More inane babbling about costumes and NaNo

Oct 27, 2008 19:32


All right, I just had 20 different awesome ideas all at once while reviewing credit memo reports this morning, and I actually needed to take a long coffee break at work to type this up because I'm just too psyched about my brain right now.

Sharable idea the first: As excited as I am about the idea of being a post apocalyptic plague doctor for Halloween, I know myself too well; I'm too lazy to make an elaborate mask.  I'm not crafty enough to get motivated to make the mask.  Besides, if I were to go through the trouble of making the mask, I'd want to wear it to Dracula's Ball, too.  But the Halloween Ball gets insanely crowded, and my mask would take up too much valuable real estate-it's hard enough to push through the crowd without a large (and likely flimsy) beak.  So I think I'm going to take the easy way out and dress as Mrs. Lovitt for work, and then I'll dress as a steampunk valkyrie for Drac's Ball.  Which means I'll basically wear the clothing and boots I'd have worn for the post apocalyptic plague doctor costume, but instead of the mask, I'll don my valkyrie helm (which will, oddly enough, look smashing with my goggles).  Besides, I don't wear my valkyrie helm nearly enough. I've been reminiscing about May Day memories at WAC lately, and as such I've felt the need to run around in my valkyrie helm again (though this time I'll actually be clothed.  And I'm sure that sounds a lot more risque than intended to my readers who aren't initiated in the, um, literary traditions of my alma mater).

Sharable idea the second: I have determined the identity of the serial killer in my NaNoWriMo project.  The brain-flash I had last night about making a vague Elisabeth Bathory reference in my novel inspired me to recognize the serial killer/ "vampire" as a woman.  The opening scene can show a young, fairly inexperienced midwife in a little Carpathian village assisting with a very difficult labor.  When the child is born malformed, the superstitious villagers blame the midwife, believing she is cursed, and they drive her from the village in shame.  A few months later, the village receives the news that she is dead, and they breathe a sigh of relief.  On the anniversary of the night she was banished, however, a child is found dead, its body drained of blood.  As more children die, the villagers hire my Volpe character to exterminate the vampire responsible.  You all know the rest of the story: he doesn't believe in vampires, the Phoenix woman is a mysterious antagonist whom he ends up tracking as the killer (except of course she's not the killer, which will be proven when she vanishes and is presumed dead but children are still dying), and one of the first children killed will actually turn out to be a revenant and will presumably kill the midwife, who had faked her own death the year before.  Because the midwife is found dead and not at all decomposed, it reinforces the villagers' beliefs that she was a vampire, and they think Cpt. Volpe was triumphant, and so he can never escape his wretched reputation as a vampire hunter.  Of course, the Phoenix woman (whom I suppose I should refer to by her actual name-Adelina-rather than her nickname) will have returned just in time to get her hands dirty at the climax, and she will be the only other witness that the midwife was alive and responsible for all of the deaths, and she and Cpt. Volpe will (bleah) be all in love and junk.  Kind of.  I think I'd rather hint at sexual tensions and slight crushes (despite all of the vexation) throughout the novel rather than write an actual romantic subplot.  Things will just be implied at the end of the story.  Perfect!

And to my great excitement, tonight's episode of "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain" will be set in Romania!  PERFECTER THAN PERFECT!  Yes, I will be recording it.  And yes, I will be taking copious notes. I want to believe he is going to make a visit to Sighisoara, and he will be served calf's brains and he will get drunk on tuica.  I'm 99% positive that he will actually end up in Sighisoara after all so that he can dine at the restaurant that occupies the house in which Vlad Tepes was born and raised.  I will die of happiness if he includes copious footage of the city and its people.  OMG I CAN'T WAIT!

nanowrimo, romania, drac's ball, halloween

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