Every August, without fail, I find myself sitting down at the keyboard for Blaugust. I’ve been doing this long enough now that it feels like a personal holiday — part tradition, part self-imposed challenge, part excuse to drink too much coffee while mulling over screenshots of my latest alt leveling progress. Some people track their lives in photo albums or journals. I do it in blog posts, patch notes, and a suspicious number of level-capped characters.
Blaugust anchors my writing in a way nothing else quite does. It’s a yearly reminder to pause and reflect on where I’ve been — in game, in life, and sometimes both at once. August is usually busy in the real world: family events, summer travels, and the occasional “how did this entire weekend vanish?” mystery. But it’s also when I’m most likely to take stock of my in-game journey, from my stalwart Horde Warlock, the original Joar, to whatever roster of alts has captured my attention this expansion.
That’s the funny thing: Joar is a constant. No matter the expansion, leveling him is always pure enjoyment for me. He’s my touchstone — my reminder of the early days of Azeroth, when the world was fresh and everything felt enormous. But my other favorites? Those change like the seasons. In one expansion I might swear by a Mage and a Paladin. The next, it’s all about my Druid and Hunter. And then, just to keep me on my toes, a class I never gave much thought to suddenly becomes my obsession for months. It’s like my alt preferences have their own expansion-specific personality, and I never know which version I’m going to get until I dive in.
When I first started playing World of Warcraft, my purpose was simple and not at all about chasing achievement points or expansion meta goals. My son — now 29 — was a teenager then, and WoW was our shared space. His mom and I were divorced, and we lived about 450 miles apart, so there were long stretches where we didn’t see each other in person. Azeroth became the bridge between us. We could explore, quest, and chat while working toward something together, even if we were in completely different states. It was a surprisingly great way to stay connected despite the physical distance, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.
Of course, life moved on. He grew up, moved on to other things, and I stayed in Azeroth — both as a player and as a blogger. By then, WoW had become more than just a way to connect with my son. It was my own outlet — a hobby that gave me both a virtual world to explore and a reason to sit down and put words together. And once you’ve gotten used to chronicling your adventures, it’s hard to stop. Especially when you can look back years later and remember exactly what you were doing in game and in life in, say, August 2014.
That’s the part of blogging I treasure the most. It’s a record — not just of bosses downed and alts leveled, but of where I was in life at the time. One post might start with my raid progress and end with a paragraph about driving halfway across the state for a family swim meet. Another might be mostly about leveling my seventeenth alt to max level, but somewhere in there I’ll mention that the weather was unreasonably hot and the dog wouldn’t stop barking at squirrels. Over the years, those little details add up to something more than just a gaming log. They tell my story.
And sure, there’s a selfish joy in seeing how much I’ve done in game. Looking at a list of max-level characters is a little like pulling out a box of old medals or ticket stubs — proof of time well spent, or at least time enjoyably wasted. But there’s also the reminder that this hobby has been a thread running through a big part of my life. It’s been there during career changes, family milestones, and the normal chaos of everyday living.
Blogging is what ties all that together. Without it, those moments — both in game and out — might fade into vague memory. With it, they’re preserved, complete with the mood, the jokes, and even the occasional typo. The act of writing about my adventures makes them feel more solid somehow, more real. And when I go back and read posts from five or ten years ago, I’m often surprised by how clearly I can remember those times, even down to what was on my action bar.
So yes, Blaugust is my yearly excuse to keep this tradition going. It’s the nudge I sometimes need to remember that even if I’m not chasing the newest raid tier or racing to max level character number 38, there’s value in sitting down to share my corner of Azeroth — and my corner of the real world — with anyone who wants to read it. The game may change, my alt roster may rotate wildly, and my life outside Azeroth will keep throwing me curveballs. But as long as I can log in, play a little, and then sit down to tell the story, I’ll keep at it.
Because in the end, blogging isn’t just about recording what I do in game. It’s about capturing how the game has been a part of my life all these years — from long-distance bonding sessions with my teenage son, to quiet evenings after work, to this very August, where Joar is once again leading the way through whatever adventures this expansion holds. And if I can throw in a little humor, a few screenshots, and maybe an overlong tangent about squirrels or swim meets, well, that’s just part of the tradition
