A Most Grateful Author

Man, has this been one exciting week for me, and it’s all thanks to you guys!

SO. MUCH. LOVE!

I honestly feel amazingly validated when it comes to my writing. I’m soaring on such a Writer’s High right now!

Let’s break this down, shall we?

Wednesday I posted my insanely-long fiftieth post. We all took a trip down memory lane. It was delightful, no?

Anyway, I wake up Thursday to discover that there was a huge influx of people to my blog – and at least a third of those readers were new!

Now, I’ve posted about my blog updates on Facebook before under my Lyco Rogue account. I recently started tweeting about new blog posts a couple of weeks back. However, I think this may have been the first week I remembered to post about the update while on my main account…. I can’t recall… I have a feeling I’ve posted on my main before too, but it would make sense that all the new readers came from my main account - that is, if this WAS the first week I remembered to post there.

Anyway, point is, for some reason I got something like twice the readership this past week and it feels AMAZING!

I also had three new people post comments on my blog, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

So, now I KNOW people are reading this thing, and that gets me so excited. I mean, this isn’t an informative blog at all. You are all here reading my JOURNAL entries. You’re not learning anything. You’re not bettering yourself. This isn’t for your benefit – simply your enjoyment. The fact that you care like that is just so cool!

Thank you.

Now, I’m going to jump all the way to today. Today, while waiting for Hubby to get off of work, I saw in the grocery store book bin something that made me really smile for two reasons:

I was scanning the books to kill time, I saw the font and thought “That kinda resembles…” Saw the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” across the top and squealed like the fangirl I am.

I had inherited the rest of the series from my dad. I own the Hollywood movie – which is not the best adaptation, but still a good movie – as well as the BBC miniseries – which is an almost verbatim adaptation… Upon hearing of Douglas Adams’ death I coordinated with some fellow Sci-Fi nuts and we walked through high school the next day with black armbands and towels over our shoulders.

Point being, that I originally smiled because there is another book to the series! I also originally thought that it was a posthumous manuscript that was just polished up/completed by the new author listed on the cover.

As I read the dust jacket I discovered that I was wrong. The entire book was written by a new author – with permission and support from Adams’ widow. I was a little disappointed, but then it dawned on me: 

THIS IS BASICALLY FANFICTION TURNED CANON!

Also, the new author – Eoin Colfer – is the bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series. I haven’t read the series yet, but it gave me confidence that this sixth book will feel like the other five.

Anyway, this “fanfiction turned canon” thought also reminded me of another series I recently discovered: Astonishing X-Men. It was started back in 1995. Volume two written in 1999. But I’m specifically referring to the third volume written in 2004.

I was introduced to this series when Hubby discovered the Motion Comics version on Netflix. How am I so late to the game with these things!?

Well, the thing that really excited me about Astonishing X-men was who wrote at least half of Volume 3:

Joss Whedon.

The brilliance behind Buffy: The Vampire Hunter, Angel, FireFly, Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse, and the recent blockbuster and record breaker The Avengers. 

This guy is like THE sci-fi nerd, and I LOVE the man for it! 

My point being that even though the man has dabbled in comic book writing, he’s mainly a TV guy. He’s not a Marvel Comics staff writer. So, for him to write 24 issues for X-Men is again basically someone writing fanfiction and it being canon! 

If they can do it, why can’t I? 

Granted, there isn’t much call for any official Hey Arnold! works; so THAT probably won’t be my meal ticket, but it IS possible. 

I thought this once before while my mom was gifting me the How I Met Your Mother companion books “written” by Barney Stinson, and the Nikki Heat novels – companion books for the Castle TV show - “written” by Richard Castle. 

Then there’s also the latest “Must Read” going around lately: 
50 Shades of Grey. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I really should do a full post about it – and perhaps I still will – but what I need to say now is that it was originally a fanfiction for Twilight. It’s now a bestselling, highly discussed trilogy. I need to first find the right fandom to join, but… 

I CAN ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY OFF OF FANFICTION! SWEEEEEEEEET! 

OK, so let’s come back around to my writing and the validation of it. 

I already established that people are ACTUALLY READING WHAT I WRITE… which is epic to me! And I just established that writing fanfiction instead of original works actually isn’t a waste of time. If I find the right fandom it can actually become a money maker. 

Question is, am I really good enough? 

A question that creeps up on me all the time.

Yes. I am a good writer.
Yes. People enjoy reading what I wrote.
Yes. It is fun for me to write and get the stories out – even if there isn’t a readership.
BUUUUUUUT

Is it good enough to eventually lead to monetary gain? 

Although the jury is still out on that question, I’m starting to think that the answer may very well come back as “Yes.”

Back in February I discovered a Hey Arnold! themed contest on DeviantArt. There were a multitude of categories that I could submit in to, but let’s face it, the only one I could actually do is writing.

I wasn’t sure which story to go with – and there wasn’t a limit – so I just submitted all of my love-themed/fluffy one-shots: 

The story I wrote for Valentine’s Day 2011, both parts 1 and 2: 
I Caught You A Star
Clumsily Perfect 

The story I wrote for PinkLotus27’s birthday this past year: 
I Thought You Liked Redheads 

And the Valentine’s Day story I wrote for ChibiSunnie this year: 
For Whom the Bells Toll 

Well, I’m not sure which story actually won because I have yet to find a listing of the contest category winners. However, I came back from dropping Hubby at work at 1am this morning to discover that I now have a 3-month Premium Membership on DeviantArt as the winning prize for the contest! 

Knowing my luck, I was probably the only one who submitted in to the writing portion – therefore only competing against myself – but still… YAYZ! 

So, thank you to the head of the contest - CreativeWave85 – for awarding me the winner of the writing portion of the competition as well as paying for 3 months Premium membership! 

Now I just need to figure out what to do with said membership…. 

Anyway, long and short is that I actually won a competition with my story! I NEVER win writing competitions! 

While I’m talking about DeviantArt, let’s talk about another form of writer validation: Inspiring People. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I already knew for a while that these were coming. Chibi already informed me that she’s planning on drawing fanart for each chapter of my story. However, it’s still so amazing to see the resulting fanart. 

Fanart based off of something *I* wrote! 

Just think, to see how others see a scene you wrote, and see how closely it resembles the one in your mind. I really can’t imagine how surreal it must be for writers to see their work adapted as graphic novels or movies! 

Anyway, here is the wonderful piece of artwork done by ChibiSunnie based on the second chapter:

These are all such angst-ridden scenes!

Chibi apparently isn’t the only one inspired by my works. 

DarkAngel1326 completely blew my mind this past week! 

Now, she first blew my mind when I commented on getting Lycopolis from good old Ali Luke, and DarkAngel commented about me being her writing mentor! 

But the brain explosions continued when I squealed about Ali, and then my wonderful mommy stepped in to do what moms do best – encourage and gush over their children. At first I didn't think much of it – just a proud parent – and then DarkAngel joined in:

Mom: YOU CAN BE NEXT...YOU ARE THAT TALENTED!!!!!!

DarkAngel: I agree!!!! Write! I want a book from my writing mentor!!! even if i have to buy it XD I don't care.

Mom: SEE YOU HAVE A FOLLOWING NOW STOP PLAYING AROUND AND WRITE MY DEAR LITTLE AUTHOR...

First off: D’aaaw! Mommy! DarkAngel! Yous guyz! *blush*
Second: hehe, OK, Mom. Lay off the caps lock! ^_^
Finally: OMG! “even if I have to buy it”… DA, I heart you, girl!

This is insane! I already have at least two super-devoted readers. It’s not much when compared to bestselling authors like J.K. Rowling or James Patterson or Stephen King, etc., but it’s still more people – and certainly more DEVOTED – than I ever expected!

Thank you so much, ladies!

HEARTS!

Also, just yesterday I got a message from FanFiction to let me know that someone added one of my original stories to their favorites! Buried under tons of newer fanfiction, my originals are still being found and shown some love!

So, you, my readers are most CERTAINLY validating my writing.

Now for the kicker! We’re going full circle back to Thursday when I saw new comments on my last blog post.

First was CartoonLover16. So, welcome, Buddy! Don’t worry about me beta-reading for you! Remember, if I didn’t enjoy doing it I wouldn’t – I mean, it’s not like I’m getting paid or anything.

That goes for ALL I Beta for! I might comment here about how time consuming it is and how my own writing gets pushed back because of it. DO NOT CONSIDER THIS TO MEAN YOU’RE A BURDEN! I love reading your stuff! I love helping you! I love Beta-reading.

I’m just trying to explain to others why my own writing might be taking a little bit.

Speaking of which, little side note: with Beta Reading done, I’m back to working on my own stuff while at work. It’s slow go, but I AM progressing. Not sure when the chapter will be up though. I STILL have Operation Ruthless and Wedding Thank Yous to deal with. @_@

Back on topic. I also want to thank my cousin for writing such sweet words about writing. I guess writing isn’t a family trait, so I’m ecstatic to have that talent. Also, thank you for the offering of a contact in publishing! I’ll stash that offer away until I need it.

But the most exciting to me – for obvious reasons – would be that Ali herself discovered, read, and then commented on my blog!

DUMBFOUNDED!!!!!

For me, the highlights included these parts of our little dialogue:

Ali: I'm very touched to be your mentor ... and I'm really thrilled that my blogging's been helping you. And you've inspired me to write something about fanfiction soon (I've got quite a few other readers who I know are fanfic writers too...). Keep writing, keep blogging; success isn't overnight, but it'll come!

Me: I'm so excited to see whatever post you write about fanfiction. And thank you for the kind words. I find our similarities amusing and it's stuff like that, and how Rick Riordan and I seem to have similar stylings, that truly proves to me that published writers aren't much more different than I am. That I can actually become published as well.

Ali: Ah, and that's something else I want to post about at some point ... the fact that however distant the "real" writers seem, there's honestly not such a difference.
You're a great writer; that's obvious from your blogging alone (and I haven't read your fanfiction but I'm guessing by your dedication to it and what you've said about the comments you've received that you're great at that too). Heck, with a blog and fanfic out there online, you *are* published, technically speaking... :)

Also, thank you Chibi for chiming in with

Chibi: That's so exciting!! :) And I agree with what Ali said about your writing. :)

Anyway… *SQUEAL* Ali thinks that I’m a great writer!? Based solely on this blog!? I mean… THIS blog!? It’s not even fiction! It’s not informative! It’s a JOURNAL and she still thinks that it’s “obvious” that I’m a “great writer”!!!!

*Faints*

I’m just… just… just… WOW!

So one last thank you to EVERYONE!

Thank you family for the support.
Thank you Ali for the encouragement.
Thank you glorified fanfiction writers for giving me hope.

And super duper thank you for my amazingly, wonderfully, fantastically devoted fans!

You humble me to no end!

So much validation crammed in to one week! I now know how Arnold must have felt in my latest chapter! The Universe is speaking to me and trying to direct me.

And I’m ready to listen!

Mark my words: I WILL be a professional author before I’m 40!

Another Crazy-long Author's Note

Well, it’s been nearly a month since I posted my latest chapter, and I’m finally getting around to the Author’s Notes post! YAY! But before I get in to that, a quick heads up on where I’m at with my current writing.

I’ve been getting longer shifts at work, which means I get lunch breaks. Now, it only takes me about 5 minutes to eat the sandwiches I bring from home, so the rest of the half-hour breaks are spent writing. I bring in my netbook and just get to it. I have almost a full page written so far.

Once I get home, however, I spend the rest of my day watching Merlin on Netflix and working on a pixel-art I’m making for the cover picture of my main Facebook account. I suck at drawing – especially pixel-art which is surprisingly hard, and so it’s a week-long project. Now I just need to think of what to do for my cover picture for my Lyco Rogue FB account. *Sigh*

But in the meantime, here are my extended Author’s Notes. Be warned, this might be as long-winded as the A/N for my Valentine's Day Story. Mainly because – as some of my long-term readers might know – I like to sneak in a lot of subtle jokes and such in to my stories.

We’ll start off with the names in the story. As I stated in multiple previous A/N, since the writers for Hey Arnold! used name parodies throughout the series, I like to continue that tradition. The parodies aren’t meant to be too hard to figure out though, so I’m sure you were able to get that Vanessa’s Boudoir was supposed to be a take on Victoria's Secret. I even included Victoria’s signature pink polka dotted dog and turned it in to Vanessa’s purple striped cat. 

Now, I recently discovered that the dog plush DOES come in a variety of colors and patterns - including stripes - however, the most well known version of the dog is the one with polka dots:

Similarly, one of the shows Arnold watched during his insomnia was “Police” which is supposed to be a parody of the famous reality show “Cops”. The other shows he watched were all from the series itself. 

The last name parody was done in a similar manner as Mickey Kaline’s name. The name of Arnold’s favorite baseball player was created by taking the first and then last name of two Hall of Famers: Mickey Mantle and Al Kaline. Therefore, when I created the song Arnold danced with Helga to I wanted to come up with the singer’s name as well. Over a year ago I decided to merge together two famous singers from the golden age of music: Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday, creating the singer Ella Holiday for my story. I felt using Fitzgerald’s and Holiday’s names would instill in the reader the bluesy, jazz, big band sound I wanted to come across for the song Arnold picked to dance with Helga. I’ll talk more about this song in a little bit.

Other names that showed up in the story were derived from the names of people involved in the series. The store Geek Bait being on Bartlett Ave. is a clear nod to Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett. Actually, I went to write a false street name and Bartlett Ave. wrote itself on the paper. I then went back and realized what I wrote! The name of the college Arnold is going to attend – Purdy University – relates back to one of the show’s writers Joseph Purdy. And the university being in Tuckerton hints at one of the show directors Tuck Tucker. Coach Aggie MacNeille’s name was birthed from two related sources. Tress MacNeille is the name of the voice actress who played Arnold’s Grandmother. I then took the first name of another famous character MacNeille voices: a character from The Simpsons, which was a show birthed from the mind of Craig Bartlett’s brother-in-law Matt Groening. On The Simpsons MacNeille is most notably the voice of Principal Skinner’s mother Agnes.

Now, aside from my Original Characters, there was one last person I named: Peapod Kid. As much fun as it is to keep him Peapod forever, it just felt more realistic to give the poor boy an actual name. Based on his looks and speech patterns, I wanted a more sophisticated name, but still being age-appropriate. With his premature deep voice and elevated language it just didn’t feel right to name him something like Josh, therefore I picked Xander. I was originally gonna go with Winston, but I couldn’t remember if there was one already on the show. Plus, Xander is frequently just the shortened form of Alexander, so it felt natural that he could have just as easily gone with Alex, but felt Xander was more his liking. I had also debated with Topher – short for Christopher – and Liam – short for William. Xander just FELT right though.

As for the OCs of this chapter, I admit I stole a little bit from life and the rest from The Big Bang Theory. For instance, Marco’s awkwardness around women is based on the character Raj who is incapable of speaking to women he’s attracted to – which is pretty much every woman except his mom and sister. I didn’t want Marco to be a complete rip-off, plus I needed him to talk to Robyn and around Beverly, which is why he’s toned down to just awkwardness. As for his looks, well, that’s basically the description of one of my husband’s close friends. The boy could be a true looker, but he doesn’t care enough to be one.

Janalee is very much like her The Big Bang Theory counterpart Amy. Amy is socially awkward and desperately tries to get Sheldon – who might as well be asexual – to like her. I thought that was a fun dynamic to play with in the Prom scene. She wasn’t originally like that. Originally she was based on a friend I had in college; in fact, this friend is Janalee’s namesake. However, after watching The Big Bang Theory nearly every night on TBS, the Amy personality crept in and it was too much fun to not keep.

When it comes to names themselves – aside from Janalee whose name was blatantly stolen – I followed suit when it came to the show. That is to say, names that weren’t terribly run-of-the-mill and yet more-or-less “normal” names. I think Hank and Rebecca were the most day-to-day names I came up with.

Speaking of which, for the girl sitting next to Arnold during graduation, I wanted something that would be reminiscent of Rhonda without it being as blatantly obvious as “Rhoda” – which I couldn’t use anyway since it was already used in the "Arnold Visits Arnie" episode. ChibiSunnie can attest to the fact that I was wavering with Rebecca. I didn’t think it was close enough to Rhonda, but I couldn’t think of anything better. She reassured me though:

“I like Rebecca--it's still an R name, but not crossing into that line of ‘too many coincidences, so it's no longer believable as a plausible thing in the real world’ as it would if you had something really similar to Rhonda like Rhoda. Plus, Rebecca is a really common name, so that further makes it believable that this coincidence would happen.”

We both agreed that having Rebecca be the rebellious punk/goth type also explained away the fact that she had the same black hair as Rhonda. So, yay!

As for the tipping point of Arnold’s tango in gym, I wanted his partner to be as similar to Helga as I could make her without it being too heavy handed. Basically, if the gym class incident occurred without any of the proceeding events, it would be believably coincidental. Luckily, I’m dealing with Helga and not Lila, because one is far more likely to find a bunch of blondes in high school than to find a group of redheads. Therefore, having Arnold’s dance partner be blonde wasn’t too hard to do. The trickiest part was for her to have a name that felt like the same style as Helga. Unfortunately, the show already had Hilda, so I couldn’t use that name. The only other thing I could think of was Heidi. Hope it felt the way I intended.

Finally, we have Middlerose. I honestly can’t recall how I came up with the name of the college town Arnold moved to. And it just hit me that I could have had Arnold go to the college I have Miles working at - most faculty students go free. Derp. Oh well, perhaps it just wasn't the "right fit" for Arnold, and he got scholarships so it doesn't matter. That sounds plausible, right?

Anyway, I just recall thinking I want something similar to Hillwood – very nature-centric – but still sounds like a town. With some thoughts thrown about I stumbled upon Middlerose and liked it.

Now for a bit more in-depth stuff.

Geek Bait was one of the hardest things for me. I wanted Arnold to hear the phrase “Geek Bait” – mainly for the song lyric “Every sound I hear is the sound of your voice”, but I couldn’t figure out how to put it in conversation. With a whole bunch of failed attempts I finally came up with it being the name of a store. I then wondered if it would be a comic book, video game, table-top game, LARP, or anime/manga store. After thinking of the different Farmer’s Markets/Indoor Flea Markets that pepper the area where I grew up, I decided that it would be cool to have a strip-mall like that which only included geeky things. Thus Geek Bait – the perpetual convention center – was born… and now I wish it were a real place. It sounds like heaven! Oh, and yes, Wednesdays ARE “New Comic Book” day, much like how Tuesdays are “New Movie Home Release” day and Fridays are “New Theatrical Release” day…

Moving on to the Prom scene, the way I described Janalee as well as Arnold’s mental image of Helga were based on how Helga dressed up in “Dinner for Four”; complete with the up-do and tiara. It just felt very Prom-like. Also, about the song…

I mentioned this in my A/N for my “Lady In Red” chapter, but I wanted to create a new song for my story since all the songs in the show were original. I certainly should NOT quit my day job… 
ever… 
when it comes to song writing. I’m a horrible poet which translates to horrible at writing songs. :P Either way, I based the song I wrote off of the styling of “One Fine Day” – the Natalie Merchant loungey version. Here’s a video using clips from Smallville that I quickly found. The black and white scenes – as well as similar scenes from Lois & Clark:The New Adventures of Superman – were the inspiration for the speakeasy description in both my “Lady in Red” chapter and my “Haunting Me” chapter.

Moving forward to Arnold’s breaking point in gym. First of all, since I missed stating so after the rooftop scene in the “Lady in Red” chapter, I want to state that my high school actually did teach formal dance. We learned Greek and Jewish wedding dances, Boot Scoot ‘N Boogie, The Bunny Hop, Tap, Ballet, and Tango.

In regards to so many girls liking Arnold in this chapter, I felt like I needed to cut the kid a break in the love department – especially after seeing all the fangirls squee over him. Poor Arnold spent his childhood with crush after crush and not a single girl liked him back. I just thought it would be fun to have all these girls pine over him and Arnold is all aloof because he’s unknowingly still in love with Helga.

*cue the “awww” *

Moving on to the finals section. The “inspirational cards” that Miles and Stella gifted Arnold were directly stolen from my own life. For my first ever high school finals, my mom gave me a few inspirational cards to try to help me stay positive. One in particular I still have and now tell a lot of my betas. DarkAngel1326 knows this quote well: “So many people believe in you; make sure you’re one of them.”

Trucking along to the graduation and you have a few more things ripped from my life. First was Middlerose’s school colors, which match those of my college. Then it was the concept of the guys all being in one school color and all the girls in the other. Also, my high school graduation robes truthfully resembled the cheap, plastic “cloth” that is used to make tablecloths for picnic tables. Finally, Hank and Robyn switching caps and the teachers raging over it. 

As we lined up for my high school graduation two of the “anarchist” students decided that they would show off their individuality by switching their caps. They were legitimately threatened with not being able to walk at graduation unless they switched back. 

Aside from figuring out how to get Geek Bait to work, and the actual dialogue associated with the Romeo and Juliet scene – the first draft of that conversation between Arnold and Hank was horrendous! The most challenging part was the epilogue where Arnold talks to Miles and Stella about traveling to Hillwood the very next day to visit Helga.

Originally, I had this very sweet epilogue where Miles and Stella understood and agreed to help Arnold out. They go to the airport and get him a flight on a 4pm plane to Hillwood and they all go home thinking they had one last morning together. But, alas, Arnold can’t sit still that long and decides – in the middle of the night while his parents are sleeping – to cash in the plane ticket and use the money to fund his cross country drive. The end.

Then Chibi burst my bubble on multiple things: mainly the fact that it’s silly to drive for two days straight rather than just wait for 16hrs and see Helga the next day. Plus, the random act of rebellion in regards to cashing in the plane ticket and leaving in the middle of the night like that. Usually Level-headed Arnold wouldn’t do either of those things.

Then I burst my own bubble by realizing something when I reread my first chapter to make sure everything came full-circle nicely. 

I discovered it didn’t.

I THOUGHT I had something to the effect of “Arnold should have just taken the plane…” only to discover this sentence: “…it was almost worth it for Arnold to have purchased the plane ticket.”

That’s right. Not “Take the plane” or “Keep the plane ticket” or something along those lines. In my first chapter I established that Arnold never even HAD the plane ticket in the first place. Whoops.

Back to the drawing board with the whole epilogue. Either that or I go back to my first chapter and retcon the whole thing – which was very tempting, believe me. I now understand why a lot of authors wait until their story is complete before publishing - even online, that way they don’t have to worry about plot holes like this. Especially, since I just remembered another one: Arnold’s graduation party.

I couldn’t figure out what to do with that. I didn’t want Miles and Stella to put all this time and money in to a graduation party – believe me, I know the money and effort that is put in to one of those, especially for an only child. I didn’t want all these family members to schedule to fly/drive out… only for the party to be cancelled because Arnold went on this journey. Also, as much as he loves Helga and wants to be with her… would he really ditch his own graduation party?

Besides that, if Miles and Stella were hosting, why would Arnold expect his grandparents to be home – as established in the first chapter...? 
*sigh* Dammit.
Wouldn’t they have flown out for the graduation? Then extended the stay for the party? They wouldn’t have to worry about the boarders since they all probably would tag along. And if Arnold’s grandparents DID fly out, and had returned home two days later, why didn’t Arnold just join them on the return flight? 

So since I shot myself in the foot with Arnold not having a plane ticket and expecting his grandparents home, I needed a reason for them to not attend the graduation. I didn’t touch upon it in the chapter, but I was gonna do so in the spin-off. 

Oh right! Quick reminder. This chapter became so epic that not everything I wanted in it could possibly fit - yes, 24page chapter and there was MORE I wanted to write! So I'm going to make a spin-off/companion story that turns each scene - i.e. The Prom or The Geek Bait scenes - in to its own full chapter. This way I can do more with my OCs - which will only appear in this chapter unless I revive them for Arnold's grad party - and can include the Robyn/Marco subplot I sort of glossed over.

Anyway, back to what I was saying about Phil and Gertie not attending Arnold's graduation...

Basically, I relied on my high school’s “invitation only” policy for graduation. To make sure there were enough seats, each student was only allowed three tickets. Meaning, three guests. This would make Arnold either mooch a ticket off of someone, or exclude a grandparent – and then there’s the boarders being left alone to worry about. So Arnold ends up donating his third ticket, Miles fails at videotaping the ceremony, and so Stella takes the camera and does a masterful job.

I then had his grandparents make up for the lack of attending by offering to throw the graduation party. Arnold wouldn’t have one for all his high school buddies, but he could attend theirs. Plus, this way the boarders and all the PS118 kids could attend Arnold’s celebration. I then pushed it back to July 4^th so they can have a combined party, and also so they could give Arnold time to attend his friends’ parties – even if he never actually does so.

Then we have the plot error I forgot about until now. In the first chapter, when Helga answers the door she asks Arnold what he’s doing in Hillwood – not expecting him at all in the summer because there are “no birthday visits". Since I hadn’t thought of the graduation parties I didn’t have Helga comment on that instead. Now knowing the whole Independence Day/Graduation party plot point I should have had Helga say “What are you doing here, Football Head? Your party isn’t for another month.” Or something along those lines.

Oh the temptation to retcon!

OK, well going back to Arnold’s traveling and how to fix that. If Arnold never had a plane ticket in the first place I had to figure out how Miles and Stella were gonna get themselves cross-country to Hillwood. Then Chibi and I thought “RV Roadtrip!” It’s just adventurous enough to fit The Shortman Clan. A week-long RV trip to see the sights as they traveled back to Hillwood. Everything was set. Although it might have been as much money and effort to put the trip together as it would a party, for some reason I don’t feel as guilty having Arnold skip out on it. Mainly because I decided Miles and Stella would take the trip anyway – no other way to get to Hillwood – and Arnold promises they can re-do the trip next summer, or at least enjoy the return trip together.

There! Took care of the graduation party, why Phil and Gertie weren’t at Arnold’s graduation, and the reason Arnold didn’t even have the stupid plane ticket in the first place. The last thing was why drive a beaten up pick-up instead of taking a bus or train – or Arnold paying for a plane ticket himself. I think I had those explained fairly well in the chapter, so I won’t repeat myself here.

My final comment on the chapter content itself relates to Arnold's realization that he can't just sit and wait to see Helga:

“When someone realizes they are in love, they don’t wait around to let the other person know!”

Dear lord, the first time I wrote that paragraph I nearly stole Harry’s full speech at the end of When Harry Met Sally.

Granted, the whole clip sort of relates to the story, but if you just want to jump to the speech I nearly plagiarized skip ahead to about 3 minutes in.

Come to think of it… my whole story is kind of a “When Harry Met Sally” crossover. Perhaps someday I’ll do a true “When Arnold Met Helga” story, but I bet there’s one already out there that is really good. If any of you know of such a story, feel free to link me to it, I’d love to read it.

So now we conclude this 3700 word A/N post by stating that this chapter was amazingly appropriately named. The damn thing haunted me for MONTHS. It started about August or September when I went to a club with a few girlfriends of mine and a cover band was playing – one of those Jukebox bands that could play a song from nearly any artist. And they start playing Stabbing Westward's "Haunting Me" – the song I used for this chapter, and the song I had picked out for this chapter since I started the story in August 2010! NO ONE EVEN REMEMBERS STABBING WESTWARD, let alone randomly hearing the song like that! It was very much a similar feeling to Arnold hearing the jazz song at the Prom – just not such an extreme reaction.

Then I start hearing “Life After You” on the radio again. The Daughtry song was the inspiration for the first chapter, and this story as a whole, but after 2010 I pretty much never heard it on the radio until September/October rolled around.

Then a bunch of new songs popped up on the radio that seemed desperate for me to make it in to its own chapter. Gavin DeGraw's "Not Over You" is one such song, another is the song I’m using as the parent to my next chapter – although the song is a year or two old, it has been on the radio a lot again lately.

When I was writing the insomnia/Babe Watch scene I was struck with my own bout of insomnia for the first time in my life… creeeeeeeepy!

Finally, while I was working on the gym/tango scene I saw a Master Card commercial about a traveling couple going out to tango the night away. That day was the first and only time I’ve seen that commercial…. CrEeEeEeEeEpY~!

So, needless to say, I’m beyond glad that I have the chapter figured out, done, and actually pieced together with but one tiny plot hole sneaking through. BOY was it a challenge to create this last chapter using what I gave myself to work with in the first chapter. 
Shot. 
Myself. 
In the foot….

Well, no more flashback chapters. The rest continue on where the first chapter left off. YAY, FULL CIRCLE!

Until next week, my friends. Same Place. Moderately Same Time. ^_^

Epic Author's Notes are Epic

Alright, so I totally meant to have this go with my last post, but as I stated, it got really long. Also, there are a lot of things about For Whom the Bells Toll that I want to talk about. Making this not only my largest story post, but also the longest corresponding Author’s Notes. That being said, this post turned out to be like six pages! Hence my decision to split up the two posts. Quick little side note: For those who missed it, I goofed and didn’t post last Sunday. I DID post Monday for my weekly update, and I recently posted on Friday as well. We all caught up? Cool-beans! :D

Alright, so let’s move through the story and I’ll MST the Author’s Notes in.

Front and center, let’s talk about the title of the story. For the majority of the time that I worked on the story I had the working title of “Ignorance is Wedded Bliss”. I liked my little turn-of-phrase. Since I normally suck at coming up with titles, I was actually proud to come up with that little nugget! ……….and then I realized that neither character was ignorant – which was kinda the point – and only one thought of having wedded bliss. The title just didn’t work with this story. I’ll have to slot it away for another time though. Anyway, I thought and thought about what I should permanently call this sucker. I then thought of the doom-ridden title of Hemingway’s story “For whom the bell tolls.” I then shifted the “s” because there is typically only one funeral bell, but there are multiple church bells that chime at a wedding. I also wanted to leave in the “ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee” feel. Sorry, Eugene, those church bells are chiming for you.

OK, enough about the darn title! Moving on to the actual story!

First up is my “easter egg” about Helga. I took meticulous care that the actions in my story matched perfectly with the parent episode “Married”. However, when we see the opening of “Married” we see where every kid is except for Helga and Brainy – whom we could perhaps assume was always in that trash can he creeps on Helga out of… So, I am setting the scene to match the episode and realize I don’t know what to do with Helga. Genius strikes! Helga is voiced by the super-talented Francesca “Franny” Smith. Franny also played multiple characters in the Disney show Recess. One of these characters is simply known as Upside-Down Girl.

As you can see, the girl has some similar traits compared to Helga.

Both girls have blonde hair in pigtails. Both are in pink sleeveless dresses with a white shirt underneath. Most importantly, both are voiced by Franny!
When trying to figure out what to do with Helga how could I NOT use this nod to Recess. For those who picked up on this subtle “easter egg” I give you each 1,000 points!

Anyway, continuing with the “meticulous care” train of thought, I want to comment on different points in the episode where we see Eugene and Sheena.
When we first see Sheena she’s at the picnic table already, and Eugene is at the hopscotch board. I built the opening scene from there. Then the scene shifts away from them. Then we see Eugene bolt past Arnold – making him and Sid the first ones in the door. Sheena is the last to enter the building. Both have smiles on their faces. Why does Eugene have a huge grin now, when not even a minute ago he was panicking over the marriage prediction? Why is it that not a moment before, Sheena was holding Eugene’s hand, and yet the two don’t go in to the school together? Why is it that the same thing happens the next time we see Eugene and Sheena? When Rhonda is giving Peapod Kid his prediction, Eugene runs down the front steps. The scene continues, and then about a minute or so later, Sheena exits. Plus, Sheena’s smile is replaced with a blank look. Granted, all of this “Eugene in and out first verses Sheena’s in and out last” plus Sheena’s blank stare were all probably because the animators were concentrating on Helga and Arnold. As much as I love Hey Arnold! I have to admit that not a lot of thought went in to the “behind the scenes” details. I mean, the TREE IN FRONT OF HELGA’S HOUSE MOVES!!!! ‘Nuff said.
HOWEVER, since Eugene and Sheena ARE depicted as stated above, and we treat ALL details of an episode as canon, I had to then get in to these characters’ heads. Why is it that Eugene separated himself from Sheena? Why is he the first one in to the school and first one out? Why does he have this huge grin after being in shock roughly thirty seconds before? Why is Sheena smiling as she enters the school, but zombie-like as she leaves? And then at the end of the episode, why are Sheena and Eugene sitting separate from each other, but still only one seat away? These annoying details the animators probably didn’t think about, and now I had to. So THAT was a fun little task.

Sticking with this concept of “staying true to the episode,” I wanted to have the story read – as I try for all my stories to read – as if it were a part of the series, and yet independent from it. I always strive to write my stories with enough information that you don’t need to remember – or even know of – Hey Arnold! in order to enjoy the story. I try to work in the character dynamics and looks so that it feels natural and non-redundant to someone who is as obsessed with the show as I am, but at the same time gives enough information for those who have never heard of the series. Therefore, I wanted to really recreate that opening sequence with the marriage predictor. I hope I did the scene justice, and everyone could see it in their heads as if they were watching the episode. I just wish a segment that took perhaps a minute-and-a-half of the show’s time didn’t take up about three or four pages of my story! Insane, right? It kept me six pages and a THOUSAND words just to get to the dreams that make up the meat and potatoes of the tale! Stupid attention to details….

Speaking of the “Meat and Potatoes” of the story, I had the hardest time dealing with the formatting of DeviantArt and FanFiction! I would kill to know how to get a friggen Tab Indent for either of those sites! The story was so much easier on the eyes in Word. I would group the paragraphs together and tab the first line so the paragraphs were still “defined”. I would double space to insert a time break. And I put a line to break between the “real world” and the “dream sequences.” It was neat, it was easy to read, and it jaded me. Having to put those stupid ~*~ExS~*~ symbols to insert a time break looks so ugly! But I didn’t know what else to do. Since there is no tab indent, I break paragraphs by spacing them, therefore I can’t space paragraphs to show a time jump. I also didn’t want to use the line break, since that was the easiest way to jump in and out of the dream worlds. I attempted using just a line of ~*~*~*~*~ like I would on DeviantArt, but FanFiction just deletes lines like that. *grumbles* Stupid formatting.
The formatting was even worse on DA! I couldn’t even put in spaces to separate the paragraphs. I mean, TECHNICALLY I could format exactly like on FF, but when I spent like an hour doing so I was then informed via a bright red notification message that the story was now too long and couldn’t be posted! GAAAAAAH! Back I went, away the spaces went, and up the hard-to-read-large-blocks-of-text post went. I’m surprised people are actually reading that thing on DA!

Alright, so let’s move on to the dreams, shall we? I tried to make Eugene’s dream mimic Arnold’s, but with Eugene’s own little twist – hence the black-tie eveningwear wedding. I also had Sheena towering over Eugene in his nightmare because one of the things that kept getting brought up by everyone I talked to was “Sheena’s like twice his height. He might have a nightmare worrying about her always being taller. A lot of guys hate the idea of being shorter than their wife.” Yes, in Arnold’s dream his mind properly “grew” him and Helga so he was a little taller. Yes, it was HELGA who neglected to take puberty in to account and therefore had her dream self still taller than Arnold. Yes, having Sheena STILL twice as tall as Eugene would make her like eleven feet tall. However, if it were an unsolicited, re-occurring suggestion by everyone I asked, and if Snee-Oosh could ignore details like that, why couldn’t I use it? Just forget how tall Sheena would have to be… LOL!
Sheena’s wedding is kind of a merger of my uncle’s wedding and my own. I had a Celtic-themed wedding. Very earthy and pseudo-wiccan. The wood nymph description would be me – well, more accurately, how I described what I wanted my flowergirl to look like. The part of them getting married in the woods in the middle of nowhere is TOTALLY what my uncle did. His wife just had on a simple sundress much like Sheena, my uncle was as casual as Eugene’s outfit, and they got married in a Redwood forest.

Moving on to the honeymoons; that was hard to figure out where they’d dream of going. I didn’t think a simple-things kinda girl like Sheena would want the extravagant, overtly romantic honeymoon like “travel the world…have a perfume named after us” Helga. It kept a little bit, but I finally decided on her dreaming of honeymooning at a national park somewhere. Even though Arnold didn’t have a honeymoon portion of his dream, I just NEEDED to injure poor Eugene, and getting injured on the honeymoon just seemed like a plausible fear of his. The final decision was partially ChibiSunnie‘s. She was the one who suggested Eugene’s honeymoon injury after the torment we put the guy through in our script last year. I just couldn’t decide HOW I was gonna beat the guy up – and then I saw the Geico commercial with the pig on the zipline. BINGO! There are ziplines EVERYWHERE these days – my hometown has a zipline attraction about forty-five minutes away. I figured I could just say “zipline” and let the reader figure out where they honeymooned. YAY, LAZY WRITING!

In the actual episode of “Married,” Helga was more interested in the idea of aging with Arnold, and her maturity I think is why she had outfit changes throughout the dream. Arnold isn’t as mature in that matter, which is probably why he and Helga never changed out of their wedding dress and tux. I wanted to parallel that, so I had Sheena change up the outfits she and Eugene wore. It was tough trying to switch it up though! Eugene got stuck in khakis a lot! I did want to keep an element of Sheena’s wardrobe, even if Helga didn’t keep her signature bow. That’s why I had Sheena continuously having her hair secured with some sort of daisy hair accessory. I wanted to keep the flower Sheena wore on her shirt.
Continuing with the paralleling, I wanted Eugene to not be as creative with the “costume changes” throughout the nightmare. However, I didn’t want them stuck in eveningwear the entire time. That’s why I had Eugene revert everyone to their normal outfits. Plus, it’s funny to think of a twenty-something wearing those elementary-age outfits. I’ll leave it up to the readers to determine whether or not Adult Eugene still has his polo tucked in to his underwear. LOL!

Following Sheena’s dream all the way to the end now….
The playground scene is based off my favorite date with my hubby. I have a video of it on my facebook. :D During a visit with my Now-Hubby-Then-Boyfriend about six or seven years ago, he took me to the local playground. My friend had driven me to Hubby's hometown, and the three of us were the only ones on the playground at the time. We enjoyed playing tag throughout the structures – as well as laughing at the fact that my six-foot-four boyfriend is trying to run through tunnels built for ten-year-olds! Towards the end of the outing, I wanted to go down the slide, but the summer sun made it too hot for my bare legs. Hubby was wearing pants despite the heat and offered for me to ride his legs down the slide. With my friend filming us, we awkwardly slid down together and then went on the swingset. We did the “how high can you swing” challenge; then Hubby jumped off and lost his footing on the woodchips carpeting the playground. He teased that he was going to push me off the swing so I would "jump" as well. It turned in to him sweetly pushing me on the swing before stopping it and us kissing. My friend stopped filming then… LOL! The part about the fireman carry is from Freshman year of college – when I met my hubby. For some reason every guy I knew Freshman year had this impulse to fireman carry me! I was carried EVERYWHERE like that – kicking and flailing about every time.
The rooftop garden was thrown in when I realized Eugene’s nightmare was at least thirty-three percent longer than Sheena’s dream. The sequence sucks in my opinion, but I didn’t really know what else to do. The garden design is partially based off of Harold’s design for HIS rooftop garden in the episode “Aptitude Test” and mostly based off of the rooftop garden at the end of the movie “Just Like Heaven.”

I kinda touched on the Freddy Awards in my main Author’s Notes, but I wanted to go further in to it. As I stated, I wanted to have Eugene and Sheena at the Tony Awards. However, I have never heard of “Eugene, Eugene” and so I assumed it was a musical created for the series. Based on that, and the fact that it’s supposed to be a well-known musical, I figured the majority of the non-classic plays in the Hey Arnold! world would be parodies. So why wouldn’t the Tony Awards be parodied? I was debating on just out-right parodying the award show, but then I remembered that my high school participated in a ceremony called the Freddy Awards. Essentially, this is a high-school-level version of the Tonys. With a “parody” so neatly handed to me, how could I NOT use it!? Plus, 2012 celebrates the tenth annual Freddy Awards. Again, how could I resist? Where the Tony Awards got its name from actress Antoinette Perry, the Freddy Awards gets its name from the fabled ghost Freddy that haunts the State Theater, where the Freddys are hosted. The Tony Award is a silver medal with the Comedy and Tragedy masks. The Freddy Award is a glass statuette of the masks. Both shows are televised – Tonys on CBS, Freddys on local broadcasting. It seemed a natural fit. Now, I was REALLY gonna tip my hat to this great High School Drama acknowledgement by keeping it in the State Theater. However, since the places in the Hey Arnold! world are fictitious, I just went with a parody of the theater the Tonys are now being held: The Beacon Theatre. I couldn’t really think of a good parody of “Beacon” that still sounded like a name of a theater, but eventually I decided on “Lighthouse Theatre.”
The play titles of “Madam Mayhem” and “Someday, Susan” were just simple two-word alliteration phrases that popped in to my head. Most old-school musicals were titled kinda like that, so I went with it simply to move on. Eugene’s play, however, was a super-loose parody.
When I decided I was going to have Eugene serenade Sheena in front of a live audience I wanted actual lyrics so that the readers could "hear" Eugene sing – a decision I’ll discuss further in a moment. Therefore, I decided on a song from the musical “Crazy For You”. Based on the plot of the play, I came up with the Parody title "Baby, Please.” Now, what WAS my train of thought here? Well, I just thought that there was just not enough dancing and show tunes for a Sheena and Eugene coupling. The amount of times Eugene randomly breaks in to song, and there wasn’t a single one in my story!? Plus, Sheena’s dream needed more mushy stuff – another point I’ll get to in a moment. The Freddys present the “Best Actor in a Leading Role” and “Best Actress in a Leading Role” nominations by having the nominees sing a showcase. This gave me the idea to have Eugene perform a song from the musical he was staring in, and somehow manage to serenade his wife at the same time. I really REALLY need to stop having the HA! characters sing to each other! I SUCK at writing songs! WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF!? Anyway, I figured if I just made a show tune parody instead of work from scratch than the whole process wouldn’t be so bad. Recently I had the song “Embraceable You” in my head – my high school performed Crazy For You and I just adored the musical. I figured, “embrace me my sweet embraceable you” was a simple enough line to re-write. In fact, the whole song is nothing but simple lines. I assumed the re-write would therefore be a snap. HAHAHAHAHAHA…. no…. The simplicity killed me! I sat with a thesaurus going “HOW DO I REWORD THIS!?” I mean, come ON! I just… I need to stop with the songs…. *sigh* I DID finally get it though! And I’m proud of myself because it still fits the melody of the original song. SCORE! Also… apologies if anyone was offended by my changing “brings out the gypsy in me” to “makes me Spanish”… I was going with the whole “Spaniards are seductive” thing….
OK, so now going back to the Sheena’s Dream is Mush-Central idea. The first day posted, I already had a reviewer on FF and another one on DA both comment on how Sheena’s dream has TONS of kissing! Even more than Helga! Gah, whoops…. I didn’t realize that Helga only kissed Arnold twice. The rest of the time she either Eskimo Kissed Arnold, or was interrupted by Lila. Oh well, Helga’s dream was drama-filled, which cut down on the kissing. Sheena wasn’t showcased enough for the audience to truly know how mature she is when it comes to kissing – in comparison to Helga at least. However, Sheena didn’t seem too upset with the idea of “kissing a boy” in the Romeo and Juliet episode, so perhaps she’s perfectly okay with the idea of a makeout session. Plus, peace-lovin’ Sheena wouldn’t really dream up the drama, therefore leaving more room for kissing. If Helga wasn’t interrupted I think both dreams would have had about the same amount of smooching. The fact that Eugene is constantly giving Sheena flower-themed pet names just goes off the “Sheena would dream up mush” thought process, coupled again with my flower-child vision of the girl.
Last thought about Sheena’s dream… I had to give her SOMETHING to aspire to besides marrying Eugene, and so that’s why I had her be a Freddy nominee as well. I wasn’t sure where to put her at first, but after seeing how she fixed/replaced that horrendous Juliet costume Helga made, I figured, "what the heck…"

Okay, FINALLY getting to Eugene!
The fact that they have Mighty Pete as their marital home was the FIRST thing I thought of when it came to Eugene’s nightmare. For the longest time it was the ONLY thing. When I asked Chibi for help she told me “[You] HAVE to keep the Mighty Pete thing because I giggled for a good 5 minutes. That's PERFECT for Sheena.” And if the girl who “commissioned” the story liked Mighty Pete, Mighty Pete stayed. LOL. A lot of people seemed to like that idea, so hazzah!
I then thought a small treehouse wasn’t bad enough, it had to be crammed with people – which is why Eugene also got three kids. It would be cramped, and the biggest issue boys seem to have about marriage is the kids. I’m not entirely sure why I aged them instead of keeping it Stork-Delivered triplets like in Arnold’s dream. Maybe my subconscious thought Eugene’s subconscious would picture him and Sheena growing old together. At the very least we know they’ve been married five years in Eugene’s dream.
ChibiSunnie was the one who thought to also add in Earl, “Crazy Uncle Earl might be a fun nightmare scenario--I mean, he talks in sailor-speak already, but what would happen when he's old and senile and living with them….So he might do crazy things like dig up the yard looking for treasure or stand on the roof calling "land-ho!!" or go around with a hook saying any misbehavers will have to walk the plank.” HAHA, that girl comes up with some of the funniest stuff, I swear! Like this depiction of Eugene’s reaction to the marriage predictor, “Eugene was clearly uncomfortable when Rhonda paired him with Sheena. His face when Sheena is running to him is like a scared cat when a little kid shouts 'kitty!!!' and goes after it.” I DARE YOU TO NOT SEE THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU WATCH “MARRIED”!!! DAAAAAAAARE YOOOOOU!
Anyway, the Squirrel Fishing idea was actually mine; brought over from a webcomic idea I had a few years ago – when the Somali pirates were all over the news and Pirate Verses Ninja was still a valid internet meme/debate. I had a strip where two college students dress up as a pirate and a ninja, and the hijinks that occur in their off-campus house. I never got farther than five strips in, so who knows if the comic will ever see the vast interwebs.
The idea of the collapsible foot stool that Eugene would carry everywhere was actually part the Sheena Is Friggen Tall plot point, and part me. My husband is a foot taller than me and so he loves teasing that I can’t kiss him unless he WANTS to be kissed, since he can just straighten his back and be out of reach. Also, all the “important” items in the kitchen are on the top shelves so it’s easier for him to reach – since he does the cooking. This of course means when I put the most-frequently-used dishes away I’m constantly climbing up and down a step ladder. When I put groceries away; up and down the ladder. When I put away his towels; up and down the step stool. And to save space we do have one of those collapsible foot stools. With the suggestion of Sheena being so tall, I almost instantly envisioned Eugene not only climbing up and down as often as me, but enough that it’s just easier to always carry the damn stool!
Well, as I mentioned WAY before, I couldn’t have Eugene – EUGENE – have a nightmare without getting injured. Heck, even in SHEENA’S dream the guy was still a bit of a klutz – although never harmed. With Eugene always on that foot stool I couldn’t resist knocking him off the thing and injuring himself. It was Chibi’s suggestion that Eugene isn’t the only klutz in the family – which is where the “I’m Okay” chorus came from. LOL.

To round out this ridiculously-long Author’s Notes post, I want to briefly talk about the ending. Once again – because I’m incapable of writing anything without her it seems – Chibi came up with the idea of continuing past the end of the episode and having Eugene comfort the distraught Sheena after Rhonda breaks the news about the voided predictions. The mini-speech about being too young to know if they will or won’t get married is about ninety-percent her. I just polished things here and there, and added the kiss and hand-holding interaction. So let’s send props to Chibi for all the fantabulous ideas!
The end daydream of Sheena and Eugene growing old together is supposed to parallel Phoebe’s daydream about Arnold and Helga on the lighthouse. The fact that Eugene also dreams nearly the same thing is supposed to indicate that perhaps they WILL get together one day, instead of finishing with Sheena’s wishful thinking.

*Wipes brow* Dear LORD this was a long post! I should have split THIS one up in like three! :P
Thanks for sticking with me until the end. I hope you at least enjoyed this over-the-top commentary about the story. I also hope you not only appreciate all this behind-the-scenes stuff, but it also clears up some questions I’ve gotten in my reviews.

Now off to Beta read for a new author in my “clientele,” have a writer’s conference with DarkAngel1326, and WORK ON MY DARN STORY!!!! Here’s hoping I have SOMETHING for you guys before the end of the month!