Playing Dress-Up

Decisions, decisions...

I have two Halloween parties to go to this weekend, and I cannot decide on a costume (or costumes) for them. The first one is Friday night with zappagirl and memnochlv, and the second one is the annual NaNoWriMo Kick Off dinner and drinks silliness at Claddagh.

Here are the ideas I'm considering:

- an iPod ad. I won't be able to "silhouette" my head, but the rest would be easy enough. Multiple layers of black clothes + Antoinette = instant costume. Wonder if I can get someone to walk around behind me with a bright solid-colored background?

- Velma from Scooby Doo. I did this one last year. So negative points for originality, but triple word score for already having the costume, down to the glasses and a plush Scooby Doo purse.

- random medieval wench. (Kind of like this, but my bodice is black, the underskirt is burgundy, and the overskirt is a moss green.) Since we got rained out for the last weekend of the Ren fest, it would give me one more opportunity to wear my garb for the year. Unfortunately, the bodice might make sitting in a crowded booth at Claddagh a bit uncomfortable, and negotiating the skirts in the bathroom after a few beers is always an adventure.

- random saloon girl. This one is questionable, since I'm not sure if this costume still fits. (It looks a little bit like this, but mine is purple and a little fancier.) I wore it for an "Everyday is Halloween" party when I was bartending at the Warehouse. The granny boots that go with it make my feet hurt after a while, but that may have had something to do with standing on concrete slinging beers for 5 - 6 hours.

- random witch costume. This was the year I was recuperating from my broken ankle, so I wanted something no muss, no fuss. I had gone to a theme party (Come as Your Favorite Superhero) earlier in the month as Gimp Girl; my super power was putting on my boot. (Indeed, it was the first time I'd managed to get my boot on over my very swollen FrankenAnkle.) Unfortunately, I doubted that Gimp Girl was going to work at the annual Warehouse shindig, so in an act of desperation, I stopped at my local grocery store and bought a purple and black witch hat (mine does not have the attached fake hair), matching tights, and a sparkly purple star wand (because I'm a good witch) and added them to a black velvet dress I had hanging in the closet and a pair of sturdy boots. Ta-daaaa!

- Willow Rosenberg, BTVS, Season 2, Episode 14 ("Innocence"). This was a completely coincidental costume. Several years ago, I worked at the Warner Brother Studio Store in Kenwood. Much of my paycheck went back to the store. (This explains why I sometimes dress like the world's largest 7 year old.) One of the outfits I bought was a pair of brown corduroy overalls with a zipper mouthed Taz on the front pocket, and a striped multi-colored shirt to match. Imagine my suprise when my outfit showed up in an episode of Buffy one Tuesday night. It's an obscure costume selection, but I already have it and it's comfy. (Rocket launcher not included.)

Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Life and How to Write It

Before I begin... happy birthday, Phil! I owe you a beer the next time I see you.

It's official: I'm doing NaNoWriMo yet again. Apparently I have a masochistic streak that manifests itself as a need to try to write 50,000 words of absolute crap in a ridiculously short amount of time. (It's not as easy as it sounds, really.)

This will be my fifth year participating, and hopefully will result in my second "win" in a row. (There's no such thing as a loss, since there really are no prizes except a pretty purple bar on your profile and access to a downloadable certificate and winner icon. Even if you "lose" and finish the month with only 500 words written, it's 500 more words than you'd written before. We're writers; we can rationalize anything.)

The first year I bit off more than I could chew. I attempted to write the Great Amercian Novel, complete with framing stories and different fonts to represent my main character's levels of consciousness. I made pages of color-coded preliminary notes, wrote out plot points on well organized 3 x 5 cards, and proceeded to crash and burn in a pool of tears and red wine at about 20,000 words.

(First lesson learned: Don't try to write the Big Novel. Also, don't write about a main character having a nervous breakdown when your own sanity is hanging by a thread. Yeah, it wasn't pretty.)

Year two: I decided to write a road trip novel with touches of science fiction ingrained in the plot, using some of the same characters from the Big Novel. After 20,000 words, I found myself mired along with my characters in a small Nebraska town that didn't exist on any map, unsure of how to get out.

Year three: I decided to "cheat" and go back to work on the Nebraska story. I wrote some good stuff, spent entirely too much time plotting out a game of Scrabble between the main characters (every word related to the plot, so I had to reconstruct it for accuracy). On a dare, I attempted to write a sex scene, which was going along fine until my characters decided they'd rather talk about prophetic dreams instead. (No, I don't know what's wrong with them either. They're stupid. That's why they're still stuck in Nebraska.) And then I started openly ripping off The Stand... yeah, didn't win that year either.

But I am rather proud of my Scrabble game. And the karaoke scene was fun to write.

Year four: Taking the advice of one of my fellow writers at the Meet and Greet, I sent my Nebraska characters on a much needed vacation and started fresh with a new set of characters (that admittedly bore a striking resemblance to the previous ones). As I had no idea what to write about, I just started making things up. I ended up with a gigantic mess of a plot involving generations of psychic Irish women, chick lit angst, side trips to Hocking Hills State Park, yellow teapots, shadowy villans that all looked suspiciously like Agent Smith from The Matrix, and a narrator that kept jumping in (a la Lemony Snicket) and apologizing for how stupid everything was turning out. This gigantic mess, however, broke the 50,000 word mark, resulting in me running around the apartment drunkenly yelling "WHOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!" at a late hour in the evening. (I'm sure my neighbors loved me for that.)

I discovered the secret, you see. Coffee is a given, of course. But, at least for me, the secret to getting the words to come out? CHEAP RED WINE.

So here we are at year five. I'm starting to stock up on wine and coffee. I'm getting the house in order so I have as little to think about housekeeping-wise as possible. And I've been kicking around plot ideas. I pondered the idea of writing a sequel to last year's fiasco. I thought about combining some ideas from some short stories that I wrote back in the late 80s/early 90s. (If I knew you back then, chances are you ended up as a character in one of my stories. Doubly so if I dated you for longer than 10 minutes.)

And after much thinking and brainstorming last night, I am happy to announce that I HAVE A PLOT.

This year there will be no framing stories, no narrating cats. My main character will not be pursued by men in dark suits, will not be able to read minds and roll pencils across the table with her thoughts, and will not be looking for secret entrances in caves located in parks I've never been to. SHE WILL NOT GO INSANE AND NAME ALL OF THE BONES IN HER HAND WHILE LISTENING TO BEN FOLDS FIVE. (Don't ask. That was a weird chapter.)

This year will be straight chick lit. As things stand now, it will end up being a much-less-funny version of Pamie's Why Girls are Weird. (I could never write anything as funny as Tiny Wooden Hand.) As usual, a lot of the plot will be semi-autobiographical, but the main character will hopefully be much more interesting and well adjusted than me. (And hopefully not too much of a Mary Sue.) I will be stealing a few scenes from the old 80s short stories, as flashbacks are involved. An old character is being revived and dusted off.

There will be a happy ending.

And contrary to what I'd said a few weeks ago to a fellow NaNovelist, no one is going to die. At least, I don't have any plans to kill anyone off. (That was just me being bitter and working through some internal issues.)

And for now... that's all I feel comfortable in revealing. I'm still working things out in my head, trying to figure out how to squeeze 50,000 coherent words out of this without pulling the author-as-intrusive-character thing again.

And plans may change. I may be back to writing about angsty psychic redheads by the 10th.

The Top Five Reasons Why There's No MPMF Recap Yet

I see you out there, impatiently tapping your foot. "Where's the Midpoint Music Festival recap you promised us, Myo?"

(Yes, I know that no one is waited with bated breath for my musings on Midpoint. Yes, I know that I can count my readers on my fingers. Being delusional is fun sometimes!)

Anyway, I can explain...

5. I decided to restructure the recap. Rather than writing three separate daily blow-by-blow accounts, I decided to write one concise post. (Well, as concise as I am able to manage. If brevity is the soul of wit, I'm probably the most witless person ever.) As this involves condensing 40 pages of notes into a few thousand semi-clever words, it's a pretty formidable task and it may take some time.


4. I'm tired. The week of Midpoint was also one of my department's biggest educational special events, and it's one of the few times I actually get out of the office. So rather than taking phone calls in the office, I found myself standing outside the Gallery giving directions to Wolf Woods and the train station. I got to work the learning cart at Manatee Springs one day, which was nice since I'd not yet seen our new manatees. Of course, the area where I was stationed was actually around the corner from the manatees, so I only saw then as I walked past the tank when I reported for duty.

(Side note about Manatee Springs: If you're in the building for an extended period of time, the music will drive you insane. Take one soothing new-agey song that sounds like it was taken off the most generic meditation/relaxation CD ever. Make sure that it's about five minutes long, but consists of nothing more the same 10-second musical phrase repeated over and over with an tiny variation every once in a while. Add a slight calypso feel with some steel drums. Play the same song on an infinite loop. Trust me on this; two hours of listening to the Coral Reefer Band on Valium is more than enough.)

Running from venue to venue at Midpoint took a lot out of me as well. It got to the point that shows at Jekyll and Hydes became low priority because they involved climbing a lot of stairs. By Sunday morning, my back and leg muscles ran up the white flag, and I spent the entire day on the couch clutching a bottle of ibuprofen. I didn't even have the energy to remove the shrink wrap from the mountain of CDs I had bought/received at the shows.


3. I've been rearranging the furniture. My parents moved this past week into a new condo around the corner from the old place, and had extra furniture looking for a home. As I am the queen of hand-me-down furniture, I happily accepted their offer of a recliner couch and matching recliner chair and a queen-sized bed. Of course, this meant getting rid of the Scary 70s Sectional from Hell and moving the futon into the living room (where it would be used as a couch for the very first time), so the MyoParents came over Monday night and MyoMom helped me carry the sectional and my non-functioning TV to the curb for trash day. We also moved the futon into the living room so we wouldn't have to do it in the morning when the moving truck arrived, and I ran out to Target for a new vacuum (one that actually works - what a concept!) and curtains that would match the quilt for the new bed.

The movers were supposed to arrive around 10:00, after moving all of my parents stuff to the new place. They didn't arrive until 2:00, and had forgotten the bedframe. (The MyoParents brought it over Friday night and helped me assemble it.) As a result of all of this, my apartment actually looking like it has a grown-up living in it. I'm not sure who this grown-up is, but I hope she doesn't take up too much space.


2. I spent most of the weekend at Chez Zappa. Shortly after my parents left, I headed over to hang out with Zappagirl and Memnochlv. Much coffee, wine, and silliness ensued. Zappagirl had invited a few folks over the next afternoon for a knit-in, and against all better judgement I decided to give knitting yet another try. Mind you, I haven't completed a project since I made the socks for Roger Mexico. The bag? Done, felted, but no straps. The scarf I started a few years ago? Finished about five inches of it before I got frustrated and shoved it in a drawer. The mohair tam that Zappagirl wanted me to do as practice for reading a pattern. Never ever cast the yarn on the needles. But since I am the ultimate lemming, I bought three skeins of black and multi-colored variegated yarn, found a relatively easy pattern on the internet, and started making yet another scarf. If I actually manage to complete it before next winter, I have a pattern for a hat that I might attempt as well. (Given my motivation, attention span, patience, and manual dexterity... I don't recommend holding your breath on ever seeing this hat and scarf combo.)


1. Did I mention I was tired? As with all weekends spent hanging out with Zappagirl and Memnoch, sleep was not a high priority and I got very little of it over the weekend. When I realized that I was having problems counting to two while working on the scarf and kept making really stupid mistakes, I took it as a sign that I was too exhausted to do anything productive, and went home to watch Desperate Housewives. I managed to hold my eyes open, but I'm really not sure how much of it I actually comprehended.

And despite being über-tired, I still had trouble sleeping last night. The only reason why I'm actually conscious at the moment is the two large cups of coffee I've had this morning. I'm heading upstairs in a few minutes to make more, as I am supposed to go see Serenity tonight with Delorda and Yzavela, and it would probably be rude of me to snore during the movie.

So yeah, it's been a wacky week. Recap coming soon, I swear.