Ding! Achievement Earned: [1000 Posts]

This will be my one thousandth published post.  I find that kind of hard to believe because I never thought of this as something that would last as long as it would.  I started writing just for something to do because I like to write.  Almost as a personal diary of sorts.

I've made more posts, just never published them.  I've noticed I am doing that a lot more lately as I've been having some issues with what to write about.  Not like there are not things to write about, but there are no things I want to write about.

I have noticed over the years that there are certain topics that create buzz.  If you are an up and coming blogger and are looking just for hits I could give you some advice on some topics that will get people coming to your blog in droves, but that is not always a good thing.  I've never wrote with the intention of having anyone read it.  I write for me.  If it happens to end up as a hot topic it was because it was something I wanted to write about not because I wanted hits.

I think when people write for an audience it changes what they write and that is why I try not to be like that.  I write what I want to write about, like a diary.  If someone reads it, awesome, if someone doesn't, I still got to write it so I am happy.

Just like I noticed over the years what hot topics there are I can also tell you what can kill your readership in a heartbeat.  I made a post the other day that I knew no one would comment on, it was not the type of post that ever generates comments but I wrote it for me.  That is the key to what makes it easy for me to write.

One thousand posts is a lot of writing.  I never even would have considered that I would get that far down the line when I started.  I thought it would be a passing fad.  Something I would get out of my system at some point but I found myself enjoying the time I spend writing it.  If I don't post I feel like I am suffering from withdrawals.

Monday random thoughts was something that I added after I had already been posting for a while because I never wrote on weekends and usually had a lot of things rattling around my mind and it has become a staple for me.  Sometimes when I am not working on a monday I will jot down notes of things that randomly pop into mind while I am playing on the weekend and I post that as my monday random thoughts.

I think if I ever gave up blogging for whatever reason, but kept playing, I would still do my random thoughts because sometimes stupid little things pop into mind you just want to say and random thoughts are good for those things.

I started the blog roughly around the time the LFD was added to the game and gave it the tag line, let the freakshow begin.  It was basically going to be about my random groups but I ditched that really fast.  I noticed that there really was not a great deal to write about when it came to those, at least not much that has not been said before by hundreds of other people more eloquent than I.

I had not quite become the alt person I am now when I started.  I only had one character, a hunter to no ones surprise, at max level.  I ended up going from one alt, a DK for professions, to many alts for many professions and then suddenly I had all 80s and my blog became more about my family of characters even if it was mostly focused on my main, the grumpy elf hunter.

There have been a few times I was going to quit the game and this blog, believe it or not, kept me playing.  Between it and the people I call friends that I met in game, I have a little social circle that apparently means something to me.  Doesn't that sound odd?

From that first time I was standing with one foot out the door, during the Zuls, to most recently when I was about to quit and saw I was a 973 posts.  I said, I can not quit now, 973 is such an odd number.  I'll keep writing until I hit 1000 posts and then I will quit.

In that time the game redeemed itself, sort of, and I started to enjoy playing again.  Or maybe enjoy is not the right word, I started to not dislike playing.  I never quite reached the point were I was enjoying the game again but I did reach the point where I did not dislike it as much and was having fun.

As odd as it might sound and as subconscious as it might be last night I quit.  Just as the date that I am supposed to make my 1000th post came, today, I quit last night.

I have a little time left and will continue playing it out and I am sure I will keep playing in the end, but it was the first time ever in my long time playing that I actually said those words to people in guild.  I said, I quit.  In truth I just need some time off, I am still having fun in the game to some extent.  There is an achievement I have to go after, looting all the items off the new island.  I like those types of achievements and even if that is all that keeps me playing it is something that would.  There is something I want to aim for.

Ups and down, I have wrote about them.  Good and bad I have wrote about it.  From my horrible luck to my great luck, one a lot more often than the other of course.  I wrote about great LFR runs and horrible ones that while fewer in numbers scar your mind so they will never be forgotten.

I've shared ideas, opinions, speculations.  I've nailed things before they were even announced like calling the scroll of resurrection mount before they released the promotion.  Like saying well over a year ago that the next expansion would be 10 levels and not five, because cataclysm and mists were supposed to be part of the same expansion originally but they screwed up.  Like saying the item squish was coming next expansion and that is why they decided to have some fun and just go insane with stats now while they could.

I always had fun speculating and guessing what would happen and having a written record of it is always cool to look back on and see if I was right.  To my own surprise I am right more often than not when it comes to predicting what blizzard would do, as if I have some sort of inside information.  Someone even once accused me as leaking information because I work for blizzard, which I do not.

1000 posts and I am just talking about nothing, and everything in this one.  If it were not for the fact that this is post 1000 I would have been talking about what pushed me to utter the words I quit last night.  As odd as it sounds, not writing about that is making me think about not quitting.  Remembering the good times with the bad over my 999 previous posts makes me realize that for every step that this game upset me came another that gave me a reason to like it.

Sometimes those two things come hand in hand.  Mostly in random content.  Like the rogue that refused to attack the target with the skull on it.  It was annoying, but it was also something I look back at as priceless.  His reason for not attacking the target with the skull?  Because he thought it was marked because it was the dangerous one he was supposed to keep away from.  How could anyone look at that and not laugh.

I've tanked, I've healed, I've DPSed and I've wrote about it.  I've done well, I've done bad, I've been somewhere in the middle and I wrote about it.  I wrote about triumphs, failures, and everything in between.  In a way I sometimes think I keep playing just so I have something to write about.  Sometimes I think I keep playing not because of the fact it is a hobby to pass the time at home but it is a hobby that gives me something to write about it so I can pass the time at work.

The blog and my writing it has become as much a part of my game play as the actual game play is.  So perhaps the 1000 posts and the 7000 comments and the reddit links that someone else so kindly gave a few of my posts and the wowinsider links that sometimes one of their writers links me in that sends other here should be counted at achievements somehow.  Just like they would in game when you catch 1000 fish.

I write for myself only but it would be a lie if I said that I do not like to see that others read it sometimes.  Even more so when they give me advice.  Like people giving me hints with my tanking so I can get better or advice with trying to get a 25 man going.  I have to thank those people.

Someone sent me a mail once asking how I deal with some of the comments here, as some can be quite harsh.  I said, it is just someones opinion and everyone is entitled to their own.  They do not have to like what I write or even agree with it, but even the harshest critic at least thought enough to comment and that means something, it means I said something that was worth commenting on, good or bad.  So even if bad, there is no better compliment to someones writing then someone having an opinion on what you said and being willing to go out of their way to post it.

In those 1000 posts I've only found the need to delete one post (not counting spam) that someone went a little off the deep end with.  Not because they disagreed with me but because of the way they said it.  Just stringing a line of insults and curses together is not disagreeing, it is being a jerk.  Disagreeing means you have a different opinion, if you want to disagree at least share why you disagree.  With the exception of that one post, everyone else that ever posted did just that which I think is awesome.

I think that writing has made me a better player and playing has made me a better writer, as if they go together a little bit.  For each post I write I read dozens more.  I follow links people leave, their name if there is a link in the signature, and it gives me more of a world view of the game.  In many cases it has helped me in ways I can not describe.

I'm thick headed and have my own opinions that do not always jive well with some people but I have also had some posters change my mind on things because they presented a good argument that made me think.  Any post that can make you think be it on a blog, in a forum post, or even in the comments, is a good thing.

I think the best comment I ever heard anyone say when linking to my post, and they did not agree with the post they linked to, was that it made them think.  I really liked that.  Even if they disagreed with what I said they believed it was worth reading because it made them think.  I appreciate that and agree with it.  You do not always have to agree with something you read but if you like reading it and it makes you think, it was well worth reading.

I ramble a lot, like right now, and sometimes I lose track of what I am even writing about. But underneath every line there is always something I have to say, even if it doesn't quite make it out there sometimes.

What I am trying to say is that it has been a long trip and I have enjoyed the journey.  Who knows if there will ever be a post 2000 but I would like to thank everyone that shared the first 1000 with me.  Maybe there will be a lot more or a little more.  Either way, I will always enjoy writing about it and perhaps I now realize that when I said let the freakshow begin I was talking more about me than I was talking about the people in the LFD.  How times have changed.

I guess I won't quit, but I might need to make a post examining and analyzing why I was pushed to utter those words for the first time in game and actually consider not going back.  Before this post I had no intention of logging in tonight after reset.  Now, I am considering it.  See what I mean, this blog has kept me playing.  I guess I like writing more than I knew.

Thanks for reading.