Costume Chaos

     It's nearing September, and around here that means it's Dragon*Con season. More specifically, this means its time for everybody to start panicking about having their costumes done in time for the convention. 
     I'll admit, I'm still only dipping my toes into the deep, treacherous waters that are cosplay. My wife is much bigger about it (and better at it); she's been doing cosplay since before I even knew it was a thing. I've mentioned before about how she's a crafty person, and this extends to sewing and prop-making and all the other weird little things that go into making a costume (or even an outfit of regular clothes, really). I've got other friends who have similarly dived in head-first, making elaborate get-ups and suits of armor out of foam and cardboard. I'm usually mostly just awed at the creativity and skill involved, and how people can make such mundane items transform to look like something else. It's all very impressive.
     Of course, there are also times when I have to sit back and wonder why the hell they (I should say "we," really) put themselves through this. Living with a cosplayer, every year we go through two months or more of grief and frustration and toil to put together new costumes for Dragon*Con. This year it's even worse because she's making an outfit for me, which means I'm constantly getting dragged into the living room to get measured and fitted and asked baffling questions (like what direction I want the pattern on the fabric to face).
     Today, in a fit of pique, I asked her why she puts herself through months of aggravation and work for a costume she's going to wear for a single day at a convention. Her answer quite effectively shut me up.
     "Why do you write stories that are frustrating and time-consuming and that might never be read by anyone?"
     A hit. A palpable hit.
     The answer, of course, is because I have no option not to create. The fact that my hard-drive is full of stories (finished and not) that will likely never see the light of day doesn't stop me. Currently, the prospect of getting any publication that I don't do myself seems slim at best. Yet still I continue to crank out crappy geeky fiction as if it weren't potentially a complete waste of time. I ask why one would make a costume that will only be worn one day at Dragon*Con? Far more people will see the fruits of that labor in a single afternoon at a convention than will probably ever read my stories.
     So the moral of the story is that the artist suffers for his or her creation, although that suffering might just come in the form of needle-pricked fingers or hot-glue-burned hands. Either way, creativity comes in many forms, and those of us who are bitten by said bug are doomed forever to spend our free time working just as much as we do at our jobs (if not more).

For those interested, my wife has been working on making me a doublet not unlike this one.