Happy May, everybody!
Last month I made it my mission to focus on my writing and my health, and that’s what I did. To the point of not really blogging all month. Sorry I’ve been so absent! It was helpful to have a brief hiatus from blogging just because sometimes when I sit down to write my novel, I’ll end up blogging instead. That’s still writing, right? But I needed to not have that as an option, and it worked out well. I’ve made tons of progress on my novel this month and am really enjoying the story as it unfolds (even though it’s still a total mess of a first draft). But now it’s May, and I’ve missed this blog, and I have a lot to say so expect some posts soon. =)
In other news, last month I ran every weekend and prepared for a 10K at the end of the month. It’s one of my favorite runs, as it takes you over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. While I just barely made it — I didn’t actually run the full 6-mile distance until the day of the race — I am really happy that I finished the thing and made a decent time, too. I’ll be continuing to run every weekend this summer to prepare for another 10K later in the year, when I want to beat my time.
April was also the month of the God of War launch, which was a big deal at work as well as in my household! I’ve been playing it since (almost two weeks now?), and while I feel I’ve made a lot of progress, from what I hear from others who raced through the game or are just devoting more time to it, I still have quite a ways to go. This is going to be a long, heavy game, which is great. If you haven’t played it, the storytelling, the dynamics between Kratos and his son, and the graphics are incredible. I’m really curious to see more of these mythical realms, and explore the Norse mythology that’s woven into every setting.
I also started playing a mobile game that I’m obsessed with now, called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. Check out how cool it is! You can create your own character, attend Hogwarts starting in your first year, go to classes, talk to professors, make friends… It’s awesome. I actually read a review of it on Polygon a week or so ago, which is what piqued my interest — and now I’m seeing it everywhere. If you like RPGs and Harry Potter, I highly recommend.
Now that May is here, I’ll be continuing God of War, running, and writing my book. I started reading Jacqueline Carey’s fantasy novel Kushiel’s Dart, which is perfection as an audiobook. This month is also Mother’s Day, so I’ll be celebrating that with my mom. And of course the following weekend is the royal wedding. My family are Anglophiles, and I used to live in London, so at some point we became obsessed interested in the Windsors and are now extremely excited to pull an all-nighter watching the wedding together!
In other news, I get to taste wedding cakes this month. =)
I’d love to hear what everybody else is up to in May!
— Ashley
Robo♥beat 
I’ve been slowing down on my blogging lately too. Too much on my plate, and frankly I’m running a bit low on ideas.
I’m not quite sure what I’m doing for gaming this month. I’m now very close to finishing all of the class campaigns in WoW (only druid left), but that should only be another week or so, and then I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. ESO: Summerset launches this month, and I pre-ordered that, but I think I’ll wait a bit for the crowds to die down.
I have been doing more offline gaming lately, though. I’ve started playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time in my life, and I’m actually amazed at how fun that’s been. Enjoying it way more than I ever thought I would. We’re already talking about setting up a second campaign with a slightly different group of people.
One thing I really like about D&D versus video games is you have a lot more flexibility to come up with unusual builds or interpret classes in uncommon ways. I’ve been calling my current character a druidin because she’s technically a paladin, but she’s got lots of nature magic and archery skills. She feels very unique, and she’s a blast to play.
That’s awesome you’re getting into D&D! That’s a good point about how flexible it is. Creating a unique character with a blend of skills is a lot of fun, and working the personality into decisions adds so much. Your character sounds really interesting!
I played D&D a few years ago for a short time. I remember really wanting to create a bard, but there were two other people in the group who also wanted bards, so I went with a rogue to balance things out more. Definitely wish I had just stuck with my original idea though!
It was fun to play, but maybe my shyness got in the way or something, because I am not great at thinking on my feet. Probably if I had played for longer, I would have gotten to know everybody and the game a lot better, and built my confidence with it. I only played for a couple of months. But I totally agree with you on how fun it can be, and the role-playing aspect is so freeing without the constrictions of a pre-made video game!
Just out of curiosity, did your DM create a world for you guys, or what is that aspect like for your group? That part was really interesting to me too; our DM was a writer and got really into the worldbuilding and unique rules.
Our DM is using one of the official campaigns right now. He’s tweaking it a bit here and there to fit our RP, but mostly he’s just following the book. We all agreed this was what we’d prefer; this way, if we don’t like the story, we blame the developers and not each other. That said, we’ve been talking about starting a second campaign with a different guy as DM, and I believe he’s planning to create his own quests (though it’ll still be using the official Forgotten Realms setting).
On the subject of bards, my character concept for the hypothetical second campaign is a Tiefling monk who will multi-class into bard. I was inspiring by the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, which was disguised as a dance. Since Tieflings are a bit of an underclass in the D&D universe, it made sense to me they also might have developed a similar method of self-defense that could be concealed from the authorities, and a monk/bard hybrid seemed a good way to represent that fantasy.
That’s a great character idea!