Wow, I'm done with WoW!

Just a brief update. I guess I'm pretty serious about this book I'm writing, because I finally got up the gumption to cancel my World of Warcraft account.

I hadn't been playing for a long time in any case, and with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion coming out next month, I actually feared that I'd get sucked back into the game and stop working on my book.

I loved WoW at the beginning, and for about two years I played it pretty much every day. My whole group of friends played it, and my partner played it, and we had a blast. Eventually, though, it started to pale for me, and I found the game play getting really repetitious. I got into raiding for a while, and although that was fun, it was also hugely frustrating at times.

I didn't like being at the mercy of a group of people who could barely manage to show up for the raids they'd signed up for. There was an unconscionable amount of guild drama (which any WoW player can tell you, can be the death of in-game or even out-of-game relationships). But most of all, the game eventually came to be a big waste of time.

When I think about the amount of time I've spent over the last three years with my head in a game instead of in the real world, I actually feel a little bit sick. And now that I'm focused like a laser on my book, and making an enormous amount of progress, I can't see myself going back to the virtual world. The real world is more interesting.

I've been working on "The Book of the Talents" seriously now for about five months. In that time I've completed a historical back story of about 30,000 words, numerous detailed maps of my imaginary world, a plot outline that's 23 chapters deep, character sketches of most of my main characters. On Friday I finished the fifth chapter of the first draft, which is now just shy of 36,000 words long. And today I start chapter six.

I will miss WoW, and I'll miss playing WoW with my friends and family, but I won't miss the hours and days spent in someone else's world when I could be creating my own. Many people have said that writing is a lonely task, and it is, but for me, the loneliness has become a catalyst for change. I can't allow myself to get distracted now. At my current rate, I believe I'll have the first draft completed in about six months.

At the tender age of 43, I think I've finally embarked on a path that will help me become what I've always dreamed of becoming, but have never before had the courage truly to become: a writer. I'm tired of being a wanna-be writer.