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So I went bowling…

My aunt turned 50 and she invited us for an hour of bowling with dinner afterwards. She’s my favourite aunt, so I really didn’t want to skip on celebrating with her. But I also knew that bowling is high risk for me.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve got hypermobility syndrome (HMS). My joints are more susceptible to dislocation or subluxation and certain movements, impact or weight will affect me in a bad way.

Holding a 3 KG bowling ball with three fingers, swinging it and then hoping my fingers won’t be stuck in it, isn’t a good way to spend my time. But I really, really wanted to take part. I haven’t done much fun activities outside of the house in a while, and this was a good opportunity to take up a different perspective.

After having dealt with chronic pain for nearly a decade, I’ve grown tired of having my pain dictate my life. In my 101 goals, I’ve actively decided to do things that I wouldn’t have done before. I could’ve added bowling, but didn’t since I didn’t see it as something I *had* to do.

Yesterday I decided I would bowl, no matter what. Well, except maybe a dislocated joint.

I was smart enough to bring my wrist brace and I wore it after my first round. Throwing those first two balls was already an attack on my wrist muscled and the brace gave me the support I needed.

My score wasn’t great, but I didn’t expect it to be. I thought I was going to be the loser, but I did fairly well and my score wasn’t that much off from my mom and sister. My score was much better than I thought it would be.

And that’s a personal victory for me. I bowled for an hour without serious injuries, just some muscle aches which will disappear in a few days. I had fun and I didn’t let my situation tell me how to live my life. It felt great and I hope this change in mindset will help me the coming years in taking back control.

101 Goals, 1001 Days Reflection

It’s a little over a year ago since I started with this list and I already completed some of them. That was kind of the point, to pick long and short term goals.

Last year has been full of big changes. I quit my job to start writing and blogging full time while also taking care of my health. The few months after I quit, I was still busy with the wedding. Both before and after. It took up most of my energy just thinking about everything that had to be done. When all of it was done, there was this empty space left. I needed something to work on.

Yes, my writing, I know. But I also wanted to accomplish something on a personal level. I wanted to grow as a person. Using 101 Goals, 1001 Days, has allowed me to do so. Learning Japanese is purely for my own satisfaction (and my brother’s girlfriend is delighted that I’m doing my best getting to know her culture). Trying out new recipes is what will make our day to day life a little more adventurous. Eat something you’ve never eaten before. I want to learn new skills, but which are related to what I want to do professionally.

By combining long and short term goals, I always have the idea that I’m working towards something. Some things are easier to track than others (quality versus quantity), but that’s okay. I’m expanding my Japanese vocabulary and I notice that I don’t rely on the subs in animes that much anymore. It’s getting easier to work out new recipes when I want to substitute an ingredient and I also know how to work with flavor and spices.

I don’t notice my personal growth on a day-to-day basis, but looking at this list, I see that growth. I believe I’m a better person than I was before, but I still have a long way to go. I’m glad that I chose to do this even when the challenge seemed a little too daunting before. You don’t grow if you don’t challenge yourself.

Gaming and Spouses

One of the great things about the Discord for Blaugust is that we share ideas and talk about the things we like. Most of us game, some more than others. But our spouses/significant others don’t always game. Some never play a game at all.

Here is the story my husband and I and our relationship with gaming.

My husband and I got to know each other through League of Legends when he decided to join his colleagues for some ARAM fun. They were my friends. I knew he was a gamer, but I had no idea what kind of gamer he was.

I later learned that he was part of several Counter Strike teams when he was in his teens. This was before Twitch and before esports was big. Prices consisted of several hundred euros or merchandise from hardware sponsors. Nothing fancy. No tens of thousands of people watching the finals. But he was on there. Playing finals against others on the big screen with only the people from the LAN parties present as an audience.

Going back even further, he was the small boy who played flight simulators late at night/early in the morning with Americans and Canadians (guess where he learned English). He played on consoles with his brother and sister and he still has his old Game Boy.

He still games, more than me, and I give him the time to do so. It’s his main source of relaxation after working all day. He usually focuses on one game for a while before moving on the next. I remember he played Factorio religiously, planning everything perfectly and rebuilding assembly lines for more efficient work. He made whole spreadsheets for his game development in Game Dev Tycoon. I admire his dedication to his games.

When Stardew Valley had the multiplayer update, we decided to give it a go and play together again. Friday and Saturday evening are my game nights after Shiro goes to bed. That’s the only time we can game together. Now with the No Man’s Sky Next update, we might add that to our list as well. I really enjoyed discovering the world alone, but it seems more fun to do so together.

The Path I’ve Walked

This post appeared on Narratess first. I wrote and posted it on my thirtieths birthday, last June. I thought it would a great get-to-know-me post since I don’t think many readers here know about this part of me.

Turning thirty means different things for different people. Some are scared of it, getting old. Others see it as their second twenties, but with more wisdom. And there’s a third group that mostly confused about how they should feel about thirty. I turned thirty today and I have no idea what it means to me, but I do know that the past decade has contributed the most to who I am today.

Life is nothing without its ups and downs. Highlights are earning a bachelor and a master degree, finding a full-time job, quitting said job, have stories and articles published, becoming a dog mom, and getting married. Low points are getting my chronic pain diagnosis, getting hit by a car and rejection letters. (I kept adding things to the highlights, which is a good sign.)

For my writing career, these were the years that I knew what kind of writing I wanted to do. During my years at the university, I received a lot of criticism on my writing. It wasn’t academic enough and I struggled with that the most when I was writing my master thesis. That was also the moment that the pain attacks began, so I was distracted most of the time as well. Academic writing wasn’t for me, especially in the humanities. The extra courses I picked during my bachelor were for the computer science, linguistics or history department. All of them were more relaxed about writing style. These were the subjects where I got high grades and also the subjects that still interest me to this day.

I still enjoyed writing during my university years. Most of my stories were beginnings or summaries of stories that would come to me at weird times. Those moments started in high school, but I never managed to quite finish a story. I wanted to develop my writing since I knew I was lacking skill. I started a blog about the games I played. I even started writing fanfiction for one of my favourite games, Guild Wars 2. The fanfics were probably the first real stories I finished.

Writing on my blog actually led to my first paid writing gig at MMOgames. I had a column about Guild Wars 2 for a while, but it was hard to keep up with my fulltime job and gaming. My continued struggle with chronic pain had me drained most of the days. I didn’t play enough to keep the column going. My involvement in the Guild Wars 2 community led to an invite for a short story in a fanzine for charity. Raven and I both worked on the fanzine with the wonderful Mel Sayre at the helm. It was a great project to work on with 70 other very talented people, artists and writers alike.

The job that I landed was much easier than I had anticipated and I managed to get my tasks done on time. I used the free time I had to do creative work. I wrote short stories and worked on a game design document. That’s where I got my energy from. My creative juices kept flowing and I needed an outlet, but once I opened the tap, they kept coming. Writing fiction (and using a fountain pen and paper specifically) had become therapeutic. If I wasn’t able to take that time for myself, I would have burned out. The nearly two-hour daily commute and the increasing stress from a management with no sense of leadership were enough for my health to become worse. Quitting was my best option. It was one of the hardest decisions to make and also the easiest one. Health comes first. My husband told me to take this chance and pursue my dream of a writing career. I launched Narratess while I was still working and wrote one article a week to post.

One and a half year later and I’m still blogging here. My selection of short stories is being read by the first readers and I hope that soon I can share more information about my first book release! I’ve used my twenties to realise what I wanted to write and do my words to get to a level worthy of publishing. My first book release will be in my thirties and it won’t be the last. I’m sure I’ll need a few years to learn more about publishing and book marketing, but I’ve got time to learn.

Learning Calligraphy

My interest for calligraphy isn’t new. In my early childhood my fascination with fountain pens and calligraphy was already apparent to my mother who bought me a Parker calligraphy set and a book on popular calligraphy (cursive, not hand lettering).

I still have the book, although I’m not sure where the pens are. I now have a wide range of fountains and dip pens with various widths. I have a few brush pens that I can use for practicing line variation. No flex nibs yet, but that might still be too advanced for me. I need to learn my letters first.

I hope to get better at it so I can make my own cards with inspiring quotes. Even though I have learning calligraphy as a goal for my 101 Goals, 1001 Days challenge, I know that this is a skill that takes years to master. It would be weird if I mastered it fully in three years.

Below are a few pictures of calligraphy and handwriting practice. I’m by no means any good (average at best), but I’m working hard to get better. Follow me on Instagram to see more pictures of calligraphy practice, bookish pictures and fountain pens.

A Lovely Thing

Last week a certain type of blog posts started to appear on the blogs that I follow. All refered to the Liebster Award. I seriously have no idea what it exactly is. Murfy blogged about it and asked us “Why do/did you read this blog?”. I answered with “I read it, because this Liebster thing is a complete mystery to me.” It still is.

Liebster is kind of a weird thing to me, mostly because it has ‘lieb’ in it, which means sweet in German. That’s why I named this post ‘A Lovely Thing’. From what I’ve seen in the other posts, people share a bit of themselves, some very personal things. Then they nominate other people, ones they want to know more about, other who are their friends. I think this whole thing was sweet.

Murf challenged me to answer a few questions after my first comment:

I would love to know about your blog name origins, why you started blogging, your first MMO character, your favorite game ever, the food you must love eating, and your guiltiest pleasure!

Then on Twitter he challenged me to do some more:

I accepted both challenges so I have a ton of questions to answer. Feel free to post more questions in the comments. I’ll add them with my answers :) I won’t nominate anyone else though. Most people that I want to nominate have already posted about the Liebster award and I’d just ask them to do the same again.

I’ve been nominated two more times since I’ve posted this. RowanBlaze and Simcha both asked me a few questions in their posts and Jaedia asked me to answer her questions without an nomination. I answered a few of the questions on the big wall of questions from Murfy, so I took those out. But scroll down to see more Q&A with me :D

Now, on to the questions!

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Guild Wars 2 Fiction

Miira Lightbringer:
Fried Moa Steak
Quiet Before the Storm

Young Miira:
Tail Tugging Part 1
A Promise Made Part 2
Night Falls Part 3
Grawling Preparations Part 4
Badazar Incarnated Part 5
Graduation Part 6 - Final

Savyrius Belain:
We Meet Again...

Naella Ysangwan:
Dogs and Ogres

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