know, we get commentaries. Football games (soccer to you americans) are interesting and exciting on TV. They're boring and annoying to listen to on the radio. I imagine the same will happen with the Tournament.

Not that I will know because the thing about limiting coverage to radio/voice commentary is that I'll need to actually be online at the very times the fights are happening to get the commentary. Unless someone podcasts this so I can listen in later, I'll have an option of remaining glued to the Net all weekend long or miss precisely the fights my friends are likely to take part in in order to, you know, not alienate my family and loved ones on the weekend.

Do we know if this is even getting recorded in some way that we might download later on?

Meh.

Anyway, for what it's worth: Go EM! Go Gallente Militia!

A Start

A blog...

I never thought I'd find myself adhering to the blog craze, and I certainly have never been the kind of person who could keep alive a diary of any sort. However I have been stuck in this writing project I've been toying with in my mind for ages and also I think this might be an interesting venue to post little tidbits about my gaming characters - and more specifically my Eve Online characters.

Therefor I hope this will be a place for a little bit of real-life rambling, a little bit of in-character writing... in English but also here and there (who knows?) the occasional venting in Portuguese.

Here's hoping the journey will be interesting.