One Last Go Before April! *Tear*

Well, no comments yet on the "New Font vs Corsiva" debate. This week I'm trying out Caligraffitti and Corsiva is the font of the blog title, so you can get a reminder of what the original blog font is. However, I think Caligraffitti might be harder than Corsiva to read. Any thoughts?

As for writing, well, I finally got over that stupid head cold that had me laid up for most of last week! Monday was spent in a cleaning storm to make up for the week-long house neglect. Then it was spent playing the Heroscape RPG my hubby came up with. There was also some kidnapping of Hubby's best friend involved. Tuesday brought a beautiful, lightly cool breeze that reminded me of mornings at Cape Cod. The sun shone. I wore a T-shirt. Did I spend this gorgeous day outside writing? Of course not! I couldn't find my sunscreen, so I instead spent the day with the windows open and playing Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and pretending the breeze from outside was the breeze coming off the Waterworld-like environment Link sails through.

Then came Wednesday! Wednesday brought the temptation to again sail Link around the Wind Waker map, but it was instead spent, drum roll please... WRITING! YAY!

I have been a bit frustrated with my chapter, and even more upset that it will be nearly a YEAR since I last updated! Seriously!? A year!? And what's worse is that I need to get this baby done by March 31st since I'll be again on hiatus over April while I work on my script.

I needed motivation, hard core. I needed someone who would poke me and say "where's the chapter?" I needed someone to help me work through the kinks that make me look at this chapter and go "meeh". I needed a Beta.

So Monday - while taking a quick cleaning break - I sent the first half of my chapter to ChibiSunnie. Even with her crazy-hectic schedule she's already sent me some edits. Which of course reminded me that I had three stories I need to beta-read for: CartoonLover16, DarkAngel1326, and Devious.Editor

Anyway, once I had those edits back out on their way it was time to finally get back down to business with my own story. Man, I love how much Chibi helps me out. She doesn't even really need to say anything anymore and I become inspired!

CHIBISUNNIE, YOU ARE INDISPENSABLE TO ME NOW!

Which reminds me. Like she hasn't already helped me get back in to loving to write this latest chapter... She also finished up her first picture in a series of fanart for my story!!!! She's planning on making a picture for each chapter. She seems a bit upset that her schedule won't allow her to make the pictures all that quickly, but GIRL, it kept me a YEAR to update! So don't fret over two months. You'll catch up in no time.

Without further ado. Chibi's picture for the first chapter:

*Happy Dance* Dude, I am SO pumped right now! *Runs off to work some more*

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*Pokes head back in* Whoops, forgot, I have more to tell you!

I snagged something from the blog StoryFix. The blogger Larry Brooks had a series written up for National Novel Writing Month and I decided that A) this could really help with my fanfiction and B) I could totally use these tips for Script Frenzy. So I glanced through it and then supplemented with two more posts: The Three Dimensions of Character Development and The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool.... I then supplemented the supplements with a blog post from Procrastinating Writers. The blogger Jennifer Blanchard created an actual questionnaire-like check list derived from Larry Brooks' book about the Three Dimensions of Character. I tried out the check list by using the one character who has become like a secondary personality to me: my Dungeons & Dragons character Amara. I was able to fill the whole thing easily! So next up was filling one out for all eight main characters for the Script Frenzy concept! *sigh* I have THAT to do as well as filling out the questionnaire presented in "The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool..." and finish this blasted fanfiction chapter! This is going to be a hectic seven-day run before Script Frenzy starts up next week!

Which brings me to a bit of sad news. If any of you followed me last April, you know that I try to avoid the distractions of the internet throughout April. This also means I spend all my writing free time working on my script - especially since I think Mondays will still be used for Heroscape RPG, and so that's one less day I have to write. On the plus side, I'll get more material for my script every week, so hopefully there won't be any cases of Writer's Block. I'm also FINALLY finishing up my stint of unemployment, so I'll have even LESS free time to write than I already do. All of this brings me to my sad announcement: I won't be doing my regular updating on Sundays starting next week. I HAVE to concentrate on writing the script as well as the normal household chores.

That isn't to say that there will be NO updates in April. I might sneak a mid-month post in to let everyone know my progress. I'm just saying, don't count on the weekly updates until May comes around. Kinda sucks too, now that I finally have a rhythm going. So, farewell, my beloved readers, until May 6th swings around. And don't forget to either follow me via blogger, sign up for the RSS, or sign up for email alerts so that you don't miss any random April postings! Alternatively, you can check out my facebook page. I post update announcements there too.

I love you all and shall miss you! It's gonna be a long 30 days! On the plus side, you should have a 20 page chapter to keep you warm and snuggly while I'm gone.

Apparently, I'm Not Blogging Correctly

So I hit the milestone of 1000+ views! YAY! Well.... actually, not really.... There were a LOT of hits to the blog that were just me checking in on stuff or bringing it up so I can make sure I got the website address correct when trying to link to it. I was at about 500 views when I finally figured out how to turn off the times *I* look at the page. So I can probably cut off about 300 views that way... And then I super-goofed last week when I used a meme face to express the emotion ChibiSunnie made me feel with her note to me. I was super shocked to discover the next day that I had over 100 hits to my page.... and then realized it was because people were searching google for the "Mom Please" meme face and one of the top image hits was my blog. So I have over 200 hits for last week's post, and yet I doubt any more than my normal 20 hits are people actually READING my blog. So I hit a milestone, and yet I didn't....

Lesson learned: If you don't want arbitrary views on your blog don't post something that most people are googling for....

I went back and custom made my own "Mom Please" face using the LycoRogue emotes I was making back in January. From now on I have to just keep doctoring that giant emote to make my own meme face. That way it won't be titled what people are searching for and I won't have random hits anymore. I do have to say two things about this plan:

1 - The emotes I was making were way too small for the image I wanted, and so I had to completely re-build the LycoRogue emote-face about six-times larger. Therefore taking me about all day rebuilding it and then re-designing it to get the meme-face. Seven hours later I have something that looks like an ugly alien as opposed to the adorable "mom please" meme face.

*shrug* oh well...

2 - The girl that offered to beta for me back in like December is still friends with me on Facebook and popped up randomly when I complained about the false milestone due to the meme-face. She replied that "If it's on your blog, it's legit!" *Shrug* Perhaps she's right, but I'd prefer to know the number of people READING my blog, not just the number of people who brought the blog up. Then again, prior to this blunder the number one reason people found my blog was because I had a post about Castle fanfiction and people were looking for that....

I guess I'm just an odd duck when it comes to blogging. Most people WANT their blog found - legitimately I do as well - and therefore are part of the SEO mindset. Having 200+ hits simply because people are searching for a picture on the blog is "great trafficking" by most people's standards. On the other hand, I sincerely want only those who actually read my blog. I want to know my audience. Sure, there may be only five of you, but I appreciate the fact that you are here and reading and truly care what I say.

In fact, I recently added Google Analytics so I could really pull a Big Brother with my blog stats. I now know how many are repeat readers and how long the average reader is staying on my blog. It's cool stuff! ^_^

Anyway, in regards to my readers, I had another comment just last night. Which brings me to another point. Wednesday I did it again; I sat down to work on my story and ended up spending the next five hours reading blog posts instead. First, it was a newsletter from Ali Luke - the blogger I'm now faithfully following - commenting on a guest blog she did for Copyblogger. Copyblogger is one of the top blogs with tips on writing. Aliventures is apparently a small fish in comparison. Soooooo.... I then spent hours reading tips on Copyblogger, and more tips from Aliventures, and then some from about five other blogs that were linked to Copyblogger via guest blogs. All of them brought me to a similar consensus. I'm not blogging correctly.

It seems I'm still stuck in an age of blogging long since passed - a time where any Average Joe could start up an online-diary for others to read and the author would somehow feel connected to the world now that the diary was out for all to see. I knew that blogs were becoming more professional over the years. Bloggers would get book deals and make a living doing nothing but blogging. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, this evolved in to blogs becoming professional-quality, online magazines. Blogs - much like the seven-or-so that I spent Wednesday reading - now inform people. It seems that I am still in the dark ages in which my blog doesn't inform anyone. I'm still journal-writing. Which would explain my lack of readership.

Yet, I don't wish to change. It's well known that blogging is good for writers; especially when the blog has set update deadlines. It keeps the writer from procrastinating, and sometimes forces the writer to grow his or her vocabulary as well as master editing. The last two are especially true with today's use of blogs as professional publications. Couple that with the fact that I actually AM working through my writing issues in this journal form, and you're left with me certainly not closing this blog down. As well as me not changing the format - well, content wise at least.

So what if this is an unprofessional, out-dated way of blogging? It helps me think things through, helps me gather up all those fluffy plot bunnies, and it really does force me to fall in to a pattern of writing regularly. Sure, I'm still not taking that practice to include writing my FANFICTION regularly, but baby-steps. Plus, the whole point of this blog was for my readers to know where I am at with a story and to find out neat "behind the scenes" info about each story and chapter. This blog wouldn't work if it wasn't in journal form.

Granted, at first it was just for simple updates like "I've been struggling with writing the song I need for the next chapter, but I swear I'm working on it," and then it blossomed in to this full-fledged diary. I still don't see too much wrong with that process. Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, also has a journal-styled blog. He posts things like book-tour dates, or where he's at with his latest story, or that he's not writing because he's on a family trip, etc. I love it. I love reading about his life in these little diary entries and feeling like I truly know him. The more I feel like I can relate to him the more I feel like we have similar personalities and similar life situations. This, coupled with his actual writing style being similar to mine, really makes me say "He's really no different than I am. If he can be a professional writer, so can I!"

Now, I'm not saying that I'm this superb fanfiction writer that people should take on as a mentor, however, it's that connectivity that I'm trying to get across. Perhaps my readers are having the same struggles as I am and watching me find a solution helps them do the same. Perhaps some - nudge, nudge - have a lot of self-doubt, but see me as I see Rick Riordan - If she can do it, so can I!

Perhaps someday, when I know what the heck I'm doing, I'll start up a "professional" blog with actual writing advice or something along those lines. Or - more likely - I'll never write a blog post in the professional sense. Maybe I'll fall somewhere in the middle and only write professional-quality guest blog posts. We'll just have to wait and see where life eventually takes me. For now, I'm content with my journal-styled blog, even if it is an outdated way to use this site.

Now, as for the physical format of the blog, I'm still a bit on the fence. I had the comment about the black lettering and white background that I posted about last week. At first I was concerned, but quickly shrugged it off when people commented on both Facebook and DeviantArt that the format was fine, unique, and - most importantly - readable. I even had one faithful reader inform me that she reads textbooks day in and day out and "[associates black text on white background] with something dense and potentially boring." Then I received the second comment I mentioned above. A blogger named "It's Like We're Related" agreed with the first formatting comment, stating "a simple black font on a white background is the way to go." The comment continued with a handy link to a "Top 10 Best Blogs for Writers" list. Although The Creative Penn was listed, I never heard of the other nine, and Copyblogger wasn't on the list. So I'm not sure what the criteria was, but I get what "It's Like We're Related" was getting at. Each of those blogs may have had a design along the top and side, but where the posts themselves were they all had white backgrounds and simple, black font. And the comment did end quite nicely with "Don't worry about it being plain, just make sure it's very easily readable. Your personality comes through from your words, and you don't want anything to distract your readers from that."

So, sincere thank you to "It's Like We're Related" for taking the time to both read and comment with some helpful tips. The fact that the extra mile was taken to gather up that list of examples was just amazing! The time investment - even if it was five minutes - means a lot. It truly does.

However, it still just doesn't feel like me. It doesn't feel like this blog. I like that it's unique and stylized. Granted, I'll probably tweak it over the weeks/months/years, but I don't know if I'll ever go to "black and white". Especially since this truly is a journal-blog. All the examples listed, as well as the majority of the "b&w" blogs quickly scanned on this site, are all professional-quality and informative. I just don't think that's where I am. Sure, I could get more readers if I switched it up and at least LOOKED more professional, but it would feel stuffy.

I didn't want all the advice to go to waste though. So I stashed it away for that one-day-future-point where I might write a professional blog. Plus, I did the tweak to the background here. It's no longer transparent, and so you no longer see the scroll right behind the text. I also attempted the black font, but I just missed the brown "inkwell" look - although, granted, ink was generally BLACK. Baby-steps here. I might get there. I just wish the background had an opacity percentage like in Photoshop.

I also tried to experiment a little bit with fonts to see which one to keep. I like the fact that this looks like a handwritten journal entry, and so I won't use the generic "Times New Roman" or "Ariel" or "Georgia" or "Courier New" etc fonts. But I'm not sure if any of these other handwritten-styled fonts are easier to read, harder to read, or just look like I turned in to one of those My Little Pony:Friendship is Magic fans - no offense to the Bronies out there. Much love!

My blog title font has always been different than the rest. It's currently in Rock Salt. The font for each post title has always been Indie Flower. It's a good font, but I also kind of like that the post title is separated from the post itself by the differing font. Perhaps that's the wrong way to look at it. I had attempted to give each paragraph its own font this week, and then I planned on asking my readers to instruct me on which seemed best. However, after posting fifteen minutes ago I noticed that none of the fonts came up! Which is odd since I only used fonts you can select from the template design section. I guess you can't punch them in as code, so I'd have to choose all or nothing. Anyway, the only thing I could then do was try font families. This is in "cursive". Does this look better than my typical "Corsiva"? Maybe future posts will be entirely in the different fonts - see if they come up then. The only issue is you won't be able to see the "corsiva" as a comparison - unless I change the blog title to "corsiva".... The wheels are turning, my friends. We'll see.

Anyway, what do you guys think of the background as opposed to the transparency to the scroll? How about the font choice above? Any ideas on which one you prefer? Drop me a comment below and I'll keep tweaking to make this an easier read for you.

Using Blogs and Birthdays to Procrastinate

OK, so my sister's birthday is today and so I'm back at my mom's. Which means this blog post is pieced together gradually over the week. It also explains why this post is late. Sorry.

Anyway, moving on...

Ironically, I've been spending this week procrastinating any advancement to my story by instead spending my time reading articles on how to stop procrastinating when it comes to writing. Yup, I'm procrastinating by reading about how to end procrastination. God, I love irony...

Either way, I think I've picked up some good tips. Now to execute them! If this works, full credit for the fire under my butt goes to Ali Luke and her posts on Aliventures. The link to her blog is in the "Handy Links" section to the right.

The key thing I learned is that I'm using this blog as a way for me to rational that I'm still "writing weekly". I use this and beta-reading as ways to procrastinate and yet feel accomplished. This way I don't feel "guilty" about not working on my story more. Or I do things like write the birthday story for BrokenRose24 or the Valentine's story for ChibiSunnie or mentally draft up the plot for my Script Frenzy story. This way I still feel like I'm writing, I'm being creative, I'm stretching my wings. And yet, I'm not truly ACCOMPLISHING anything. I'm not really moving forward. I have this chapter all set, so I'm not really sure why I'm postponing it so much.

According to Ali's post How to Overcome Three Common Causes of Writing Procrastination - Today, Procrastination Cause #1 is Lack of Preparation. This is certainly not the case for me. I carefully skeleton everything out. If anything, I have too much detail. This is the main reason my latest chapter is getting it's own friggen spin-off story!
Procrastination Cause #2 is Too Many Projects. This could very well be the issue since I did JUST admit to using Aliventures blog reading, this blog's weekly updates, beta-reading, and working on other writing projects to procrastinate....
Procrastination Cause #3 is Feeling Afraid of Starting. This is usually caused by lack of confidence. I have to say, with all the positive feedback and love of my readers, I'm actually fairly confident in my writing. So I don't - at least consciously - believe THIS is the issue as well.
However, I AM still a bit weary about my long-windedness, and this chapter IS becoming as much of a beast as my latest Valentine's story. Perhaps the daunting task of writing this huge chapter, coupled with my concern for my excessive length in writing, is manifesting itself as this fear of starting. Or maybe it's because once I get started I just go. I can write for about eight hours straight and I hate stopping once I have the flow going. And with this chapter being as long as it is I could easily write for those eight hours straight. However, I can't really hide away for that long since I have tons of other stuff to also do. So perhaps I AM sort of afraid of starting because I'm afraid I won't be able to stop when I need to.

But let's backtrack to the fear of being long-winded, I do have to state that Chibi recently sent me a message dealing with my insecurities about my epic writings, and it super made me tear up.

ChibiSunnie: "Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being detailed! It's a super good thing! You provide just the right amount so there aren't any 'wait...what?' moments or 'UGH get to the point already!' moments. Just because you don't write short things does NOT mean you are a 'real' writer or a good writer. You are an AWESOME and WONDERFUL writer who powerfully captures emotions and makes fun scenarios that highlight the depth of the characters. Your style is the lengthy novel-like prose, and that's a great thing. You should be proud of it! You are a real writer and don't let anyone make you think otherwise! Again, I think your level of detail is perfect."

Oh... Em... Gee.... CHIIIIIIBIIIII!!!! See? This is the kind of support from my readers that gives me confidence. Man, I just love you all so much! No wonder I don't suffer self-doubt as much as other writers I know.

I've also felt a bit more validated due to Aliventures. Her most recent post is Nine Writing Milestones to Celebrate (and Aim For). Not only did the milestones themselves validate me, but so did Ali's quick response to my comment - both the fact that she responded so quickly and what she actually said.

Me: "I'm only up to milestone four, and that is only on FanFiction.net... So I haven't really branched out to original character's yet..."
Ali: "I don't think there's any 'only' about fanfiction... for my money, writing someone else's characters consistently and convincingly is a *hard* thing to do. (One of the reasons I don't writie fanfic is because I'm, at heart, lazy.)"

So, I guess, if nothing else, my procrastination this week truly taught me some valuable skills, as well as validated my writing.

Before I go I want to ask you - my readers - a quick series of questions....
Last week I stumbled upon a blog post entitled Why Your Blog is Like an Abandoned Amusement Park, and What You Can Do About it. Even though I am greatly appreciative of my readers and I'm amazed that even eight hits occur in the same hour, I was still curious as to what else I could do to improve upon my blog - as well as encourage comments here on Blogger. Well, the writer of that blog gave me my first ever comment here.

He stated "I find your layout hard to read. White background on a different type style might help your readers. Check other blogs for what they do with their layouts."

I feel that if I changed my format to how he suggested it would look incredibly plain, and yet I too had concerns about this layout when I switched it up this year. Any thoughts from my readers? Do you like this format? Is it hard to read? Should I try switching it up again? Should I abandon the scroll/parchment background and script-like font? This is for your benefit, so please let me know!

I would love to hear from you - and don't fret if you don't have an account with Blogger, I have Anonymous-Comments active. I just want to hear your thoughts, good or bad. Remember, any critiques help ME become a better writer/blogger for YOUR entertainment! Thank you!

Ok, well now it's time to eat some Chinese food and have some cake!

Helpful Writing Hints and Script Frenzy Prepping

Well, this was the week of laziness again! I FINALLY finished up Mekonraiba's story edits. It was a touch rough-going, with all the grammatical errors and all, and so it was a constant start and stop process. I do think he has a very nice - although perhaps a touch cliche - story brewing in his head, he just needs to know how to better express it on paper.

A person by the name of CartoonLover16 had posted on DeviantArt this week. Seems he's writing a Helga-centric fanfiction with a lot of focus on Helga's interaction with her family. He asked for any advice from the "die-hard fans" to make sure a "casual" fan such as himself didn't miss anything in canon. I then sent him a dissertation about my biggest Hey Arnold! fanfiction pet peeve - Helga's parents portrayed as physically abusive monsters that couldn't care less about their daughter. This is far from true if you pay attention to the show. I didn't mean for my response to him to be so long-winded but... well... check back on last week's post and.... yeah.... On the bright side, he seemed to find it helpful, and a couple people commented that they agreed with my agitation over the falsely pigeon-holing Bob and Miriam as "flat, Disney-like, evil villains". Another bright side is that I might write an essay on the subject and post it on DA, but it's unlikely that I'll do so in the near future.

Downside? CL16 now wants me to help beta for him as well. So I used his story to further procrastinate the writing of my own.

As for the writing of my own story. I had every intension of working on it Thursday. I even opened the document - an accomplishment in and of itself - and read back through the first half of the chapter I already had written. I did some tweaks and some edits to polish it up a touch. And then promptly stopped to go play Doodle God...

I am mildly comforted about my procrastination after reading an article I also sent to the self-doubting DarkAngel1326 as well as my fledgling Mekonraiba. Just in case you are also a writer, I'll leave this riiiiiiiight here....

Eight Secrets Which Writers Won't Tell You by Ali Luke. Part of her blog Aliventures. She also has another one of her blog posts linked in this one. I also found it reassuring.

Why Fiction is So Hard to Write

Oh heck! Just go ahead and read everything she has on her blog. I know I'm now following her. It is all inspirational and reassuring and has helpful tips. So if you're a writer I strongly suggest checking out Aliventures.

There HAS been a side task that I've been working on - plot conception wise. Those who have been following me - or at least my FanFiction writing - might recall my month-long hiatus throughout April last year. It was so I could participate in National Novel Writing Month's sister-event: Script Frenzy.

A review on last year's premier attempt at Script Frenzy:

I greatly enjoy the fanfiction writer Rachel Cabbit - from whom I got this writing-update blog idea - and read on her blog that she was participating in NaNoWriMo. After seeing a few more people on FF and Facebook comment about participating, I looked in to maybe doing the same. While on the NaNoWriMo's website I discovered that there was a sister program that occurs every April. Instead of attempting to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and November 30th, Script Frenzy's goal is a 100 page script between April 1st and April 30th. The real draw for me was that while NaNoWriMo tries to encourage writers to go solo, Script Frenzy was alright with collaborations. I had written easily two-dozen scripts in college as well as scripts while working at a production company for three years. At the time, I was actually more comfortable writing script than I was writing prose. Also, the next NaNoWriMo would be the month after my wedding - and we all know how crazy that month turned out. Writing a script, with a partner, long before my wedding and move all seemed like winning arguments, and so I signed up. Not knowing what to script, I decided on writing a fan-version of what I believed The Jungle Movie would have been like if Nickelodeon had greenlighted the second Hey Arnold! movie. Based on hints the show's creator Craig Barlett "leaked" over the years, I set forth to ask the fandom what they thought, as well as if anyone wanted to help collab with me. That's how I met my darling ChibiSunnie! The movie was epic, and overwhelming. We got past the half-way point in our page count, even if we only barely got in to the second act of the movie. Finished with 63 out of the 100 pages, and not even half-way through the plotline. Boy, do I need to go back and edit that thing! I kept meaning to last year, but never had the time to work on it further.

Well, it's that time of year again. At first I wasn't going to participate again this year, simply because I haven't done much work on my fanfic since LAST Frenzy. But then Cyhyr's boyfriend told me he wanted to try Script Frenzy for the first time this year. I wanted to be sort of moral-support for him by also working on a script right along side him. We could then talk about how far we have gotten, if we were ahead or behind on our page counts, whether or not we ran in to a wall with the plot, etc. Cyhyr herself might even participate. Since I would actually have a writing group this year I just couldn't resist. Again, I signed up.

Now the issue was figuring out before April 1st what it was I wanted to script. I worked on TJM last year, and so I couldn't really work on that again this year - as much as I'd like to. I've been obsessively watching the English dubbing of an anime called Ouran High School Host Club lately. I loved the show when I watched it in Japanese a few years back, and I'm remembering how great the show is now that I'm re-watching it in my native tongue. I briefly considered writing a movie continuation of the series, since where it concludes leaves quite a few loose ends. I soon dropped the idea since I haven't read the manga the series is based off of, and so I don't know if there is a more satisfying finish to the written version of the series. Then the leading idea was to take the Hey Arnold! A Midsummer Night's Dream crossover plot bunny, and write it as a play instead of prose. However, I really wanted to write something original this year - as much as I love fanfiction.

While I muddled over what to spend next month writing about, my hubby dug out his old Heroscape game. As much fun as it was to play the game as it was intended, being the Dungeons&Dragons-obsessed group that we are we try to convert EVERY game in to a form of LARP or D&D. So, Hubby wrote up loose rules and we're beta-running a campaign he created using a merger of D&D and Heroscape play mechanics. It's quite enjoyable!

Well, one morning it hit me! I could TOTALLY script out the Heroscape campaign. Hubby came up with a very loose introductory story to explain why the characters are where they are and doing what they're doing. He never really mentioned what could happen or what the end-goal is, so I could easily create one. There is also a subtle feel of a manga Hubby and I have been reading lately - Psyren - and so I could pull in elements from that manga. The recent ads for the movie adaptation of the book The Hunger Games has me looking at elements from that, the Japanese story Battle Royale it supposedly "ripped off", as well as re-reading Steven King's story The Long Walk - which both stories could have easily been inspired from.

So now I have a basic idea of what I'd like to do for the script, but I'm still a little iffy on what the actual DRIVE of the story is. Thankfully, my beta reading this week has helped me there too. As I said above, Mekonraiba does have an interesting story concept, and so some elements from his story may creep in to the script as well. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to mind at all. Yay! I might be all set for Script Frenzy. Now, to actually WRITE MY FANFICTION before I use Script Frenzy to procrastinate further.

Before I leave, I want to comment on a weird happening that I noticed this week. My Update Day is Sunday. Granted, a few times I've been late and I've updated on Monday or Tuesday. And there was that one time I posted on Friday to comment on my Valentine's Day story. However, for the most part I try to keep my update days on Sunday.

And yet, on Tuesday at 2pm my time and again at 9pm, and then one last time at 1am Friday, I had eight hits on my blog. It's so weird that my blog was hit up eight times on multiple occasions, on non-update days! XD Who are these people!? They are awesome-sauce and I wish to glomp them!

OK... NOW I'm off to write.

P.S. - I forgot to mention I have a new link on my side bar. Actually, it's replacing the deceased "Arnold Forums" link - since there IS a forum attached. The new Operation Ruthless website opened this Friday! It is a site dedicated to educating the Hey Arnold! fans of The Jungle Movie as well as informing everyone how they can help convince Nickelodeon to revive the project. It is just such a cool place to hang out and we're all like one big happy family! YAY! So check it out! Even if you don't want to help revive TJM it's still cool to see what we do and talk about the show we all love!

Well, technically I have TWO new links since I also added Aliventures... Seriously, check it out if you write AT ALL!

OK, for realsies... I'm leaving now!