I started November with TeslaCon V. There were dinosaurs. The end. Wait.
Okay, not the end. There was lots of stuff happening, and I did many things. I was actually not feeling too great that weekend, so there were fewer shenanigans than previous years, but I talked to a bunch of cool people, exchanged some business cards, and otherwise made connections. I even talked to the organizer of the Geneva Steam Con's Midwinter Carnival about doing a basic costuming seminar there! I haven't submitted anything official, so that probably won't happen this year, but as this is the second time I've talked about/recieved encouragement to do a talk at a steampunk con, I think that's a sign that I should put some more effort in and make a Plan for the next time such an opportunity presents itself. Also, a desire to just... Not Move for a while due to a migraine-type situation led me to a three-hour workshop on traditional hand tailoring, which was AMAZING, and I'm looking around for some sort of project where I can actually use this knowledge.
Next up, I finally ceased procrastinating and emailed a professor in the admissions department of the grad school I'm planning to apply to, regarding my choice of writing sample... I had hoped to add annotations to an adaptation of 4.48 Psychosis that I did in undergrad (which I'm very proud of), and was wondering if that would work as the writing sample for my application.
...The answer was No. An encouraging no, expressing some apparently genuine interest in the adaptation itself, but still No. They want a traditional research paper for admissions. Which may not have been a big deal if I'd asked as soon as I decided to try for grad school in September, but late November? With a month's notice and major retail and food holidays right on the horizon, it just... wasn't doable. After three years out of the academic loop, I don't even have a clue what I'd write ABOUT, let alone the resources to get research done quickly. Even if I could have churned out a paper in time, it wouldn't have been good enough to get me into the program - my undergrad GPA was below the official admission requirement, so the rest of my application materials need to be practically perfect just to get in on academic probation. And I got the email with this news about an hour before heading to my day job for a shift that would have been awful even if I hadn't been conducting it under an internal monologue berating myself for being a self-sabotaging screwup and fraud incapable of following through on promises.
So, yeah, that right there has been the biggest reason I haven't posted. No excuses, no "I've been busy" talk. Just I've been very, very bummed, my confidence has gone to the wayside, and I haven't wanted to face the internet. There's a bunch of stuff I've gotten halfway into doing (updating Etsy listings, reading various news tabs, red-inking rules systems, etc.), but I trip up at the point of actually engaging with the outside world productively, as that engagement felt like it required a Herculean effort of will for a while there. I've pretty much patched my head back together now, but I'm still kind of stuck in a state of "Well, now what?" My larger Life Plans have suddenly been delayed by at least a year, I don't really know what to do with that, and that uncertainty has infected my other pursuits, as well.
One upside of suddenly going full hermit (as opposed to my normal state of being as a mild recluse) is that I finally got around to spending the Amazon gift card my grandparents got me for my birthday. I got Neil Gaiman's Make Good Art speech (as adapted for print by Chipp Kidd) and Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking, and I considered getting a ukelele as a nice thematic pairing with the books (specifically, this dark purple one), but I still lacked faith in my ability to follow through on things I say I'm going to do, which made picking up an instrument again seem less like a fun distraction and more like a sad purple reminder of how much I fail. So I got a life-sized realistic raven puppet, which is hilarious and awesome and I've been wanting for a while, instead. I like my raven. Perhaps if I actually manage to get a tax return this year, I will reward myself by getting the ukelele with my own money. And then I will play songs to my ridiculous stuffed raven.
In the meantime, the books turned out to be exactly what my brain needed. Lots of good perspective and encouragement regarding the trials and tribulations of trying to make a life out of the arts, without sugarcoating OR trying to scare anyone away. I'm still working my way through Art of Asking (I don't get much time to just sit down and read), and it's sort of like iodine and a bandaid for the skinned knee that is my angsty mental state... they sting and pull, but using them makes it feel all better after a while. And speaking of books, I also received copies of the first 12 Dresden Files audiobooks (and the short story collection) for my birthday, and those have also been a huge help. When I'd rather be distracted than treated, having James Marsters read epic stories about shockingly human fantasy heroes to me via my computer is the best thing ever. And now that I've listened to ALL of them, it's very difficult to stop myself from spending way too much money (relative to what I have, that is) on the next three... because damn, that Book 12 cliffhanger was a doozy.Anyways, sorry for being an absent downer. But, there's a bright side for you! I've quietly been making things and coming up with plans to make more things along the way. Working at a fabric store has done wonders for the Initial Pondering part of my creative process for costuming - I spend a lot of time handling new fabrics and going "Ooh, this could be turned into THIS, or be the ideal thing to do THAT." Of course, a job with a not-insignificant commute makes transitioning to the next phase of design a little harder, but I've also managed to acquire a bunch of tools on the cheap (yay, employee discount and knowledge of major sales!) that make designing a lot easier, too. I THINK (maybe) that I've reached a sort of critical mass of Pondering that means I'll crank out a bunch of cool new stuff soon - fingers crossed! I also got another custom leg wrap order (this time of multiples!), so I've added a few new colors to my stock - just need to update my Etsy page with pictures. Finally, the next Deeplight event is on February 6th-7th, and I'll be selling my wares there again.
Pictures and more detailed updates about the cool stuff soon! Pinkie swear!
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