The Knights of Wakanda and Writer's High

If you don't recognize at least half of the characters above or aren't the creative type, you should probably just skip this entry.



Still here? God, you people are fucking geeks.




Over on the Jinxworld boards, a group of us participate in a very different type of "Fantasy League". Instead of drafting football or baseball players, we draft fictional (mostly comic book) characters and build teams. We then pit our teams against each other either in head-to-head brawls or in missions to obtain a particular goal. Each player posts his strategy for other board members to read and they then vote on which strategy they felt was more likely to succeed.

This is my second year playing in the league and I love it. I haven't had as much time to dedicate to it this year due to moving, working more, and traveling. But somehow I made it to the finals (last year I was eliminated in the semis).

The motley crew at the top of this entry represents this year's team, The Knights of Wakanda. I feel they're pretty well-balanced. Got an inventor and tech user (Black Panther), world-class psychic (Emma Frost), a couple of tanks (Juggernaut, Husk) magic users (Willow, Etrigan), a Green Lantern (Green Man), a Jedi (Obi-Wan), a ninja (Daredevil) and a bunch of wild cards.

Later today I am writing my final strategy for the year. My mission is as follows:

A new Sinestro Corps is attacking Manhattan! Sinestro is leading an elite task force of the world's greatest villains, newly armed with Lantern rings to fit them. Their goal is to attack the Baxter Building and gain access to the Negative Zone. The team you are going up against is as follows:

Sinestro (Yellow)
Dr. Doom (Red)
Norman Osborn (Yellow)
The Joker (Yellow)
Lex Luthor (Orange)
Doomsday (Red)
Zoom (Green)

Pick a team of seven characters to defend the Gate to the Negative Zone and defeat the new Sinestro Corps!

BONUS: You may pick one ring from the seven Corps and assign it to a member of your squad for this mission. Choose carefully.

I wish I could find the words to explain to the uninitiated why I love this so much. I don't do drugs, but I would imagine combining the love I have for all things comic book and the rush I get from writing period, not to mention in this particular genre is equivalent to a high of some sort. Hell, I don't have to "imagine" it, there's an actual term for it. Flow.

From the Wiki article:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

I've experienced writer's flow multiple times in my life. It's very difficult to describe to people that haven't experienced it before; but it's almost as if I can see how everything in the world (I am writing) is connected. Natural links between characters and situations appear. Nuances of dialogue unintentionally foreshadow future events I haven't even planned yet. It's like being a chess grandmaster and seeing 15-20 steps ahead of where you are. The only word for it is exhilarating.

For all of my creative brothers and sisters out there, be you writers (of any kind), musicians, artists, whatever; I hope you all get to experience this at least a couple of times in your life. It is like diving deep into the collective unconscious.