This past weekend’s story did not go how I would’ve liked.  I took three different attempts at writing a story that dealt with the Four Heroes in some way and could not find one that sat well with me.  That obviously ate up a lot of time, and with my backlog depleted by the moves, I settled on posting the best of the mediocre bunch.  The frustrating thing is that it’s not that telling a story about the Four Heroes, whether in a drop story or via a lore article, is a bad idea.  In fact, in doing my three attempts I learned more about the Heroes and fleshed out a bit more lore for Illithiust.  The story is there.

Instead, I think it was just a week where I wasn’t at my writing best.

Getting back from travel/training, settling back into my job, trying to get the home settled, my dog needing surgery (she’s doing well).  All things that are going well but all things that have me out of sorts, or have put me under some additional stress.  In reality, I probably needed a week to get settled and so trying to force some writing meant I left myself frustrated.  However, there’s also two ways to think about that.  

On one hand, I wrote some things that I think are below my usual quality.  That creates feelings of imposter syndrome and that I’m not really much of a writer.

On the other hand, I wrote.  I wrote even when life was messy and I wasn’t able to get to a place to create my best work.  The key is that I wrote regardless.  I have found in getting to this point in the pursuit of my art that the hardest part about writing is just getting to where the habit is consistent.  This website exists in part as a means to further motivate me to write and the fact that I pushed through and wrote even when I wasn’t really feeling it at least makes me happy as a sign of my dedication to writing itself.

Now, would I like to avoid those frustrating works making it to you (at least before they can heavily polished)?  Absolutely, and the solution there is to spend a little more time writing and building up a bit of a backlog again so I can absorb the frustrating weeks.  So, you know, at least I have goals.

Beyond the joys of being home, I did have a bit of fun this weekend by returning to a game I really enjoyed last year.  I reinstalled Baldur’s Gate 3, spent some time tweaking it a bit with mods, and started a play through.  If you’re someone who likes playing video games you may be wondering what kind of mods I loaded and well let me show you what several of them were dedicated too…

That’s Quartes and Keto.  At least as close as some quick mods and the game’s character creator will allow me.  I will fully admit that to see them together visually, and to be able to have the pair fighting alongside each other, brought me much joy over the weekend and I look forward to continuing the play through (and probably reaping whatever inspirations come of it).

Looking ahead to this weekend, I think it’s safe to say that with this past week’s difficulties the most I’ll commit to is that there will be a story.  Whether it’s the multi-part Quartes story I mentioned earlier, another crack at the Four Heroes, or something else we’ll all find out together.  In the meantime, I hope you all have a good week and if you’re a BG3 player I would greatly enjoy seeing your Tav (or Durge for that matter).

Go forth and do good things,

Sean