Warning: You might want to turn your audio down before hitting play.
I was afraid that having to fill in scenes and flesh out details would slow me down this month because I'd have to think them through first and make sure it fits within what I've already written before I write.
I was wrong. I hit the halfway point on Nov. 8. If I keep up the pace, I'm looking to hit 50k sometime next week.
I'm having a lot of fun refining my magic system and the world. It feels a lot more solid and grounded to me instead of floating around vaguely while I hoped it worked. I've also decided to write scenes in other characters' points of view, particularly my villain so that I can get to know her better. I stuck pretty closely to my main character's point of view the first time. She didn't really know what was going on so it was easy to hand wave events. This time, I do have to know what actually happened to inhabit the other characters' points of view.
My other word count strength is dialogue. If I get several characters in conversation, I can chew through words pretty easily. I'll sit down to write, get a few people talking and there went 500 words, a quarter of my daily goal. I even remember to put in actions in between their conversation. A pair of my characters love to tease each other - they're a lot of fun to write.
I've hit a tricky part of the story so the next few days might be dicey. I think I'm going to have to ditch the location of the last half of my story and write in a completely new place. It should be interesting.
With that, I'll leave the rest of this post to an excerpt from my current story. I wrote this scene on Nov. 5. Hope you enjoy!
Excerpt:
It was well past dark when Evrhiel stepped into the Smith’s Buckler tavern by the docks. She had already sent Lysanna and Geoff in different directions to find other potential ears. “Drazehn only,” she had said. “They’re the best at this task and I don't want to risk having this fall into less trustworthy hands.” She paused a moment to allow her eyes to get used to the brighter interior before moving to corner table near the door that was unoccupied. The room was not particularly crowded. Several tables were shoved together on the left seating a group of blacksmith apprentices and a blacksmith or two. Another smaller group on the right looked like other locals. Several tables scattered here and there were singly or doubly occupied. She concentrated on the singly occupied tables for a few minutes before determining the one she was looking for. She made no pretense about sauntering over to her target’s table and claiming an empty seat.
The occupant of the table did not move to acknowledge her presence. He had chosen a seat that kept him mostly hidden in shadow. He wore dark clothes and wore his hat low on his forehead even indoors. He certainly acted like a good candidate for the Drazehn that she was expecting. Before saying a word, she laid a gold coin on the table and slid it across. That garnered some movement from the man. He picked it up and deliberately dropped it back on the table. Satisfied, he pocketed it.
“You have my attention,” he drawled a melodious baritone and Evrhiel knew she had the right man.
“I expect something in return for that coin,” she began.
“Well I wasn’t assuming that you handed me gold for my looks alone,” he said taking a sip from the glass in front of him.
“I want to know information around two subjects. One is if anyone is asking around about me. The other is if anyone is asking around about a noble lady’s recent death. In either case, I want to know who.”
The man inclined his head, “And how many more such coins are you willing to part with for that information? These questions seem somewhat indefinite and could take some time.”
“For delivery of the information, I’d be willing to part with 25 gold.”
“That’s a middling sum for information that may never appear,” he mused.
“So if you don’t hear anything, you don’t get paid. I don’t see that this is a problem.”
He shrugged, “And it doesn’t become a high priority for me to keep listening past, let’s say three days. I’m a busy man and I’ve many other potential jobs I could fulfill instead of waiting around for only the possibility of 25 gold.”
“You have that coin I already gave you,” Evrhiel dug around in the coin pouch at her waist and deposited another stack of gold coins. “And I’ll add this to it.”
He counted, then nodded slightly. “I’ll call that incentive enough. But I’ll need names, more specifically yours and your dearly departed.”
In answer to that, Evrhiel slid over a folded piece of paper. “The first is my name. The second is the departed. I will be in town for only a few more days, but I will still pay on the information should it take longer than that. The final name and inn is where you can find my associate after I leave town. It is also the same inn where I can be found now should you be so industrious as to find the knowledge I seek sooner rather than later.” She paused to let him read over the slip of paper. “You’ll be throwing that in the fire.”
He rose smoothly from his seat and paced towards the fire along the wall. In the firelight, she saw that he was clad in browns rather than black. The hat firmly upon his head did not allow the benefit of illumination. Once he was seated again, he said, “I think we have an agreement, Mistress.”
“Save for your name,” she replied.
He turned his head to regard her in silence. Then he finally came to a decision and intoned, “Bruvier.”
She stood at that, “Then our business here is concluded. Good eve.” As Evrhiel left the tavern, she knew there were eyes that followed her out the door, but none so curious as the man still in the shadows, twirling a gold coin across his knuckles.
Welcome to our Halloween costume 2009. The picture above was taken at DNA Lounge by Jamie Zawinski, the club's owner. It's one of my favorites.
The rest of this post will be picture heavy and not particularly instructive in case you sort of want to get the idea of how to make your own zombie Mulan and Mushu costume.
This was the source of our inspiration. Feel free to follow the link for other Twisted Princesses he's drawn. They're all very cool.
Twisted Princess: Mulan by ~jeftoon01 on deviantART
Just in case you don't quite see the similarities, this is a handy Photoshop to help you. 
We tried to do a group costume in the Twisted Disney theme, but only had one taker. Beast is my coworker, Chris.
Construction:
Most of the work was Mushu, as you can guess. My costume mostly involved taking a kimono and some scraps of fabric, stabbing it with arrows and distressing it a bunch. The cats were enthusiastic about helping with the distressing process. Especially once it had arrows in it. 
I also discovered that Testor's Ruby Red Metal Flake model paint, when sprayed on clothing is a good fake blood substitute. The cricket on my shoulder was made out of pipe cleaners by Chris (Beast).
Makeup is not my specialty, but standard makeup I found in my closet is mostly what I used except I added gel blood from the Halloween store. The biggest bang by far, were the contacts. Yes, they're contacts and they're creepy. 
Mushu's head started out life as a bike helmet, cardboard, wire and styrofoam.
Craft foam, felt, paint and many sticks of hot glue later. The crowning jewel was the EL wire for pointless illumination.
The rest of the outfit was a fleece footed pajamas with craft foam and paint. We replaced the feet with built-in shoes from Payless. The talons we bought from the great store called the internet. 
P.S. We didn't win any costume contests, though both contests I participated in (one at work, one at DNA Lounge) had the MC paying us compliments on the costume as we lost. Beast did win Scariest costume at work.
