Work From Home, Is It Possible?

Work From Home, Is It Possible?

Everyone asks this question, and for those of you with this goal, you prob’ly find yourself asking it more than most people.

Yes, it is, and not really that hard to start either, though most find it hard to keep going. First you have to ask yourself, what is it you want to do?

The most successful work at home jobs are the ones you created yourself. Here are few examples of people I know who work at home:

My uncle started working at home in the 1960’s building clay bricks, and building houses for people out of them…today he owns a multi-million-dollar corperation that not only builds houses but also building brick churches, but he still runs the buseness out of his home, and he works longer and harder than the average non-home worker.

My mom worked at home too, she was a professional seamstress, sewing fancy dresses for little girls, christening gowns, and cloth dolls. At one point she bought her own brick and mortar store (the house next door to us) and was selling to summer tourists (in Old Orchard Beach we see an average of 2 million tourists each month), but the shop proved to be a bigger home business than my mother had expected. She had no time to sew the crafts anymore, which was her passion, so after 3 years, she shut it down and sold her items to other shops on consignment instead. Now she is hoping to build a web site and move her opperation online by next year.

My dad, he worked at home too, he was a rought driver for the local newspaper, delivering the Portland Press Herald, the Sunday Telegram, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times to over 1000 customers 7 days a week 365 days a year, with not one single day off for the past 21 years… his annual gas costs are over $5,000 each year, and he goes through 3 to 4 cars a year (rought driving is the number one killer of engines and transmissions) , his annual income was under $12,000 a year.

Another uncle of mine works at home, as a real estate agent. He at one point cliamed to own a multi million dollar alpaca farm in Austrailia. (I can’t verify that as I have never been to Austailia, so never saw the farm myself). Last I heard he had given up on the real estate business in favor of yet another work at home business he had set out to create. Don’t know the details on that, or if it succeeded or flopped.

And yet another uncle works at home, buying juck from yard sales and reselling it at flea markets. His income is average of less than $10,000 a year, but he does this as a side-line hobby. If he set out to do this full time instead of part-time in his spare time, he could easily triple that figure.

I work at home: I am a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and I own a small press publishing house which I built myself from the ground up. As most writers/publishers know already, you are lucky if you break even in this business, making it a true job of passion.

So in answer to your question, does work at home exist?

Yes, it does, but it is not a get-rich-quick-scam-artist-work-at-home; that type of work at home well banckrupt you quicker than you can blink. REAL work at home is when you take a skill and use it to help those around you. If you are hired by a business, they pay you for your product/service. If you start your own business, you get paid when your customers pay you. It may look like a private or small business to the world, but it is in fact you working out of your home and thus working at home. However, it is hard work, long hours, no vacation, you get dirty, you get tired, and in the long run, not working at home would have been much less stressful and much easier.

In short working at home is not a get rich quick scheme. Working at home IS NOT getting paid to take survies.
Working at home is not, clicking on ads on Google.

Working at home is you getting a business lisence and setting up shop, either online or brick&mortar, and selling your product or services to your customers. Most people are not cut out for the hard labor and long hours of working at home, but for those of you who are, it’s the best thing you could ever do..

Remember:

Employers ask you to fill out a job application, and will ask for past job referances, your SSN, and your criminal records history.

If you did not fill out an application, you did not apply for a real job.

If you filled out an application, but paid for the application form, you got scammed!

and if you can’t find a business to work for: start the business you want to work for an be your own boss in your own home.

We know this, saddly from experiance.

Back in the early 1980’s my mom saw just such an ad in a magazine. BIG promises of lots of money. She sent the money in, for not one ad but 2 differant ones. The first promised big bucks for sewing baby bibs, the second for making beaded earrings. Both ads were pretty much the same: send in a certain amount of money and they’d send you the supplies, you make the items and send them back to them, they sell them. Simple, sounded great, my mom had at one time been a seamstress, she thought she could sew up a storm of baby bibs for a legit company to sell them. That’s what we all thought, we should have read the fine print…or rather, we should have taken a notice that there was no fine print to read! Or maybe that it was a P.O.Box and not an actual address that was listed in the ad, that should have tipped us off.

Well, the supplies came, most of it cheap junk that we could have gotten cheaper and better quality at a dollar store, my mom haveing been a profesional seamstress thought that useing this absolute crap to make these items seemed pretty stupid and unprofessional but, that’s the items the company used so that’s what they sent…alarm bells should have gone off than…we should have realized that no REAL manufacturer, is gonna use such poor quality supplies to make their goods.

Well, we (my mom, my dad, and me) set out to sewing baby bibs and beaded earings. Comes time to send the items back and low and behold, the P.O.Box had been cancled, the “company” turned out to never have existed, and we were stuck with a bunch of stuff we couln’t use or sell.

We learned a lesson. It wasn’t a very big investment, less than $100, but it was not money well spent…or maybe it was, because it taught us to look at these scams with open eyes and questioning minds.

We learned a lot of things:

We learned to read ads more closely.
We learned to question “companies” with ONLY a P.O.Box.
We learned to ask the company for a job application form.
We learned to ask for a history of the company.
We learned to do a background check on the company.
We learned to never pay money to get a job.
We learned to REAL manufatures don’t put ads in magazine classified.
We learned to that most manufactures only hire local residants, so that the employee has to bring the items right in to the factory to be inspected, before the company well accept and pay you.
We learned that REAL jobs assembling items for manufactures, are rare and few and far between, and that you could be on a waiting list for years before they need enough help to get all the way down to your name on their list.

Now we have the internet, and it seems that with it came millions more ways to scam people out of their hard earned money. Every day thousands of new Work-At-Home, Get-Big-Bucks websites are added to the net. A Google search will bring up millions upon millions of them.

When I look at these sites, with their promises of BIG MONEY. I laugh. You see I own more than 200 web sites, 12 fanlistings, and 13 private message boards. I know how to build a website, quite well, maybe not to proffessional standards, but pretty darned close, and than I see these scam sites: many of them are made useing Geo-Cities, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, and countless other “free home pages”. Right off the bat that fact alone should set off a RED WARNING ALARM in any person, but it seems that many people do not even notice this fact, and send their money in.

A real company that intends to pay you to work for them, would not be useing a “free home page”. A small craft shop run by the sweet little old lady next door, might use a free home page to sell her knitting and cloth dolls, but she wouldn’t be asking you to send money to make money…no she’d show you a picture of her dolls with a price for each one. The Goth girl down the road might use a free site to peddel her homemade velvet capes, while the Wiccan next door lists home made soap on her MySpace. These are people like me and you who are working at home and selling what they make. These people are legit, and you’ll notice they never ask you to pay for a membership before they allow you to buy their products. These people are small business owners working from home.

The free sites that ask you to spend money to make money… those are the ones you got to watch out for. Those are the scams.

If you see a site made by a free home page site, and offering you lots of money for doing next to nothing, run for the hills, because there is no company that is going to use a free web host to seek out workers. Not a single one.

My hope in writing all of this is that it well help you to weed out the scams from the real work at home jobs.

To all: Good luck on your goal.

~~EK

See more progress on: Become Financially Independent

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Work From Home, Is It Possible?

Work From Home, Is It Possible?

Everyone asks this question, and for those of you with this goal, you prob’ly find yourself asking it more than most people.

Yes, it is, and not really that hard to start either, though most find it hard to keep going. First you have to ask yourself, what is it you want to do?

The most successful work at home jobs are the ones you created yourself…my uncle started working at home in the 1960’s building clay bricks, and building houses for people out of them…today he owns a multi-million corperation that not only builds houses but also building brick churches, but he still runs the buseness out of his home, and he works longer and harder than the average non-home worker.

My mom worked at home too, she was a professional seamstress, sewing fancy dresses for little girls, christening gowns, and cloth dolls. At one point she bought her own brick and mortar store (the house next door to us) and was selling to summer tourists (in Old Orchard Beach we see an average of 2 million tourists each month), but the shop proved to be a bigger home business than my mother had expected. She had no time to sew the crafts anymore, which was her passion, so after 3 years, she shut it down and sold her items to other shops on consignment instead. Now she is hoping to build a web site and move her opperation online by next year.

My dad, he worked at home too, he was a rought driver for the local newspaper, delivering the Portland Press Herald, the Sunday Telegram, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times to over 1000 customers 7 days a week 365 days a year, with not one single day off for the past 21 years… his annual gas costs are over $5,000 each year, and he goes through 3 to 4 cars a year, his annual income was under $12,000 a year.

Another uncle of mine works at home, as a real estate agent. He at one point cliamed to own a multi million dollar alpaca farm in Astrailia. (I can’t verify that as I have never been to Austailia, so never saw the farm myself). Last I heard he had given up on the real estate business in favor of yet another work at home business he had set out to create. Don’t know the details on that, or if it succeeded or flopped.

And yet another uncle works at home, buying juck from yard sales and reselling it at flea markets. His income is average of $10,000 a year, but he does this as a side-line hobby. If he set out to do this full time instead of part-time in his spare time, he could easily triple that figure.

I work at home: I am a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and I own a small press publishing house which I built myself from the ground up.

So in answer to your question, does work at home exist?

Yes, it does, but it is not a get-rich-quick-scam-artist-work-at-home; that type of work at home well banckrupt you quicker than you can blink. REAL work at home is when you take a skill and use it to help those around you. If you are hired by a business, they pay you for your product/service. If you start your own business, you get paid when your customers pay you. It may look like a private or small business to the world, but it is in fact you working out of your home and thus working at home. However, it is hard work, long hours, no vacation, you get dirty, you get tired, and in the long run, not working at home would have been much less stressful and much easier.

In short working at home is not a get rich quick scheme. Working at home IS NOT getting paid to take survies. Working at home is not, clicking on ads on Google. Working at home is you getting a business lisnce and settingup shop, either online or brick&mortar, and selling your product or services to your customers. Most people are not cut out for the hard labor and long hours of working at home, but for those of you who are, it’s the best thing you could ever do..

Remember:

Employers ask you to fill out a job application, and will ask for past job referances, your SSN, and your criminal records history.

If you did not fill out an application, you did not apply for a real job.

If you filled out an application, but paid for the application form, you got scammed!

and if you can’t find a business to work for: start the business you want to work for an be your own boss in your own home.

We know this, saddly from experiance.

Back in the early 1980’s my mom saw just such an ad in a magazine. BIG promises of lots of money. She sent the money in, for not one ad but 2 differant ones. The first promised big bucks for sewing baby bibs, the second for making beaded earrings. Both ads were pretty much the same: send in a certain amount of money and they’d send you the supplies, you make the items and send them back to them, they sell them. Simple, sounded great, my mom had at one time been a seamstress, she thought she could sew up a storm of baby bibs for a legit company to sell them. That’s what we all thought, we should have read the fine print…or rather, we should have taken a notice that there was no fine print to read! Or maybe that it was a P.O.Box and not an actual address that was listed in the ad, that should have tipped us off.

Well, the supplies came, most of it cheap junk that we could have gotten cheaper and better quality at a dollar store, my mom haveing been a profesional seamstress thought that useing this absolute crap to make these items seemed pretty stupid and unprofessional but, that’s the items the company used so that’s what they sent…alarm bells should have gone off than…we should have realized that no REAL manufacturer, is gonna use such poor quality supplies to make their goods.

Well, we (my mom, my dad, and me) set out to sewing baby bibs and beaded earings. Comes time to send the items back and low and behold, the P.O.Box had been cancled, the “company” turned out to never have existed, and we were stuck with a bunch of stuff we couln’t use or sell.

We learned a lesson. It wasn’t a very big investment, less than $100, but it was not money well spent…or maybe it was, because it taught us to look at these scams with open eyes and questioning minds.

We learned a lot of things:

We learned to read ads more closely.
We learned to question “companies” with ONLY a P.O.Box.
We learned to ask the company for a job application form.
We learned to ask for a history of the company.
We learned to do a background check on the company.
We learned to never pay money to get a job.
We learned to REAL manufatures don’t put ads in magazine classified.
We learned to that most manufactures only hire local residants, so that the employee has to bring the items right in to the factory to be inspected, before the company well accept and pay you.
We learned that REAL jobs assembling items for manufactures, are rare and few and far between, and that you could be on a waiting list for years before they need enough help to get all the way down to your name on their list.

Now we have the internet, and it seems that with it came millions more ways to scam people out of their hard earned money. Every day thousands of new Work-At-Home, Get-Big-Bucks websites are added to the net. A Google search will bring up millions upon millions of them.

When I look at these sites, with their promises of BIG MONEY. I laugh. You see I own more than 200 web sites, 12 fanlistings, and 13 private message boards. I know how to build a website, quite well, maybe not to proffessional standards, but pretty darned close, and than I see these scam sites: many of them are made useing Geo-Cities, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, and countless other “free home pages”. Right off the bat that fact alone should set off a RED WARNING ALARM in any person, but it seems that many people do not even notice this fact, and send their money in.

A REAL company would not be useing a “free home page”…a small craft shop run by the sweet little old lady next door, might use a free home page to sell her knitting and cloth dolls, but she wouldn’t be asking you to send money to make money…no she’d show you a picture of her dolls with a price for each one. The Goth girl down the road might use a free site to peddel her homemade velvet capes, while the Wiccan next door lists home made soap on her MySpace. These are people like me and you who are working at home and selling what they make. These people are legit, and you’ll notice they never ask you to pay for a membership before they allow you to buy their products. These people are small business owners working from home.

The free sites that ask you to spend money to make money… those are the ones you got to watch out for. Those are the scams.

If you see a site made by a free home page site, and offering you lots of money for doing next to nothing, run for the hills, because there is no company that is going to use a free web host to seek out workers. Not a single one.

My hope in writing all of this is that it well help you to weed out the scams from the real work at home jobs.

To all: Good luck on your goal.

~~EK

See more progress on: work because I like to, not because I have to

Pet Food ReCall Update: 100 humans dead?

I was just reading this blog:

If I only knew then…

(5/29) Head of China’s Food and Drug Agency sentenced to death/Nutra Nuggets recall

from there, I was sent to the CBS News report on the execution of the man believed to be responcable for not only the pet food contamination, but also the deaths of 100 humans due to pharmicudical contamination, and suspected of being responcable for as many as 200,000 human deaths in the past 7 years!

SHOCKING NEWS!

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Pet Food ReCall Update: 100 humans dead?

I was just reading this blog:

If I only knew then…

(5/29) Head of China’s Food and Drug Agency sentenced to death/Nutra Nuggets recall

from there, I was sent to the CBS News report on the execution of the man believed to be responcable for not only the pet food contamination, but also the deaths of 100 humans due to pharmicudical contamination, and suspected of being responcable for as many as 200,000 human deaths in the past 7 years!

SHOCKING NEWS!

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Pet Food ReCall Update: 100 humans dead?

I was just reading this blog:

If I only knew then…

(5/29) Head of China’s Food and Drug Agency sentenced to death/Nutra Nuggets recall

from there, I was sent to the CBS News report on the execution of the man believed to be responcable for not only the pet food contamination, but also the deaths of 100 humans due to pharmicudical contamination, and suspected of being responcable for as many as 200,000 human deaths in the past 7 years!

SHOCKING NEWS!
 

‘End of the World’ Might Not be the End of ‘Pirates’

**** [QUOTE] Avast me hearties, I have good news for all you Pirates of the Caribbean fans. LA Times confirms rumors that Johnny Depp is willing to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow and that a fourth Pirates of Caribbean film might not be such a far fetch dream….[/QUOTE]

I’m hoping that the rumors are true…. and now (just home from the theater and seeing that POTC 3 didn’t end,) looks likely that a 4 may be coming!

read more | digg story

Quick One Minute Review: POTC 3

Just back from Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 with my three brothers. Super cool.

Johnny Depp is great, as is Johnny Depp, and so was Johnny Depp, and ohhh look there’s Johnny Depp over here and another Johnny Depp over there…. how many Johnny Depps can you count? LOL! Funny!

Best scene:
The Black Pearl cruising full speed and full sail across the desert sand dunes. Amazing!

Most amazing special effects:
The decent into the maelstrom! Awesome action packed scene!

Should win an award for:
Best movie wedding in history!

Shocker:
Crazed fan girls beware: DEATH ALERT; one of your fave pirates doesn’t make it to the end of the movie!

Best quote:
“Nobody move! I dropped my brain!” ~ Jack Sparrow or was that Jack Sparrow… oh wait, no, it was Jack Sparrow.

Insider advice to those who have yet to see it:
Stay until the VERY END… stay in your seat, and watch the words go by. AFTER the words go by, watch for a surprise “second” ending.
If you already watched it, and you didn’t stay to see what happens after the words go by… than you missed a very important part of the movie: YOU MUST GO BACK AND WATCH THE MOVIE AGAIN!

Ultimate question:
This movie didn’t actually “end”; like the ending of POTC 2, it ends with what appears to be the beginning of a POTC 4. Well there be a POTC 4? Has anyone heard?

See more progress on: Watch Pirates of the Caribbean “At World’s End”

Quick One Minute Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean 3

Just back from watching Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 with my three brothers. Super cool.

Johnny Depp is great, as is Johnny Depp, and so is Johnny Depp, and ohhh look there’s Johnny Depp over here and another over there…. how many Johnny Depps can you count? LOL! Funny!

Best scene:
The Black Pearl cruising full speed and full sail across the desert sand dunes. Amazing!

Most amazing special effects:
The decent into the maelstrom! Awesome action packed scene!

Should win an award for:
Best movie wedding in history!

Shocker:
Crazed fan girls beware: DEATH ALERT; one of your fave pirates doesn’t make it to the end of the movie!

Best quote:
“Nobody move! I dropped my brain!” ~ Jack Sparrow or was that Jack Sparrow… oh wait, no, it was Jack Sparrow.

Insider advice to those who have yet to see it:
Stay until the VERY END… stay in your seat, and watch the words go by. AFTER the words go by, watch for a surprise “second” ending.
If you already watched it, and you didn’t stay to see what happens after the words go by… than you missed a very important part of the movie: YOU MUST GO BACK AND WATCH THE MOVIE AGAIN!

Ultimate question:
This movie didn’t actually “end”; like the ending of POTC 2, it ends with what appears to be the beginning of a POTC 4. Well there be a POTC 4? Has anyone heard?

See more progress on: Watch Pirates of the Caribbean “At World’s End”

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

What do you look for in a book?

I’ve been reading through the threads on the net, and saw a lot of comments about wither or not certain books are worth reading. Well, that got me thinking, we want to write what people want to read, right?

Our goal is to improve our writing so that readers will enjoy what we wright, right? How do we go about improveing our writing? Well, I think the first step is to look at what we ourselves read. So, what is it that you read? Why do you read what you do? What is it that makes certain books enjoyable for you?

When you head to the library or the bookstore or even Amazon.com, what do you look for in a book?

What makes you choose to buy one book and not the other?

Try this excerise and see if it doesn’t help you to become a better writer. Sit down and think about what it is that makes a good book good to you, and write it down. I have just done this, and here is what I came up with:

When in the bookstore or library, the first thing that catches my eye is the cover art, I think about half of my 10, 000+ books I bought for the cover art, without ever reading the blubs or the book for that matter.

For books I actually read, the cover could be a blank white page for all I care… if it’s a good book, I’ll buy it regardless of the cover.

What makes it good for me: characters. I have to have at least one character that I can identify with or fall head over heels in love with or whom I can root for. I tend to favor male MCs over female, prob’ly because I’m a female and I like “falling in love with” the MC.

Second to the characters, I like good “life like” dialouge, and a lot of it. You can’t have a character driven story without dialouge. However, not all dialouge is good dialouge… you start harping out in barely legable ye old English and the book’ll get shelved before I finish the sentance. Make it sound real. You don’t speak in perfect grammar and neither should your characters.

Settings. Settings influance your characters. Settings should be well written and clear, free of confusion. Settings should not take the lime light though unless the setting itself is the MC. Remember that your story is about your characters not the setting, so keep that in balance.

Stories need a beginning and middle and an end, but I like stories best that “don’t quite end”, by that I mean, it leaves an opening hole so that there could be a second, third, or fourth book… in other words it alows the option to continue the story at a later date.

That brings us to what I find most important: a series. I love to read five, six, ten, twenty books about a single character, esp if it’s a character I can identify with.

Another factor that weighs in heavy is the genre of the story; if it’s a gothic romance with a terrified girl and haunted house on the cover, I’ll buy it no matter what it is, just cause I collect gothic romance books, eventually I read them, saddly only a few are actually worth reading, but the cover art was worth the price of the book.

The genre I enjoy reading the most is science fiction, followed by mystery, than horror, and lastly romance. Action and adventure stories are great, but there are so few writers that can really pull it off. Fantasy I like IF I can find any that is original… they all seem to be rip-offs of each other, they all sound alike, like they were all written by the same author… it gets boreing after a while.

~~EK

See more progress on: improve my writing

What do you look for in a book?

I’ve been reading through the threads on the net, and saw a lot of comments about wither or not certain books are worth reading. Well, that got me thinking, we want to write what people want to read, right?

Our goal is to improve our writing so that readers will enjoy what we wright, right? How do we go about improveing our writing? Well, I think the first step is to look at what we ourselves read. So, what is it that you read? Why do you read what you do? What is it that makes certain books enjoyable for you?

When you head to the library or the bookstore or even Amazon.com, what do you look for in a book?

What makes you choose to buy one book and not the other?

Try this excerise and see if it doesn’t help you to become a better writer. Sit down and think about what it is that makes a good book good to you, and write it down. I have just done this, and here is what I came up with:

When in the bookstore or library, the first thing that catches my eye is the cover art, I think about half of my 10, 000+ books I bought for the cover art, without ever reading the blubs or the book for that matter.

For books I actually read, the cover could be a blank white page for all I care… if it’s a good book, I’ll buy it regardless of the cover.

What makes it good for me: characters. I have to have at least one character that I can identify with or fall head over heels in love with or whom I can root for. I tend to favor male MCs over female, prob’ly because I’m a female and I like “falling in love with” the MC.

Second to the characters, I like good “life like” dialouge, and a lot of it. You can’t have a character driven story without dialouge. However, not all dialouge is good dialouge… you start harping out in barely legable ye old English and the book’ll get shelved before I finish the sentance. Make it sound real. You don’t speak in perfect grammar and neither should your characters.

Settings. Settings influance your characters. Settings should be well written and clear, free of confusion. Settings should not take the lime light though unless the setting itself is the MC. Remember that your story is about your characters not the setting, so keep that in balance.

Stories need a beginning and middle and an end, but I like stories best that “don’t quite end”, by that I mean, it leaves an opening hole so that there could be a second, third, or fourth book… in other words it alows the option to continue the story at a later date.

That brings us to what I find most important: a series. I love to read five, six, ten, twenty books about a single character, esp if it’s a character I can identify with.

Another factor that weighs in heavy is the genre of the story; if it’s a gothic romance with a terrified girl and haunted house on the cover, I’ll buy it no matter what it is, just cause I collect gothic romance books, eventually I read them, saddly only a few are actually worth reading, but the cover art was worth the price of the book.

The genre I enjoy reading the most is science fiction, followed by mystery, than horror, and lastly romance. Action and adventure stories are great, but there are so few writers that can really pull it off. Fantasy I like IF I can find any that is original… they all seem to be rip-offs of each other, they all sound alike, like they were all written by the same author… it gets boreing after a while.

~~EK

See more progress on: improve my writing

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Self Publish? Vanity Press? Traditonal Publisher? Something Else?

question I see time and time again is: Is name of business here a self publisher, vanity press, or traditional publisher? How do I tell the differance?

While there are many branches of the publishing tree, these 3 are the big limbs, from which all the branches shoot off of. Here is how to tell them apart:

a self publisher, is an author who gets a business license, buys the ISBN #s, hires a printing press (print shop/printer) to print the books, than sells them themself… the author keeps 100% of the profits, because no one pays royalities; you keep 100% of the copyright (which btw, does not cost a penny)… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a vanity press is a print shop/printer/printing press, that does that for you, they usually ask you to pay money for them to edit your MS, they also chagre you if you want a color cover, (often they charge you for such things as “the right to keep your copyright”, or the ISBN #, in addition to the cost of everything else they chage) and than pays you a percentange (royalty), after you first pay them for the books… the royalty they pay, though it may sound high, is actually very low, because you don’t see that money until after they have deducted what you “owe them” for printing the books… in short, they make money, while you go broke, and you may or may not get to keep the rights to your book, depending on how much money you paid to buy your own rights back from them… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a traditional publisher, hires editors who read your MS which you send to them; they recive thousands of MSs each week, so it may take up to 2 years before they get around to reading it; after they read it, they either reject it or accept it; if they accept it, you well be sent a contact (and often with a recommendation that you go over it with your literay agent/lawyer before you sign it). Once you sign the contract and send it back, than the publisher’s laywer checks it to be certain that all is in order (and done legally). The publisher is given the tempory copyright allowing them to print and distribute your book to the public… they hire and editor to type set and spell check your MS, than they hire an artist to create the cover art, they distribute the book to bookstores worldwide, you never own them a cent, they pay you royalties

in other words:

self publishing is you starting your own business (a publishing house) and earning an income

vanity press is you doing a lot of hard work, getting your book printed, and getting scammed out of the money that should be yours, while they get rich and leave you with nothing

traditional publishing is you hireing a business to to the work for you and you both earn an income

I hope this helps

~~EK

See more progress on: write and publish a book

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Self Publish? Vanity Press? Traditonal Publisher? Something Else?

A question I see time and time again is: Is *name of business here* a self publisher, vanity press, or traditional publisher? How do I tell the differance?

While there are many branches of the publishing tree, these 3 are the big limbs, from which all the branches shoot off of. Here is how to tell them apart:
a self publisher, is an author who gets a business license, buys the ISBN #s, hires a printing press (print shop/printer) to print the books, than sells them themself… the author keeps 100% of the profits, because no one pays royalities; you keep 100% of the copyright (which btw, does not cost a penny)… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a vanity press is a print shop/printer/printing press, that does that for you, they usually ask you to pay money for them to edit your MS, they also chagre you if you want a color cover, (often they charge you for such things as “the right to keep your copyright”, or the ISBN #, in addition to the cost of everything else they chage) and than pays you a percentange (royalty), after you first pay them for the books… the royalty they pay, though it may sound high, is actually very low, because you don’t see that money until after they have deducted what you “owe them” for printing the books… in short, they make money, while you go broke, and you may or may not get to keep the rights to your book, depending on how much money you paid to buy your own rights back from them… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a traditional publisher, hires editors who read your MS which you send to them; they recive thousands of MSs each week, so it may take up to 2 years before they get around to reading it; after they read it, they either reject it or accept it; if they accept it, you well be sent a contact (and often with a recommendation that you go over it with your literay agent/lawyer before you sign it). Once you sign the contract and send it back, than the publisher’s laywer checks it to be certain that all is in order (and done legally). The publisher is given the tempory copyright allowing them to print and distribute your book to the public… they hire and editor to type set and spell check your MS, than they hire an artist to create the cover art, they distribute the book to bookstores worldwide, you never own them a cent, they pay you royalties

in other words:

self publishing is you starting your own business (a publishing house) and earning an income

vanity press is you doing a lot of hard work, getting your book printed, and getting scammed out of the money that should be yours, while they get rich and leave you with nothing

traditional publishing is you hireing a business to to the work for you and you both earn an income

I hope this helps

~~EK

CosPlay: originality or recognition?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Me answering more questions on CosPlay forums:

[QUOTE=luckyends;5748]alright so i have a dilemma here,
and it is, how original can you be with out sacrificing recognition?
for example i was so original in one of my costume (hopefully the first person to cosplay him) that no one knew who i was. i was dressed up as a manga only character in naruto (if you dont remember him hes the person who killed obito and gave kakashi his scar) and it wasnt because i did a bad job on the costume.

so how original can you be without sacrificing being recognized[/QUOTE]

If you head here , you’ll see my website about the costume I’m currently working on. It’s Lord Sesshomaru from InuYasha. I’m completely obsessed with this guy, so it only seemed logical I CosPlay him.

Well, it started out as me just planning a simple “CosPlay” costume. I originally planned just to do a quick, “once-over-look-like-the-guy” costume, like I normally would do for any other character. You know, the average type of CosPlay costume.

Than I started planning. And planning. And studying. First thing I realized, is that I picked probably the worst nightmare of a costume I could have picked to make. This costume, consists of a kosode, a furisode, a hakama, an 8 foot long “tail-thing”, a suit of armor that’s absolute hell to recreate, and all kinds of little weird details and things, that most other character would not have had. So I started writing up a list of all the things I needed, (which was the start of my website, BTW), and the next thing I know, not only am I planning this costume, but now I’m surrounded by huge library books on the history of Japanese clothen in the 1500’s.

Next thing I know, my goal is no longer to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume for CosPlay…. no, now I’m going to recreate his entire wardrobe, including all 4 of the different costumes we see him wearing. Thing is, I’m not creating the wardrobe we see on the anime and mangas, now I’m recreating what he WOULD have worn, had he been a REAL lord in ancient Japan.

The end result of this is a costume that is going to cost me a fortune and take about 3 or 4 years to make, because I’m doing the whole thing by hand, including the embroidery of the 4 kimonos, and I’m going to do REAL metal armor, not foam or plastic or whatever, like I had originally planned. Thing is I’m still doing Lord Sesshomaru, but I’ve changed everything all around so that it’ll be historically accurate enough for me to double it as a Japanese persona I can wear to SCA (historical reenactment) conventions as well.

My Lord Sesshomaru costume has gone from a CosPlay costume, to a historical reenactment costume fit for the SCA! LOL!

When I get done, it’ll still be easily recognized as Lord Sesshomaru, but it’ll be changed from the norm, not at all what you normally seen done by other CosPlayers, being less fantasy and more real and will more closely resemble a real nobleman’s outfit than a CosPlay one.

So yea… I say go with originality. If you can still recognize that is was the character when you get done, than yay you! If not, well than, you’ve created your own character, and even more yay you!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

CosPlay: originality or recognition?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Me answering more questions on CosPlay forums:

[QUOTE=luckyends;5748]alright so i have a dilemma here,
and it is, how original can you be with out sacrificing recognition?
for example i was so original in one of my costume (hopefully the first person to cosplay him) that no one knew who i was. i was dressed up as a manga only character in naruto (if you dont remember him hes the person who killed obito and gave kakashi his scar) and it wasnt because i did a bad job on the costume.

so how original can you be without sacrificing being recognized[/QUOTE]

If you head here , you’ll see my website about the costume I’m currently working on. It’s Lord Sesshomaru from InuYasha. I’m completely obsessed with this guy, so it only seemed logical I CosPlay him.

Well, it started out as me just planning a simple “CosPlay” costume. I originally planned just to do a quick, “once-over-look-like-the-guy” costume, like I normally would do for any other character. You know, the average type of CosPlay costume.

Than I started planning. And planning. And studying. First thing I realized, is that I picked probably the worst nightmare of a costume I could have picked to make. This costume, consists of a kosode, a furisode, a hakama, an 8 foot long “tail-thing”, a suit of armor that’s absolute hell to recreate, and all kinds of little weird details and things, that most other character would not have had. So I started writing up a list of all the things I needed, (which was the start of my website, BTW), and the next thing I know, not only am I planning this costume, but now I’m surrounded by huge library books on the history of Japanese clothen in the 1500’s.

Next thing I know, my goal is no longer to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume for CosPlay…. no, now I’m going to recreate his entire wardrobe, including all 4 of the different costumes we see him wearing. Thing is, I’m not creating the wardrobe we see on the anime and mangas, now I’m recreating what he WOULD have worn, had he been a REAL lord in ancient Japan.

The end result of this is a costume that is going to cost me a fortune and take about 3 or 4 years to make, because I’m doing the whole thing by hand, including the embroidery of the 4 kimonos, and I’m going to do REAL metal armor, not foam or plastic or whatever, like I had originally planned. Thing is I’m still doing Lord Sesshomaru, but I’ve changed everything all around so that it’ll be historically accurate enough for me to double it as a Japanese persona I can wear to SCA (historical reenactment) conventions as well.

My Lord Sesshomaru costume has gone from a CosPlay costume, to a historical reenactment costume fit for the SCA! LOL!

When I get done, it’ll still be easily recognized as Lord Sesshomaru, but it’ll be changed from the norm, not at all what you normally seen done by other CosPlayers, being less fantasy and more real and will more closely resemble a real nobleman’s outfit than a CosPlay one.

So yea… I say go with originality. If you can still recognize that is was the character when you get done, than yay you! If not, well than, you’ve created your own character, and even more yay you!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

CosPlay: originality or recognition?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Me answering more questions on CosPlay forums:

[QUOTE=luckyends;5748]alright so i have a dilemma here,
and it is, how original can you be with out sacrificing recognition?
for example i was so original in one of my costume (hopefully the first person to cosplay him) that no one knew who i was. i was dressed up as a manga only character in naruto (if you dont remember him hes the person who killed obito and gave kakashi his scar) and it wasnt because i did a bad job on the costume.

so how original can you be without sacrificing being recognized[/QUOTE]

If you head here , you’ll see my website about the costume I’m currently working on. It’s Lord Sesshomaru from InuYasha. I’m completely obsessed with this guy, so it only seemed logical I CosPlay him.

Well, it started out as me just planning a simple “CosPlay” costume. I originally planned just to do a quick, “once-over-look-like-the-guy” costume, like I normally would do for any other character. You know, the average type of CosPlay costume.

Than I started planning. And planning. And studying. First thing I realized, is that I picked probably the worst nightmare of a costume I could have picked to make. This costume, consists of a kosode, a furisode, a hakama, an 8 foot long “tail-thing”, a suit of armor that’s absolute hell to recreate, and all kinds of little weird details and things, that most other character would not have had. So I started writing up a list of all the things I needed, (which was the start of my website, BTW), and the next thing I know, not only am I planning this costume, but now I’m surrounded by huge library books on the history of Japanese clothen in the 1500’s.

Next thing I know, my goal is no longer to make a Lord Sesshomaru costume for CosPlay…. no, now I’m going to recreate his entire wardrobe, including all 4 of the different costumes we see him wearing. Thing is, I’m not creating the wardrobe we see on the anime and mangas, now I’m recreating what he WOULD have worn, had he been a REAL lord in ancient Japan.

The end result of this is a costume that is going to cost me a fortune and take about 3 or 4 years to make, because I’m doing the whole thing by hand, including the embroidery of the 4 kimonos, and I’m going to do REAL metal armor, not foam or plastic or whatever, like I had originally planned. Thing is I’m still doing Lord Sesshomaru, but I’ve changed everything all around so that it’ll be historically accurate enough for me to double it as a Japanese persona I can wear to SCA (historical reenactment) conventions as well.

My Lord Sesshomaru costume has gone from a CosPlay costume, to a historical reenactment costume fit for the SCA! LOL!

When I get done, it’ll still be easily recognized as Lord Sesshomaru, but it’ll be changed from the norm, not at all what you normally seen done by other CosPlayers, being less fantasy and more real and will more closely resemble a real nobleman’s outfit than a CosPlay one.

So yea… I say go with originality. If you can still recognize that is was the character when you get done, than yay you! If not, well than, you’ve created your own character, and even more yay you!

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

Patterns for Dagger Costume from Final Fantasy 9

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

I was helping a fellow CosPlayer find info for a costume today, and I ended up do way more research than I had intended to do, and well, now I have a post for my blog from it. So if any one out there is looking for the patterns to make Princess Garnet-Dagger from Final Fantasy 9, or any other character from any other video game, anime, or manga, that requires a pouffy sleeved blouse and a unitard, than here are the patterns you could use for it.

You can actually buy the unitard here or here.

That is not something most pattern companies are going to have. You have asked the right person for help though, cause I do theater and dance costumes too, and I know where to find patterns for those. KwikSew sells specialty dance wear patterns, and they have several different unitard patterns.

To make it, I would try using one of these patterns and alter the neckline:

KwikSew Pattern 3273

KwikSew Pattern 3052

KwikSew Pattern 2633

KwikSew Pattern 2722

For the blouse, that’d be pretty easy to find. A lot of companies have some like it. Here’s a few that might work, all a a bit different, some would be a “reinterpretation” of the original look, but all would work:

KwikSew: Pattern 3065 or Pattern 3062

Simplicty: 3887 or 4177

McCalls: M5050 or M5469

Folkwear: #103

Vogue: V8032 or V8453 or V8289

If it was me, I think I’d use This one for the blouse, because I like this one the best: McCalls M5050

Of course, I could be thinking of entirely a different costume, and than none of this would be very helpful to you.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

Patterns for Dagger Costume from Final Fantasy 9

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

I was helping a fellow CosPlayer find info for a costume today, and I ended up do way more research than I had intended to do, and well, now I have a post for my blog from it. So if any one out there is looking for the patterns to make Princess Garnet-Dagger from Final Fantasy 9, or any other character from any other video game, anime, or manga, that requires a pouffy sleeved blouse and a unitard, than here are the patterns you could use for it.

You can actually buy the unitard here or here.

That is not something most pattern companies are going to have. You have asked the right person for help though, cause I do theater and dance costumes too, and I know where to find patterns for those. KwikSew sells specialty dance wear patterns, and they have several different unitard patterns.

To make it, I would try using one of these patterns and alter the neckline:

KwikSew Pattern 3273

KwikSew Pattern 3052

KwikSew Pattern 2633

KwikSew Pattern 2722

For the blouse, that’d be pretty easy to find. A lot of companies have some like it. Here’s a few that might work, all a a bit different, some would be a “reinterpretation” of the original look, but all would work:

KwikSew: Pattern 3065 or Pattern 3062

Simplicty: 3887 or 4177

McCalls: M5050 or M5469

Folkwear: #103

Vogue: V8032 or V8453 or V8289

If it was me, I think I’d use This one for the blouse, because I like this one the best: McCalls M5050

Of course, I could be thinking of entirely a different costume, and than none of this would be very helpful to you.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

CosPlay: To Use Patterns or No?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

CosPlay: To Use Patterns or No?

[QUOTE=AkatsukySky;2436850]
First question: do I have to cute my pattern? Because it’s a biiig sheet with lots of pieces. [/QUOTE]

My answer:

I actually do not cut out the patterns. I use the tailoring method of pin cutting. Which means I lay the paper on the fabric, and than use pins the “trace” the entire outline of the pattern to the fabric. Once done I can fold the paper back up and slide it back in the envelope. I than cut the fabric using the pins as a guide instead of the pattern.

This method is used by some French fashion designers, but it’s not very common. I don’t recommend this method unless you are quite advanced though, because it is very easy to make huge mistakes doing this.

I find it easier to use, because you don’t have to mess around with all the crinkly paper, plus you don’t have to cut off the other sizes in the pattern, thus you can reuse the pattern later, either on yourself if you change sizes, or for one of your friends who is a different size than you.

However, when you are just starting out, it is better to cut the pattern out instead.

If you want to reuse the pattern over and over again, than you should make a sloper. To do this you will need either some cardboard or some poster board, the same size as your pattern pieces. You use carbon paper to trace over the pattern pieces, and than cut them out of the card board, instead of cutting out the paper patterns. All fashion designers do this. It’s very rare for a professional costumer to use a paper pattern, most of them use slopers instead. The reason is because a paper pattern is good of only 2 or 3 uses and than it’s pretty much trash. Once the paper wrinkles, you’ll find it pretty hard to make the pattern again and make the size come out right. However, a cardboard sloper can be used 30 or 40 times before it wears out. And if it’s pattern they plan to do lots of, say a few dozen each month for the next several years, than they would cut the sloper out of plastic. Bridal shops usually use plastic slopers, because they use the same 3 or 4 patterns to make dozens of different gowns.

When using a sloper the cutting method is different though, cause you lay the sloper on the fabric, and than trace around the outer edge with a tailor’s chalk. You never use any pins at all, and you only cut on single layers (not folded) of fabric, thus you must trace the pattern, than flip it and trace it again, if it tells you to cut on the fold. But not cutting on the fold you achieve a much better and more accurate fit.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

CosPlay: To Use Patterns or No?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

CosPlay: To Use Patterns or No?

[QUOTE=AkatsukySky;2436850]
First question: do I have to cute my pattern? Because it’s a biiig sheet with lots of pieces. [/QUOTE]

My answer:

I actually do not cut out the patterns. I use the tailoring method of pin cutting. Which means I lay the paper on the fabric, and than use pins the “trace” the entire outline of the pattern to the fabric. Once done I can fold the paper back up and slide it back in the envelope. I than cut the fabric using the pins as a guide instead of the pattern.

This method is used by some French fashion designers, but it’s not very common. I don’t recommend this method unless you are quite advanced though, because it is very easy to make huge mistakes doing this.

I find it easier to use, because you don’t have to mess around with all the crinkly paper, plus you don’t have to cut off the other sizes in the pattern, thus you can reuse the pattern later, either on yourself if you change sizes, or for one of your friends who is a different size than you.

However, when you are just starting out, it is better to cut the pattern out instead.

If you want to reuse the pattern over and over again, than you should make a sloper. To do this you will need either some cardboard or some poster board, the same size as your pattern pieces. You use carbon paper to trace over the pattern pieces, and than cut them out of the card board, instead of cutting out the paper patterns. All fashion designers do this. It’s very rare for a professional costumer to use a paper pattern, most of them use slopers instead. The reason is because a paper pattern is good of only 2 or 3 uses and than it’s pretty much trash. Once the paper wrinkles, you’ll find it pretty hard to make the pattern again and make the size come out right. However, a cardboard sloper can be used 30 or 40 times before it wears out. And if it’s pattern they plan to do lots of, say a few dozen each month for the next several years, than they would cut the sloper out of plastic. Bridal shops usually use plastic slopers, because they use the same 3 or 4 patterns to make dozens of different gowns.

When using a sloper the cutting method is different though, cause you lay the sloper on the fabric, and than trace around the outer edge with a tailor’s chalk. You never use any pins at all, and you only cut on single layers (not folded) of fabric, thus you must trace the pattern, than flip it and trace it again, if it tells you to cut on the fold. But not cutting on the fold you achieve a much better and more accurate fit.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

What in a costume inspires you?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Today I found a question which asks:

What in a costume inspires you?

[QUOTE=luckinspades;5180]Straight up. What aspects of a costume inspire you? The colours? The details? The potential? The challenge? Share.
:questionmark:[/QUOTE]

Here is my answer:

There really isn’t much that challenges me with sewing, because I can pretty much look at anything, draw up the patterns and make it. Oddly, this only works when making my own cloths, cause I know all my measurements and such. I just look and sew, I make a pattern if I need one, but I don’t always need one. I’ve been sewing since the 1970’s so, sewing is pretty much second nature to me now.

I do alot of hand work on mine. If there is a design on the fabric, I hand embroider it in. It there is no design, than I get thread to match the fabric color and embroider one in anyways. I go crazy nutters over adding tiny hand worked details.

[b]#1 love of character.[/b]

I only do characters I love; I really got to love a character to want to become them, look like them, act like them, etc.

[b]#2 gotta love the style[/b]

no matter how much I love the character, if I wouldn’t wear their cloths in real life I won’t make the costume, because I’m a life actor, I live in character 24/7, I wear my “costumes” every day, all day long, to me these are not costumes for me these ARE my street cloths, so I really gotta love the cloths before I’ll wear them.

[b]#3 same as #2 only:[/b]

I will make cloths worn by a character even if I have no idea who the character is, just because I really love the cloths they wore; however when I do this, I do the cloths only and not the full character costume (no wig, no weapons, no makeup, etc,). In this case I’d be dressing like that character, rather than pretending to be the character.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

What in a costume inspires you?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Today I found a question which asks:

What in a costume inspires you?

[QUOTE=luckinspades;5180]Straight up. What aspects of a costume inspire you? The colours? The details? The potential? The challenge? Share.
:questionmark:[/QUOTE]

Here is my answer:

There really isn’t much that challenges me with sewing, because I can pretty much look at anything, draw up the patterns and make it. Oddly, this only works when making my own cloths, cause I know all my measurements and such. I just look and sew, I make a pattern if I need one, but I don’t always need one. I’ve been sewing since the 1970’s so, sewing is pretty much second nature to me now.

I do alot of hand work on mine. If there is a design on the fabric, I hand embroider it in. It there is no design, than I get thread to match the fabric color and embroider one in anyways. I go crazy nutters over adding tiny hand worked details.

[b]#1 love of character.[/b]

I only do characters I love; I really got to love a character to want to become them, look like them, act like them, etc.

[b]#2 gotta love the style[/b]

no matter how much I love the character, if I wouldn’t wear their cloths in real life I won’t make the costume, because I’m a life actor, I live in character 24/7, I wear my “costumes” every day, all day long, to me these are not costumes for me these ARE my street cloths, so I really gotta love the cloths before I’ll wear them.

[b]#3 same as #2 only:[/b]

I will make cloths worn by a character even if I have no idea who the character is, just because I really love the cloths they wore; however when I do this, I do the cloths only and not the full character costume (no wig, no weapons, no makeup, etc,). In this case I’d be dressing like that character, rather than pretending to be the character.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

What in a costume inspires you?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

Today I found a question which asks:

What in a costume inspires you?

[QUOTE=luckinspades;5180]Straight up. What aspects of a costume inspire you? The colours? The details? The potential? The challenge? Share.
:questionmark:[/QUOTE]

Here is my answer:

There really isn’t much that challenges me with sewing, because I can pretty much look at anything, draw up the patterns and make it. Oddly, this only works when making my own cloths, cause I know all my measurements and such. I just look and sew, I make a pattern if I need one, but I don’t always need one. I’ve been sewing since the 1970’s so, sewing is pretty much second nature to me now.

I do alot of hand work on mine. If there is a design on the fabric, I hand embroider it in. It there is no design, than I get thread to match the fabric color and embroider one in anyways. I go crazy nutters over adding tiny hand worked details.

[b]#1 love of character.[/b]

I only do characters I love; I really got to love a character to want to become them, look like them, act like them, etc.

[b]#2 gotta love the style[/b]

no matter how much I love the character, if I wouldn’t wear their cloths in real life I won’t make the costume, because I’m a life actor, I live in character 24/7, I wear my “costumes” every day, all day long, to me these are not costumes for me these ARE my street cloths, so I really gotta love the cloths before I’ll wear them.

[b]#3 same as #2 only:[/b]

I will make cloths worn by a character even if I have no idea who the character is, just because I really love the cloths they wore; however when I do this, I do the cloths only and not the full character costume (no wig, no weapons, no makeup, etc,). In this case I’d be dressing like that character, rather than pretending to be the character.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

Maria in error

Like Dulcee, this pale skinned Parethean shows up as a peach skinned error. Oh well.

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Maria in error

Like Dulcee, this pale skinned Parethean shows up as a peach skinned error. Oh well.

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Dulcee with error

Well, this was supposed to be Dulcee, but as you can see, there was an error in the layers, because, when you post the code, a “peach” skintone shows up instead of the blue skin that the preview showed.

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

Dulcee with error

Well, this was supposed to be Dulcee, but as you can see, there was an error in the layers, because, when you post the code, a “peach” skintone shows up instead of the blue skin that the preview showed.

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

CosPlay: Alter Garments? Buy Patterns? Make Patterns?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

[QUOTE=treble_clef;2439167]I’m new to this, how do you get a pattern?

Do people just take an old t shirt apart and use it as a pattern? XD Or do you actually buy a pattern? Or make one up???
[/QUOTE]

It depends on what you are going for as an end result, and what your current skill level is. I’ve done all three methods you mentioned.

For Wonder Women, (in 1980) I started out with a red tank top, a blue bikini, and my grandmother’s bracelets, and just altered them. It wasn’t very accurate, but at the time accuracy was not my goal, so the end result suited the look I was going for. (Though it is my plan to remake Wonder Woman in the future and go uber accurate next time around.)

For my Renaissance Woman, (in 1997) I used a McCalls Pattern, combined with pieces of a Simplicty pattern, and than altered the two patterns to fit the dress I wanted to make. Which as it turned out was a huge dress of rose colored velvet, with 7 yards of fabric in the skirt alone! And 3 yards of fabric in EACH of it’s huge triple pouffed sleeves. This was the biggest dress I ever made, and was made to be worn with or without hoops. It’s very “Queen Elizabeth” in styling, and though it started out as a pattern, it in no way reselbes either of the patterns that were used to make it.

For my latest (and by far most advanced) project, I am not using a pattern at all. This costume is being “made live”, it has it’s own web site HERE, where I add updates as I go along. At the moment I have no photos of my work up, but the how-to instructions are mostly there now. I started this project in March (2008), and am doing the whole thing by hand, and in the utmost extreme in historical accuracy… right down to buying and using handwoven 15″ wide silk to make the kimono and hakama out of, I’m even hand embroidering the fabric before I cut it out to make the costume, and making real battle armor (not foam or plastic).

So, in answer to your question about what you should do: It depends on what you want your end result to be, and how much skill you have in each area of your costume construction.

As for me, I started sewing back in the 1970’s, I sew everything I wear, I sew stuffed animals, I sew dolls, I sew characters dolls to match my costumes, my mother was a seamstress and doll maker, and I took Fashion Design and Dressmaking (2 year course), and I spent a good 20 years studying the methods of historic sewing and ethnic clothing construction techniques. I also make my own patterns.

Long story short: It took me a long time to learn to sew using the methods I use. I started out simple, by editing store bought garments, than moved up to simple patterns, than to more advanced patterns, than to college training, and it took me many, many years to do it. I didn’t just do it over night.

In other words in order to get to the point that you can make your own patterns, you REALLY got to love sewing an awful lot, because it takes a lot of time and paitance (and money) to get that far. Slow and steady wins the race.

Start out by altering store bought garments. It’s the best way to get a good look at how garments are put together.

Find some one who can teach you to sew hands on. While you can teach yourself, you’ll learn quicker, faster, and with fewer mistakes, if you’ve got someone there to help you along.

Start out with simple patterns. Sew Easy, New Look, and Simplicity patterns are all made for beginning sewers. Start with those companies first.

McCalls patterns should only be used if you already have some skill sewing, but can still be used by beginners.

Folkwear, Butterrick, and Burda patterns are quite a bit more advanced and should be avoided by beginners, but once you’ve sewed a few other items, you should have no problems using these.

Vogue patterns should only be attempted by advanced sewers, and even some advanced sewers complain that they are too difficult to use. Vogue patterns give instructions assuming that you know how to do French and Italian high fashion techniques, the reason for this being that they are designed and written by French and Italian fashion designers (Giovanni, Armani, Channel, Dior, etc).

Going without a pattern usually requires some sort of training; either college or an apprenticeship. Going without a pattern is not recommended unless you have very advanced sewing skills.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

CosPlay: Alter Garments? Buy Patterns? Make Patterns?

POST ARCHIVED TO OLDER DATE BECAUSE MOVED TO MY NEW COSPLAY BLOG AND OFFTOPIC FOR THIS BLOG!

[QUOTE=treble_clef;2439167]I’m new to this, how do you get a pattern?

Do people just take an old t shirt apart and use it as a pattern? XD Or do you actually buy a pattern? Or make one up???
[/QUOTE]

It depends on what you are going for as an end result, and what your current skill level is. I’ve done all three methods you mentioned.

For Wonder Women, (in 1980) I started out with a red tank top, a blue bikini, and my grandmother’s bracelets, and just altered them. It wasn’t very accurate, but at the time accuracy was not my goal, so the end result suited the look I was going for. (Though it is my plan to remake Wonder Woman in the future and go uber accurate next time around.)

For my Renaissance Woman, (in 1997) I used a McCalls Pattern, combined with pieces of a Simplicty pattern, and than altered the two patterns to fit the dress I wanted to make. Which as it turned out was a huge dress of rose colored velvet, with 7 yards of fabric in the skirt alone! And 3 yards of fabric in EACH of it’s huge triple pouffed sleeves. This was the biggest dress I ever made, and was made to be worn with or without hoops. It’s very “Queen Elizabeth” in styling, and though it started out as a pattern, it in no way reselbes either of the patterns that were used to make it.

For my latest (and by far most advanced) project, I am not using a pattern at all. This costume is being “made live”, it has it’s own web site HERE, where I add updates as I go along. At the moment I have no photos of my work up, but the how-to instructions are mostly there now. I started this project in March (2008), and am doing the whole thing by hand, and in the utmost extreme in historical accuracy… right down to buying and using handwoven 15″ wide silk to make the kimono and hakama out of, I’m even hand embroidering the fabric before I cut it out to make the costume, and making real battle armor (not foam or plastic).

So, in answer to your question about what you should do: It depends on what you want your end result to be, and how much skill you have in each area of your costume construction.

As for me, I started sewing back in the 1970’s, I sew everything I wear, I sew stuffed animals, I sew dolls, I sew characters dolls to match my costumes, my mother was a seamstress and doll maker, and I took Fashion Design and Dressmaking (2 year course), and I spent a good 20 years studying the methods of historic sewing and ethnic clothing construction techniques. I also make my own patterns.

Long story short: It took me a long time to learn to sew using the methods I use. I started out simple, by editing store bought garments, than moved up to simple patterns, than to more advanced patterns, than to college training, and it took me many, many years to do it. I didn’t just do it over night.

In other words in order to get to the point that you can make your own patterns, you REALLY got to love sewing an awful lot, because it takes a lot of time and paitance (and money) to get that far. Slow and steady wins the race.

Start out by altering store bought garments. It’s the best way to get a good look at how garments are put together.

Find some one who can teach you to sew hands on. While you can teach yourself, you’ll learn quicker, faster, and with fewer mistakes, if you’ve got someone there to help you along.

Start out with simple patterns. Sew Easy, New Look, and Simplicity patterns are all made for beginning sewers. Start with those companies first.

McCalls patterns should only be used if you already have some skill sewing, but can still be used by beginners.

Folkwear, Butterrick, and Burda patterns are quite a bit more advanced and should be avoided by beginners, but once you’ve sewed a few other items, you should have no problems using these.

Vogue patterns should only be attempted by advanced sewers, and even some advanced sewers complain that they are too difficult to use. Vogue patterns give instructions assuming that you know how to do French and Italian high fashion techniques, the reason for this being that they are designed and written by French and Italian fashion designers (Giovanni, Armani, Channel, Dior, etc).

Going without a pattern usually requires some sort of training; either college or an apprenticeship. Going without a pattern is not recommended unless you have very advanced sewing skills.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

The Slush Pile

I just read this:

The shocking truth about the slush pile, where she tells her horror story of having to read the junk that makes up what editors call the slush pile.

Here is my answer: 

I know what you mean. I own a publishing house. Our books are all written in-house (by staff members) so we never had to worry about having a slush pile of submissions before. Two years ago we planned on adding a fiction magazine. To date we have yet to start the magazine. Why? Because of the hundreds of emails we get, we have yet to get a single submission that:

1) meets our guidelines

and

2) is legable enough to publish

I’t’s pitiful really. We had such hopes for our fiction magazine. If only we had enough good stories submitted so we could go to press with it.

The problem I’m seeing is that most writers start out with:

<i>”I posted this on my blog and my readers loved it so I’m sending it in for your to publish.”</i>

or

<i>”I write for this great RPG and I can do stupendous first person accounts for my super great characters, that I just know you’ll love, even though they are from Harry Potter, I’m sure it’ll be alright if you publish my story.”</i>

Okay, first off, we don’t publish fan-fiction and secondly, how many people read your blog? Your mom and a few friends, right?

The problem I see (at least in our slush pile) is that every Tom, Dick, and Harry who owns a blog, thinks they are a writer, and, though they can post on a blog, they have a long ways to go before what they are blogging, can even begin to pass off as a great novel.

The hardest part of being an editor (for me anyways), is haveing to tell people this. I mean, I know what it’s like to get rejection slips from editors, I’ve got a stack of them myself. I was writing long before I was editing, I know how much it hurts to hear the truth about what you’ve written. Now I find myself being the one writing those rejection letters, and believe me, it’s not fun.

~~EK

Search Under Way

Getting calls on the ad in the paper. Well, we got one call, two days after the ad went in, so, that’s good… the ad read:

“Wanted: 5 or more acres anywhere in Maine.” followed by the phone number.

As you can see, there is no mention of coves or upstate Maine. Just plain and simple, let fate take it’s corese. Well, want to guess what we got for an answer to that ad? A cove in upstate Maine, 80 acres of forest with the stipulation that you must leave it as it is, only thing allowed is a home built for yourself to live in. Is that a dream come true or what?

The guy (a real eastate agent calling on behalf of the owner) just called 5 mins ago. I looked on the map to see where the land was… it’s about an hours drive from the Thunder Hole! OMG! OMG! OMG! That is my absolute favorite spot on the planet!

I guess the next thing to do is go take a look at the land and see what it looks like.

See more progress on: move to a cove in upstate Maine

Search Under Way

Getting calls on the ad in the paper. Well, we got one call, two days after the ad went in, so, that’s good… the ad read:

“Wanted: 5 or more acres anywhere in Maine.” followed by the phone number.

As you can see, there is no mention of coves or upstate Maine. Just plain and simple, let fate take it’s corese. Well, want to guess what we got for an answer to that ad? A cove in upstate Maine, 80 acres of forest with the stipulation that you must leave it as it is, only thing allowed is a home built for yourself to live in. Is that a dream come true or what?

The guy (a real eastate agent calling on behalf of the owner) just called 5 mins ago. I looked on the map to see where the land was… it’s about an hours drive from the Thunder Hole! OMG! OMG! OMG! That is my absolute favorite spot on the planet!

I guess the next thing to do is go take a look at the land and see what it looks like.

See more progress on: move to a cove in upstate Maine

This Post copyright Wendy C. Allen 2007. EelKat

FAQ: What is Space Dock 13?

What is Space Dock 13?

Other than my web site you mean?

The name Space Dock 13, like everything else, comes from the Twighlight Manor stories. As I said before, the Twighlight Manor is some what of a base camp for the aliens who live there. The #13 figures in strongly with the Manor’s history. Constuction for the Manor began in 1313, after a space craft was sent off course and crashed on Earth. During it’s construction 13 workers were killed when one of the walls crumbled. The Manor was abandoned and went unfinished. Years later, construction resumed, and it was the first Emporor Swanzen, who officaly made the Manor the space dock of planet Earth. His son Vielder added to the Manor, what would become one of the key elements behind the Manor’s curse…a giant floor clock. The clock sits in the front parlor, and at eight feet tall, it towers forbodingly over all who enter the front doors. The clock was said to fore tell doom, predicting the deaths of those who had at some point set foot in the Manor.

Vielder, was a merciless tyrant, his reign was one of terror. Vielder’s most famous additions to the Manor were two grizly rooms now boarded up…the first was known as “The Head Room”, and as it’s name implies was the room which stored his human head collection. Vielder saw the planet earth as a primative planet, and humans were nothing more to him, than alien animals waiting to be slaughtered and added to his ever growing trophy collection.

A second room added by Vielder, remained undiscovered for nearly 400 years. Upon aquiring the Manor in the late 1800’s, EelKat had every room, every item, every book, and every artifact cataloged. During that time, was discovered a room that EelKat cataloged as “The Wax Museum”. It was quite simply a room filled with what on first sight appeared to very life like waxworks. They were, in actuallity, taxidermed creatures from around the galaxy, many humans and earth animals make up part of the collection as well. Oddly though, while the room and the older figures were put there by Vielder in the 1400’s, EelKat’s scientists claimed that most of the human figures had been added in only the last 100 years, during the 1700-1800’s. And in the 150 years since the room’s discovery, it’s collection has nearly doubled in size. “The Wax Museum” remains one of the Manor’s darkest mysteries…who are the bodies? how do they get there? and who is continueing to expand Vielder’s horrid collection 400 years after his death? Since I’m writing the story, I know the answer to that….shockingly, the story’s darkest villain, is also one of it’s best loved heroes.

So what does any of ths have to do with Space Dock 13? Vielder’s reign of terror was the bloodiest ever seen, though not nearly as horrific as the murder’s comited by the book’s as of yet unidentified vilain…known only as The Lansquin’s most devoted follower: The Red Dragon The people began to call the Twighlight Manor, Space Dock 13, after the death of King Vielder. Vielder’s death marked the end of his reign of terror, and the beginning of a series of murders, marked by their horrific, yet artist, public display, and a madman’s riddles written with the blood of his victims. While Vielder’s murder was not the first, it was the first to include the now trademarked blood riddles. This first riddle told of a lost key, a cursed rhyme, and a 3′O clock chime of death. The words had no known meaning, until the next death that soon followed.

After the mysterious murder of King Vielder, the giant floor clock stopped working properly. Many clockmakers have since been brought in, the clock taken apart, even it’s gears removed in order to stop it from running at all, but nothing has ever stopped it from it’s new funtion. Upon Vielder’s death the clock began running backwards, keeping time as usual, just now in reverse. It no longer chimed on the hour, it makes no sound at all. No one ever winds the clock, and after having it’s gears removed, no one knows how it contiunes to run. Posessed is how it’s explained. Exorcists were brought in, and the clock still kept on running, keeping perfect time, going steadly on, ever backwards.

Than one day, it stopped. A small clattering sound was heard, and the inhabitants in the parlor at the time, figured the gears had finally run down…but it had not, the hands of the clock began to move ahead rapidly until reaching 3 O’clock and for the first time since Vielder’s death, it chimed, 3 simple chimes, than began to run just as normal as any other clock. Normal that is until, when twelve hours later it reached 3′O clock again and chimed thirteen times instead, than went back to running in reverse once again.

The curse of the clock, was thus seen for the first time…for death had stuck yet again, now in time with the thirteenth chime. Since that day, every person who sets foot in the Manor, even for a second, the clock knows the time of their death, and tells all who are in the parlor to hear. If ever you hear the parlor clock chimeing 3″O clock, than keeping time in perfect order, you know that some one somewhere will die twelve hours later when the clock chimes thirteen. And because of the clock’s thirteen chime, came the name Space Dock 13.

Topics: King Vielder, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library