Pep Card: Day 17

[age.livejournal.com]

Pep Card: Day 17

The Billboard Liberation Front is a group of pranksters who monkey with high-profile billboards posted around the San Francisco Bay Area. The BLF's intricate changes to the signs, done in fonts and colours identical to the ads they're altering, often take place in broad daylight, yet the group is rarely caught. The secret: Members wear bright orange vests and workman's clothes. The lesson here: If you dress the part, you can get away with anything. Whenever I'm feeling like a writing fraud, I get out my novelist costume and find it always lifts my mood.

Today, try putting together your own novelist ensemble, and see what wonders it works for your writing mood.

Day 17 flashcard from the No Plot? No Problem! writing kit, the genius brainchild of Chris Baty.


Any CosPlay folks out there wanna share tips/give the rest of us some pointers?

:D

Comments

[dreamoflight.livejournal.com]

I actually do have a sort of appropriate metaphor... xD

When I started making costumes, I had half a year of basic sewing instructions under my belt. I knew how to use a machine and follow a pattern, and do a few other basic things. The costume I wanted to make, though, was a little strange, and I couldn't find a commercial pattern that matched it, so I decided to make my own. "I don't think you can do that..." my mother told me, but I shrugged and did it anyway, taking bits and pieces from different patterns I had lying around and chopping them up. I didn't know how to make a certain type of pleat, so I messed around with paper until I figured it out, and then I just did it. In the end, I came up with something that worked; maybe the sleeve was sewed on a little strangely, and the trim on the collar didn't look quite right, but it was the best damn job I could do, and I was happy with it.

It was only afterwards that my mother told me how hard doing things like that was supposed to be. I hadn't even considered the difficulty, and had just forged ahead-- it was something I wanted to do, and so I did it. I take the same approach to writing. If all through November I were saying "This is supposed to be really hard, not that many people can do it, I don't know if it'll turn out right, what if I forget to add in all the details I want," I'd never write a single word and end the month defeated and drained with nothing on the page. Don't let yourself get in your own way!

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

Tom Wolfe, of the famous white suits, says he has one pair of blue jeans that he puts on when he's absolutely got to stay at his desk and write, because he would never be seen in public in them.

[aka-meerkat.livejournal.com]

I've heard about the 'novelist outfit thing' before, and I still can't picture in my head what one might look like.

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

I often wear a hat when I'm writing. But then, I often wear a hat when I'm not writing, too!

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Writer costume:

Go to dollar store or other emporium of cheap goods. Buy those magic stretch gloves which look like they were knitted for teeny people. Take home, cut off fingers of gloves at point where they are just below first knuckle. (Keeps hands and wrists warm while allowing you to touch type, conjures writer in garret air)

Tweed jacket. Leather patches on elbows optional. Can be slung over back of nearby chair as if you were likely to rise and go for a brisk walk with Papa Hemingway at any moment. Substitute a disreputable cap if no tweed jacket.

Teacup and saucer. Mismatched patterns are fine. Bottle of whiskey in desk drawer optional.

[age.livejournal.com]

...That's awesome. I'm so tempted to go out and do that now, on the first day that I have free time.

Thrift Store, here I come!

And major mad props to those that actually do go out for walks in the outfit!

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

I was at a writer's conference last July wearing a linen suit and a Panama hat. An agent came directly up to me and said, "Don't tell me... You're writing a noir mystery." Gave me a perfect lead-in for my pitch.

[blood-of-winter.livejournal.com]

thats pretty cute...my writer costume is black jeans, black turtleneck and black doc martens..it puts me in a writerly mood