See You Next Year!

Just like last year I will be taking a posting break until January the 3rd. Enjoy!

Burning Goats

So, being the holiday season, I decided to look up the holiday of Yule on Wikipedia. This led me to Yule Goat which, in turn, led me to the Gävle Goat.

I have never laughed reading a Wikipedia entry before.

Granted, I feel bad that people are having to rebuilt their goat figures, but when you see sentences to the effect of "Burned 3 days after erecting" and "made flame-resistant with guards patrolling around the clock. Burned 5 minutes later" it's pretty amusing, and when they break down the number built, burned, stolen, and hit by a car, giving it a survival rate, I lost it.

Viva la yule goat!

Black Cats

"But Jennifer, you future New York Times bestselling author!" you say looking at the title of today's post, "It's past Halloween!"

"Your mom is past Halloween," I reply in a mature manner.

This isn't about Halloween, though I will mention it briefly later on. Instead, the focus here is specifically on the color of a cat (and prepare for this to be the most heavily-referenced and sourced post ever, as I want to show I'm not just spewing out random information.)

I did a speech paper on black cats once and learned quite a bit in the process. Since then I've been even more of an advocate for the adoption of black cats.

“A 2002 study in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science that examined adoption rates over nine months in a California pound found that black cats were about half as likely to be adopted as tabby cats and two-thirds less likely than white cats.”  - From startseeingblackdogs.com

Go ahead, take a look a look for yourself at petfinder.com I was browsing there  less than a week ago and the number of black cats there in comparison with any others is staggering.

Some of you at this point are probably asking why. Why are black cats so hard to adopt out?

Here's a rundown:

They Are Hard To See

Shelters can sometimes have poor lighting and, as a result, black cats get lost in the background. They're like the jokes people make about ninjas.

Adorable, purring ninjas.

How to solve this? Easy, take a harder look in what you may originally thing are empty cages or, better yet, specifically ask about black cats. The staff at the shelter would likely be enthusiastic to show you who might be unintentionally hiding from you.

People Think They Are Bland

 By bland I mean it in two ways. People want a cat with a more exotic-looking fur coat and, even worse, they think they will have a bland personality. Seriously, that's like accusing someone of being bland because they wore a plain T-shirt today.

Gawd I bet her idea of a good time is pricing brands of cotton balls.

I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, but here's a video of one that has over 2 million views.


They Are Bad Luck

I really could just leave it at that, but the idea that black cats being back luck isn't exclusive. Some countries actually believe specifically black cats are good luck. Great Britain, Scotland, Japan, and many others (Germany is sort of halfway on the concept, believing right-left crossing is bad luck but left-right is good luck). Groups of people like sailors believed cats, specifically black ones, would keep them safe at sea.

No one really knows where the origin of black cats being bad luck came from. I've heard a large number of stores (one of which involves Vikings!) but while the origin remains fuzzy what really caused it to gain momentum was witchcraft. Even today people associate black cats with witches. To this day people still believe they're bad luck, I have a friend who's mom refuses to allow him to get a black cat because she believes them to be bad luck.

Hey, you know what happened last time we persecuted and murdered a bunch of cats? The Black Plague. But whew! Good thing we got rid of all those bad luck cats, it could have been way worse!



There would be sexy witches everywhere!

But in all seriousness if you are considering adopting a cat at any time in the future, please consider a black cat. Many shelters do keep people from adopting out black cats in October, as people have been known to "rent" them as Halloween decorations, returning them after the holiday (or much worse), which is why I bring this up in November instead.

There are shelters that have black cat adoption months, ask your local shelter. They might even offer you a discount right on the spot if you express enthusiasm!

And, most importantly, you'll be giving a home to someone who really needs it.

Making the Satyr: The Legs

"Finally!" I'm sure you're all saying.

Here is how I made the legs. Most people who do the digitigrade legs have to accommodate for the foam. At this point my brother decided we were going to scrap the idea of digitigrade and just do regular hairy pants (I will explain how we managed to make them digitigrade after all in a moment). To make the pants without a pattern I just set down a regular pair of pants. Pants are tricky in the fact that you'd expect them to be just two diagonal tubes, but they're more complicated than that. Take a look.

So, using that as a guide (and a fabric pencil I had to sharpen after every two feet of marking) I managed to cut all four pieces of the fur.

Something to note about working with such a hairy fabric: it will make a mess. You will get hair on the floor, on your clothes, and everything else it touches. That's all before you even start cutting it. Make sure you have a lint roller and a vacuum cleaner handy (neither of which you should use on the fur fabric itself, just on what's shedding off)

Here is one of the legs sewn together. It looks long on the bottom and tall on the top, but ended up being perfect on the bottom and maybe a little short on top. I intentionally left part of the bottom unsewn (you can kind of see a V on the left where the foot is poking through) so there was more room and so that the pants can rest on the hooves better.

The pants ended up being surprisingly baggy. Enough so that we decided to bring back the digitigrade pillows and give them a try. We stuffed the upper front pillows from the top and the lower back pillows from the bottom (it takes two people to put the legs on). It's a tight squeeze but it also means the pillows won't slip out.

Overall, this is what we ended up with:

He is standing completely straight.

Perhaps in the future we will consider Velcro to attach the digitigrade pillows and an elastic band for the top of the pants, but for now it works very well for an attempt made with no previous costuming experience.

Making the Satyr: The Accessories

The best fabrications have detail, some so small that you never even see them, but if they weren't there you'd notice (take the Lord of the Rings movies for example). In my spare time while my brother was working and I had a few mornings off I decided to make a few small accessories. If you find yourself trying to come up with some ideas, or don't even know where to start, think more in the theme of the materials you will be working with. I wanted more natural materials, things you would find in the woods or could create from such things: leather, wood, and feathers. Bone and clay would work well if you have the ability to work with those materials as well.

The Bow and Arrows

After a quick trip to the craft store I picked up some dowels with the idea of making a bow and arrows. You'll notice the back-most dowel is actually thicker than the rest, this was to be the bow.

To make the bow I chose a hemp cord, the string I've been using for previous things is far too rough and would cause the bowstring to look frayed. Hemp, however, looked to be the appropriate size and style. If I wanted it to look really nice I would have chosen some more expensive waxed cord I had seen.

My intention was to make notches on both ends of the dowel to hold the string in place. Making the notches with a knife causes the knife to dull too quickly and I was nervous with the idea of using a knife (if I can cut myself on a light switch twice I really shouldn't be trusted with sharp objects). Having just recently moved I was also lacking tools like sandpaper or a saw. However, I have used a nail file before to buff paint off a piece of metal using the logic that it's basically a form of sandpaper, so I decided to use that with some surprisingly good results and got the notch that I needed. Unfortunately, after several attempts at stringing the bow, the dowel broke.

I decided to reevaluate the bow and instead focused on the arrows. I bought a pack of feathers and cut them into the desired shape for arrow fletching (definitely a project you do outside) the dowels I cut to 2 feet, long enough to be convincing arrows and short enough that they wouldn't be awkward. Because they were cosmetic arrows I left out some details intentionally, like the notch the bowstring would fit into and even arrowheads. The arrowheads for two reasons: because the arrows would stay in a quiver and not even be seen, and so they wouldn't be considered a weapon (weapons and weapon-like objects in costumes are very much a safety issue to keep in mind)

I attempted to glue the feathers on with several types of glue, having poor results: the weaker glues aren't sticky enough for the feather to stick on while it dries, and super glue is too runny and has other disastrous problems (by wearing nitrile gloves I didn't glue my fingers together, but everything else became a runny mess that quickly dried into a crispy mess). I did scrap the idea of arrows, but only because the costume deadline was coming up, and I had other things I needed to do more. Only recently realizing I should have researched it before hand, a quick search brought up a very interesting website here that shows fletching by hand without a jig.

Although I didn't complete the arrows I did, however, halfway complete a quick and dirty quiver by gluing leather over a cardboard paper towel roll. I'll see about posting some pictures someday.

Vest Extras

Accessorizing the vest was what got me started on the details. My brother was nervous about buttons on the vest, wanting to leave it open, but after a year I think he got more comfortable with the idea of me adding to it. For the buttons I chose horn toggles. I've never been a fan of button holes as I want to be able to correct mistakes, and cutting holes are pretty permanent, so I use loops. The loops I used are made of a rough twine. Afterwards, I poked some small feathers under the stitching of the buttons, they hold together very well. There are three on the bottom and one on the top to help hide the tips of the bottom feathers jutting out.

Painting the Horns

 I already mentioned in a previous post this month about buying the horns. While the horns are gorgeously designed I have to admit I wasn't expecting them to be so pale. The picture on Amazon shows them as a tan brown, while the ones we received were as pale as my hands in this picture (and that's with my summer tan). I chose acrylic paint in the hopes that it would work on the polymer clay the horns are made of (I have no idea what either of those mean, I mention it in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable than me is currently stroking his beard going "Hmm, yes.")

Along with the quiver here is a list of other accessories I didn't feature here: headband, scarf, bracelets, loincloth, tail, and bottles.

Making the Satyr: The Digitigrade

This is it, the part that's a big mystery to everyone who wants to make a detailed satyr costume: The digitigrade legs.

In comparison, humans have what are called plantigrade legs. We step with our entire foot, toe to heel. Digitigrade animals, meanwhile, step on mostly their toes, the heel of their foot extending upward before finally reaching their knee.

I had to look at furries in the name of learning.

The problem with making a satyr costume is making plantigrade legs look like they are digitigrade legs. Some people have really elaborate metal leg brace systems that they end up balancing on, like stilts, others use foam to achieve the appearance. Massive metal stilts are very impractical, not to mention I don't have the resources nor the knowledge for such a thing, so I chose the foam method.

For the foam I chose a less rigid type than what most people use because it was cheaper and I felt would be easier to work with. To me it was more like layers of quilt batting than actual foam. They ended up being 16 inches long by 5.5 inches wide (I didn't measure the depth since I didn't think about it). I made four of them, two for the top front of the legs and two for the back bottoms. Keep in mind the person I am making this for is 6 feet tall.

The original plan was to shape them into the desired curvature, but instead I decided to leave them square and put them into a tightly sewn section of fabric that would hopefully cause it to curve. It did, but was a pain to stuff, the action requiring the effort of two people.

 

 

Afterwards we taped them in place to see how it would look in terms of shape with the intent that we would later sew them to the green pants set aside specifically for this project. 

 

 

 I a later post, I will show you how it looks once the pants are finished and the padding put into place.

Making the Satyr: The (Failed) Hooves and Horns

Although I failed terribly at making hooves there's still a lot to be learned, and I hope that by making a mistake I can maybe help someone else end up one step ahead than they were before.

So, to make some hooves I've seen several videos. Going by what they were generally doing I decided to use some clay molded on top of som shoes my brother didn't want anymore. The clay I chose was a natural brown clay that air dries well.

I made sure to clean the shoes beforehand, put down some wax paper to protect the floor, and set to work, carefully pressing the clay onto the shoe. I've never worked with clay before, and I found it both easy and difficult to work with. Easy because it attached itself much easier to the shoe than I was expecting, difficult because it took a lot of pressing to get it to shape the way I wanted.

 

As I began working my way up the shoe I ran into a problem: When I reached the meshy section of the shoe (the area that lets your foot "breathe") the clay refused to stick to it. I found a workaround by attaching more clay on the areas that attached well and eventually built my way up, squeezing and shaping to get this (the middle cloven shape I achieved using a pen cap to shape it):

 

I also decided to attempt some horns, because I had plenty of clay left. Throughout the entire process the clay only got harder to work with and began to crumble easily. Within 24 hours the clay cracked, crumbled, and I was left with chunks of clay and stained shoes.

 

Instead I decided to save my sanity, throw money at the almighty Amazon, and buy some hooves and horns (the horns of which I am quite happy with, the hooves are a fair alternative to madness.)

 

What would I do in the future if I decided to attempt it again?

 

I would definitely use a wire mesh in the future, to provide the clay something to really stick to. I would also probably shop around to see about types of clay and what might work best in the situation. Most of all, however, I would definitely get a brother with smaller feet.

Satyr Month!

Remember some of those old Satyr posts I made a while back? (Like this one, this one, and this one?) Of course you do! Those are probably the three that got you here in the first place. Quite honestly they're my three most popular posts by far according to my read count (553, 166, and 164, compare that with my #4 post having only 47 views)

The People demand satyrs.

I am, of course, happy to provide now that I have more material to work with.

Obviously the planning stages of my brother's satyr costume were well over a year. Mostly because my sewing skills are subpar (I've mentioned before I sewed an armhole shut on a vest), and I procrastinated in the hopes that my brother would lose interest and move on. A year later and he still showed interest, so I could only shrug and give it my best shot.

So, throughout the second half of October I spent time, money, and effort into attempting a satyr costume.

Here are the posts you can expect this month:

1. Hooves and Horns

2. Digitigrade

3. Accessories

4. The Legs

Halloween! (Also a Dusted Freebie Event)

Halloween is a great time for paranormal books and, I figure in the spirit of the season, Dusted will be free to get October 25-26 and again October 31 through November 2.

I love Halloween for multiple reasons. Autumn is my favorite season being a big part of it, another is that I love costumes. Most of my favorite holiday memories are Halloween related (Thanksgiving and Christmas are a mixed bag since I have some rather...ahem, "eccentric" relatives): My brother and I once went trick or treating as bunches of grapes (purple and green balloons pinned to our coats), my mom sewing gigantic candy bags for us, going to a friend's school for a party and bobbing for apples for the first (and only) time, going through a corn maze. After every Halloween my brother and I would dump our two bags together and marvel at how much we had, feeling just a little bit like Scrooge McDuck.

Later, when my brother and I stopped trick or treating, we would just buy a whole bunch of candy and watch The Simpsons Halloween episodes. As time has gone on and I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate some of the more traditional aspects of the holiday. I love the harvest; seeing the hard work that has gone into crops that are finally ready. Apples, potatoes, cuttings of hay, pumpkins. Beautiful, natural colors of orange, red, and yellow. It's a time when people really use their hands to make things, and lets us show a little bit of who we really want to be.



Even if that want is to be a sexy Tootsie Roll.

It's a very loosely-interpreted holiday, considering its origins as both a Celtic pagan holiday and a Christian day of vigil. Either way it does boil down to one aspect: The passing of life into death. Americans have gotten so afraid of death that they've become scared of even aging  Halloween lets us face that fear, and other fears, with a bit of whimsy.



Like the fear of giant Tootsie Rolls.

And, of course, let's not forget Jesusween, a word that instantly causes me to devolve into a 14 year old snickering boy.





LOL

So have a fun, safe Halloween everyone! (You ever notice no one says "Have a safe Christmas"?) And remember,  Dusted will be free to get October 25-26 and again October 31 through November 2 (You can get Dusted Here)



Do Something!

I've read a couple of teen books that have a similar theme going, one that really hits a nerve for me and is becoming more and more common in YA girl's books.

Let's see if you can spot it:



She's mostly made of angst and tears.

Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza had the potential for a lot of cool. I've been interested in it since before it even came out, but I've been disappointed so many times that I now physically recoil from books of authors I am unfamiliar with. However, the siren song of the Kindle Daily Deal and its low price of $2 was too much to pass up.

Mila 2.0 started out good. Mila gets in an accident and realizes she's an android, from there it's a whirlwind of cool as she's on the run with her adopted mother as they try to escape the group that created her. They capture her, of course, and then Mila spends the rest of the book emo-ing and freaking out that something is going to happen to her. She's pretty much paralyzed with fear until the last couple of chapters when she escapes and then the book suddenly runs out of pages just when it starts to promise that it will get better.





 A book about waiting.

Wither by Lauren Destefano was one I was even more nervous about. It looked angsty, it sounded angsty, but it also sounded pretty different from most YA books out there, and I once again was tempted by the Kindle version for $2.

This book, simply put, is about waiting. Rhine, the protagonist, bides her time the entirety of the story, of which spans ten months as she struggles with both a mix of fear and Stockholm Syndrome. She sits and waits for the perfect opportunity to escape her situation until, finally, the time presents itself and she promptly walks out.



Now, neither of these are, by any means, bad books. I didn't constantly roll my eyes and feel the need to throw them across the room (which, considering they're on a Kindle device, would be costly), but I didn't love them to bits either. I would consider reading the sequels of both, but only if they were less than five dollarydoos each.


An actual currency.

Both books have a large theme going: Both protagonists spent the majority of their time waiting for a specific opportunity, and in the meantime they wait. I'm actually specifically avoiding using the term "heroine" for the main characters because heroine is defined as "a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities." whereas protagonist is "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text."

Now, I'm not a feminist by any means, but if the main character is a docile bunny waiting for something to happen, then your readers are waiting for something to happen, too. You don't read books because you want to read about waiting, you read books sometimes because you are waiting.



Wait-ception.



You want vicarious action while you stand in line at the post office/bank/DMV.

This is all based on a writing article I read a long time ago that I wish I could find again. It was so inspiring to me that it has been probably the single piece of writing advice that I have taken to heart. I recall the (I'll word it more cleanly here) "Go out and do stuff" versus "Have stuff done to you" where the article-writer did a comparison of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.



The fact that I can find a picture of  Dorothy kicking the crap out
of Alice just means you can find anything on the Internet.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice falls down the rabbit hole and is promptly subjected to all manner of things. Everyone around her pushes, pulls, and directs her movements. Dorothy, meanwhile, has an objective at all times, she makes her own way through the world.

Ever since then I have read books (YA books in particular) keeping this concept in mind, because I find that when the protagonist is always being lead around, or is waiting for something to happen, I find myself getting more entertainment from counting the ceiling tiles.

I try to keep this concept in mind for my own writing as well. In Dusted it's somewhat of a mix, while Crystal and company do find themselves being led around sometimes, they do often set out on their own without someone pulling them along the entire way.

Of course, that's not to say everything should always go the protagonist's way. That creates a Mary Sue problem (of which I already discussed Here). Instead, sometimes you need the situation to spiral out of control of the main character, that creates conflict, but if the character is nothing but a rug to be walked all over, what's the point?

Living Away From My Parents (For 2 Weeks)

Here's a quick list of things I have learned just in the two weeks of living away from my parents:

Every noise will scare the crap out of you (the fridge squeaks whenever I walk by.)

If you forgot to do something, it will still be waiting for you instead of your mom taking care of it behind the scenes.

Hello 3-day unrefrigerated Waldorf Salad!

You will miss your parents, and cry (and apparently cry about 3-day unrefrigerated Waldorf Salad.)

Your parents start to act old really fast ("Look at these nifty reading glasses! I just bought a stylus for my phone! That's not a band saw, Dagwood!")

Your parents' house smells funny now.

The cats you left behind start acting really weird.



"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

Every time you visit your parents, you come back to your new home with groceries (or maybe that's just my parents?)

Laundry, although there is 50% less to wash and fold, will not do these things itself.

Dinner doesn't cook itself either.


There are positives, however:

You get to be a hard-working, responsib-

...

Moving on...

You get to decorate the living room, kitchen, etc as you see fit.



"This poster will look great in the dining room!"

Your parents' activities won't clash with yours (if your hobby is "sleep" and their hobby is "building a shelf" for example..."

You will truly learn the extent that your parents love you.

Kübler-Ross Model of Moving Out of my Parents' House




Psh, yeah right.

1. Denial

"There's no way we're going to find a suitable place."

After finding a suitable place:
"There's no way we'll be able to afford it."
After affording it:
"Moving my stuff is going to take a at least a month."

Five days after closing my mattress is already on the floor of my new bedroom:
"...Hello?"





%@!#)%#%!#$!!

2. Anger

"How dare they just kick me out! They're going to regret it once the chicken eggs/dishes/uneaten Cheetos/other chores I do pile up!







There's no soft water here!

3. Bargaining
"Please! Please! I'll do anything! I'll gather chicken eggs more often, I'll actually do dishes, I'll stop eatin
g all of your Cheetos! Just don't make me leave!





Whaaaaa!!1!!!one!!!111

4. Depression

It's late at night and there's a massive thunderstorm making the house shake. Things are suddenly a lot quieter and I have no one to talk to and hang out with. I don't know how I'm going to do this. I miss my parents and my kitties and my computer.





And my computerized kitty.

 

5. Acceptance

 

I'm not going to bother with pants today since I'd just get them dirty during my marathon of both watching Revolution and eating bacon.



Sorry!

No big reveal just yet. I meant to catch that last posting before it auto-posted, but with the move and all I didn't have the chance! Even now I'm not using a computer, so if anything seems wonky I apologize.

I'm pretty sure I'm posting via a turtle with USB ports.

Everything about the move has been going well, so I should be back to editing soon!

Still Editing!

Expect a big reveal next week!

I'm Moving!

With Dusted having sold billions of copies I have decided my Money Room is getting far too small and need to relocate somewhere far more posh. Behold, my new house:

It has 34 bedrooms, 47.5 bathrooms, 3 kitchens all fully staffed, 18 fireplaces, and a monocle room, all on a lush 349 acres.

...But seriously, I am moving.

Expect moving adventures soon!

Writing with Music

Writing is all about jotting down the images in your head. Music, I find, forms a lot of those images. Put together they make for some pretty good work. Depending on the scene I'm trying to create, I'll listen to different types of music.

Here's an example of some of the music I listen to while writing:

Better yet, if you ever find yourself stuck on writing a scene, try listening to something that you think would help fit the mood of it. If you can, make it something new that you've never heard before because you don't want to get tied up listening to music you already associate with something.

If you find yourself really stuck, don't listen while you're trying to write. Just put on some good music, find a good chair, and zonk out for a while. Just don't let this happen.

Same Book, Different Cover

Good News Everyone!



You just totally read that in his voice.

 

 

Dusted is getting a revamp.

 

It's been nagging at me for a while now. There are all these little things, like spelling errors, adding to the legalese on the inside of the book (don't want anyone thinking it was based on true events, nope, not at all...), extras, and the description.

 

Though it wasn't until recently that I considered doing all of these in a single thing. It started with the thought of the cover, inspired by reading a little bit of H.P. Mallory's Publishing How-To Book, and went from there.

 

 

Dusted, I'll admit, has a pretty bland cover. When setting it up against covers within the same genre I realized fades terribly into the background. There's no focus point, no color wheel reference, nothing. Expect news about it in the future.

Until then, I'm here to talk about covers.

Most of what I've mentioned about covers either mention how to put them together or else pointing out several books that have the same cover today I'm going to talk about the opposite of the second one, the same book, but with several different covers. I'm going to use the first Maximum Ride book as an example because it's evolved a lot over the years.

 

  

Here's the original cover for Maximum Ride, and the one that grabbed me right from the beginning (hint: it was the wings). It's not trying too hard, really. But it was also published back in 2005, before the whole Vampire Teen Angst Explosion that hit about 2007 (in 2005 it was a time for Young Teen Adventure, as we were flying high with Harry Potter) This one was for the hardback as well as the mass market paperback that came out a year later.

This was the first redesign, and published as a trade paperback, the most teen-friendly format for books. It's got action (heck it looks like a scene from a comic book) and the tagline "You've gotta soar to survive."

Same tagline, new look. The girl is now the focus on the cover (as we're not fully into Vampire Teen Angst Explosion of which covers are prominently girl's faces) and the wings are toned down.

When Max: A Maximum Ride Novel (derp) was published in 2009, I think this redesign was chosen to match the new look of the series. It looks more geared toward the adult market, hoping to appeal to James Patterson readers rather than YA readers.

And, finally, the final cover that matched the last three books starting with Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel (another derp). New tagline ("Meet Max. Welcome to her nightmare") and full-on angst-girl face on cover.

In fact, here's a lovely compilation of covers that I found while looking for the above ones.

It should give you an idea of the evolution of the rest of the covers (although they are out of order) and how the market for covers has changed over the course of 5-7 years, as well as the change depending upon the audience they are trying to grab.