Today I was walking through the aisles upon aisles (upon aisles…) of Halloween costumes and supplies at our local Value Village, and found myself faced with a significant amount of “fairy” outfits. Among these were costumes for an ‘evil fairy’, a ‘demon fairy’, a ‘copper fairy’ (what the…?), a ‘goth fairy’…

Now, don’t get me wrong – at a basic level, I’m impressed that the majority of adult fairy costumes actually attempt to correctly represent original faerie nature, before the dumbing down that began in Victorian England and cemented itself in Disney lore.

How is this relevant to writing in ANY way? Well, I’m so glad you asked.

You see, this year’s NaNoWriMo topic falls into the realm of the fay in Ireland. Yes, I’m writing a fairy story… but with real faeries. I’ve noticed a number of authors taking this direction lately, and it’s heartening. However, I want to write my own.  And so, we come to the point of convergence with Value Village costumes.

One of the threads on the NaNo forums is called ‘Let’s all dress up like our MCs on Nov.1st!!!’, to which I posted something along the lines of “fat chance, my MC is a 9-year-old boy”. However, the faerie queen will play a significant part within the story, something which just so happened to occur to me as I walked the aforementioned aisles…

No, I didn’t end up purchasing a costume. Yes, I did carry one around the store with me for about 40 minutes as I looked at other things, only putting it down at the last minute when I began to feel slightly doubtful that I would actually use it more than once.

But who I am kidding. A dress with wings? That’s got year-round written all over it.

I may go back tomorrow.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 4:15 am and is filed under Fiction on Foccacia, NaNoWriMo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One comment

Emz0r
 1 

I am SO there! I will totally dress like a young boy, or a girl that is practically feral OR like ye olde Galileo on Nov. 1st! I Looooove dressing up, and yes, i can now write D&T dispassionatly and basically for YOU. ANd that may be how I keep my pot boiling. I hope there is a luscious vegetable stew inside that someone else made!

October 17th, 2008 at 2:41 am