Just got back from CONvergence: the largest fan con in the Minneapolis area. It was delightful fun. One of the panels I was on was about author websites. I insisted that if you keep a blog, you need to update it.
ha ha ha ha ha.
So I’m going to start doing a bit of crossposting from FB, where I’m very active, to follow my own advice. And what I just did at FB was post a ton of gorgeous cosplay.
I love it when people cosplay. I love it when I recognize something that I thought only I cared about anymore (like Xena). I love it when people pour hours and hours of heart and thought into their costumes and into the fallout from those costumes.
I can’t thank the passionate, hardworking cosplayers enough who come to cons in their finery. You are all magnificent. I adore you.
I especially loved all of the crossplay people were doing: Aquawoman. Slave Prince Leo (not pictured; my photo came out too blurry) (who wrote a really short, compelling post on getting groped at cons a while back).
My panels were all Writer McWriterson panels: Disability in Fiction, Gender in fiction, Suspension of Disbelief in Urban Fantasy, Sci Fi as a Mirror into current society. And none of us dressed up. Writers generally don’t seem to, at cons. Is it because we don’t have the time to lovingly hand-sew a victorian crossplay Doctor costume? Probably not; I spend hours hand-sewing the stripes down the side of a certain Lex Luthor. Is it because we don’t think it’s ‘professional?’ Is it because we’re snobs?
Haddayr Copley-Woods 
I was pondering this. For me it’s partly that I am so picky about how my clothing feels, and days at the con tend to be so long; I don’t want to be IN a costume, I want to be in clothing that I trust will not be itchy six hours in. I would be more willing to cosplay if I had a hotel room, but I never get one.
Also, I get so much pleasure out of dressing up my daughters and that gives me the fun of making a costume without the hassle of wearing it.
But, it’s also true that authors rarely do cosplay and it feels like something I’m not supposed to do. (Steve Brust wears that hat, though, so not all authors wear boring author clothes everywhere.) I have dressed up steampunkishly a few times with Molly, though.
I don’t know about other writers, but I gave up trying to cosplay (aka come up with costumes for Halloween parties) after a while, because my imagination outstrips my construction skills by several miles, and I tend to end up tired, frazzled, and frustrated. It wouldn’t surprise me, if as a population, writers’ imaginations outstrip their manual dexterity, in general.
And, as Naomikritzer said, there’s the whole issue of wearing the dratted thing: would it become an impediment to getting out of my wheelchair when I need to pee? Etc.
Now, if I could round up a posse of costume-constructing assistants, I’d love to build something around my wheelchair — use it like the scaffolding of a parade float, so that A) my chair would be more visible to the ambulatory, and the crowds would part enough for me to navigate safely, and B) the costume would be something I’d “Shed” when transferring to a toilet, or my bed.