Halloween - A Bloody Good Night

This isn't particularly writing related but it's creative and imaginative so it still counts.
So, yesterday was Halloween (one of my favourite holidays ever) and that means dressing up! Now being me I always go all out when it comes to costumes and this was no exception. I had originally intended to go as a zip-face but I had no latex and sadly it just didn't work out. Instead I went as a gory burn victim. Or as someone who died in a car crash. Or who got caught in a chainsaw massacre...

I love doing make-up and face painting, and fake blood is just the best. My recipe is lots of golden syrup, some red food colouring, and a spoonful of Nutella. So not only does it look great it tastes great too! Which is good, as it was dripping down my face and into my mouth all night. Yummy! I used PVA glue to create scabby, flaky skin. And boy, did that hurt to get off. It was actually like pulling off my real skin, and it was in my hair - ouch! I was so sticky for the whole evening. Although it was worth it because a lot of people looked freaked out when they saw me and said that it was a good costume/make-up. I get really annoyed when I see people dressed as slutty cats. It requires no effort. And it's not like a cat is even the best Halloween animal out there. What about a slutty bat, or slutty wolf?
I have considered doing movie make-up before as a career, but how do you get into that? I would love to do the make-up for some horror film or something like Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, imagine doing all the dwarves' make-up! I imagine you have to be a make-up artist first but I don't care about making people look pretty, I want to make them look outrageous!
Oh well. I'll stick to writing for now but you never know where the future may take me!

Gothic Book Covers

I was pretty bored tonight. It wasn't like I didn't have anything to do -  I have so much work to do, it's unreal - I just couldn't be bothered to do any of it. So what do I do when I procrastinate  I draw! Well, this is kind of the same, it's arty at least. Instead of doing any writing, which is what I should really be doing, I designed some covers for my ECP. (Read the First Draft now!) I don't know what to call my ECP; I've just named it Scribe for now. I'm not a Photoshop genius even if I'd like to be, so these were only designed on Microsoft Word.

You can probably tell some of the themes from these covers, at least I hope you can. Obviously, as it's do with Edgar Allan Poe I have some ravens. The second one features everybody's favourite: The Red-Faced Man. The second and third cover actually feature the same bookcase as the background but you can't really tell. The first one has a large manor house as the background, this is to do with the creepy house that the spirit-thingy of Edgar Allan Poe lives in. I haven't decided yet but the name of the house may be either Otranto House, Villa Belle Rive, or Villa Diodati. Otranto House has been taken from one of the first Gothic novels entitled The Castle of Otranto which seemed fitting for my story. The other two are variations on the house that Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and others stayed in one summer and is the birthplace of the story Frankenstein. 

Overall, my ECP is coming along quite nicely. I have written another 3,000 words and now have over 6,000! I have sent a second draft to my supervisor so let's see what she thinks next week.

Gothic Village Map

Here is a map of my so far unnamed town (I'm having real problems thinking of a Gothic sounding name that doesn't sound silly). All the street names are taken from Gothic novels or the lives of Gothic writers; you may recognise a few.

ECP First Draft Feedback

I had a meeting with my supervisor on Monday about my Extended Creative Piece - First Draft. I was dreading it, because while my supervisor is a nice person, she can be a bit iffy. She says one thing to your face but when it comes to marking it her views are very different. I was also pleased with the work I had done and didn't want her to hate it, meaning I'd have to rewrite it entirely. So it was with some trepidation that I made my way to her office.

And yet, all this fear was unfounded.

She was happy to see me and friendly from the beginning. She even offered me tea and/or coffee, which I declined; I was way too nervous to drink. Her mugs looked questionable anyway. The first thing she said about my ECP was that she really enjoyed the beginning. She said it included a good sense of place, she knew who the character was, and it had a great opening line. Obviously this left me beaming. Of course, there were a few tiny mistakes, like clunky sentences, awkward wording, that sort of thing. Common things that can be easily sorted. What she really loved was this part, it had two ticks!

'Very well. I understand,' she said at last and Perry's hopes rose. 'But everyone will stay behind for ten minutes to make up for all the time you wasted with your elaborate display.' The whole class groaned as one and glared at Perry as he made his way back to his chair. The only person who didn't seem to mind was Gregory, who was still drawing eyes even though his pen had run out of ink.' 

She also liked the idea of the red-faced man and was impressed with the drawing I had done. She said that I should try to include it in my piece, like maybe at the beginning of each chapter.

However, she found the character change half-way through jarring. She said that the story was just getting into the action when it suddenly goes back in time to Lenore. I explained that I wanted to see everything from Lenore's point of view as she is really the main character. I had only put Perry's part first as I knew boys would be put off reading a female protagonist, while girls just wouldn't care. My supervisor agreed but I said I would rework it so that the two points of view run side by side, or something similar.

Overall, while I'm writing some good parts, I still need to work on developing the setting and being inside my characters head - seeing everything from their point of view and reacting in a way that they would. I have to have written another 3,000 words for two weeks time, as well as editing the first 3,000. That's on top of two essays and many creative pieces.

And people said third year would be hard...