It’s Thursday

Yesterday was an Eeyore kind of day. Nothing seemed very exciting, things were a bit gloomy, and the progress I made on the manuscript was much less than I’d hoped it to be. Part of that was my own stupidity; I opened the file with the complete text to look at something and a single chapter file as well, and forgot which one I was working on, so I ended up writing new material in both. I then took an hour comparing the two screen by screen to standardize them. I now have a twofold new strategy: (a) only open one file at a time (duh), and (b) all new typing will be done in a red font. That way new stuff shows up very clearly, no matter where it is.

Ceri started a new novel yesterday in my presence. She also brought coffee and chocolate croissants with her, which was terribly generous for someone who intended to take the new-novel-plunge. She wrote over 1300 words, which beats some of her NaNo 2003 days hands-down. (It also beat my word count yesterday, but she consoled me by pointing out that I was doing research and editing too. Editing that could have been avoided, of course, if I hadn’t lost track of where I was working. I just can’t believe my stupidity. Anywhats.)

I went out to one of the local pubs with a friend late yesterday afternoon, where we talked about religion, compared the Anglican and Catholic churches, mused about the basic beauty of the Christian faith and mourned the bureaucracy that has crushed the original teachings, and talked about the sex of God vs the gender of Christ (very, very interesting). We were marginally hit upon by the two gentlemen sitting two tables over, which made us both raise our eyebrows and smirk a bit at one another – she’s been married almost four years, I’ve been married almost five. It’s good for the ego. We had two rounds plus some nachos to nibble, and when we finally left I thought it was eight-thirty. Turns out it was nine-thirty (eep!), which meant that HRH was trying manfully to rein in his raging instinct to call out the troops to search for my broken and bleeding body in a ditch somewhere, and her husband had been waiting at his place of employment to be picked up for an hour. Oops. See, God is just so fascinating; this is what happens when I talk about religion and drink cider at the same time.

I wanted to go downtown today and wander through secondhand bookstores, but I feel so guilty about not accomplishing very much yesterday that I’m staying home.

Did I mention I’m over halfway done this book? I’m trying to be impressed, but all I can see is the half not done and due on July 1.

Book Update

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted my manuscript update in a few days. As of the end of yesterday’s session, the total word count stood at 41,837. Various words were added afterwards in different places as I did a general read-through, and I didn’t do a final check on the word total; I figured they could support today’s word count instead. (Nothing like doing a word count before you start writing and realise that you’re already ahead of your last recorded total! It’s terribly encouraging.)

Gathering of Powered Persons

Many, many thanks go out to Ceri and Scott for hosting the third annual Superhero Party, and giving me an excuse to create one of my best costumes ever. Thank you, George Perez, for coming up with a more exciting costume than the original. Whee! Here you are, complete with one of my source pictures:

More proof that I married an archetype, and not a man at all: HRH won Best Costume for his portrayal of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.

Ad finally, rumour has it that Montreal’s F/SF bookshop never would have closed if the manager and the owner had dressed like this more often:

An excellent evening: fabulous and imaginative costumes all around; good conversation; lots of laughs. And now I have to start thinking of something for the fourth annual party. And, of course, there’s Hallowe’en first. Drat. This is the hardest part, you know: coming up with the idea.

(A veritable Who’s Who of powered persons on the guest list may be found at the Third Annual Superhero Party Gallery. Viewings of the Second and First Annual Parties are also available. All photos by Scott.)

Musings on the Art of Costuming

The costume is minutes away from being finished. Of course, the few minutes that it will take are delayed until tonight, because I can’t find the replacement glue sticks for my glue gun, and I need gold cord, too.

The snippy little pocket machine I borrowed from Scarlet won’t sew through more than two layers of fabric, I discovered to my immense annoyance, so earlier today I was hand-sewing pieces of slippery satin and interfacing, finishing off the details of a collar. I was decidedly unhappy with the results (I’m picky) when I remembered that I had a tiny glue gun left over from Yule gifts. So I dug it out and began turning bits of interfacing down, moving along happily… until the glue stick ran out.

While I was gluing, though, I thought about how I approach costuming. I’m enough of a perfectionist to want my costumes to be elaborate and perfect, with no sign of a human being having touched it in any way. However, I know they’re only going to be worn once or twice, and a costume is about overall effect. No one is going to be peering at my seams. (If they are, they belong in the SCA, not at a superhero party.) Costume purists might choke at the thought of a glue gun, but my costume experience comes from theatre, where no one is close enough to be picky anyway, and emergency repairs usually consist of spit and bubblegum. Having seen close-ups of the costumes from the LOTR film trilogy, I can say with all confidence that nothing looks the same in real life as it does on the screen.Part of the magic is having a real, flesh-and-blood, breathing person moving around in the costume, giving it life and something bigger-than-life, too.

I take pride in that overall presentation when I costume. I’ll do what it takes to achieve the effect. All that means is I’m skilled in the art of making a costume look better than it actually is. It’s an illusion.

But then — that’s what a costume is all about.

Twenty-nine hours until the superhero costume party!