What to do now....

I'm a new player who had friends play this game before so I have some secondhand knowledge. Got bored with League of Legends so I decided to try this out (didn't hurt that this is going free soon). I hit level 40 and will be a spellhowler (did all the cc quests but haven't actually changed the class yet).

So...what do I do now? Most of the player base and clans are high level. With the payment services down until the GoD update I'm stuck at level 40 to boot. Am I stuck in no man's land for two weeks?

Yes

Well you can use this time to roll another char that you think you could like.
So you see which one fits you more.
Or simply create the same char again to gather some money while using the same gear or grind with your lvl 40 char to gather SP, which you always will love to have. Nothing is cooler as to learn all skills directly when you have the lvl for :D

You can't even buy a time card or something?

gather 500 k adena do the Kookaburra quest, get class changed and solo with kooka in 1x xp herb area till its lvl 55 and you ll be 60ish by then

+ use the party matching function to find kamaloka parties once a day
+ do the cubic quest to earn some extra adena once a day

otherwise wait till GoD, get free gear every 5 lvls and a second Shilien Elder account to accelerate gameplay

You also can play past 40, but you need to buy the game not subscribe. You can do that in the L2 store.

So if you're impatient and want to level up and can't wait for GoD you'll have to do that.

FYI ncwest just announced that naia is coming to the USA on the 23rd and the game is going truly free after that maintenance.. Lucky for you. :p