Writing in My Sleep

As many of you already know, November is home to an event called "Nanowrimo" during which individuals of varying levels of insanity attempt (and sometimes even succeed) to write 50,000 words during the month of November. (I won't get super into detail about the event in this post, so be sure to check the link out if you want to know more-- despite my flippant tone, it's actually a really cool event and the organizers do a lot of neat community outreach things).

I started doing Nanowrimo back in middle school, but my participation started to peter out in college-- there were a lot of years where I'd start, maybe write a couple thousand words, and then let it go because I had so many other things on my plate.

But I decided to give it a try this year. Probably a silly thing to do, because I am about as busy as I've ever been in my life, teaching orchestra classes 8 times a week and attempting to run my music therapy business. (which, quick note, is doing surprisingly well; I started working with another dementia facility this month) Despite my busy schedule, I decided it was worth making this a priority for the sake of my mental health: I love to write fiction, and with so much on my plate I decided I need to make time to do something just for me, something that makes me happy. And as far as that goes, I think this has been the right choice.

So I'm writing a truly horrendous rough draft of a novel about a werewolf detective solving mysteries based around fairytale retellings. It's a great time. And I've got two mini stories to share on the subject.

The first is one of those cool things the Nanowrimo organizers do: they get a bunch of graphic design artists together, have them pick (through a somewhat mysterious process) 30 in-progress novels, and each day of the month an artist will make a sample cover for someone's novel. To my surprise, I actually got picked for Day 8: a designer named Kevin Perry designed this cover for my story.


And there was much screaming.
Anyway, you can read more about that whole thing here if you're interested.

In more "weird funny stuff that you usually see in this blog when it's not bad selfies in different costumes", here's a little writing adventure I had.

One night when I was working on this book, I was really struggling to keep my eyes open. But I was determined to stay at my keyboard until I hit my word goal, so I kept writing. When I went to bed, I was pretty sure I'd written about my detective character tracking down a couple of missing kids. What I found when I opened my laptop up in the morning, however... well, take a look and see if you can figure out where things started to go terribly, terribly wrong.
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I’m not sure about this,” I warned him, “But I think they might have gotten into an ice cream truck.”

“What are you supposed to be, psychic?” Gladstone asked in his nasal voice.

“Yes,” I growled, “I can see a broken nose in your future.” He was starting to really irritate me.

“OK, calm down, both of you,” Hunter said, sounding like a long suffering father with a pair of squabbling kids. “Gladstone, why don’t you take a walk about, ask about the ice cream truck, see if anyone remembers one coming by. Red, see if you can find us anything else.”

I nodded and crouched back down to where I could catch any smells in the asphalt but OK, I’ll admit it, I’m barely keeping my eyes open and I’m stuck. I don’t even know for sure that her sense of smell would make it something brain english. Um. OK, I don’t know what happens next. OK, yes I do, we cut away to the kids for a little bit. I don’t know how to make the narrator shift but i’s the best thing. We can see what captivity is like for our kids, get some insight into their personalities and. I’m so tired right now I can’t even think in a straight line.

OK, so the kids went out for ice cream and got kidnapped instead. Not a great conversation starter.

    So what is the next tstop? Bain too tired to look at or see or something. And I kind of what to write fanfiction about the last episode of Warehouse 13.  And I am feeling so hungry and so tired that I can't even tactic tac Tired braille, can’t inglish. Brain can’t keep up with anything, I need to get to sleep. But I’m so close, let me try to finish this. Let’s not try out each other’s medicines, that usually doesn’t end well. I don’t care, I just want to finish this and get some sleep.

`IIt was going so well, too.” OK, brain, elt’s the stretch program. There can only be one something doing stuff that       

I feel like I keep losing my cursor.

OK, what’s the climax here? I think the old lady has a few kids hiding in her basement. So tired. Brain tired. Crickets in shoe box for cricket farming. I don’t know why but I feel compelled to type a lot of nonsense words. It makes me sound psychic but I’m just doin good guesses.  Butterflies are awfully flighty. I am so sick of the aches in my legs from restless leg syndrome, is there a medicine I can take or a good home remedy for it? My brain is just so very tired. And increasingly incoherent.

OK, there’s not so many words left before I can get to bed. Let me just try to focus long enough to finish chapter five. YEs, this is blatant word count padding but I’m just trying to write every day; tomorrow will be better.

A little more coherent now. Let’s think this through a little. Red comes to find the missing kids, but they aren’t there to brain brain brain. Look at the horizon, ask for three books instead of four. Legs hurt all the time. Two fou ix eight. Can I go to bed now?

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 So, yeah. There's a little insight into my subconscious, I guess. And a lesson to me to make sure I'm getting enough sleep.

Costume Challenge Round 2: The Final Countdown

This post is rather overdue; my last week at the thrift store was back in September. But this seemed like a good post to do closer to Halloween, so here we go: My final week of thrift store costumes.

Costume #17: Ghostbusters!

I had an old pair of coveralls that I got at the thrift store back in December last year; I printed out some appropriate patches and attached them with safety pins. (This is a pretty annoying way to do it; the paper rustles and crinkles and never looks as good as an actual patch-- but it's the cheapest and easiest way to do it. Especially if you want the patches to be removable after.) Then I used strips of neon-yellow duct tape to add stripes on the sleeves and legs.

I actually reused this for the Haunted Hustle, a 5k race I did yesterday, so here's a really poorly lit shot of me posing after the race:

Costume #18: Miss Peacock, in the Thrift Store, with the Wrench

This one was simple but fun; I wore all blue with a peacock pattern scarf, then I borrowed a prop wrench from the store for a murder weapon. I was told by a few coworkers that the result was kind of intimidating so I guess it worked! Maybe I'll have to buy one of those prop wrenches sometime, it was kind of fun to carry around. 

Costume #19: Tinkerbell

This dress and the little green wings came from my Mom's costume collection-- she made the dress herself. 

I did my hair in a bun, and did simple makeup (though I used a brow liner to with a truly staggering amount of green body glitter (*ahem* pixie dust)-- I think I was leaving a trail of sparkles behind me for the rest of the day.

So it turns out that the best thing about dressing up as Tinkerbell? The adoration of all girls between the ages of 3-7. Lots of kids got really excited to see me, and I overheard one little girl telling her Mom, "I wanna be just like her when I grow up!"

Costume #20: Dorothy

White blouse, blue gingham skirt, a pair of braids-- and I borrowed a pair of red crocs from my Mom. Not exactly a pair of ruby slippers, but it was the only pair of red shoes in the house. 

Oh, and I couldn't bring this particular prop to work, but we've got a couple of yorkies at home that finish the look. Though Mignon looks a little wild eyed here to be Toto-- Toto kind of took everything in stride. If it'd been Mignon in the movie, she basically would have barked nonstop and tried to pick fights with the Munchkins. 

Costume #21: Gamora

I wanted my very last costume to be something a bit showy, so I picked a challenge for myself. And while there's still a lot of room for improvement-- if you compare this to my first "green" costume, Disgust back in September last year, you can see how much I've improved in my makeup skills from doing this whole thing. I kept the clothes pretty simple because I really didn't have the money for anything crazy--just black clothes with a leather jacket. 

I left my hair long and kind of wavy, and used some leftover red hair spray from one of my Mom's costumes to color the ends. The face I did with lots of green eye shadow in four or five different shades-- my Sister is to thank for this; she gave me an awesome makeup kit for Christmas this year and is singlehandedly responsible for me not rubbing my skin in chalk for any of this year's costumes-- and having different shades meant I could get a little more nuanced look. I did the tattoos in black eyeliner but that came out too bold so I covered them up with a thin layer of more green eye shadow. 

I couldn't do much about my hands-- eyeshadow doesn't stick to hands very well and I would have made a mess working that way. I thought about wearing gloves but I was so warm with the leather jacket that I couldn't make myself do it. 

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And now... it's October. I've been busy, teaching twice as many orchestra classes as I was last year and trying to run my business. I've also been broke because teaching orchestra only pays once a month--so financially, at least, I am very ready for it to be November. I'm kind of stuck between incomes until then.

I had some mixed feelings about leaving the thrift store; sure, it wasn't the work I wanted to be doing, but I did have some good friends among my coworkers there. But in the end, I am so glad that I've moved on. Even if my business is still a long ways away from where I want it to be, even if things are a little lean right now-- more and more every month I'm getting to do what I love, working with kids and with music and with sweet little old ladies that get excited when I sing Johnny Cash. There is such a long way to go-- but the amazing, unbelievable thing is that I'm actually making some kind of progress in the right direction.

I'll have to come up with at least one more costume this year for Halloween, though. After all, I'm an addict now.

Costume Challenge Round 2: Keeping it simple

Costume #13: Pineapple

This was another one I needed to be able to get out of fast so I could go to a music therapy appointment. So basically I just wore a yellow shirt and a hat made out of a paper towel roll and green paper leaves.

 The hat ended up being kind of a pain; I had to use about thirty bobby pins to keep it in place and then balance it on my head-- if I wasn't careful and leaned too far in any particular direction it would topple, yanking my hair as it went. I felt like I was balancing books on my head to learn to waltz like in old movies.

She is beauty, she is grace

She is a pineapple with a face

Costume #14: Rosie the Riveter

Another simple one-- I actually wore this straight to a music therapy appointment at a dementia treatment center since it kind of works for that setting. I wore a denim shirt, did my hair in a bun with a victory roll in front, and tied a red bandanna around my head.

Costume #15: Sherlock Holmes

Whoops, turns out the only photo I took was super blurry. Oh well. It's another simple costume-- I was kind of taking it easy this week. Grey slacks, a black vest over a white polo shirt, and I borrowed a deerstalker from my Mom's costume bin. Add a dollar store magnifying glass and bam, you've got a costume. 

Costume #16: The Riddler

I didn't want to spend any money on this costume, but for this one I think the costume suffered for that. I borrowed a green blazer from the store and safety-pinned a few paper question marks to it; sewing on some question mark patches would have looked a lot better. But anyway, I wore purple and green clothes and a black tie with another question mark attached. 

The makeup at least was fun; I used purple eyeliner and eye-shadow to make a domino-type mask, then used green lip-gloss and eye-shadow and added a few question marks in eyeliner. 

Then to finish the look off, I borrowed a bowler hat from my mom and added a couple of question marks to it. 

And, sheesh, I've just got one more week of costumes left. Amazing how much faster one month goes by than three. See you on the other side. 

Costume Challenge Round 2: It's a Jungle Out There, and other overused titles

I had a lot of fun with the animal themed costumes last year, so this year I decided to do a few of them.

Costume #8: Leopard

I got the tacky leopard print trenchcoat back in my freshman year of college for five bucks at a clearance sale--I rarely get the chance to wear it so it was fun to pull it out. The leopard print pants I found in my Mom's costume bin.

The makeup is a lot easier than it looks. I just drew the circles in with eyeliner, then filled them in with brown eye shadow. I did some other details in black eyeliner, and then did my hair in two buns to look a little like cat ears (like I did with the tiger costume last year).

Costume #9: Alice in Wonderland
I needed one non-animal costume this week because I had a music therapy appointment right after work, so I figured this was an easy one.

I wore my blue dress, and borrowed a white apron. I added some black and white stripe socks and made a black hairbow out of felt. I kept the makeup pretty natural looking-- this really wasn't a very crazy costume but it was kind of nice to have one that didn't take a lot of time to get into and out of.

The ultimate Alice in Wonderland Halloween song would have to be Heads Will Roll, but I used that for my card soldier costume last year so instead let's say a good theme song would be Jabberwocky by Donovan. (The version by Erutan is probably even better, you can look that up on YouTube)

Costume #10: White Rabbit

When I was looking up ideas for Alice costumes, I kept finding fun ideas for white rabbit costumes so I decided to run with it. 

I wore white pants and a white undershirt under a red and blue outfit to give an impression of white fur. I made some rabbit ears out of fun foam (fun foam is the best! Where has it been all my life!) and made an oversized pocketwatch out of cardboard. I also had a tail made out of cotton balls. 

 The makeup was simple but fun; a light dusting of white eyeshadow so I'd look pale, then details in black eyeliner. I found this was a makeup look that was very conducive to pulling silly faces.

Let's see, is there another Halloween appropriate theme song I can come up with? Well, Hold My Heart by Lindsey Stirling fits the bill if you watch the music video.

Costume #11: Giraffe

Not much to say about the clothing part; I just wore yellows and browns. 

The makeup was a little more intense. I put two buns in my hair trying (but not entirely succeeding) to look like giraffe horns, and made some ears out of felt that I stuck in with bobby pins. The makeup is mostly spots drawn in with brown eyeliner and filled in with brown eyeshadow. I also did some elongated nostrils and some purple-brown lipstick. 

This one got a lot of good reactions-- for some reason, people are really impressed when you can do makeup on your neck? I mean, I'm not sure why that should be harder than on the face, but OK.

And no, I am pretty confident that there are no Halloween songs about giraffes. The best I can do is to tell you to listen to the band Steam Powered Giraffe, which does have several songs that could be classified as "Halloween" --particularly their song "The Ghost Grinder", so I guess that almost works as a theme song if you squint at it long enough.

Costume #12: Werewolf

Well, I was aiming for werewolf but I'm honestly not too pleased with how this one turned out. 

I tried using lots of eyeliner to look like fur and get some wolf-type facial features, but I overslept and had to rush the makeup and it all turned out a lot messier than the tutorial I was following. Everyone at work was pretty confused about what, precisely, this was supposed to be. 

I actually took some time to make a tail to go with it-- made by brushing yarn so that it looks like fur. The tail is not pictured because, well... I kind of forgot I was wearing it when I went to the bathroom. So that was several hours of work down the drain.

Yeah. This one was kind of disappointing, it turned out a lot cooler in my head. Mostly the costumes this week were pretty good, though, so I guess I can be OK with sticking a dud in there.

(Theme song would have to be Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon, though Little Red Riding Hood by Sam Sham and the Pharaohs is a good runner-up)

And that's it for now. Just two more weeks of this and then I'll-- well, I'll be done at the thrift store and focusing on music therapy and orchestra teaching instead. That's still kind of hard to believe, but I guess I'd better get used to the idea.

Anyway, until next time. 

Costume Challenge Round 2: Lead-up and Week 1

In case you missed my last post, here's a summary: I'm doing the thrift store costume challenge again. But only for the month of September. Because I'm quitting in October. (yay!) I'm happy to be moving into the jobs I really want to be doing, but I couldn't help but give the thrift store one last hurrah-- after all, it really has been a good job and I did really enjoy dressing up last year. Well, I've raided the eyeliner section at the dollar store and dug out the body glitter; it's time to go out with a bang. 

Warm-up Costume: Dr Seuss

This one wasn't actually a Halloween costume; on Earth day, the store decided to do a Lorax-themed promotion, and encouraged us to dress up as Dr Seuss characters. Originally I was going to keep it simple, but then I found some cast photos from a production of Seussical the Musical that I couldn't help but play around with. Thus, my Thing 2 costume.

For the clothes, I dressed all in red, then printed and cut out a "Thing 2" circle to safety-pin to my shirt. I put my hair in a faux bob and used half a can of blue hairspray my mom had leftover from something, plus a bunch of blue glitter, to do my hair. White eyeshadow on the face, blue eyeshadow on the eyebrows, nose, and mouth, and a few lines in black eyeliner to try to look a little more "hand drawn".

Costume #1: Sports

I decided after this one to ignore most of the suggested themes-- many of them are this boring, after all, and if I'm only doing this for a month I'm going to do costumes I actually enjoy. But I did find a way to make this more fun than just wearing a basketball jersey:

I went as a Quidditch player!

The "robe" was my red jacket/dress with a gryffindor crest pinned to the front. I wore a t-shirt I got from a Harry Potter themed 5-K race featuring a quidditch player and some khaki capris.

I also wore my aviator goggles, and carried a snitch made out of an ornament, gold paint, and some feathers.

The "leather armor" is actually fun foam with some fake aging and para-cord laces. A little uncomfortable to wear for long but it looked pretty good. 

If I did this for a main Halloween costume I think I'd make some proper Quidditch robes with less safety-pin tailoring, but overall it was a pretty fun costume to wear. 

Costume #2: Mime

This one was pretty fun. I wore a black and white striped shirt with a black skirt, and added a red bandanna, red suspenders, and a black hat. I used white eyeshadow to make my face pale, added red lipstick, then did all the eye markings with black eyeliner. 

While I liked how it all looked, the real fun part? Not talking all day. It was kind of fun to try to figure out how to communicate everything just using gestures and facial expressions. And it was funny how many people would ask me a few questions, then kind of give me a confused look, then laugh and say, "Oh! I get it! You aren't talking because you're a mime!"

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with theme songs this year (if I change my mind I'll update this post later), but I think an appropriate one for this costume would be Simon and Garfunkle's "The Sound of Silence". 

Costume #3: Magician

You know, I went through a stage as a kid where I really wanted to be a magician. I ended up giving it up because it turns out I'm really bad at magic tricks, but no reason for me not to dress the part. I wore a black skirt, a black cumberbund I found in the costume bin, a white polo shirt, my red bowtie from last year, and a black coat with tails I borrowed from my Dad. Add a top hat, a homemade wand (made in roughly five minutes out of paper and an unsharpened pencil), and a trick deck of cards and I was all set.

Of course, the theme song here would be "That Old Black Magic" by Frank Sinatra.

Costume #4: Cracked Doll

The dress is actually my Mom's old gunnysack dress. Funny story; in middle school we had a "decades week" where we dressed up like different decades. My mom lent me this dress to wear on 70s day; all my classmates got after me for dressing up like the 1870s instead of the 1970s-- but the adults started waxing nostalgic about having their own gunnysack dresses. I guess it just goes to show that what we think people wore in a particular time period tends to be a little innacurate.

The makeup was a lot of fun to do, though I could have used some practice. I started out with some more natural looking makeup, then added some fake eyelids to try to make my eyes look bigger. The cracks are all in eyeliner (this was my first time using liquid eyeliner and it's kind of weird) with a little bit of white eyeshadow on some of the edges to try to look more realistic. 

Curiously, my costumes this year have been getting a lot more comments from customers than last year's costumes-- which you might remember is kind of exceptional because thrift store shoppers are jaded and hard to impress. This costume I had several people call out as a favorite; lots of people told me I looked cute. I'd been going more for creepy, but I guess whatever floats your boat. 

The theme song for this would have to be Kanon Wakashima's "Still Doll", even if it was a runner up last year.

Costume #5: Flight Attendant

This one was quick and easy because I needed to leave right after working at the thrift store for a music therapy appointment. I wore a blue 1940s-style dress (which you'll see a better shot of next week) with a silk scarf and my hair in a bun, and I printed out a photo of those wings they hand out to kids on airplanes to cut out and pin to the front. Normal makeup and I was good to go. I sort of expected to get flack on this one the way I did on my Star Trek costume last year since this was so easy. But I guess this outfit was different enough from normal that it passed as a costume.

Costume #6: Fortune Teller

So basically my strategy here was: lots of layers, lots of jewelry, lots of scarves. and a general aura of mystery. Pretty straightforward. We've actually got a crystal ball I could have used, but it would've been too much of a hassle to lug that around at work. 

Costume #7: They said to do cowboys, I did Indiana Jones instead

This one was fun. I wore brown slacks, brown boots, a brown belt, a white polo, and a leather jacket. I borrowed the hat from my Mom's collection, and did my hair in a tight braid. 

The hat is actually an official "Indiana Jones hat" that I got Mom for Christmas years ago. It's pretty cheaply made and a little small, but it did OK for a costume. If I had more time, I'd have come up with a whip and with some kind of artifact that belongs in a museum to carry around. 

You don't need me to give you the theme song, do you?