So sorry I didn't update yesterday. Mommy and Sis were visiting over the weekend for my b'day and prior to that I was cleaning the house so I haven't really been on the internet since Thursday. Plus I wanted to purposely wait until today for one key thing:
Chibi drew me as a HA! character with my favorite characters throwing me a party! Whoot!
I look so goofy! XD Like a Dr. Seuss character or something! HAHA!
I feel so special! I love my cards! I see other people get cards on DeviantArt for their birthdays, but this is the first year I got any cards and they are awesome! <3
I knew Chibi was drawing something for me - she asked a bunch of questions to best figure out how to draw me, but I didn't know CL16 was going to draw something for me. So I was excitedly waiting for Chibi's picture, and then pleasantly surprised by CL16's. ^_^ YAY!
Then I go on to Facebook and get a message from DarkAngel1326 letting me know that I had four gifts coming my way! The first gift was a little scene that she wrote me based on something we were joking about when talking about ideas for her one story Keep Love In Your Heart. I had told her that my deceased dad would "visit" by messing with electronics in the house, so we joked about Arnold thinking his loved one was "visiting" and would therefore profess his love to the electronic. Sooooo, my first gift was a scene about Arnold professing his love to a toaster while hugging it to his chest... only to be caught by his parents! It was kinda fluffy and super funny! I'm so proud of my lovely DA! <3
My second gift from DA1326 was the first volume of the Familiar of Zero novel. I don't have the time to read it yet, but it looks awesome and she hopes it will help with my crossover that I started during the writing challenge. ^_^
She wanted to "perfect" the next two gifts before sending them to me. So she started off with the following hint...
Me thinks Arnold is figuring something out!
A few hours later I finally got gift number 3:
EEEEE! XD <3 My favorite scene in the series!!!!
Still waiting on gift number 4... But I'm about to explode with excitement! ^_^
Mommy also got me a whole bunch of Muppets stuff and made me an ice cream cake so I got a whole bunch of good stuff! YAY!
As for the writing.... well... not such good stuff.
As I said, I wasn't able to write anything over the weekend because my family was visiting. Prior to that I was on a cleaning frenzy. Due to the daily writing challenge I was working on, I was completely avoiding all household chores... soooooooo.... yeah, my house was a sty.
Also, I had something pretty kick butt thought up for Day 16's "When Worlds Collide" - only for my computer to derp up and completely lose the file; even though I was frequently saving. Q_Q So I sort of rage-quit the challenge....
Anyway, I debated picking back up the challenge tomorrow and just punch out days 24 through 31 daily. However, the drabbles will be posted on my fanfiction story in order, so if any of the story ideas end up being related I'd rather just do them in order. So I'm probably going to continue on hiatus until August and just restart up at that point... OOOOR, I will start back up tomorrow, but back on day 15. *shrug* Still not sure yet.
Well, my 27th year was a good one for writing, so let's see together if Age 28 will be even better! ^_^ YAY!
It’s been really hot lately, and aside from a few drizzles, we haven’t had any rain since Independence Day. The best part of that is I don’t even know if my town got the rain. Hubby and I were visiting a friend for the holiday and he lives about forty-five minutes away. And even so, the rain only seemed to last the ten minutes it kept me to walk back to his house after picking up drinks from the gas station. Hubby felt horrible about sending me out for the drinks, but I actually quite enjoyed the refreshment of the rain… plus my clothes weren’t soaked, so I was still able to comfortably sit around our friend’s house.
Anyway, my point is that my yard isn’t the only thing drying up. I’ve had a few different times where I had to skip over the daily prompt because I just couldn’t think of anything. The first day I had to do this was for last week’s prompt of “Serenades in the Moonlight.” I had written a couple of scenes in “What Is Truly Meant To Be” where Helga is serenaded in the moonlight, and so I couldn’t think of anything new. In the end I ended up posting the opening of my fifth chapter. So that’s the first prompt I have to go back and do eventually.
The second prompt was from this week: “Shooting Star”. Again, I wrote a scene in WITMTB where Helga is watching a meteor shower, and then there is the story I wrote for Valentine’s day 2011. “I Caught You a Star” is only two chapters long, and both consist of Arnold and Helga watching a meteor shower. I didn’t want to go literal with the shooting star thing after three scenes where I did just that. I had a few other ideas on mind, using shooting star as a metaphor; I just couldn’t get them to work. After talking to DarkAngel1326 I helped her figure out her prompt, and she helped me think of an idea. I’ll once again be doing a literal “watching a shooting star,” but it will be with a new character and a lot more emotional I think. I just didn’t have the time to sit down and write it before the deadline.
I also have the prompt “Of Blood and Honor” where I started writing a continuation of my “Spellbound” prompt, but I started the action way too ahead of the scene I wanted. In the 24hr-writing timeframe allotted by the challenge, I didn’t have enough time to actually get to the scene where “Of Blood and Honor” would be evident. I ended up posting what I did have, but the scene has nothing to do with the prompt that birthed it. Soooo that’s another one I need to go back and work on. I already started, but Arnold’s voice seems horribly off. I’m probably going to reboot my reboot.
Besides all of the missed prompts, I don’t really think that the stories I wrote this week were as good as the ones I did last week. So I’m a little “eh” about everything. Then there is the X-Men RP that Hubby set up. I haven’t really done anything on there since I started the daily challenge, but then again no one else has really been on either. This is the downside of his friends. They get really excited about a game, get really in to it for a couple sessions, and then they fizzle out. The ones that were super excited and still super involved in the game also couldn’t play. One has been crazy with work, and the other just moved.
Regardless, I haven’t really been inspired to do anything with either of my characters – that is, except for designing them more. I spent about four hours in Photoshop messing around with creating the dolls. I’ve also worked more on designing the floorplan of the Xavier Institute based on how Hubby shifted things around for our game.
But let’s get back to writing. I mean, that IS what this blog is about and what you guys care about.
Well, recently my mom again teased me on Facebook about needing to get started with using my talent. I told her that I was: the daily challenge. She made some other comment about how good of a writer I am, blah, blah, blah. Then I teased that she couldn’t possibly know that since she hasn’t actually read anything I’ve written since middle school. She complained that it was because in high school I wrote all these dark, gruesome horror stories. To which I stated that I’ve been all happy and fluffy since I met my husband, and so I haven’t written a dark story in about a decade. I then sent my mom the link to my FanFiction profile. She claimed she was going to read my stuff, but she hasn’t said anything yet. Who knows if she’s read anything. *shrug*
However, if YOU, dear reader, want to read the stories I've written for the July Daily Challenge, you can find them all here. The only exception is of course Day 12 since I wasn't going to post an entire 2-chapter story... You can find that here.
And if you prefer to read my works on DeviantArt, you can find them all here.
Now to keep myself busy with today's challenge and cleaning my house to get ready for my mom and sister visiting this upcoming weekend!
I go from two weeks in a row where I am not inspired in the
least and haven’t written a single word to a week where I am spending most of
my free time writing!
Last month the Hey Arnold Creative Ideas group on facebook
presented a 15-day challenge. Every day a new art theme was presented and
everyone participating had 24hours to draw something Hey Arnold related using
that day’s theme.
Now, I have difficulties drawing stick figures, so I clearly
wasn’t going to participate in the drawing daily challenge, but I really wanted
to.
Then comes an announcement that there will be a writing
daily challenge for the month of July. Now THAT I could participate in! No
whining about Writer’s Block! Who knows when I’d have an opportunity like this
again? I was going to participate!
So far - aside from a hiccup on the sixth where I just couldn't think of anything - it’s going much better than Script Frenzy, and I
think that’s because of four reasons:
There is something new to write about each day. I don’t
have to sit and think of a long story – as naturally as that comes to me.
Instead I can just sit for an hour, write a little blurb, and be done with the
challenge for the day. Granted, it's been more like "Write for 20minutes at a time throughout the day and write 3000 words" but you get my point... Plus, the new daily topics keep me from getting bored
with what I’m writing.
I actually know of others participating and I get to
read what they wrote every day. It’s great to see what others come up with, see
their stylings, and it’s a fun way to relax: just sit and read short
fanfiction. The stories that are coming out of this challenge are so awesome!
It makes me super excited to see what other people are going to post next.
Because this large community is all participating and
posting daily, that puts pressure on me to continue participating and posting
daily. Granted, no one is going to be “You suck! You quitter!” – it actually
goes more along the lines of “Awww, it’s too bad you didn’t continue…” but
still. However, reading everyone’s positive feedback and writing “I can’t wait
to see what you come up with next” is such an addicting feeling. I need more of
this in my life when it comes to writing – and especially when it comes to
exercising!
Finally, I find it easier to continue with this because
my oh so darling DarkAngel1326 is the one who is in charge of the challenge.
She randomly selects writing prompts from a LiveJournal post and then sends the prompts our way. She then gets gloriously and ironically stuck on what to write and is usually one of the last people to post something – so it’s fun to encourage her on the day to day. Which means that if I’m poking at her to write I can’t be a hypocrite and I need to write alongside her – which brings us back to point number 3.
So I have been on a bit of a writing frenzy and it's all thanks to DA1326! Another thing that's thanks to her is my new catchphrase: Tsunami of Awesomeness!
On the third she was going on and on about how great my stuff was and how hers blew in comparison. Obviously I didn't agree with her, but that's our way. ^_^ So in our "argument" we had this little banter:
DarkAngel: "I think [I have an idea that's] kinda original, but, at the rate you're going, you'll blow me out of the water."
Me: "I'm sure I won't blow you out of the water..."
DarkAngel: "You're right. You won't blow me out of the water. You'll create a tsunami of awesomeness and drown me out with your amazing prose."
XD DA, you're just too cute and I'll glomp you if I ever meet you in person! <3
I've also met a new buddy thanks to the challenge. Seems our little writing community has a "Pay It Forward" policy... I beta for DA, she then offered to beta for Angelblood666 - I'll get back to him in a second - and HE offered to beta for someone in the Creative Ideas group I mentioned above. I'm sure in a month or two she'll offer to beta for someone else, etc. etc. etc.
Anyway, back to AB666. He and DA have been chatting a lot, and she offered to beta for him. Apparently, throughout their numerous daily talks my name comes up time and again - and with strong encouragement to read my works! *blush* So AB finally reads what I have and gives me these rave reviews each time!
I then see that DA posted my Daily Challenge "entry" in the Creative Ideas group for everyone there to see. This I should be doing myself, but it feels weird for me to promote myself like that. Even when people leave the "What fanfiction should I read" question I NEVER mention my own works - I'd prefer others saying "You should check this out!" Anyway, so she posted my story and here comes AB with yet another shining review!
We then started talking via the facebook group and the next thing you know, we're in each other's heads. For the July 7th prompt he almost wrote a story that would have closely resembled mine, and I nearly wrote one that would have matched his!
He really is a sweetheart and a great writer. He's new to the game and needs lots of encouragement, so go check out his stuff and let him know what you think. Here, I'll even link you to his page again.
So there is lots of "win" going on with this challenge.
I'm getting daily Writer's High from all the kind reviews of my stuff.
More people are discovering my writing thanks to DarkAngel posting it in the Facebook group.
I'm challenging myself even more than the challenge itself because I'm purposely trying to think outside the box - that way I can avoid writing something similar to what everyone else will write. It's fun to add to the challenge, as well as fun to write for characters I never would have thought of if I just went with my original instincts of Helga and Arnold. I AM writing a lot of stories using the Johannson family though....
I'm making new friends!
Speaking of which... I'm also becoming stronger friends with CartoonLover16. I'm not sure if it was because of my post a few weeks back, but he's become very vocal lately and I love it! He comments all the time here and on my stuff on DeviantArt. He also has three more drawings featuring my avatar.
I again seem a touch scary here... hehe
HAHA! Yes! And I AM surrounded by freaks on a nearly daily basis! XD
But I think this one is my favorite:
HAHA, I love my expression! That's so me! XD
Personally I think he's getting better, don't you?
The only thing left to talk about is the X-Men RPG Hubby started up a few weeks back. Every now and again we get a small group of us on at the same time and we have some great fun, but for the most part it's been kind of dead this week. People have work, or don't know if they can handle the RP on a forum, and I have the writing challenge.
Still, the "crazy antics" that we DO put our characters through makes me want to turn it all in to a comic series. I just need someone who is capable and willing to draw out the scenes as I convert them in to a script. ^_^ Any takers? HAHA!
Well, as predicted, not terribly too much happened by way of writing. I'm gonna try to get better at that this month.
The car drama came full circle:
Car problem was an easy fix
Car problem is gonna take $200 to fix
Car can't be fixed for another week
Car gets fixed with a simple hose replacement for free
Car runs fine until I'm at Mom's
Car's "Check Engine Light" comes back on....
Well, it at least survived the four-hour drive back home and it's not stalling every time it goes idle, so it will have to do for a little bit. Hubby did win some money when we all went to the casino by my mom, so we at least have the money to fix the car - hopefully. ^_^
I then got super cranky because Writer's Block hit so hard that I couldn't even finish roleplaying one night... I literally just put the computer away, turned to Hubby, and said "I can't think of anything".
Since then, I'm still a little iffy when it comes to creativity, but I'm at least doing SOME roleplaying, which means SOME creative writing. It's a start, right? I also finally decided on enough stuff about my secondary character that I could start roleplaying with her, and as of right now she's sort of my primary - since I can have some fun with her.
I also spent the week working more on the visual aspects of the game to help everyone better understand where everything is.
And unfortunately, that is all I have for this week... Here's hoping I have more to talk about next week, these short blogs are getting kinda lame. :P
Fun little side note: I surpassed 2000 hits this week. That's kinda cool considering that means 1000 hits in like 3 months. ^_^
Well, folks. Here we are again. Another week not only gone
by, but gone by with me being late on a blog post.
I’m not gonna lie, I blatantly ignored this blog this week.
I know. I’m sorry.
Life has gotten super stressful lately and it’s just easier
for me to disappear in to my newest fandom and forget everything else.
My Check Engine light came on, and I have no money to pay
for a trip to the mechanic. My father-in-law, sister-in-law’s husband, and a friend
of my in-laws all know how to maintain and fix cars: specifically Fords – which
is what I have. So I was informed that SOMEONE would look at my car for me to
see if I even NEED to go to a mechanic – or if it’s a “quick fix” that one of
them could do.
Then the parents-in-law had their car break down, knew how
to fix it, but with the East Coast Heat Wave couldn’t be outside long enough to
actually DO anything. And since I needed them to bring my husband to work while
I was already there, I ended up lending them my “Check Engine” car – they’d
drop me off, drive the car back to Hubby, and made sure the car was back for us
to leave work.
Three days later – and over a week after the light came on
in my car – I drive my father-in-law back home after one more day of lending my
car to him, and then my car stalls right outside their house.
My car is an automatic.
So, some super jerky minutes and a lot of tears later, we made it home and I had a near
panic attack.
Thankfully, Hubby was there for the rescue.
He talked to his parents to comment on how horrible the car
was now and they promised to come down the next day to figure out what’s wrong.
Next day comes, father-in-law checks, and tells me I have a rough idle, or low
idle, or some sort of “this car isn’t idling properly” situation. Therefore,
whenever my car comes to a full stop, and switches to idle, it stalls. As long
as I’m giving the car gas I’m fine.
OK, good. I can drive to and from work until we can get it
fixed, however, I’m supposed to take a four-hour drive to visit my mom on
Thursday. No way in hell I’m doing that with a car that has potential to break
down – especially since I can’t afford AAA anymore.
So now it’s a long game of phone tag to see if the
father-in-law was able to contact the friend or the son-in-law to see if either
of them could help, since Daddy-in-law doesn’t have the right tools. I’m
praying it DOES get fixed by Wednesday so I don’t have to cancel my
long-awaited trip. In the meantime, I’m just stalling at every stop sign and
traffic light on the way to work because I don’t know how to drive a manual
car, so the “Switch to and from Neutral when you’d normally idle and give it a
little gas to stop it from stalling” thing is a little tricky for me….
On the plus side, I did this really cool trick where my car
stalled in the work parking lot, but I still had enough momentum to perfectly
turn in to a parking spot before it came to a complete stop. Also, a coworker
apparently had a similar problem and he claimed it was a “pretty cheap fix”.
I’m hoping his definition of “cheap” is $20 or less….
Anyway, between that and drama going on at work centered
around one coworker being immature and unprofessional, which makes the entire
department look bad, which means we’re ALL getting 15-minute one-on-one
lectures from the manager that was on vacation at the time…. *sigh* so much
stress!
Then you have the new X-Men RPG that I
talked to you guys about last week. My husband had been talking about starting one
up for a while now, and he finally got around to making the forum a little over
a week ago.
In the game his 16-yr-old character is crushing on my
14-yr-old one. Not really all that farfetched, he almost always has my
character be a love interest of his. However, with Gambit being his character’s
father, he’s really pouring on the Cajun Charm as his character attempts to woo
mine.
AAAAAAAAND randomly, more reasons why we love Gambit:
Anyway, my heart races whenever Hubby updates a post and I read the
charming courtship he’s presenting.
It’s like we’re back to 8 years ago when we first started
dating and he’s courting me all over again.
Even though all of the characters’ firsts aren’t anything
like our own, it still feels like I get to relive our first encounter, first
dance, first kiss, first date, and all the tingley moments of wondering where
he is, when we’ll run in to each other again, what he’ll say, what he’ll do,
etc.
So, naturally I’m now addicted. I’m addicted to all these
warm, fuzzy, de-stressing feelings of courtship. Whenever I attempt to work on
my story, or my blog, or cleaning, or my Operation Ruthless video – which was due on
Saturday, by the way… but if you still want to participate contact PinkLotus27,
she might let you sneak one in while her computer is getting fixed – anyway,
whenever I try to do ANYTHING other than the forum I get distracted by thoughts
of Hubby and what our characters might be doing next.
And so I spend nearly every waking, non-working moment on
the forum, role playing with the hubby.
Also, due to my overly visual nature, I am now overcome with
an impulse to draw what everyone’s characters look like so I have a clearer
mental image of their characters. Thing is, I can’t draw… So I’ve been also
addicted to DollzMania.com where I can try to piece together what the
characters look like. Problem THERE is that I’ll like a character base and hair
color from one doll maker, and the actual hair style and top from another, and
maybe the pants from a third, and a fourth one would be really good at making
the X-Men uniforms… Which leads me to copying pretty much every element of
every doll maker, saving them in Photoshop, and then trying to re-create my OWN
doll maker – with like a zillion layers with all the skin, hair, clothes, and
accessory options.
On top of that, I also want to create a blue-print of what
the Xavier Institute looks like. Mainly because not everyone who is playing is THAT huge of an X-men fan. They might know the basics of the universe, or know what was shown in the multitude of cartoons and movies, but they don’t really
have all this stuff memorized or anything. So, for them to have a better idea
on what is where, I wanted to do a blueprint.
My secondary reason is that Hubby needed to tweak some things to better
fit the RPG, and so the layout isn’t exactly the same – which means even the
few hard-core fans that are playing don’t exactly know where things would be
located.
My final reason for the blueprint is because I’m a visual
person who needs a reference for herself – plus it’s more time in Photoshop and
ignoring the stressors of the world right now.
On the plus side, after a LOT of reference pictures, and
searching the internet, and pixel-by-pixel recoloring I did manage to come up
with these two images of my character:
She’s the daughter of Amara Aquilla AKA Magma. She has her
mother’s powers to control lava, create fireballs using the heat of the lava,
and create minor earthquakes due to using magma to shift the tectonic plates a
bit. When Magma fully energizes so she can manipulate lava her body transforms.
Depending on the reference you get, she either looks like she’s covered in lava
or her body is made of flames.
Anyway, I didn’t want my character to be a carbon copy of
Magma, so my character – codename Obsidian – turns in to obsidian when she fully energizes, but she still has
cracks of lava at the joints – hence the red lines you see all over that first
picture. I also described her as having a furnace-like core where the glow
shines through her stomach – which is what’s up with the weird orange abs. I
might have to go back and doctor that some more, but I can’t seem to get the
same glow effect I got around the lava-filled eyes. I might also change the
hair since her hair is naturally brunette and it’s supposed to become
flame-like when she transforms….
I still need to finish making a doll of Obsidian when she’s normal, plus I’m also working on a super secret second
character. She’s a bit trickier because Hubby created her originally, and then
when I expressed that my character – as much as I love her – is fourteen and
super meek. I wanted a more outgoing, flirty character. So the character Hubby
created was passed over to me. Trouble being, he had a mental image of what she
looked like, a rough idea of her personality, as well as a list of her powers.
Now I need to fill in the rest. And the rest doesn’t want to be filled in.
When I needed a back story for my main D&D character I just read up on how the typical Scout character
class was built, saw that a lot of times the character backstories included
needing to hide and track in the woods, and the rest of the backstory sparked
from there. When I created another D&D character and decided I was going to
have her purposefully quest solely for fame and fortune the rest of the
backstory more-or-less wrote itself.
When it came to my main X-men character, the catalyst for
her backstory came from wondering why she was at the Xavier Institute in order
to train her powers. If her parents were teachers there, she would have grown
up there like a lot of the other characters – but she was just starting there.
Why? If she had a combination of both parents’ powers perhaps she needed the
training from the institute instead of having her parents train her, but she
only got a carbon-copy of her mother’s powers. So why couldn’t Magma train her
daughter? Once I realized that my character Lia had to go to the Institute to
train because Magma wasn’t around to train her, the rest of the backstory
easily developed – as did the character.
But now I’m stuck on this new character. I can’t figure out
the main catalyst that would make her who she is today. I want her to be a bit
like the character Boom-Boom from X-Men: Evolution, but I don’t want to be a
personality clone – especially since the character has no relation to
Boom-Boom. I also want her to be a touch “street wise” – one of those girls
that will surprise you because her small frame doesn’t make it seem like she
can defend herself. Think Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin, when she surprised him
with the ability to pole-vault simply by watching him do it.
So how do I make her street wise? I don’t want her to be a
thief. A) because Hubby’s character is the son of Gambit, and therefore already
is a bit of a thief himself. B) because Boom-Boom was forced
in to a life of Breaking and Entering due to her power, and again, I don’t want
my character to just be Boom-Boom 2.0.
I also don’t want her to be street wise due to living on the
streets for whatever reason. We already have a character who had “ran away from
the orphanage, turned to a life of crime, and lived on the streets” as his
backstory.
Soooooo now what?
Anyway, that’s where I am: frozen behind a huge Writer’s
Blockade mainly due to stress. I need to chip away at the block so I can figure
out this new character as well as finish the chapter. Especially since
CartoonLover16 is breezing through the story and is almost done with what I have already. Aaaaand, because I got ANOTHER piece of fanart from ChibiSunnie
and she’ll be caught up with pictures soon too at this rate! ^_^
Fair warning, with a mad rush to find a way to fix the car
this week, then the trip to visit my Mom to celebrate 17 years of being cancer
free…. Well… Frankly I doubt I’ll have much to write about next week either,
but we’ll see.
For this week I’ll leave you with the lovely piece of
artwork Chibi drew for Chapter 3:
It's been another week of not writing anything... sort of.
I finished beta-ing CartoonLover16's second chapter. It's longer than my Valentine's Day story. I actually had to split his chapter in half in order to send the edits back to him without crashing FanFiction's DocX Exchange. I find it amusing that he ended up doing something similar to another author I'm Beta reading for - plot-wise.
I also spent the past three days concentrating on a new character I'm creating for another fandom.
Hubby has been talking about it for a while, and he finally got around to starting up his game. It is a forum-based RPG in the X-Men universe. More specifically, it will be a continuation of the X-Men Evolution timeline with the main comic book canon spliced in.
Each player is the son or daughter of at least one X-Man or Brotherhood member. So far all of us - through a random dice roll - are children of two mutants. Our characters are all ages 14-19 and we're "New Recruits" at The Institute... I THINK he finally decided to stay with the Xavier institute instead of updating to the Jean Grey institute.
He created a list of possible parent candidates and each player is allowed to chose one parent off the list. Once chosen, that character cannot be picked by another player as his/her parent. Hubby then uses dice rolls to randomly determine the other parent - this is the only way players can become siblings because he can roll a parent another player picked already. Other options include a non-mutant parent or Mr. Sinister genetically engineered your character by splicing together two mutants - possibly resulting in both parents being the same sex. Hubby himself was almost the engineered child of Gambit and Bishop... Gambishop. ^_^
Using a table, he then rolls to see if you inherited your powers from your father, mother, both, or not at all - it's more detailed than that, but you get the idea.
YAY, ROLLING FOR GENETICS!
My character is the daughter of Amara "Magma" Aquilla and Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox. I chose Magma because... well... her name's Amara... which is also the name of my D&D character that I started developing back in like 2004...
The dice then decided on Multiple Man. I only inherited Magma's powers.
The next few days were spent coming up with a backstory and messing around in Photoshop to create a sprite characterization of my mutant. WHOOT!
So since I haven't really done any writing, I decided that this week I'll share with you the OTHER ways I've been creative.
Here is a list of music video ideas that I want to do using Hey Arnold! footage. I have the professional editing program; just not any way of copying the DVDs on to my computer.... Maybe I'll do that Walmart "Digitize your DVDs" thing....
Music Video Ideas - Fair Warning... nearly every song I hear ends up on this list... :P
"Chemicals Between Us" by Bush - A darker "Stalker Video" -- Helga stalking Arnold -- Brainy stalking Helga -- Curly stalking Rhonda
"Alejandro" by Lady Gaga - Helga-centric about her hiding her feelings -- Alejandro = Arnold -- Fernando = Stinky -- Roberto = Brainy or Arnie
"The Mating Game" by Bitter:Sweet - Helga's male manipulation to get to Arnold -- Mostly the episodes "Helga's Boyfriend", "Arnold's Valentine" and "Dinner for Four"
"Mr. Saxobeat" by Alexandra Stan - Helga's strong attraction to Arnold and the stupid stuff she does because of it. Also works because it has a slight techno-jazz feel.
"I'm Sexy and I Know it" by LMFAO - Probably the one I want to do the most right now. Arnold and Gerald as LMFAO and just being sexy.
"Rolling in the Deep" by Adele - Everyone either does a "woe is me" or "I'm madly in love" or "Yes! We're finally together" type song for Helga. But no one ever seems to show the "I'm so pissed you don't love me" side of her! That's what I'd like to do for this video.
"Don't Call Me Baby" by Madison Avenue - Lila singing to Arnold, because there aren't really any Lila-centric videos... especially none that show her as strong and independent.
"It's Not You" by Halestorm - Originally it would be Helga singing to Brainy, Arnie, and Stinky. However, depending on the footage I might make it a full Girls of Hillwood video. -- Helga to Brainy -- Helga to Arnie -- Helga to Stinky -- Rhonda to Curly -- Lila to Arnold
And now finally full circle back to writing - since this IS a blog about writing....
The first fifteen days of June hosted a drawing challenge. A new challenge was set up every day and the participants only had 24hrs to complete their drawing. Although I didn't participate - since I can barely draw a stick figure - I did get inspired by some of the art.
New Plot Bunnies
Gerald and Phoebe V'day story within the same universe as "I Caught You A Star"
This has actually been a quiet week in comparison to the past two. Nothing majorly exciting occurred and no insane progress was done on my story.
I'm actually not sure what to even talk about this week.
First and foremost, the kind words about my writing keep spilling in and I'm so humbled by each of them.
Thank you, All, once again.
I finally got to editing my Operation Ruthless video. The darn thing is about 1/2hr long! Aaaaand.... it's supposed to be 10 minutes at most. Whoops...
After two days of hearing myself yammer on about Hey Arnold! I got sick of hearing my own voice. :P It is now sent over to my darling PinkLotus27 and she can have the fun of figuring out how to cut down my ramblings. *sigh*
Once she's got the video down to the proper length it's back to me to polish it up, so I still have about a week's worth of editing to do before the June 23rd due date.
Oh! And speaking of Operation Ruthless; BaconNom-Nom - one of the heads of the movement - just posted this little jewel of a video. It's a great overview of the Operation Ruthless website and Bacon sounds so amazingly professional here. Great quality!
So if you're a fan of Hey Arnold! and want to know more about our movement to revive the series you should check this out:
Along with keeping busy with my video, I've also been keeping busy with work. I'm quickly learning that summers in a grocery store Deli are quite chaotic with all the sales....
However, I do still enjoy my lunch breaks where I get to work on my story. Not too much progress this week, but I AM still getting stuff on paper - so to speak.
I was actually tempted to bring in Lycopolis to read over breaks. However, the reviews I've read about the book implies I won't want to stop once I start. Probably not the best thing to attempt over 15-min breaks then...
I also recently received the FULL second chapter of CartoonLover16's story - I was only given the opening portion to edit before. I haven't started tackling that quite yet, but I'm excited to do so. It might take a little bit to Beta, however. His chapter has a higher word count than my 2012 Valentine's Day story. I mean, it's less than the latest chapter of my story, but it's still a lot. OOOO! And speaking of CL16, I was surprised yesterday to discover that he drew me a little present:
HAHA, I seem so intense! XD
Teehee, I have fanart of... ME!
He also commented on my last post that he'd like to make title cards for What Is Truly Meant To Be. I can't wait to see what he comes up with. I'm actually super happy to see that CL16 and I are finally clicking as friends. It's fun to have little dialogues with him. Now to start "socializing" more with Devious.Editor! ^_^
