Prose Finally Written, But Not Done: Final Week of Summer Challenges

Well, I'm a ditz. I completely forgot that I was supposed to check out Inkitt.com a bit more and report back to you guys about it last week. I was so fixated on how behind I was with the August challenge over at Struggling Writers Society that I didn't even think about Inkitt.

It's a pretty neat site. There are a few "groups" that you can post in; they run essentially the same as a forum. A place to share and discuss. There's one section for generic writing and editing discussion, one for introducing yourself, another for tech support, one to discuss the current writing contests being held, and a final one for beta-reading.

The "Discover" tab allows you to pick what type of story you want to read, based on genre, Inkitt's staff picks, or whatever fandom's fanfiction you wish to read.

Finally, the part of the site that got me to join in the first place: Contests. They just opened up the fantasy genre one on Monday, and it's open until September 24th, in case anyone else wants to join in. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work on something soon enough for it to be ready by the 24th, but we'll see.

It seems that they rotate out contests, so if there isn't one for the genre you write right now, there might be one opening soon enough.

So, this definitely seems like a win of a find!

But what about my current challenge?

Well, I wasn't able to get the chapter done in time to share with this post, as predicted. However, I have a nice sized chunk taken out of it. Not as much as I would have liked, but I've been spending my non-working hours mostly catching up on cleaning and organizing the house.

Still, I was determined to have SOMETHING accomplished to post when we did our check-ins this past Saturday. I was NOT going to go another week of not doing anything for my writing!

So, I plopped myself down at the dining room table Friday night in order to write anything before going to bed. I could only spare about an hour before I had to go get some sleep for my early morning shift on Saturday, but at least I did it. I had done some writing before the end of the challenge week.

I had managed to write just over two pages - 1313 words - before crashing on Friday, and I also asked the SWS to keep me accountable by making sure I had posted a sample of my work before 10pm on Saturday.

Well, things went a bit awry, and so I didn't post until a bit after 10, but I still managed my deadline. Here's the sample I posted in the group:

“Lia, we fell asleep on the roof. You gotta wake up before anyone notices that we've been out here all night.”

“We fell asleep?” she groggily gargled back. As soon as the words left her mouth her brain figured out what they meant. Jumping on to her knees, she stared wide eyed at Chayse. “We fell asleep?” she yelled.

“Shhh, you're gonna wake everyone!” Chayse grabbed her arm to steady her as he covered her mouth.

She batted his hand away and continued to freak out. Thankfully, it was in a much softer tone this time. “Oh, my god, we fell asleep? We've been out here all night?”

Chayse slowly nodded his head; giving her a moment to finish waking up and comprehend what was going on.

“Crap! My dad is gonna kill me!” Her eyes widened farther – something Chayse didn't realize was possible – and stared him down. “He's gonna kill us. Oh, shit! We gotta get back to our dorms! Quick! Before he finds out. Oh, god! First the thing with the dress and now this? Shit. I'm gonna be in so much trouble. And he's gonna hate you. Geez. He's gonna think you're a bad influence on me or something, and then he won't let us see each other anymore, and since we both live here that means he'll be on patrol twenty-four-seven. And he can do that, ya know!”

“Lia,” Chayse tried to hide his chuckling, but it was just too cute listening to her ramble whenever she was nervous.

“I thought him watching me was bad before. He'll be like my shadow now. And what if he thinks all guys are bad influences because of this? What if you've ruined my chances with any guy? I'm never gonna get married. I'll grow old and alone, but instead of a crazy lady with forty cats, I'm gonna have forty copies of my father.”

“Lia!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her briefly. “Calm down. They're not going to know, alright? You just need to relax.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “How could you let us fall asleep?”

He made a mental note to not make this girl legitimately angry. Even that playful punch kind of hurt. He guessed she had more strength than she realized; having to walk around with obsidian skin can add some real muscle strain otherwise. He rubbed where she connected and shrugged. “I know, I know. My bad.”

Accountability and disgust with one's self is sometimes a beautiful thing. It gets stuff done!

Apparently I didn't have quite enough disgust, though, because after hiding away for another four hours, I only managed to add another 1463 words. So, in nearly four times the amount of "writing time" I only managed to do a bit more than double my word count. Go me....

I then skipped two days; opting to clean and sleep instead. So, I tried to crank out the last of the chapter Tuesday morning before having to go to work. I still haven't figured out my writing rhythm, though, and don't allot nearly enough time to do the writing I need. So, no time to finish the chapter. Instead, I added yet another 920 words; barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

I then had more cleaning before work, work itself, and then house-invaders, sleep, and work once more before this noon update. Probably another reason why I ran out of time to get the chapter done and published; I had to write this post yesterday in order to get it published on time.

Still, having about seven pages written isn't terribly too bad. I do still have until this upcoming Monday to have the chapter done and published in order to meet my official August goal. I have time. I just need to really crack down on it. So, I'm adding accountability again.

I WILL have the chapter available to share in next week's post. Keep an eye out for that! And if I don't include it, shun me!

Hopefully I'll have another story to share next week as well. Seems Delaroux got bit by the writing bug yet again! She recently shared with the rest of SWS that she just finished a 13-chapter fanfiction about the anime Haikyuu. I told her to drop us the link to the story, but for all I know she hasn't posted it online. If she does get us a link, I'll be sure to pass it on to you folks.

Man, I had something else kind of major that I wanted to share this week, but this post is already getting long, and I'm in a bit of a time crunch. I'll have to hold on to it and share next week along with my chapter and possibly Delaroux's story.

Yay! Lots of stuff for you to look forward to for next week!

Making more dolls

Another really rough week of not wanting to write a darn thing. To be completely honest, I didn't even want to write this week's update and I seriously debated just throwing up that "Temporary Post" yet again.

I'm really not sure at all what's wrong with me. My brain is just totally fried. I'm pretty much set for the next chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be, and yet I have NO DESIRE to start writing. I have no clue why.

I even read a fairly good HelgaxBrainyxArnold love-triangle story this morning. It really made me THINK about my story, but still no desire to actually WRITE anything. Oh well, read the story anyway!

It needs some polishing here and there, but it's still a nice, quick read:
Life With Brian

I also completely missed the first bi-weekly writing challenge of "Someone confronting a moral dilemma" that was "due" on the 15th. I had a possible story picked out from my list of Plot Bunnies, but I just never had the urge to type anything up. I honestly don't know if I'm going to attempt the prompt for the next two weeks either:
"Your least-favorite character lets slip the secret of your favorite character"
I honestly don't even know who I'd pick as my least-favorite character....

DarkAngel1326 and ChibiSunnie have been amazing this past week. Nearly every day one of these two ladies would send me a Facebook message with something along the lines of "I heard this song and it made me think of your story" or "I saw this show/movie scene and it made me think of your story" or even "I found this article online and I thought it could help you with the latest chapter".

So, thank you ladies for both your continued effort to jumpstart my muse as well as showing me how much my story affected you on the day-to-day basis. Love you both so much!

I did start doing more on the X-Men forum though... so I guess I did do SOME writing this week. It was mostly boring stuff like having the girls chill at the pool or in the living room, but it's something. I also seem to focus mostly on Willow. Poor Lia hasn't had much game-play as of late, but Hubby hasn't really been inspired to RP either so Cajun just sort of stands around more often than not. Lia doesn't really do much more than interact with him, so that sidelines her too most of the time. Plus, Lia is more reserved and a bit of a goody-two-shoes.

Willow is much more fun to play. She's wild and flirty. She loves teasing and pulling pranks and I'm having a world of fun of having her flirt with EVERYONE. Yes, that means the two new male players as well as the one new female member and the new female NPC. She doesn't care where she gets the love, she just enjoys making EVERYONE blush!

I could have even more fun with my newest character, but Hubby still isn't sure if he'd allow me to bring her in - at least, not anytime soon. I'm still waiting for Devon's player to finish up his recap of what Devon had been doing over the past two years, so my newest character won't see the light of day for a WHILE it seems - and that's still assuming she'll EVER be used in this game.

As with last week, this week was mostly spent creating avatars of all the characters. Sadly, my computer had a major issue last Sunday and everything I had done previously was somehow lost. So I got to start from scratch and it kept me nearly all week to get back to where I was LAST week, so I sadly don't have too many new characters for you guys to meet - as if you care anyway.
Again, it isn't definite yet because I have a few more things I want to tweak and I don't have approval from his player, but first up is the newest member/character: Tyler Cassidy.

Yes, that IS a picture of himself on his shirt...

The interesting thing with Tyler is his parentage. I explained this back when the board was first created, but as a reminder the way we set up our characters is mostly random.

The game is played exclusively with characters that are the "next generation" of X-Men - as in, the children of former X-Men or Brotherhood members. When a member joins the boards he or she gets a list of approved mutants that are available for parentage. The player chooses ONE, this way the character isn't COMPLETELY random. The other parent is then decided through dice rolls. The options are as follows:

• The other parent is also selected off of the list - obviously being the opposite sex of the mutant the player picks
• The other parent is a random un-named mutant - there are a lot of mutants out there and not all of them join "the fight"
• The other parent is a human
• SINISTER SHENANIGANS! Mr. Sinister did what he does best - steal DNA from famous mutants and conjure up an artificial being. In this case, since the character is just genetically spliced together the parents don't need to be of opposite sex. The last time I talked about this option I stated that Hubby's character Chayse "Cajun" LeBeau almost ended up as a Sinister splicing of Gambit and Bishop.

There are also rare occasions - if Hubby feels the player is capable enough - where a player can select a mutant that isn't on the "approved" list.

The random-creation continues with Hubby rolling to figure out what the character's starter powers are and the like, but I want to get back to Tyler.

The player picked Siryn for his mother. Then Hubby rolled that Multiple Man was Tyler's father! This is a huge OMG moment for two reasons.

ONE: For those who don't know/remember, my character Lia is the daughter of Amara "Magma" Aquilla.... and..... Multiple Man..... And, on top of that, he was set up as this loving husband and father, and yet Tyler was supposedly born a year after Lia..... Hmmmmm, me thinks foul things are afoot.
TWO: Although our game doesn't use the main comic book timeline - therefore rendering what I'm about to say completely moot - it seems that Multiple Man and Siryn DID hook up in-canon. And Siryn DID have his son... only to find out that it was actually the son of one of his duplicates and when Multiple Man first held his baby boy his body accidentally absorbed it thinking it was a Dupe ready to re-merge with him.

So, needless to say that the creation of Tyler has proven a bit..... interesting. First, Hubby had to figure out a backstory to explain away the shared parentage between Tyler and Lia while maintaining Multiple Man's "loving husband and father" persona. It's a good story that I'll get to in a moment. Secondly, I had to figure out if Lia had a half-brother or a "cousin" as well as how she'd react to knowing of Tyler's existence after 17yrs in the dark. She hasn't met him yet, so I still have a little bit of time to figure it out.... Finally, Hubby had to try to figure out if Tyler was in as much danger of being absorbed by Multiple Man as his canon equivalent.

Personally, I think Hubby's solution was brilliant! I won't give away all the details in case some of my readers are also players, but I will give the highlights. Namely, that Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox isn't TECHNICALLY Tyler's father. In comic book canon there have been occasions in which one of Jamie's doubles forms a completely different personality than Jamie Prime and creates his own life. These "rogue Dupes" refuse to be reabsorbed by Jamie and live their own life away from him. Eventually he loses track of them. Tyler's father is actually one of these "rogue Dupes" - therefore giving him the proper parentage without messing with the backstory I already created for Lia. Also, Tyler's father feared one day encountering Jamie and be forced to re-merge with Prime, and so he took precautions preventing such an occurrence; a side-effect being that Tyler is equally safe of never being absorbed by Jamie - either accidentally or forcefully. We're still trying to figure out the half-brother versus cousin thing.... but we're leaning more towards cousin I think.....

Anyway, enough of that! I doubt you guys really care since this all means I wasn't working on any writing. So, to make it up to you I will finish up by talking about story writing again.

Namely, about the Valentine's Day contest the Hey Arnold group held last month. As predicted - assumingly because I didn't have a fluffy, gushing romance story - I didn't even place. I honestly don't know how well or how poorly I did since I don't have the score sheets yet; I'll keep you posted.

But guess who got second place in the writing category again!?

Did you say ChibiSunnie? Well, you should have! So let's all congratulate Chibi for another fantastic job well done!

The winner of the fanart portion is UrielManX7

I'm not entirely sure, but I THIIIIIINK this is the runner up's picture submission

And now a reminder of Chibi's entry


But anyway, you wanted to know about STORIES, right? Well, the winner of the contest was PinkRose34 with her entry The Photo Album.

Personally, I was a little put-off by the story at first because it felt SOOOO much like my very first fanfic The Moral of Gertie. It was a story about Arnold and Grandpa Phil sitting around a photo album and talking about Phil's childhood bully Gertie and the parallels between her and Arnold's personal bully Helga. It was set shortly after the events of the Hey Arnold movie - as was mine - and it even described the aftermath of all the explosions that occurred at the climax of the movie. As far as I knew, prior to PinkRose34 writing her story, mine was just about the only one that did that.

Now, by NO WAY am I claiming that she stole my story. The similarities more-or-less end at the above list. Plus, the coincidental similarities in PR34's story parallels those of DA's Valentine's story she posted last month. The one that was scary similar to my V'day story I Caught You a Star. Great minds just think alike, I guess. Regardless, although I hold firm to my belief that Chibi deserved the win, PR34's story WAS adorable. It was a fun take on Grandpa Phil's past and how Gertie went from bully to friend to lover. Give it a read.

Done with "The Photo Album" yet? Great! Now you can go and read Chibi's runner-up story My Oh So Special Someone.

Might as well finish off the trifecta by including my entry one more time:
The Adventures of Brainy

Until next week - when I'll hopefully have SOMETHING more productive to showcase....

Beta Reading and World Building

If you didn't see my post this past Wednesday, go ahead and scroll down to read it. As you scroll you can check out a few links in the sidebar. First up is the "Followers" section. If you have any form of Google account you can click on the handy button there and become a follower of my blog! Or you can continue to scroll down to my post and keep an eye out for that "Subscribe to" section. There you can add me to your RSS feed, or drop in your email address for my posts to go directly to your inbox - no spam included.

If none of those options are your cup of tea you can keep scrolling down, read that blog post, and then hop on over to twitter to follow me. I made it super simple: @LycoRogue. Still don't like your options? How about friending me on Facebook? Lyco Rogue. I usually only go on that account to announce blog updates, so even if you place me as a close friend you'll only get an occasional notification.

There, wasn't that easy? And now you don't have to worry about ever missing another update.
YAY!

Anyway, getting back on track. Since my last post I FINALLY got around to reading both ChibiSunnie's Valentine's day entry "My Oh So Special Someone" and DarkAngel1326's two stories that she sent me back in like January!

Chibi's story was ADORABLE and I'm thinking it's yet again a strong competitor. Everyone is in character, the story is sweet, and it's a pairing not too many people write about. So make sure to check it out and let her know what you think. Here's the link again:

"My Oh So Special Someone"

DA sent me a revised version of her Soldier Story and I sent back a few more notes. I'm not sure where she is on polishing the story up, but I feel like we'll all be able to read the story soon.

I've actually been debating sending the story to my mom. It's that Nicholas Sparks-esque story that she LOOOOOOVES. However, it's a bit of a tear jerker - which, let's face it, she also loves, but she'll still yell at me for - plus it might remind her of my dad a touch too much.

For those of you who don't know, my father lost his battle with cancer when I was 13. It's still weird to know that I've had a single parent longer than both. Anyway, the last family trip we all took a little more than a month before he passed was to Disney World. In DA's story a young boy's last trip with his father before the man shipped off to Vietnam was to Disneyland. Also, the name of the soldier just so happens to be my father's name. All the more reason why this story is extra powerful to me and all the more reason I both want my mom to read it, and fear the backlash of her weeping over it.

DA's other story that was waiting patiently in my inbox was a drabble she wrote about her Of Blood and Honor main character 33. A simple little tale about 33's reaction to his missions to burn down whole villages. I can't wait to see more progress on the character and world building of this tale - which seems to be growing in to a full book series at this rate!

Sidenote about DA... she snuck in a Valentine's Day story as well. She didn't make it in time for the contest, but she did manage to post the first chapter last night. I really enjoy it and recommend the read for some fluffy goodness.

"Stories from the Winds of Hillwood"

When I finished my extensive beta reading I also made sure to spend some face time with Omnibladestrike. Haven't heard THAT name in a while, right!? Well, the poor guy has been in a massive writing funk, one that made him want to scrap his story and start from scratch YET AGAIN, as well as made him seriously wonder if he even had any writing talent.

I helped him out the best I could, but deciding if writing is really what you want to do in life is purely a soul-searching experience. No one can tell you if you can or can't. Only you can figure that out. I feel like I should write a full blog post dedicated to that, but I'll wait for a week where I don't have so many updates to talk about. That is, of course, unless you, Dear Readers, would greatly appreciate said post ASAP. If you guys are questioning yourself and need an inspirational/insightful post about the subject feel free to let me know and I'll get cracking on that.

In the meantime, check out my Handy Links For Fellow Aspiring Writers page. I just updated it on Friday, complete with a whole new category for fantastic blogs about writing that I've found.

Anyway, back to Omni. Poor guy has been dying to talk to me about his story for a while now, but every time he visited he either spent the whole time playing Magic: The Gathering with Hubby, or I had my own writing to work on, or he was helping us move. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't just call me or visit with the sole purpose to talk to me about his story, but regardless the poor kid waited months before we finally had our little heart-to-heart this week.

There still needs to be a bit more tweaking in my opinion. Things still don't exactly mesh with each other, but I think he's getting a much better handle on what he wants to do with his story. I think his biggest roadblock is that he's been working on this tale since like middle school and he wants to hold on to a lot of that original story - even the parts that don't quite work anymore. It's a noble effort, but his creativity and abilities have matured so much since then. He knows what works and what doesn't. I feel like he should just drop what doesn't work instead of constantly trying to rework it until it does work. I had to do that with Amara and a lot of the background I did with her way back in 2004. It's hard to do, but the pruning process really does need to be done. Once he manages to do that, I think he too has a nice book series on his hands.

Speaking of Amara, after discussing fantasy world building with both DA and Omni - as well as trying to help DA out with creating a village name - I became reinspired to work on world building Gyateara. So I broke out my 3-ring binder filled with different D&D campaigns as well as notes on the world I was building for Amara. I had two countries named: Kerizmar - the country that most of Amara's adventures would take place - and Gancrock - the country where Amara was born. The majority of my world building thus far was in Kerizmar. To help DA figure out the best way for her to come up with names for her villages and such, I composited a listing of all the cities I came up with and how I came up with the names. I called it "The World of Gyateara and how it was named.... OOOOOOR.... a lesson in how bad I am at naming things".

A large chunk of the city names I couldn't remember how I came up with them, and my notes on how I came up with the names was missing from my binder. However, there was still a vast majority where my name-creation notes were still available. Most of the names were simply me trying to describe the location of the place and then tweaking the name so it didn't sound like that was what I was doing.

For example, here is an exact note that I had on a Gnome village:
Gnome -> David the Gnome -> Forests -> Animals -> Forest Thief -> Forthee -> Forthy

It's mostly just a train-of-thought freewrite. In the end I liked the description of that particular location of gnomes being the "corrupted gnomes" territory. I then took elements of the words "Forest" and "Thief" and merged them in to "Forthee". I then worked the word in my mouth a little until I spat out "Forthy". Thus the village name was born.

As I worked on my extensive list of locations, and compared notes with the map that I created - in an attempt to remind myself how I came up with some of the names - Hubby saw my little pet project. We got to talking about all the work I had put in to Kerizmar back in 2008/2009. He was shocked at the number of locations I had and the vast population I was trying to distribute between all the communities. I had made Kerizmar a bit bigger than Pennsylvania but was still trying to squeeze in roughly 30 cities and a population of  8-million. Since there's over 8-million people in New York City alone, I thought these numbers were about right for a medieval country about the size of PA. Hubby thinks otherwise.

This is a perfect example of what I was saying about Omni's need to let some things that don't work go. Even though I put extensive hours in to researching general D&D population break-down, the rough population of medieval Britain, and made sure to measure out the distances between towns to make sure they weren't too close or too far from each other.... well, Hubby still thinks it was a bit overboard. I was so afraid of UNDER populating my country that I went a bit too far in the opposite direction. So now I must also practice pruning. Drop some of the villages with crappy names - such as Forthy - shift some other towns in to a different country, rework the populous, and rename all of my natural landmarks. Since I was originally building Kerizmar as a D&D campaign setting I had all of the major mountains, deserts, lakes, seas, and rivers named after D&D deities. Now that I'm trying to switch Kerizmar and the whole of Gyateara in to my own original world I need to drop any and all references to the D&D-specific deities.

It's a long trial for sure, but Hubby should be helping me out this time. In the meantime, I can still use my limited world building knowledge to help DA name locations, and use my trial of pruning to help encourage Omni to do the same.

Happy Early Valentine's Day!

What's this? A special Wednesday post?

Yeeeeaaaaaaah..... u_u I was still really tired from the long nights this Friday and Saturday and so I forgot to mention some key things Sunday. I originally thought about just updating/editing this week's post, but then I feared those of you that read my post when I updated on Sunday wouldn't know that I edited it, and therefore would miss what I wanted to say. Also, the more I worked on this "quick" update I realized it was a fully realized blog post in and of itself.

Well, anyway, I want to start off this mid-week update by letting my beloved readers know that I'm already in the process of outlining the next chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. I've had the concept in my head for about two months now, so I'm excited to get to work. The only thing is that I was incredibly excited about my last chapter too when I started out, and we all saw how that turned out.

The way I set up the format of my story, the best way for me to get a chapter out is if the song easily and clearly formed a linear story in my head. The first chapter was birthed from me completely picturing a Hey Arnold music video to the song "Life After You" by Daughtry. Since I could never create the video that was in my head, I went for the next best thing; a story inspired by it.

The chapters that have all come easily to me were all the same way. I heard the song and I envisioned a complete music video. All I had to do then was describe what I saw in my mind.

Then there was the latest chapter. All I had was a visualization of the first stanza and the knowledge that the whole song would fit with what was happening in my story. That was probably why it was such rough going writing the chapter; I just couldn't properly picture it.

However, I do have a very clear mental picture of the chapter I'm currently working on. In fact, not only have I had a clear picture of my current chapter in my head more-or-less since I heard the parent song it's based off of, but I've also wished someone would do a cover of the song as a duet. Yes, ever since I heard this song and knew it would be a chapter in my story I've heard it as a duet between Arnold and Helga.

What song is it? Yeah, right! Like I'm leaking that! But it would make a beautifully painful duet in my opinion  When I finish the chapter and post it you can decide for yourself if I was right.

So there's the story progress update that I wanted to let you know. But there are two major updates with regards to building up my readership, professionalism, and over-all platform.

Although it doesn't seem to be there any longer for whatever reason, Chibi informed me that exactly a week ago a member of the Hey Arnold! Save The Jungle Movie group posted about my story What Is Truly Meant To Be! She asked the group what fanfics they are all reading, and then she stated that she was reading "What is Truly Meant to Be by LycoRogue and I highly recommend it"!!! *Squeal* I was so excited!

Chibi and DarkAngel1326 have both been bugging me about how I need to promote myself more in the Hey Arnold fandom groups. Everybody else posts their fanfics and chapter updates and that's why their readerships are so much higher than mine. I shouldn't feel ashamed about promoting myself.

Yet, I do. It took a lot for me to even promote this blog on my two Facebook accounts, my DeviantArt account, and on Twitter. Every now and again when I comment on a blog or on the Writer's Huddle forum I'll include a promo for this blog - mostly when it auto-links to the blog when a comment is made. However, as a whole I don't really promote the blog, or my writing. It's only been through continued encouragement from Chibi, DA, and my uncle that I started posting links to my writing on my main FB account. It's not that I'm ashamed of my work - I'm not; I'm very proud of it. It's more that it seems needy and shameless to self-promote.

I would go to the HA groups and see other people constantly going "I'm reading such-and-such fanfic and it's fantastic! You should all read it" or go to DeviantArt and see a new fanart group set up specifically for a fanfic and I wanted to have my stuff be good enough that I didn't need to promote it. My readers would do it for me.

NOT THAT I'M TRYING TO MAKE YOU FEEL FORCED IN TO PASSING ON MY WORK! IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING IF YOU FEEL OBLIGATED TO DO SO!

Anyway, for someone I'm not friends with to actually and sincerely enjoy my work enough to pass it on and promote me..... It was such an ego boost. THIS was the main reason I was upset about not winning the Halloween contest. It wasn't so much because other people were able to write better than me or because I didn't get the prize. It was because my work wasn't being promoted by an impartial outside source.

Granted, as I started this whole thing off saying, the post isn't there any longer so there aren't any further promotions off of it. Plus, I don't know how many people actually started reading my story because of the link - I didn't see a huge spike in readership. However, the point is that at least one impartial person promoted me. Who knows how many more there are throughout the internet that I don't know about. To me, that's huge!

So, if you are one of my faithful readers passing my name and my works on, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.


AGAIN, NOT TRYING TO MAKE THE REST OF YOU FEEL OBLIGATED!

Anyway, now on to the other big milestone in my writing "career" - as it were.
This past Sunday - the tenth - I received my first review about my actual writing style; not the content of the story!

Yes, in the past I've had generic writing style reviews such as "this feels like I'm watching an episode instead of reading a fanfic" or "I could really feel the character's pain" or "Everyone is totally in character! It's fantastic!" as well as the even more generic, but still heartwarmingly awesome "You're such a great writer! Please write more!"

However, Sunday I received the following review for the first chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be:

dyingXdasies: "I adore your word choice. The way you place words in your sentences heightens the intensity of the moment. All in all a greatly written chapter."

That is the coolest review! Someone commented on my SENTENCE STRUCTURE!

WHAAAAAA!?

Personally I think that's quite an accomplishment. So thank you, DxD!

Speaking of reviews, I've also had quite the positive feedback on The Adventures of Brainy already! I posted on Sunday and already have four reviews! Heck, my first reviewer couldn't wait until she was done reading before she reviewed!

"I haven't even finished half of this but had to comment funniest thing ever."

Pretty much all the reviews are the same. Granted, this was supposed to be a Valentine's Day story, but I went so far from fluffy this year! I'm glad it turned out so hilarious. I'm always so concerned when it comes to writing humor. I feel like I suck at it, but everyone seems to enjoy my jokes....  GO ME!

I had 39 views the first day that I posted and I'm up to 55 total. Not fantastic numbers, but considering the number of views versus number of reviews, and then comparing to the same ratios for my other stories, I think this story has the greatest reception.

In contrast, I've had 46 views but no comments over on DeviantArt. So there goes my theory that more people now read their fanfiction over there...

Regardless of where you find my stuff, if you fave it, if you review, if you've read more than one - or more than once, or if you promote my work; if you read my stories at all I want to thank you.

Happy Valentine's Day

Two Stories? Amazing!

My ninetieth post already!? And boy is it a good one for you guys.

Once again I didn't intend on my "post will be delayed" update to be my ONLY weekly update. Life got MAD CRAZY.

Hubby and I found a new apartment and spent a week transporting everything via packing multiple cars. Our house is in chaos complete with mini-mazes made out of egg boxes we got from the grocery store. We also couldn't get internet in the new apartment until this past Tuesday. Throw in work, the winter storm that came through this weekend, and my sister-in-law's baby shower. My netbook is also pretty much shot, and so I'm only using my desktop once again - meaning no progress during my work breaks any more.

The few moments I was able to find to write I used for my stories. Which means you guys had two in about a week!

First up - as mentioned in my delay post - was my latest chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. Another super big thank you to ChibiSunnie for helping me FINALLY get that chapter done! You're a godsend m'darling! Now to keep up the momentum to get the next chapter out before the end of the month! Whoo-boy, the next 18 days are gonna fly by quick, aren't they?

So, after I was finished with the latest chapter and the packing, and moving was more-or-less complete, it was time for me to get cracking on the Valentine's Day contest entry. I tried on multiple occasions this past week to work on both the delayed blog entry and my contest entry. Things didn't go according to plan.

But Friday I was determined. I had one day to work, but I promised myself I would write something for the contest. I started first thing in the morning, but I got stuck in multiple places. So I unpacked the bedroom while I thought. I washed dishes while I thought. I organized the bathroom while I thought. I watched videos to try to inspire me. And thus I wrote off and on for about 17 hrs.

Throughout the day I would send Chibi my story scene by scene to get her opinion. Although the darling woman was still struggling to finish up her own writing entry, she took multiple writing breaks to read my story and give me feedback. Meanwhile, I only gave her feedback on one part at the end of her story. I feel bad about the one-sided-ness of that day.

SORRY, CHIBI! SOOOOO SORRY! I HOPE YOUR STORY TURNED OUT WONDERFUL REGARDLESS!

Actually, I could let you guys know soon enough. She sent me the final draft. I just haven't had time to read anything - with still unpacking and whatnot. Speaking of which, I also have two things to beta-read for DarkAngel1326. First up was a revision to her soldier story, and second is a drabble about her Of Blood and Honor character 33.

I swear, ladies, I will get to your stories this week!

But getting back to my stories.
I've determined that not only do I suck at creating titles - I mean, my Valentine's day story is called The Adventures of Brainy - but I also suck at fight scenes. I had to break out the HeroScape to play out the fight scene for my Script Frenzy screenplay last April. I then struggled again for the fight scene I had in my Valentine's Day story. I'm just not very good. I just can't picture the fight choreography, and so it's hard for me to describe it. Things to focus on improving I guess.

I'm also a bit nervous about how the judges will "grade" my entry this time. I got originality points off last time simply because I purposely wrote the story as if it were an episode - as well as writing a ghost story even though it was specifically listed as a viable option in the rules. I'm still a little irked at both deductions. However, due to me purposely writing my story as a cheesy melodrama, which is where most cliches come from, I'm afraid of again losing originality points. I'm also fearful of losing points for not keeping the characters....in....character. Since the whole story is a dream sequence, much like the Married episode of Hey Arnold, the characters are supposed to act a little different than normal. In the case of Arnold it's REALLY different than normal.

Then again, part of me really doesn't care if my grade is lower than last time. It's a simple story clocking in at about 5,000 words - one of my shorter tales - and I'm proud of it. I guess that's all that matters, right?

A New Chapter Awaits!......editing.....

Goodness! I've gotten about 200 hits since last week! I never get that many hits! So I guess that means everyone is appreciating the new Handy Links page. I'm glad. I really hope that page helps you guys out.

If you haven't noticed yet, I have a new page: Handy Links For Fellow Aspiring Writers. There will be more links added to it as I find them, and when I update the page those fancy "New" icons will then only be by the links added that day.... I'll also try to remember to comment about any updates in that week's blog update.

Sure, now I have no clue who's reading my actual blog and who's just hopping by to get some helpful tidbits for themselves, but part of me doesn't really care. Yes, it would be fantastic to have more readers. Yes, it would be wonderful to know more and more people care about what I have to say. Yet, I kind of like the idea of helping fellow writers out more. One of the reasons I find beta-reading so fulfilling. So if you're enjoying the links - and if any in particular are helpful - don't forget to leave some comments. Same goes for if you find a helpful link that I don't have listed. Shoot me a comment so I can add the link. :-D

As for my own writing news, well, it's been a bit of a struggle but I managed to finally finish my chapter! ChibiSunnie now has it for beta-reading and she should get her notes back to me by tomorrow-ish. With any luck and massive determination I should be able to polish it up and manage to post by Thursday! So, those of you who have been waiting since friggen APRIL for my latest update, you shouldn't have to wait much longer. Also, I'm hoping this year I'll break this supposed cycle of writing monthly until May/June and then waiting almost a year for a new update....

I'll talk about it more in the author's notes of the latest chapter, but my issue this time was the format I locked myself in to - the chapters each based off of lyrics of a song. I had a spot where the chapter felt like it naturally wanted to end, and it was an exciting chapter to write up to that point. I actually had it written by the beginning of July if I can recall properly. So the update would have been MONTHS ago except for one major issue - the point where I had stopped left about half of the song lyrics untouched. So I avoided, and struggled, and worked on other writings, and beta-read, and looked for a new place to live.

Thank god I decided one of my New Years Resolutions would be to update once a month. That deadline really pushed me the last two days. That, and letting you guys know that the chapter would be sent to Chibi by today.... I was still stuck and didn't like how I was ending the chapter. I even remembered the advice "If you're bored writing it, the reader will be bored reading it" and wondered if I should bother with the "missing lyrics". I was actually dreading writing the ending of this chapter, as well as nervous that the advice would be true and everyone would find the chapter dragged out and the ending anti-climactic.

I was staring at the chapter like it was a school paper I waited until the last minute to write. I just wanted to do ANYTHING else but work on it - including cleaning and packing. What made everything worse is that my poor netbook pretty much died on me. The battery doesn't hold power for more than about 45min and there's something wrong with the fans not starting up with the computer so it auto-shuts off as soon as I turn the thing on. So I have to go through a dance of turning the computer back on repetitively about five times before it actually stays on, and then transfer everything over to my desktop so I could actually use the files saved on the netbook. It was tiring and drove me insane. All the more reason I wanted to avoid working on the story that was saved on my netbook.

Thankfully, Chibi helped me through it. She motivated me and gave me mini-breaks every once in a while as she asked me for advice on her drawing entry for the Valentine's Day contest. So thank you once again, Chibi, for helping me get back in to writing.

And speaking of the V-day contest, now that the chapter is almost out of the way I just need to focus on packing and moving this week and by next Sunday I should be able to start up on my contest entry. YAY, more Brainy writing! He's not in my latest chapter at all, so it will be fun to get back to him.

Finally Got The Ideas Flowin'

Last week I was excited to have a story concept set for the Valentine’s Day contest. This week I spent most of my days wondering if I had to go back to the drawing board. This was the Halloween story all over again. I had ideas bouncing around in my head, but I couln’t get any of them to develop in to a full story.

A week of talking back and forth with ChibiSunnie as well as scribbling notes down whenever I was on a work break resulted in me still not having a clue what to do with Brainy fantasizing about him and Helga. Everything I thought of either felt cliché or it had already been done in the show.

There were long battles with myself...

Helga’s trying to make it to Wrestlemania?

She and Harold already had that adventure in “Buses, Bikes, and Subways”.

Helga’s late for class?

Eh, she wouldn't really care about that.

What if Helga’s breaking in/out of the Sunset Arms?

Again?

Alright, this is a reoccurring thing, so not too many originality points, but it could work. It's sort of a show running gag.

Obviously she’d be attempting to stop Arnold from finding out her secret, but what would be the cause of her predicament this time?

Her book of poetry she writes about him?

Already happened in “Little Pink Book”.

Her locket with his picture in it?

Arnold found that in “Helga’s Locket”.

She confessed her feelings and then regretted it; hoping to snag back the proof before Arnold got to it?

Oh, you mean like the answering machine message in “Helga Blabs it All”?

What if she wasn’t aware that she was going to confess?

I get it! Like in “Helga Sleepwalks” when she broke in to his house to confess while she was sleeping!

How about someone else making the confession?

Because that would somehow be different than a parrot reciting Helga’s poetry to Arnold in “Helga’s Parrot”…

What if an actual person blabbed it? 

Everyone knows that Brainy knows her secret, but if he’s the hero – and if he hasn’t said anything by now – there’s no way he’s the one who’s going to say anything. 

Phoebe obviously knows considering the amount of times they hint at it in the show, but what would drive her to tell Arnold? Does he suspect and is badgering Phoebe about it?

Dr. Bliss is yet another who obviously knows, but she’s sworn to secrecy thanks to Doctor/Patient confidentiality. Besides, what would cause her to talk to Arnold about that anyway? 

Same goes with Mr. Simmons. He’s a smart enough man to know the poems Helga submits for class are about Arnold, but why would he ever say anything? 

It’s possible after the “Helga’s Boyfriend” episode that Stinky suspects that she likes Arnold, but he never really says anything the rest of the series, so it’s also quite possible he didn’t put two and two together. 

Lila knows because Helga told her in “School Play”. She’s a possibility since she’s at least a child and not a close enough friend of Helga’s for it to feel like a betrayal. Maybe Lila feels she’s helping those two finally get together? Maybe it’s a way to direct Arnold from crushing on her anymore? If I’m ignoring the FTi confession scene from the movie, can I also ignore that Arnold drops his crush on Lila at the end of “Timberly Loves Arnold”?

Then I thought of a rival, a thorn in Helga’s side that surpasses Lila…. Helga’s older sister Olga. Sure, she doesn’t seem to know about Helga’s crush on Arnold – or really anything else about her sister’s life for that matter – but what would happen if she found out? Clueless Miriam found Helga’s bubblegum shrine to Arnold in “Arnold’s Hat”, and Olga seems to always help out with the household chores, so what if Olga was helping her mother by putting Helga’s clean clothes away and finds another of the Arnold Shrines? What if she stumbles upon Helga’s poetry? What if Olga goes to check in on her Baby Sister while Helga’s sleeping and finds the locket?

For a little while I ran with the idea that Olga discovered Helga’s secret and, in an attempt to help out her kid sister, decides to let Arnold know about the crush. Helga could somehow find out and panic. Then Brainy’s to the rescue in stopping Olga and keeping Helga’s secret safe.

Three problems:

1 – How does Brainy permanently stop Olga from telling Arnold?

2 – Why can’t Helga do the same exact thing?

3 – Why would Brainy fantasize about keeping Helga’s secret safe? If he kept her secret safe she’d be eternally grateful to him and fall for him – if it were a true fantasy – and if so, Arnold finding out the truth would be a moot point since fantasy-Helga doesn’t feel that way any longer.

So, if it’s illogical for Brainy to fantasize about helping Helga by stopping Arnold from finding out her secret, what could Brainy help her with? Back to the drawing board...

At the very least, brainstorming how Brainy could save the day – using a real-world problem like in that The Big Bang Theory scene I posted last week – gave me that “Olga finds out about Helga’s crush” plotline. I think it could become a really cool “Olga and Helga Redefine Their Relationship” story. Plus, I’ve wanted to write an Olga story for a while. At least now I have a plot idea for that Olga story.

Oh, the Plot Bunny Farm is filling up fast! I might have to do another post about them all!

So as of Thursday I still had no clue what I was doing. I tried to switch gears by listening to my Valentine's Day playlist. I hoped that - much like how I get inspired to write chapters for my story - one of the songs will speak to me and inspire a story for the contest. I also started rewatching episodes of the Disney Aladdin cartoon series.

Inspiration hits in the weirdest ways. I landed upon a comedic love song entitled "Skullcrusher Mountain" and that really got my juices flowing.

Certain elements of the Aladdin cartoon also inspired me, but if I were to relay what parts over to you I'd give away some key points of my story.

Point is, I think I've finally figured out my Valentine's Day competition story! Whoot! I'm still going with Brainy fantasizing about Helga, but it will play out almost like a cheesy 1960's melodrama cartoon a la "Wacky Races" or "Dudley Do-Right". Let's just say that Arnold - in his "Eugene, Eugene" villainous persona Lawrence - portrays the singer in "Skullcrusher Mountain" with poor Helga as the captive woman.

Now that I know what I want to do with my Valentine's Day story I can finally concentrate on how I want to finish up my latest chapter for What is Truly Meant to Be. This way I can stick with my New Years Resolution to post a new chapter every month. Best part is, I think I FINALLY know where I want to go with that too.

So for the next 11 days I'll be working on WITMTB as well as packing to move in to the new apartment by February 1st. Then, once February rolls around, I'll use the last 8 days of the contest working on this Brainy story. If I could get the Halloween story done in one day, having over a week should be simple! Especially since the hardest part - figuring out the plot - is already taken care of!

Hopefully, by next week I'll either have my latest chapter done, or at least finished enough to send to Chibi to beta! 

Brainstorming a New Brainy Story

I had a really wacky work schedule this past week, so I’m a bit mixed up on my days. This week crawled along and flew by at the same time. I honestly didn’t remember what I did which week before going back and reading last week’s post. Sheesh….

Well, thanks to my amazing beta, muse, and friend ChibiSunnie, I was able to narrow my Valentine’s Day contest ideas from about 30 all the way down to the one idea I’m going to use…and it’s not even one of my ideas. I’m writing one of hers.

As we were spitballing back and forth to figure out what I should write she had made a comment about Brainy fantasizing about being with Helga and have this cool daydream segment similar to ones Helga does about Arnold.

I loved this idea! She just made this comment in passing and it stuck with me. This is why I never reject ideas. Even if you don’t use something, it can still be enough of a seed of thought to sprout a brilliant idea!

So now I’m struggling to figure out what I want to do for the fantasy. I’ve been playing with the idea of an Indiana Jones-like story. Hubby thinks I should go with a more James Bond-like story. Chibi thinks that I could do a story where Brainy transitions between personas based on the situation he comes across. I guess I need to figure out the problem that Helga is going to come across so I know which persona Brainy would use to “save” her.

An example from The Big Bang Theory has Leonard block the only stairwell in the apartment building and a distressed Penny complains that she’s going to be late for work. Leonard won’t be able to remove the block on the stairwell fast enough to get her to work on time, so he opens up the broken elevator shaft, pulls her close, reassures her that she’ll be alright, and then carries her down to the ground floor by sliding down the elevator cable.

Along with figuring out which Brainy Persona I want to go with, as well as the trouble Helga finds herself in, I also want to finish up my chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be in order to keep up with my new resolution of writing a chapter every month. With Script Frenzy in April and NaNo in November I’ll already be down two months, so I really want to make sure that January isn’t another lost month.

Then there’s also my beta reading for DarkAngel1326, Devious.Editor, Chopfe – if he gets back in to writing his story like he wants to – and now I also get to help out Chibi! She’s attempting another story since she did so well with her first one. She wants to do a story for Stinky and Lila, so I just sent her my notes on what she has so far. Am I going to have stiff competition against her again? :-D

On top of everything else, however, I do have the “fun” of repacking up my house since Hubby and I are moving in to a new apartment as of February 1^st. I HATE packing. Unpacking isn’t so bad since you have blank spaces to fill, but to take an unorganized house and to try to organize it in to boxes so like items are together for unpacking…. Gah, I HATE it.

Oh well, I guess I’m off to try to figure out at least one of my two stories…

Figuring Out The Valentine's Day Tale

I know that my last post was on a Wednesday, but this week still feels like it flew by!

I did manage to do the beta reading for Devious.Editor and DarkAngel1326. I'm proud to have finally found the time to help those ladies out. Devious has some work to do in order to finish her chapter. She has blips where she describes what she wants to happen in that part, but doesn't have it fully figured out yet, and she needs to figure out how she's going to end the chapter. So I guess Fugitive isn't going to be updated as soon as I had implied last post. I will be working with her and hopefully help her finish the chapter in a timely manner.

As for DA, well her story is fantastic. There were some places that I made some suggestions that I feel would help pull at the heart strings a little more, so she might have some tweaking - depending on whether or not she follows my suggestions. However, once she feels confident that she has the story at its best I hope she posts it on DeviantArt and/or Fictionpress. The world needs to read it. :-D

As for me? Well, the above beta reading was the extent of my "Writing World" ventures. I did manage to finish Professor Layton. So that's one less distraction. Now my thoughts are all on the Valentine's Day competition that the Hey Arnold group is hosting.

They will be using the same scoring as for the Halloween Contest, so I REALLY want to try to make up those points in originality. Therefore, I'm avoiding the Helga/Arnold, Gerald/Phoebe, and Harold/Rhonda/Curly pairings because those will probably be everyone's go-to. The problem being, that there are so many MORE options I could go with and I don't have any strong feelings to follow any one of them in particular. I have until February 8th to figure it out though.

Here are my reigning thoughts on what I should do, and there are a LOT of them:

• Grandpa Phil and Grandma Gertie
• I've stated before that it would be fun to do a "how they got together" story about these two; the transition from Gertie bullying Phil to them actually dating and getting married. I still feel like this is too large and too complex of a story to write as a simple Valentine's Day tale, so it's again getting slotted away.
• Perhaps a story just about their wedding day. It would be sweet with a little chaos thrown in. I just need to do some research on the average wedding in the 1940s... it's a shame my grandparents aren't still alive....
• I could do a story about Gertie's pregnancy and/or birth of Miles and the chaos a new baby brings to the already hectic life of running a boarding house. Problem there is that I have no experience in the "new parent" department yet, so I'm not sure how true-to-life I'd be able to make the story just on second-hand info.
• A simple, quiet tale of Phil and Gertie during the years of the show - 80, raising a grandson, taking care of the Sunset Arms, and growing old together. I'd probably do the story through the more-sane POV of Phil, and how in his opinion Gertie hasn't changed one bit.
• Miles and Stella
• Keeping with the Shortman family, perhaps a story of Miles and Stella while they're still in the jungle, before bringing Arnold to Hillwood. Or perhaps their new lives in Hillwood and getting reaccustomed to "civilization" along with parenthood. I feel these two don't get too many stories for two reasons. 1 - we don't know terribly too much about them, 2 - everything about their lives that needed to be said was told beautifully in "The Journal" episode.
• Oskar and Suzie
• I already did a pseudo-romance story about them during the July Daily Challenge. Do I want to do another one?
• The Million Dollar Question for this couple is "Why did Suzie marry him in the first place?" so perhaps there's a story there.
• I don't have any theories on the matter, so that might prove a bit tricky...
• Perhaps the story isn't the REAL story of how they got together, but a bunch of mini-stories via the boarders' theories on the subject.
• Bob and Miriam
• Another dysfunctional couple that people wonder about. A lot of theories float around about Bob actually being a looker and a charmer in his day and then showing his true colors after he and Miriam are married. I might be able to work with this.
• There must have been a time where these two were legitimately happy together. I just need to backtrack to before Miriam started drinking.
• Did Bob crush her dreams of becoming more than a house wife right away and that's what drove her to drink?
• Did she start drinking after the stress of caring for Olga and keeping house while watching her dreams die?
• Did she start drinking after having Helga? Either as a continuation of some postpartum depression or because she sincerely didn't want another child?
• Did she start drinking relatively recently, as a way to cope with not having her "perfect" Olga around as a buffer between her and Bob?
• I feel like this story might be a bit of a deep and twisty one... perhaps another to slot away for another time...
• Another fantastic plotbunny that crept up was a story where Bob is tempted with an affair with an employee - or possibly a returning client - and the proof that the Patakis truly love each other as Bob and Miriam work through this threat of infidelity.
• Definitely a larger story that needs to be slotted away.... I have so many stories like this!
• Coach Jack Wittenberg and Tish
• Another dysfunctional couple, but this one routinely shows off that they really are madly in love. Writing a story about these two is like writing a parody fanfic of the show “According to Jim”; partially because it’s the only show I know of where the couple is obviously in love but compete constantly, and partially because Wittenberg is voiced by Jim Belushi and the wife on both shows is a blonde.
• Perhaps the story of how Jack and Tish became a couple. The story was briefly told by Tish in the episode “Best Man” and it might be fun to explore it some more.
• Maybe a fun story of Tish and Jack STILL competing heavily while Tish is pregnant with Tucker.
• Since Tish isn’t in the ONE episode that Tucker is in, and since Tucker is never seen or mentioned past the episode “Benchwarmer” – which includes his surprising absence from the “Best Man” episode where Jack and Tish get re-married – it is sort of fanon that Tucker is actually Jack’s son from a previous marriage.
• Perhaps there can be this bittersweet story of Tish having a crush on Jack since they were kids, watching him marry another woman and having a kid with her, and then Tish being there for Jack when he goes through divorce.
• Another multi-chapter plot bunny?
• Ernie and Lola
• Switching back to the Sunset Arms boarders. At the end of "Ernie in Love" he and Lola made up after their fight. Lola was trying to coax Ernie in to having dinner with her again, but Ernie tried to slow things down with a simple "we can have coffee". Did this relationship grow now that Lola had gotten over her shallow views on Ernie's height?
• Harold and Patty
• Another couple I touched upon twice during the July Daily Challenge. One was Patty's POV during the episode "Hey, Harold". It wasn't really a romance, but it showed the potential there. My first story about these two, however, was "Letters From Nowhere", another July Daily challenge prompt in which Rhonda sends secret admirer letters to Harold, but he thinks they're from Patty. It's kind of a romance yet again, but I've never actually wrote a true romance story between these two.
• Perhaps a continuation of Letters From Nowhere. What happens when Harold arrives at Slausen's looking for Patty without realizing he's supposed to be finding Rhonda?
• Maybe a story about how they finally transition from friends to "more than"
• How about a bit of a heartbreaker story of Patty - who is two grades higher than Harold even though he's almost two years older - going off to college and Harold feeling stupid, alone, and left behind?
• I kind of like this one, but it again feels larger than a Valentine's Day one shot.
• Rhonda and Sid
• I don't really get this pairing, but apparently there are some subtle clues throughout the show that suggests that it IS canon that Sid has a crush on Rhonda. Hubby likes this pairing the most out of the Rhonda possibilites.
• My fear is since I don't really get this pairing it would take me too long to figure it out and I won't have time to actually write it.
• Sid and Nadine
• ChibiSunnie unintentionally brought up this possibility to me when she did a comic suggesting such a pairing. Although neither of us believe this is going to be more than a short high school fling before they mutually part ways as friends, it would still be fun to see them as a couple, even for a little while.
• Nadine and Peapod Kid
• Established canon after Peapod's reaction in the episode "Married". I don't really get this coupling though, so if anything I'd have this set up as a love triangle with the above pairing of Nadine and Sid. Perhaps a tale of Peapod wooing Nadine away from Sid. Thing is, I just can't refer to the kid as "Peapod" the entire story, so I'd have to come up with a "real" name for him.
• Lila and Stinky
• Another couple that Chibi came up with, mainly due to their similar rural backgrounds. They could actually make a really cute couple. I’d probably focus on Stinky winning Lila over, under the shock of his peers since Lila and Rhonda are clearly still the top two girls that the gang would love to be with.
• Eugene and Sheena
• I wrote a very long story about these two last Valentine’s day as a gift for Chibi. Do I want to write another one?
• If the answer is yes, should I write one where Eugene finally realizes his feelings for Sheena? Or one of them actually dating?
• Helga and Brainy
• Pairing Helga up with anyone other than Arnold is already sort of taboo, but it is certainly unconventional to pair her with Brainy! However, that is precisely what I’m already doing with my main story.
• Part of me wants to submit my fifth chapter – when Brainy asks Helga out – to see how far it could get in the contest, as well as sort of promote my story.
• However, that will completely take away from the actual writing portion of the competition. I feel like I need to write a brand new story.
• Should I write a sort of “companion” story to my main one in which I show more of Helga and Brainy dating?
• Should I write a story completely separate from my main story, but still have Brainy and Helga paired off?
• Tommy and Maria
• Two side characters that we know little to nothing about aside from Tommy’s affection to yell for Maria to “come over here!”
• Mr. Simmons and Peter
• I would have to pretty much completely construct Peter’s character since he was only briefly seen in the “Arnold’s Thanksgiving” episode. Would that count as creating an Original Character? Because creating OCs isn’t allowed for this contest.
• I’m not sure if I want to follow this couple because AngelBlood666 already wrote a really nice story about these two for his July Daily Challenge, and I honestly don’t think I’d be able to surpass his tale.
• Lila’s Parents
• I also want to do a story with these two, but we know nothing at all about Lila’s mother and almost as little about her father. I would certainly be severely bending the “no OCs” rule since I would essentially be creating two brand new characters – including coming up with their names.
• Unfortunately, I feel like this is a no-go for the contest, but perhaps I’ll slot it away for next Valentine’s Day…

So those are my thoughts on all the couples I can think of for this Valentine’s Day contest. Anyone have any thoughts on which story I should focus on? Which one do you think could be a real winner? Which one is most intriguing to you? Let me know in the comments below! :-D