Lost momentum

I’ve been trying to figure out why I can’t seem to get anything done in the mornings before work (which used to be my most productive time of day), and then it hit me: without cosplays to work on nonstop, I’ve lost steam.

With so many mornings of gogogogogo in preparation for Phoenix Comicon, my brain doesn’t know what to do with nothing to do. Well, I guess I don’t have nothing to do. I could write, draw, read, color in my coloring books…so there are things that can keep my mind occupied–I just don’t have the drive to do any of them. My inspiration on my new novel has evaporated, so until that comes back to me I’m a little at a loss there.

Once we get some fabric for my husband’s coat and pants for his next cosplay, I can get back to spending all my free time in the craft room frantically cutting, pinning, and sewing.

Well, maybe not frantically. I have three months, give or take a week or so, and I got the Naruto cosplays finished in a month. So one could theorize that I have some breathing room here. I’ve already used the pattern for my husband’s pants once, so I know how everything goes together; I just have to do some mockup work to get the color blocking I’ll need to do. That’s going to be the interesting part of making these–his costume has some cool color blocking, and mine will have a lot of modifications to the designs of the patterns I’ve purchased for it.

The good news is that I found several pairs of boots that might work for my cosplay, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I think those boots are pretty much the only things (aside from my husband’s boots as well) that we won’t have to make from scratch. This should be fun.

Now if I could just find something to do until we get that fabric….

Invested in Cosplay

I’m almost done with Gaara’s vest for my husband’s cosplay! It only took me a day, which blows my mind because I had no pattern, no instructions, no real plan other than to make a rough mockup out of two pieces of fabric, cut a crapton of the actual fabric I was going to use, and pray.

This is the vest I was trying to recreate:

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Not too bad, but I still didn’t really know what I was doing. I also had to make a hidden pocket for it, which I will tell you is no easy feat for a novice.

Here’s the almost-finished product:

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With this being the biggest piece left to do before Phoenix Comicon, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Small things here and there I can do. The notion of two cosplays from scratch was intimidating a month ago when my husband decided that I’d have plenty of time to finish them before Phoenix Comicon (June 2). I didn’t think I could do it, especially considering I would be making my first coat, but I am so close to the end and it feels amazing.

Tick-tock, Tick-tock

Tick-tock, tick-tock

The hands go round and round

The more cycles that the hands complete

Her nervousness abounds

Tick-tock, tick-tock

So much work left to be done

There’s snips and clips and lengthened tails

Will she finish by the strike of one?

Tick-tock, tick-tock

The list, it ever grows

The more that’s done, the more’s to do

Will she finish? No one knows

I have nearly conquered the pants

Just a little bit more! I have almost finished the pants that have been plaguing me for what, a week or more now? Anywho, I just need to slipstitch the waistband & then hem them & a couple buttonholes, a few buttons, and BAM! Pants.

Trying to decide which to do next: The kimono for my Temari cosplay, or continue with my husband’s stuff–the coat and vest. I think I’ll do the kimono, partly because I want to switch to something easier and less stress-inducing, and partly because I’m too lazy to change out the thread on the sewing machine. (The kimono is the same color as the pants.)

Today my husband and I started the paper mache on the gourd prop for his Gaara cosplay. It was predictably messy and slightly stressful, as he got annoyed with me trying to give instructions. I was trying to make things more clean and efficient, and I guess I didn’t take into consideration that he might just be wanting to do things his way. I suppose I just assumed I’d be taking point on the project. It’ll be okay, though. Tomorrow we’ll have some more time to work on it, and we have plenty of time before the con to get it finished.

My fighting fan prop may not happen before the con, though. We have to buy it because making it is just too time-consuming and complicated, and our budget might not allow for the purchase until after Phoenix Comicon. That’s fine, though; I mean, we’ll have plenty of time before Dragon Con, which is a bigger con anyway.

I feel good about being nearly finished with the pants. Onward to the next project!

Off the Track

I was doing pretty good. Tooling along, going at a good speed…and now I have to cut some of my time to write for something equally creative: cosplay.

Yes, I’ve started it again. I had almost finished with the Doctor Who/Star Wars mashup cosplays when my husband found the next cosplays he wants us to do for next year. Okay, great, plenty of time to work on it and still get some writing in.

Except the cosplays he picked are pretty easy (mine is, at least), so he decided that we can get them done by Dragon Con in September. Still no problem. I can do it.

Now? Now we’re going to shoot for Phoenix Comicon. In a month and a half.

I got this. I think?

Everyone’s a Critic…but that Doesn’t Mean You Should Listen

So I’ve taken a sidetrack from the manuscript to do some more work on the charity anthology (that is, in fact, still in the works). It made me think a bit about critiques and what they mean to a writer/artist (for the purposes of brevity, I’m going to be long-winded for a moment and say that for the rest of this post I’m going to just refer to all writers and artists as “artist”).

They say everyone’s a critic–and they’re right. No two people are going to agree 100% on the style of any piece of art, whatever the medium. But some criticisms are useful. So how do you tell which criticisms to take to heart and which ones to ignore?

In my opinion, the artist is the ultimate decision maker on their art, regardless of what others say. As an artist, you are the creator. You are God. But even a god can make mistakes, and therein lies the rub. You have to be open to acknowledging those mistakes and making changes based on the critiques you receive.

Take your time when giving and receiving critiques. As a critic, try to put yourself in the mindset of the artist. What are they trying to say? Is that sentence fragment on purpose? Is that swipe of the brush an accident or a happy little tree? As an artist, think long and hard about what the critic is saying. Do you really need to rephrase that fragment? Should you make that brush stroke into a happy little tree?

It’s all subjective, of course. Well, not grammar…that’s objective. Except when it’s subjective. Savvy?

Critiques are that simple, and they’re that complex.

Workin’ Hard for the Money

Well, I made it through a long, tiring work day. My back is sore, my legs are sore, my arms are sore … in fact, not too many places on me aren’t sore. Still, I made it through, and I got rare praise from the surgeon.

Tomorrow is an off day, and though it’s my anniversary (yay!–three years strong), my husband will be working until 1pm, giving me plenty of time to write. I also plan on writing some more tonight. If I keep it up, I’ll break 20k before the weekend. Pretty amazing, considering the first draft of Whispers of Death was not even 40k words long, and this book is in its infancy still.

I probably should exercise tomorrow, too. I have got to get back into exercising. Just because work gave me a workout today is no excuse to not get back into the swing of things exercise-wise. I have the day off, my husband will be occupied with work, and I can try one of the workout DVDs I have in the living room while he works from the bedroom. I get so self-conscious when anyone sees me working out, even my husband, so this should be interesting … he’d better not laugh. 😉

Back on Track (for now)

Well, thanks to the advice of an author friend of mine, I think I’m slowly getting back on track with the manuscript. It’s still slow going, but it’s picking up speed and I think I’m going to have a better time of it … for the time being.

Writing is so hard to predict. I don’t know how full-time authors do it. I would be staring at the screen for half the time. I guess it comes down to focus and practice and developing a routine, but even with my routine of writing (or trying to write) every morning before work and every weekend when I have time, I still hit blocks.

This week I have Wednesday off (which, though it’s my anniversary, should give me time to write since my husband will be at work for half the day), so my plan is to write as much as I can.

Will I reach my goal of a completed first draft by the end of the year? It’s looking less and less likely as I get more and more stuck, but I still hold out hope. Whispers of Death was going slowly at first as well, but I blew through the ending once I had a good momentum going. This book will be interesting, because I sort of wrote a scene in the sixth or seventh chapter that belongs more like 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through the book. So I have to keep the scene and just write the parts in between. Which will be tricky, given the way I normally write. I like to write in order, but I hadn’t planned on the scene being as integral to the plot, and I surely hadn’t planned on it spawning a new plotline of its own.

I love it when a story takes on a life of its own–probably why I enjoy pantsing more than planning–but this one is really challenging me. Political plots and intrigue aren’t my thing, but apparently they’re the thing this book wants to have.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Thank the Gods for the “Find” feature in Word.

So, let me give you some backstory here: Every Wednesday, Twitter has a trending hashtag called #1linewed where there is a theme set and writers can post a line or two from one of their works that fits that theme. For example, today’s theme is “eyebrows.”

Dear Gods, I never realized how many times people raised their eyebrows in my current manuscript!

Being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I can’t just let it go until it comes time for edits and whatnot. I have to fix it now. That has been the majority of my writing this morning–taking out a multitude of eyebrow raising and finding other ways for the characters to express emotion.

It happens. Writers get their little quirks or favorite phrases and they don’t even realize until revision/edits that they’re doing it. Well, apparently I’m an eyebrow-raiser. I don’t remember doing it in my last novel, but I think I’m trying too hard to “show don’t tell.” I know there are other facial expressions/body language-type things I can use, but I guess my go-to is the eyebrows.

I suppose I should thank whoever picked today’s theme. Now I can go through and fix this before it gets out of hand, and be wary of it as I write further.

So Close to the Finish Line…

Yes! I have very nearly completed my cosplay, and my husband’s isn’t much farther behind. I need to make him some hand warmers/fingerless gloves/whatever you want to call them, a pouch of some sort to carry his phone, wallet, & keys, & I need to either make or find a belt so I have a place to put my lightsaber. (Oh yeah, and we need to buy our lightsabers–but we’re doing that at the con.)

It’s the culmination of about 6 months of work (off & on), and I’m feeling very accomplished. Sadly, I need to bust my butt on losing weight because I can barely fit into the corset as I am right now. 🙁 I’ll do it, though. I have more motivation now that I’ve seen how hard it is to get into the corset right now. Luckily I made an elastic waistband for the skirt, so I should be fine if I lose weight.

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I can’t believe managed to pull this off. I really didn’t know what I was doing for the most part and patterns have been my friend, but a few things I had to pattern out myself. (Mainly the skirt, a sleeveless black tunic top I made for under the corset–which you really can’t see in these photos–and altering things for my husband’s cosplay. I also made the black belt with the tails without a pattern.) Hubby’s was much more complicated, but I managed.

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Next up? Well, after a break from making cosplay stuff, next up is a Naruto couple’s cosplay (though we’ll be cosplaying siblings–not that it really matters. It’s cosplay after all). They look like fun characters to play, and they both have large props that should be interesting to make.

Now off to be productive!