Cosplay Spotlight: Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Costume: This was my first cosplay ever, and I cannot take much credit for it. I essentially decided two weeks before my first convention that I did actually want to cosplay, and cruelly lumped the task of creating this outfit on my two best friends Mearle and Tai before jetting off to France.

We hit the charity shops for the trousers, wanting ¾ length cotton trousers that were loose enough to look like the military ones. I already owned the boots and t-shirt, and we agreed that the jacket would be too complicated and difficult. We also purchased a pair of grey trousers from the charity shop, in order to use the waistband for the cavalry skirt, and bought white cotton for the skirt itself. I then buggered off to eat crepes for a week, leaving it in the hands of my capable friends. They cut the skirt and dyed both the white cotton and trousers together in order to get matching shades of blue. The cavalry skirt was double layered in order to make it stiffer. They then made miles and miles of grey bias tape which was hand sewn (this was before we had a sewing machine to our name) to the edges, and attached the grey waistband.

Make up: Light and neutral.

Hair: Ponytail – as my hair has started to grow again and I had my short bits cut in, this hair style has got more difficult to achieve. Fortunately, Tai and I discovered the wonders of African Butterfly Clips, which are excellent at keeping long heavy hair up and out of the way with no pain (and for the purposes of this cosplay, twisting it up into a shorter ponytail).

Kitacon 2009. Photo taken by NekoFlameAlchemist.

Amecon 2010 (there was a giant FMA photoshoot at the con, but all the photos are too far away)

Amecon 2012 (those archways at Keele are the best place for dramatic cosplay shots!)

Sunnycon 2013 - with Vic Mignogna. Photo taken by Mearle.

Going Camping!

Well I wouldn't say my writers block is over yet, but I'm certainly getting giddy over something else writing related.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I take part every November in a fun little writing extravaganza called NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month if you're being posh). Its a technically insane, community driven, caffeine fuelled creative challenge designed to get you out of the planning stage and into the writing stage. In fact, it works by smashing the planning stage completely to pieces with an inflatable squeaky mallet. The idea is to write fifty thousand words in a month, quality and coherency be damned, the theory  being that by having a deadline in place, and the pressures of common sense and a restrictive plot thrown gaily to the wind, you are free to unleash the full potential of your creativity and just write. To win, you just have to hit 50k, and the shiny certificate and smug self satisfaction are all yours.

It sounds barmy and a total waste of time to most people (95% of whom I can guarantee have never tried it themselves), but in 2011 236,618 people from all over the world participated (the 2012 figures have not been posted yet) so clearly they thought there was something in it. And speaking as somebody who has participated for six years (and won five of them), and written a large bulk of her literary works in these contests, I'd say that there is definitely something in it. If I tally up roughly all my word counts for each of those six years, that's about 380,000 words - that's 380,000 words more than I would have done if I hadn't done the contests. Its a LOT of novelling!

The beauty of Nano is completely stripping away all your worries. How is this character going to evolve? How is the killer going to cover their tracks? Is the ending going to be happy or sad? Who knows?! You're writing this story as it comes to you! You're taking the journey with them! You're not God in this story - you are one of the characters. All those emotions they feel?  You're feeling them too! Plans? Who needs them?! Plans come later, after you've had a chance to meet your characters, have them get captured by aliens, meet a talking turtle, get drunk and steal some traffic cones with them!

Anyway, the point of this is that Nano is pretty awesome. Obviously it doesn't work for everyone - I know plenty of authors who can't function without a plan that has been exhaustively checked, rechecked and triple checked just in case any errors in plot have slipped in like fungus. But for people who have an idea but don't know where to begin, who are stuck in their stories and can't get out, or just want to have some pure uninhibited fun in their writing, it can quickly become one of the most helpful and enjoyable experiences in a writer's life.

The only downside to Nano that I personally have, is that its only once a year...or so I though. I'd vaguely heard about Camp NaNoWriMo on the website, but had no idea what it was. Then I looked, and realised that a pot of gold had landed in my lap. Another Nano event? Held twice a year, with flexible word goals, and allowing scripts, memoirs and blogs to be written as well as novels? Sweetness!

This is just the kickstart that my writing needs now! So off Jess and I go! Come April we will be pounding out words like women possessed, and we couldn't be happier! Want to join us? We'll save you space around the campfire! Happy novelling!

OOO

http://www.campnanowrimo.org/campers/mei1105

Throwing people off balconies

There comes a time in every writer's lives, where you bang your head against the keyboard and start rolling it around, hoping that maybe some random spark of inspiration will suddenly jump out of your brain and into the keys, like an overenthusiastic six year old trying to be an Olympic diver.

I have these regularly. And the trouble is that they're like playing a musical instrument or driving. Once you've stopped doing it for a few days, getting back into it is like shoving a boulder up a hill.

I hate moments like this. I have a chapter due out tomorrow that I know I'm not going to finish, because my characters (Bakura in particular) are being as bland as a water and cardboard sandwich, and frankly, its a duel and they are always hard to write. Life points, attack and defence points and different metaphors for people smirking are rolling around my head like my brother's Combee on pixi-stixs. My progress board on my bookshelf is staring at me with its blank white gaze, waving the words "Chapter 10 duel" tauntingly in front of my face, along with all my other bloody chapters and stories that aren't finished.

Fics for the Anti-Cliche and Mary-Sue Elimination Society are also waiting to be done, but frankly, despite my enthusiasm earlier this week, I can't get excited about my next big Society fic any longer, purely because there's another unfinished story that I'm collabing with someone, that has been sitting in the way for the past year. I can't write ahead of myself effectively. I have to have a sense of progression when I write - that the last bit is done and I can move on to the next bit, otherwise my flow is ruined. This is also why I can't chunk write. Because like most writers, I'm imperfect. I write, then I change my mind, then I redo things. Its the only way my head keeps everything straight. Doing bits and pieces out of order just confuses me, and I forget what I've changed and what I haven't. I also have another collab that I've been working on for my Oneshot a Month challenge, but that's fallen on the back burner too.

Added to which, I now have a piece of smut that I promised my boyfriend in exchange for some writing help. If I write it in this kind of mood, I'd probably end up throwing all the characters off a balcony, which last I checked, was not conducive to helping them achieve an orgasm.

And that's just the fanfiction. I'm aching to go back to my novel, or last years NaNo, or start one of the two ideas I have floating around in my head as potential Camp NaNoWriMo pieces. But I can't write feeling guilty and knowing there's all this other stuff I've got to finish first. I have to get the other projects done and out of the way before I start on anything big. Otherwise its like starting work on that essay that's due in a month, when you've got an unfinished piece of coursework due in tomorrow.

The pounding headache that I've had all day isn't helping matters either.

So instead of trying to find inspiration in some form, or power through and just accept that my writing will be crap if I'm in this mood but that its better than nothing, I'm instead bitching on my blog in an effort to prevent a layer of dust forming on it.

Is it working?

...

Hell if I know. Guess we'll find out in a day or two if I get this stupid duel up.

Minecraft: The Big City

I have been Minecrafting a lot lately. Mostly on this. I'm essentially writing a Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic that takes place in the ancient Egypt part of the series, so I decided to try and reconstruct the palace...and then the capital city...and then a few smaller villages and towns around it...and a few temples. And the thing about building cities I've discovered, is that there are a lot of houses...

Facing West (yes the sun was setting so this picture was actually taken last, but shh!). I apologise for my render - it was on Far, but my computer is so crap it actually doesn't load any more than this.

Facing West again. I wanted the front of the place to point towards the Nile and also facing the rising sun. I thought that was more symbolic. Worth noting, that all the rooftops are different  heights, and make for some really awesome parkour action! Also one of these houses has a little secret underneath it...

Facing South. This side of the palace is where the stables are. That well in the square goes all the way down to bedrock. In creative mode you can just fly out of it, but in survival mode, if you fell in there its so deep you'd actually be pretty screwed if you didn't have a lot of ladder!

Facing East. In Yu-Gi-Oh! the Pharaoh's Sacred Priests all have little temple shrines where they keep the captured Duel Monster spirits. Those little pyramids on the left are the shrines.

On a side note, there is a little puddle of water near the palace wall on this side, that has a hole leading to an underground cave, which will actually get you under the wall and into the palace gardens...but shh! Don't tell Bakura!

Facing North. I haven't counted my number of houses/buildings recently, but the last time I did (and this was when I'd only done about two and a half sides of the palace) I had two hundred and seventy three.

On the South side of the city, facing East towards the river, is a temple. I was hoping to have the houses stretch all the way up to it, but I haven't built enough yet. It has obelisks at the front, and gates at the front, and between the two parts of the building (the public were only aloud in the outer courtyard - the back was reserved for priests).

The front of the palace. This actually didn't take me as long to build as all my houses have. I had a lot of fun working out safety and positioning of all the rooms. The Pharaoh sleeps on the other side.

I don't actually know whether this fanfic will ever make it onto the internet, but I do plan to finish it in Camp Nanowrimo this year, so we shall see!

Achievement Get! - This Children's Card Game Is Simply Fabulous!

In my bedroom I have a board.

And on this board, I write things I need to write/redraft/plot (it is worth noting that I have more chapters for MMD&D to write, but I haven't finished the non-duelling stuff yet, so they aren't on the list). It is unspeakably motivating to have them stare at me while I try and sleep.

Today, I got to do something I've wanted to do for a while...

Scrubby scrubby!

TA DA!

(on a side note, its only when looking at this that I realise I have really pretentious story titles!)

New Years Resolutions: Blowing Up The Internet

1. Complete and finish posting Magic Monsters Dominions and Destiny. (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8553319/1/Magic-Monsters-Dominions-and-Destiny)
2. Choreograph and perform a belly dance solo.
3. Start a blog for writing, rambling, taking photographs and watching the world go by. (CHECK!)
4. Start the second draft of my novel (working title The Wolf Pack).
5. Make a new cosplay (possibly Kisara).
6. Run the Race for Life in under 35 minutes (last years time - 42 minutes)

One down, only five more to go...

Learning to use a blog when you've never done one before is a lot like playing a board game that you've never encountered before, against an opponent who happens to be a champion, whilst trying to balance the weight of the entire ceiling on nothing but your head. You don't know what this move does, or what pressing this will do, and you'd better learn fast, because one mistake could leave a permanent mark on your history that everyone will remember and laugh at you for, and that pressure isn't letting up, and that champion is sneering at you in a way specifically designed to get on your nerves. And there's only one way to stop the smugness, and stupid sniggering is to blow him into the sky - preferably through that heavy ceiling so that everyone gets a good look at him.

I'm sure that 99% of blogs start off along the lines of "never done this before!" and so in-keeping with tradition - I have never done this before.

...no kidding, genius...

I don't want to turn this into too much of a personal blog. I've only just recently started engaging the filter between my brain and my mouth and trying to remember that sometimes some people just aren't mentally mature enough to be told that they suck, and they are better off in a lot of ways just not hearing it from me (I said try! I didn't say succeed!).

So no rants about people I may or may not know. Just snippets of writing, thought processes, reviews, pictures and the occasional sarcastic quip.

...oh and blowing the smug champion of the hardcore blogger through the roof of the internet, and not caring if I massively cock this up.

First question: Do blogs have a thing against profanity?

May Stardust Fall In Your Dreams!