How to Do Halloween for Grown-Ups When You’re Broke as Hell!

Okay…It’s the night before trick or treat…You’re between paydays and a lot of you love using October 31st as a way to let off steam once a year, act totally stupid and still have good reason for it. Before anyone asks, NO I’m not going to do Halloween. I’ve been sick with bronchitis so I’ll leave the festivities to the lot of you. It will be much more comical if I do. It’s more fun to watch the adults get drunk and act totally juvenile than it is to take part when with my luck, the weather will totally suck and make my bronchitis worse.

Now remember…EVEN if you’re broke as hell, this will work but you need 3-4 essential ingredients.

1. A sheet.  Doesn’t matter what color. You can use teal, purple, white, whatever…It’ll work.

2. Paper towel rolls–and if your ass is flat broke, ask your relatives for theirs! Tell ’em it’s for a kid’s project. That way you’re off the hook–unless you get arrested for the  OTHER variation of the costume if there is a wardrobe malfunction.

3.  A wire or ring of yarn big enough to fit around (NOT OVER) you’re head. You’re not going as a KKK grand wizard or a fake lynching victim! If you do it and you get your ass kicked and it ends up in the papers, I will laugh my head off at you!

4. A pair of flip-flops or sandals.

Two variations that are optional:  Construction paper and/or a guitar.

Now if you’re using a teal or green sheet–use the paper towel rolls and that ring to make a statue of liberty costume. Use your imagination and the construction paper for the torch.

If you use white, you can claim to be Julius Caesar carrying a scroll (only requires one roll)–or you can carry a guitar and  pretend you’re going to smash it, in which case you dressed as John Blutarsky…IF you don’t know who the hell that is, watch “Animal House”. Most from the era will never forget that show.

If female, the Statue of Liberty one would work–just use two sheets in case it’s cold as hell.

For a purple sheet, use gold paint and paint the leaves on the ring gold…Put some fake vampire blood on your hands and tell ’em you are “Pontius Pilate”.

Whatever you do, don’t go as Jesus. He wouldn’t do that. Besides, the cops might mistake you for an escaped mental patient. In fact if you decide not to celebrate it at all, then you’re not as insane as some of us are that allow the kid in us to come out once a year.  I once dressed up in a potato sack dress as a barefoot and pregnant bride. I had the straw hat, veil, etc..AND the blacked-out tooth. However it’s more expensive and time-consuming to sew the bloody things together. I paid a friend to do that.

Like I said earlier…THIS is what you do if you’re an adult wanting to play crazy tomorrow night and you’re broke as hell!

Happy Halloween!

The Managing Writer…

This is a strange title isn’t it? I think it is, but the duties of a writer and the duties of a manager (as in retail management) are not that different. Are you wondering how this can be? Think of it this way, what do managers do?  They are responsible for the following things in the course of their duties:

–protecting the money

–protecting the assets (property and such)

–protecting the merchandise (if applicable and they do their best although no industry is “thief proof”–including the writer’s market)

and making sure others can tell when they walk in the door of a business that these things are all part of a manager’s job.

In retail management, they make plans based on observations, direct labor so that areas of the businesses are covered throughout the day, and then they follow through with those plans. When a manager fails in making plans and directing labor–that goes to leadership and in time a manager failing to produce a plan that will get results will result in demotion or termination.

Why? Because if customers can see such weaknesses in a manager, they will work very hard to find the “weakest link” in the store so they can walk out with whatever they can get.

Anytime there is a failure, it goes back to the manager…Why? Usually because of a lack of leadership skills in getting things running as they should.

How does this pertain to writing?  It does so in the following ways:

–The writer has a responsibility to ensure credibility and integrity by ONLY pertaining to what is KNOWN with hard evidence, unless he/she is writing fiction. Then again, it is important to be true to the Historical perspective from which one is writing–even in comedy. When writing well, the author is protecting his her potential reward, be it money and/or recognition. Not all writers do this with an expectation of becoming the next Louis L’Amour or Elmore Leonard–or Stephen King.

–As a writer, there is a responsibility to preserve (protect) the integrity of all aspects of the written work. This goes from the framing of characters and plot all the way up to the copyright and such. If one is writing an original piece of work, it is important to copyright it so nobody steals the idea, but it is also important to make characters and plots honest, believable and credible. There is a difference in the 3 aspects of those things. Credibility is probably the most important of the 3 in my opinion.  Even in fiction, a reader likes to believe that something could happen if certain elements became reality.  If this is hard to understand, all one has to do is look at the Star Trek stories.  In the 1960’s it was doubtful that these things could become even a remote possibility–until man landed on the moon, right?

–Protect your vision. It doesn’t matter what any critic says. What you write is your vision. You own it. If you have an audience for that, then enjoy it. Critics usually aren’t the ones who will buy your work anyway. The same holds true for scriptwriters and songwriters. I agree with the late Elizabeth Taylor when it comes to reviews. In my opinion, they are only good for lining the bird-cage, because I do not need anyone to be paid mega bucks to speak for me as a reader when I’m quite capable of deciding whether or not I enjoy a certain work that someone else is being paid to condemn.

The last thing I want to point out is not to let yourself get discouraged. If you want to share your vision, then do it. As you do more of this, you will only improve in the areas you might be weaker in, and there is nothing wrong with that.