anachred

I've been working on my yarn business again lately.  This means time on Etsy,  (oh perilous place, and sly) and trying to network my way into sales.

I've discovered quite a few things to love along the way. Backfiring? I don't know... having things I want to buy, to motivate me to do better at selling isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Right?
Right?!


This is my latest listing: Under River Aracthus, titled after a scene in The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner.

I'd like to sell this so I can buy:
That Old Black Magic by ButterflyGirlDesigns
...even though I'm planning to create some very similar batts to make a Raven King yarn. (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell are neither of them the main interest in that book, you know.)

In tag surfing, to kind of see how my items are comparing, and who is doing similar things, I come across the greatest random geek stuff. (That tag is "geekery".)

Fawkes, fiery handspun by msfledermaus

Mallorn, which you can see here, by Authentic Fiction

This one's no longer available, but it's name/color combo was PERFECT.
Bert and Ernie by Ethical Threads



GuttersnipeYarn for sure does not need *my* press, but how awesome is she? Let me count the ways:

~ She does "Costume Flick" yarns. This means... Austen characters. She has a Wickham yarn. She has a Harriet Smith yarn.
Yes, this is fabulous, and my envy is part awe.
~ She also has a whole Sweeney Todd category, which is awesome because the color scheme of the movie was, from what I can tell without watching it. ^_^
~ She does Steampunk yarn with Stuff to put in.



Lydia Bennett, Violets Between the Cobblestones, and Glitzy Sweeney, respectively.



I think I'm going to have to postpone my non-yarn favorites sharing until another time, but look forward to it. There's photography, jewelry, and...Lego Wizard keychains.

I'm sad about a few things right now...
genuinely sad in little ways, not depressed.
It's odd to be used to mild depression and have to think, to recognize sadness. We don't respect sadness as a culture. That's twisted.


I am sad.
A professor with a huge influence over me, and my best friends, and my mother and people who never heard his name died the other day.
He has thrown off a lot of suffering in body, but also took with him a brilliant mind, sparklingly clear and acute to the end.
We miss him.

I am sad.
My friend Justice, who is tiny but still a person, and one I love very much, is not going to be with me every day anymore. A more convenient babysitter has come up. I may be needed to fill in, it may be it stops working out.
But I know enough of saying goodbye to not deny that I will miss him.

I am sad:
I have discovered a wound, and though it is old, I am feeling the hurt for myself back then. I am stitching my scar-coat with honest tears that don't burn so much if I don't try to push them back.

And I am allowed to be sad.
You are, too.



And, I am *not* sorry if I am embarrassing you. You're allowed to be embarrassed as much as sad. And I will not feel guilty for it.
If, however, you need some other way to relate to me, I wrote a much less maudlin poem the other day open for critique:
My Almost-Functional Steam Engine Mind

"Orson Scott Card sold a new steampunk series aimed directly at the YA market to Anica Rissi at Simon & Schuster's Pulse. Agent Barbara Bova of the Barbara Bova Literary Agency sold World English rights to the first three books in the as-yet-untitled series, which is scheduled to debut, in hardcover, in Spring 2011."   {rest of the article}


On the homepage at SFScope, which also has really relieving article about Realms of Fantasy's sale (!) that will keep it from going under.


But still moreso Orson Scott Card working on a YA steampunk fantasy!

This is right up there with the Colfer sequel for Hitchhiker's Guide...




In thematically related news of less import: I am currently working on my Asian-Cowboy-Punk outfit, for the con perhaps. Draft pictures to come soon?

I know such creative people I surely rank in the richest world-wide for it...




My childhood friend Dani hand-made these wings for her costume. They are about 10 feet across.
She's studying art at Gordon College, and would love to go into film special effects props and costuming. (If Facebook hints are any clue, I think a different picture of her was in the Boston Globe.) She's enormously talented, and I wish I was closer geographically to her, coz then I could stalk her.
   Uh, in a friend sort of a way, of course.

And though terribly anti-climactic, I will post my own costume photo:



Got any eye-candy links to share today?

nanowrites
This morning I commenced with 1580 words. Since 2000 a day is my Sundays-off wordcount, I guess it's not terrible, but I am being valiant to hardly any avail right now.... Currently at:
2619 words. Which is what, halfway done for the day's requirements? *gah*

syned, a brik

Happy November!

I did get to write a little PrePoisson this morning before work. Right now I'm writing my Steampunk One-Act Musical, or the short story version. It is the story of a Kidnapped Sky-Pirate Gypsy Princess Engineer, piloting an airship under duress for a Runaway Prisoner Orphan Officer Rake. They will encounter Sheep.

It's a very nice mental break. My costumes for Halloween and DIckens are both related to her character. (Though Dickens I'm going for the Ballooning Girl-Engineer Automata concept, just because I thought of it.)


BTW: my mom had met her NaNo word-count by the time I left the shower this morning. That is, 8 o'clock. (I'm working today: though not until 10, JOY.)


I just bought some plum and wasabi roving bundles to spin. I am happy about that.

My steampunk novel simmers, sticky there
and ready, launching evolutions strange
And brass lamps, mist and bursts of flame now haunt
The crannies of my mind to birth, devour.


This is actually an exercise in iambic pentameter from The Ode Less Travelled. I've been inching my way into it, in my endeavor to take myself more seriously as a poet. More seriously, as opposed to very seriously. Because I hate it when I take myself too seriously.
    {Most poets on the forums seem to be so sensitive and so rude. Sound like an explosive combination? It is...and sometimes I'm the only one who knows how critique. Which means yes, I am the spark in the powder keg. You wouldn't know it to look at me.}
I got ahead of the game and used both enjambment AND caesura (which the British author says is spelled cesura in America, which I think a crying shame) but that's just because it all comes so naturally. Also, I was getting bored

I do not pick up the poetry-writing book if I have a great poem of my own to write instead.

If the "sticky" seems a little obscure, this is my favorite phrase for the time of novel development when whatever you come across gets sucked into the cohesion of the budding story. I got it from Jennifer Crusie.

And I don't have a steampunk novel. Yet. I'm finding influences for it everywhere these days, though.


Speaking of Steampunk:
Dickens on the Boulevard

Claremore Mainstreet Association does an event every year with a small artisan's village, Victorian period dress contests, and dancing. (Virginia Reel, waltzes...)
And my family, because we are sick and almost always sacrifice ourselves for dubious causes, have decided what our event contribution is this year. (Year before last it was a pro-Abolitionist play. A period schoolroom last year. Or maybe that all needs to shift back, not sure.) We are creating:

A Steampunk Smoking Room
Where there will be no smoking, because of various laws and expectations of society. (At least...not much.)
But it will be Steampunk!
We will be providing a rest area and mission center for the street-urchins who play carols on the sidewalks, an alternative aesthetic (read: a change for the Powells) and an environment for conversation which the rest of the event distinctly lacks.

I was going to pretty this up with pictures, before I found that I had none. Even the Internet failed me. Whatever that means...
So I am reduced to what every self-respecting but thwarted Aesthete must do: CHEAT.



I would say it looks rather like this, only darker and more indistinct.
Speaking of which, can you believe Daylight Savings time doesn't end until November? Gah. The sun doesn't rise until 7:45 these days, and that is just wrong so early in the year.

If you're local, let me know if you're interested in being at Dickens!