From Costume-Hating to Cosplay Happiness

When I was a kid, I only ever dressed in costume for Halloween. And that consisted of going to the local Kmart and picking out one of those plastic suits that went over your clothes and tied at the back of your neck like a hospital gown. They came with a matching mask--a mask that had eye holes in the wrong place and tiny little "nostril" holes you could barely breathe through. So, you ended up breathing through your mouth a lot, which meant your breath condensed on the inside of the mask.

BTW, that is just a random photo I found online. I have no idea who those kids are. I grabbed the image, though, because it looks so, so much like the photos of my brother and I when we were kids dressed up for Halloween.

Add to all the misery above the fact that I lived in Florida, where it's either steamy-hot or wet-cold in October, and you can understand why the only thing that excited me about Halloween was the candy. And why I didn't exactly jump on the cosplay bandwagon until very recently.

Sure, I went to a party with my husband once where we dressed as cave people, because cheap and easy. Many years later I found a witch's dress on clearance and snagged it, and I've worn that to a couple of Halloween events. But both are so far away from what we know as cosplay today.

Five years ago, though, was the first time I for realz cosplayed. I dressed as River Song for the award banquet at the first ever Realm Makers conference. (You can read about my experience making her gun holster here.) After that, I went with Professor Trelawney from the Harry Potter series. (A great excuse to use one of my handmade wands!) And my favorite was the year I dressed up as a gender-bent Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors, complete with handmade Audrey 2.

Audrey 2 now sits proudly on my dresser next to my answering machine. Wish I could teach him to answer the phone and scare off telemarketers.

No, that's not where he is now, but this is a better shot. 

The past two years I've gone a bit more...generic. At last year's Necronomicon and this year's Realm Makers, I just dressed in Medieval clothing. And then at this year's Necronomicon, I decided to go very basic Steampunk.

Yep, I had to sneak in a little plug for the anthology, Victorian Venus, that contains one of my short stories.

Anyway, you might notice, although probably not, that the shirt I'm wearing for my Steampunk outfit is the same one I wore as Seymour. That's because I'm a firm believer in re-purposing. I'm also all about thrift shop bargains for costumes, which is where the shirt came from. As did the Steampunk boots, Seymour's vest, my dress for Trelawney, and the hideous purse I used to fashion the holster for River Song's gun. (Again, check out the link I gave you for details on that.) Most of the other clothing is from my closet or the clearance rack. It's really the hunt that makes this fun. And frustrating at times.

My favorite part, though, is the prop-making. In every costume, I have something completely made from scratch.

For River Song, it was the holster.
For Trelawney, it was my wand.
For Seymour, it was Audrey 2.
For the Medieval outfit, it was the cloak. (And technically a staff that wasn't in the photo.)
For the Steampunk outfit, it was the gun that I made from a dollar store ray gun:

Unfortunately I didn't take a pic of the final-final product. Once I got into costume at Necronomicon, I stuck a tea light (the base of which I'd spray-painted to match the gun) on the end.

So, now, it's on to the next idea. What will that be? Oh, I'm not telling! But in a few months, when it's all finished, I promise there will be pictures. 

Shakespeare's Sonnet

One of the coolest characters in Toch Island Chronicles is Gregor's cat, Shakespeare. The reason he's so cool is that he's a real cat. My best friend's cat. This is Shakespeare:

Unlike humans, cats don't get offended by being portrayed in stories exactly as they are. Cats are not humble, and don't pretend to be. The Toch Island Shakespeare is 100% the same as the real-life Shakespeare. He looks just like this. He demands the same kind of attention. He fully knows his awesomeness.

Sadly, the real Shakespeare passed away a few months ago. And ever since, I've had an idea blossoming in my head. You see, he's Shakespeare's namesake--the person Shakespeare, that is. And that Shakespeare wrote sonnets. His most famous is Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

If you're not familiar with the meaning of Sonnet 18, it's basically Shakespeare telling his love that she is more beautiful than a summer's day, than all of summer really--and not only that, she is unlike summer because summer will pass away, but she will not, because she has been immortalized in this very poem.

Kinda like Shakespeare the cat in my books.

So...I present "Shakespeare's Sonnet."

Shall I compare thee to the mythic beast?
Thou art more regal and more loved than they.
Their greatness reaches summit at thy least;
Thy greatness, words alone cannot convey.
A dragon's slay'd by mortal hands of knight,
A unicorn is but a horse with spire,
A griffin, nothing, lest he be in flight,
And phoenix dies and births from ash and fire.
But thy eternal magic shall not fade,
For it is registered forevermore.
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When pages of a book contain thy lore.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives Toch, and Toch gives life to thee.

The Trees of Toch Island

Trees play a big role in my Toch Island Chronicles books. In Finding Angel, Angel's friend and rescuer, Gregor, has the ability to make gateways using trees, magically connecting two different places and allowing him to travel great distances in seconds. I can't say for sure where the idea for that came from. I'm thinking that on some subconscious level it comes from my childhood.

When I was a kid, I lived out in the country. My yard had a lot of trees (great for pretending you're exploring an enchanted forest), and one in particular was my favorite. It slanted at about a 30-40 degree angle from the ground. I have no idea how it got that way--it looked as if it were partially knocked over and somehow re-rooted. The top of the tree had been cut off, and there was only a single large branch growing from its trunk, which because of the trunk angle grew straight up. (If you've read Finding Angel, you'll recognize that tree from Angel's back yard.)

That tree was where I spent many hours of my childhood. I loved walking up the trunk, turning around, and leaning against the upright branch. I listened to music like that, or read books, or simply sat and daydreamed. In a way, that tree transported me to other worlds, just as Gregor's Talent could transport him.

But it's not just Gregor's magic that makes the trees in Toch Island special. Many of the trees have magic of their own, and that magic comes from metal veining that runs through their wood. Why metal? That answer I don't have to speculate about. I made them that way intentionally. There is a very powerful tree on Toch Island called a platinum oak. Obviously, its veining is platinum. And its magic property is that of healing nearly any physical ailment. I created the platinum oak in my story world to represent the platinum-based chemotherapy that played a huge role in my conquering cancer. (That chemo is called cisplatin, and it's nasty stuff. But I'm here, and cancer-free for 13 years!) I gave other trees different magical properties, many of them related to the metals running through them.

Another special role trees play on Toch Island is that of marking the graves, and the lives, of the Elven once they have passed away. I can't really give details about this without spoilers, but suffice it to say they represent life after death. The tree chosen for each grave is representative of the person buried there as well. Trees are quite special to the Elven, as is everything in nature, and the forest of Toch Island is full of ancient ones--you never know which grew there on their own, and which mark the graves of Elven ancestors.

Ultimately, though, trees are simply what make up forests, and forests have an energy, a feeling that is like no other for me. There is just something about being among all the trees, sheltered by the canopy, knowing life is all around you, hidden, sometimes unheard in the dense silence. Being in the forest calms me and reminds me what our world is supposed to be. Also, I always have the sensation that fairies really do make their homes there...

Images like those I've posted here make me want to wander off into the forest for an adventure. To see more like them, visit my Pinterest board "Follow Me Into the Forest."