The Equivalents Between Exercising and Writing

Had another “What is my life” breakdown last night. But you folks are forced to read my “woe is me” tales far too much already for me to really get in to that yet again. Just know that I’m struggling to get past it, but I am getting past it. I’m hitting the world with more determination in fact.

First up, I broke out the good old Wii Fit and synced it with our WiiU. I used to do this thing all the time leading up to my wedding. Even though it was a family gift from my mom for all three of us – me, her, and my sister – since I seemed to be the only one that ever used the Wii Fit relatively regularly my mother told me to take it with me when I moved away. I used it a bit during the half-year that I was unemployed right after the wedding. Then I finally got a job, the house fell in to disarray, and I stopped using the Wii Fit under the excuses of “There’s no room for me to really move in order to properly use it” that lead to “Since there’s no room I should use the time cleaning instead of trying to work out” which usually lead to “It’s way too late at night now for me to exercise, plus if I do after going to work and then cleaning I won’t have any time left to write.” Not that I ever really did write. I usually just plopped next to Hubby on the couch, watched some well-deserved TV, and messed around on Facebook.

Fast-forward to about mid-April. I had the livingroom spotless and had an urge to make sure the Wii Fit board would still work with the WiiU – I had forgotten that the WiiU has a backwards compatibility mode that allowed you to revert to the original Wii format. Well, after about an hour of both researching online how to clean out battery corrosion and then successfully saving the Wii Fit board, I used the game for the first time in over a year. I set up my Mii and did the initial Body Test to see my BMI, my weight, and test my balance. Then I put it away.

Jump ahead again to about mid-May and you’ll find Hubby and me participating in a new health-incentive program I’m running at work. The concept is that you earn points – max 6 per day – for eating fruits/vegetables as well as working out. You also earn either one point at the end of the week for maintaining your weight, or two points for losing weight. These points are then accumulated for one of three charities: American Cancer Society, AmericanRed Cross, or Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I chose my personal favorite charity: American Cancer Society. Therefore, the points I earn go towards that charity’s net amount. At the end of the program all of the points earned by every participant across the whole company are added up. Then the points earned for each charity are divided by the number of participants who chose that charity in order to figure out the average amount of points each charity collected. The charity that earns the highest average points receives a $5000 donation from the company. The second-place charity receives $2000, and even the final charity will have $1000 donated. It really is a great way to help others while helping yourself.

Well, over the past two weeks since the program started Hubby and I have been kicking butt in the fruits/veggies department – which in and of itself is impressive since we rarely had any over the winter – but I’ve been slacking in the exercise department. The only time I earned any exercise points was when I was running around to the point of sweating at work. I would go “eh, that counts” and call it a day.

Today I changed that! Today I actually took out the Wii Fit board and used it for more than a glorified scale; since my bathroom one and the one in the breakroom at work are 10pounds off from each other, and I’m not sure which one to trust. Today I actually spent about an hour working out. About 30min with aerobics and another with yoga. Go me!

Each activity in Wii Fit is only about a minute or two long. Most are no more than 4min, unless you do something like “free running” in which you set how long you want to run for and then just jog in place for that long. My point is that I can do essentially the same thing as the push-up scenario in the No More Zero Days concept. “Heck, I could just get on the ground and do one push-up so I don’t have a Zero Day,” turned in to “Well, heck, I can start up the Wii Fit and just do the Body Test.” The hardest part about using the Wii Fit is having to dig the board out of the drawer I keep it tucked away in, and then starting up the program. It takes about five minutes. After those five minutes of starting the darn thing up it seems a waste to just do the Body Test. So I do one game under the Aerobics category. None of them are all that challenging. You only burn about 20calories with each game. Then you think “that wasn’t so hard. That was actually kind of fun” so then another game is played, and another. I switched over to Yoga as a cool-down, and went through each pose even though I really only wanted to do the ones to work out the tension in my shoulders. Next thing I know I’m doing the free run for 10min and chugging a glass of water after a nice workout.

Now here’s the part you’ll care about: I did the same with my writing.

Just like with the Wii Fit, the hardest part is taking the time to just start the darn thing up. Especially since I’m doing a lot more writing in Google Docs, so that I can share my work and get feedback. Now I have to start up my computer, and then the internet, and then Google Docs, and then a new file – or bring up an old one to fix/continue. It takes about five minutes, and so once I push myself to put in the effort to “just write for a little so I don’t have a Zero Day” I suddenly feel like the set up would be a waste of time if I didn’t put in x-minutes in to writing. Next thing I know I’m doing the 10min free run – or in writing terms: I’m working on a fight scene.

I suck at fight scenes.

Like, majorly. Just as I need to train in running because I have absolutely no endurance – like, I can get winded going up stairs if they’re steep enough, even if there’s only about 20 of them – I need to work on fight scenes. Again, just like running, I have the basics and I can do alright when I need to, but certainly nothing to really brag about. “Oh man, I was able to jog in place for 10min.” Ignore the fact that while I wasn’t exactly winded, it did take about three minutes for my breathing to go back to normal once I was done…. “Oh man, I wrote a fight scene.” Ignore the fact that everyone just dodged everyone else’s attacks until the hero finally got the winning blow in.

Exercising and Writing. They go hand-in-hand and I can certainly apply the same tricks to both activities. Something that I need to do more often in fact. More exercising. More writing. More motivation to do something productive both on my days off and on days where I have a short shift.

That being said, I’m proud of my pathetic fight scene, just as I’m proud of my “almost-two-miles” jog. Because they both mean that I pushed myself, and did so after actually getting my lazy butt in gear and doing something I should every day.

Bet you’re curious about the fight scene, huh? Well, like I said, it was pathetic, and it was mostly dialogue. It’s not even done yet. It’s going to be another X-Future: Snippets once I have it to a point that is publishable, and it’s – surprise, surprise – a Trish snippet. Her confronting Devon. A woman who can only stab things and create fire is going up against a man who can manipulate fire and is just as skilled as stabbing things. She’s not going to really get much headway there. Likewise, Devon is trying to use fire against someone who both controls it and is completely fireproof. No dice there either. Both parties need to rethink their strategy. Right now it’s “whomever can Stabby-stabby first wins.”

I’ve also been slowly working on the collab with AngelBlood666. I had a grand old time last week when I created the joint Google Doc file. We would essentially IM each other by writing in the file, and because it’s all in real-time you can watch the other person type. It’s amusing to watch how fast someone else can type and how quickly they pick up on their typos.

Plus, AB666 is a nutjob who had me in stitches most of the time. His online persona may seem dark, and some of his stories may be too, but don’t let that fool you. AB666 himself is a riot.

It seems a bit silly to admit this since it’s a play that takes about 3hrs to perform, but it’s taken me about that long to “convert” the story in to modern language since I write out the gist of what is happening and how people are reacting. Oh yeah, did I mention that I’ve only managed to “convert” two scenes?

It would have been faster if I literally set it up as a script and “translated” the dialogue in to modern language. Instead I have passages such as “Theseus tells [Hermia] that she must either die or become a nun. If she won’t marry Demetrius she won’t be allowed to marry anyone.”

Oh! And speaking of Demetrius…. I never before picked up on how much of a jerk he is! Either that, or I completely forgot that part of the story. He’s just this major… well, I’ll use “jerk” again even though I could use more colorful language. Although the idea of a love-square works wonderfully for the Helga > Arnold > Lila > Arnie > Back to Helga dynamic, having Arnold as Demetrius might not be the best idea. AB666 and I are going to have to take a few artistic licenses with the original story so that Arnold as Demetrius is still his lovable “underdog” self. That being said, Lysander is a fantastic character that you can really sympathize with, which isn’t really Arnie at all. So more liberties will be taken so that Arnie actually has a personality…

We’re still trying to figure out the exact format of the story as well. Do we want a straight cross-over? Leave the story-more-or-less the same, just with Hey Arnold characters instead? Did we want to change the names to the Hey Arnold equivalents, or do we want to do the same thing as in the “What’s Opera, Arnold?” episode and make strange name mashes, i.e. – CarmHelga or Ruth McCarmen for Carmen, Don Arnold for Don José, or Curlmillo for Escamillo? Do we have it set up very much like "What's Opera, Arnold?" and have the characters dream/imagine they're in that play? Or do we create our own story loosely based off of  the concept of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"? I mean they sort of had love potions in the show before in the episode "Helga's Love Potion", but that turned out to be a grape soda placebo. Since everyone under the love spell had no clue what was going on a placebo effect won't really do much.

Eh, we'll figure it out.

Finally, I made some - not much, but still better than none - progress in my pantheon building for Gyateara. Namely, I've come up with a list of the most commonly used "Godly Domains" that appear in both D&D and Greco-Roman faith. Domains such as "Sky" or "Wildlife" or "Roads/Travel" or "War", etc. My next task is to try to figure out what gods I create will be in charge of what domain(s), and if they are in charge of multiple domains, how are they connected. I also have to be sure that all of the "Cleric Domains" in D&D are represented by the "Godly Domains" so that the cleric-specific spells in D&D can still be used if/when I run Gyateara as a campaign setting.

Well, I think I've sat for enough. Time to get my lazy butt back in gear. To writing and exercise and productivity!

Moving Forward with Collaborative Writings

Once again I find myself with no motivation to write. Normally I have all of these ideas, and I'm just geared up first thing in the morning. That's the main reason I chose to shift my updating to Wednesdays - a day which I can write in the morning. However, I'm just so drained and sore from work lately. All I want to do is curl up in bed and forget there's anything outside of it. No dishes. No laundry. No cooking. No cleaning. No bills. No work. And, sadly, no writing either. Mainly because that requires sitting at the desktop, which is killing my back right now.

Yet, here I am. Once again using the "just write a little" method to push me along. Using that drive of having SOMETHING posted every week for you fine folks to get my butt moving. Now, to do the same with my non-blog writing.

To be fair. I DID do so yesterday. After literally two full months of not knowing what to do with her, I FINALLY role played as Lia. I didn't do anything major, but I did get the girl out of her damn room finally! No one is really on the boards anymore, and so who knows if I'll actually have anyone besides Hubby to interact with, but it's out there. We can start to move on.

Speaking of which, Ronoxym finally moved on with our collab - sorta. As I had mentioned last week, I had finished re-reading the first two-thirds of our story and had tons of notes. So many that I felt it would just be easier to restart the story with the typos and missed punctuation fixed, and then reposted up on Google Docs as something we could both edit.

Although, honestly, I think it would be better if we just mailed the file back and forth to each other so we could actually SEE what we each other edited, and decide if we thought it was a good idea or not. This way we don't have all these notes back and forth debating if we should use this word over that word, or whether or not there should be a comma somewhere. I'll have to check if the "track edits" feature in Microsoft Word is also in Google Docs. The closest thing I could find - which is only available for those who can edit - is a revision history.

By the way, quick shout out to ChibiSunnie for showing me the editing feature in Word in the first place. Made my work as a beta-reader so much easier!

Alright, back to the collab.

So, I'm in the midst of updating the 13-page story, but I take long breaks due to how tedious a task it is. Plus, the whole sitting at my computer thing. Well, in the meantime, Ron finally decides to go through my epic amounts of notes on our Doc file - which isn't even all of them, all of my notes in the middle I never typed up - and edits the document to fix my concerns.

Surprised the crap out of me, actually. I was even excited Saturday night to see him logged in to the story and editing. I figured I'd have more to read during my normal Sunday insomnia.

Well, seems editing was indeed a daunting task, because he didn't update the story after working on editing the second draft. So now I have the version I was editing merged with his edited version. I have notes EVERYWHERE of portions deleted or inserted between the two. My fun task is to now go through all those edits and have a coherent draft to post up for us both to edit from now on.

Maybe Ron editing what we did so far has resparked his interest in the project that had taken such a strong hold of him back in January. Perhaps within the next week or so he'll move the story forward. That would be awesome, and might even kickstart my own drive to once again write.

Although, I do have another collab story in the works. Well, in the very beginning, researching stages. Way back in 2012 I had the fantastic idea of doing a Hey Arnold parody of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This idea must have struck a cord with AngelBlood666, because this past week he asked me if I wanted to work together in actually writing that parody. It's a story I keep absentmindedly drifting back to, but haven't done anything with in over two years. Perhaps having a co-writer on the project is just the push I need.

So we're both re-reading the play and taking notes so that we know what we wish to do with the concept. Heck, I spent an hour this morning just jotting down plot notes on the FIRST SCENE OF THE PLAY! Act one. Scene one. I ended up with TWO looseleaf pages filled FRONT AND BACK with notes. Now to type them up so that AB666 can see them too.

This could prove so much fun!

I've also been casually working on more research for world building both Gyateara and the X-Future reworking. Not too much advancement with either one, but it's better than completely forgetting about them.

Speaking of which, as much as it's grown on me, the placeholder name of Gyateara does seem a bit heavy-handed and lazy: "Eh, I'll just mesh Gaia and Terra together, tweak the spelling, and voila, a planet name!" I'm still not 100% convinced I'll be keeping it when I eventually get to officially writing stories about it; although I might keep the name for D&D sessions. So I'm thinking of using Hubby's suggestion of rearranging the letters until I get something a bit more original, but also keeping the basis of "my planet's name is based off of Greco-Roman terms for Earth". We'll see if I can come up with anything better.

Yay, naming things....


Honestly, if I'm not at work I'm either crashed on the couch or frantically cleaning the otherwise neglected apartment. So I'm not entirely sure I'll be making much progress in writing until either a) the apartment is actually clean and I just need to do maintainence every day, or b) work becomes less frantic. I'll try though.

Until next week... let's just focus on the "try a little and hope for a lot" mode of productivity every day.

Liebster Award

Originally this was going to be my Author's Notes post, but something(s) came up that I just need to talk about! And the main part is me thanking a reader and follower for a great honor in my little world.

Kasie Whitener of Life on Clemson Road.

She had commented on my last post and gifted me the Liebster Award .

LIEBSTER AWARD

"A Liebster Blog Award is given to talented bloggers who have less than 200 followers. 'Liebster' is a German word that means 'Dearest' or 'Beloved.' It also means 'Favorite.' So, in a way the award not only recognizes these bloggers as amazingly gifted in their own right but also as your very own personal favorites." --  aRVee at I Love Mandaue

The Liebster Blogger Rules Are:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.

    -- Check. I linked back to Kasie.

2. Nominate five blogs with less than 200 followers.

    -- Well....  I don't read any blogs with less than 200 followers except for one my friend was writing. But he hasn't done much in the last month. Either way, I guess we can do a shout out to Thinking In My Pajamas. And we'll shout out back to Life on Clemson Road.

3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.

4. Add the award image to your site.

    -- Check it out on the right hand side!!! So pretty!

So YAY! Such sweetness! Such awesomeness! I feel loved. Also, I find it amusing that Kasie awarded me the Liebster for my formatting! YAY!

 "I like The Rogue's Scribe for formatting. I'm also really impressed that she kept a journal. I'm so bad at daily writing that I used to do all of my journal entries the night before they were due. Using different colored pens for each, of course, so they would look like they'd been written on different days. That was fourth grade and I've never gotten any better at it."

Teehee, super duper awesome sauce! :D Now I must search the web for fellow Liebster winners in order to find other great blogs! I also must now try to track down enough "small" blogs to find valid nominees.

In writing news: Guess who already has the next chapter's song picked out, chapter skeletoned, and the outline written! I've been bringing my writing notebook to work since I've had quite a few shifts long enough to have a lunch break in them. I'm just tearing through this chapter. I already know it's going to be mostly dialogue, which will be nice. I just hope it doesn't feel as repetitive as my "I Will Always Love You" chapter. Either way, I feel like I'm in a good groove. I just wish writing that script came so easily as this chapter. I might have actually won. I guess I just wasn't inspired to write that but I'm super inspired to write this. In fact, I wasn't even going to have this chapter. I had an entirely different one planned out, but it didn't feel like it flowed well, so I wanted to write this chapter first. The one I was originally intending on will be either next chapter or the one after that.

With such great progress in my writing, I'm excited to speculate that I might have the next chapter up before June. There are only two things that might prevent me from not making that goal. First is that I NEED TO WRITE MY FRIGGEN WEDDING THANK YOUS! It's been seven months! They NEED to be written already! Sheesh! The second is that I need to finally get around to editing my Operation Ruthless video. The due date was pushed back to June, which really helped me out since I filmed it about two days before it was originally due. I guess bad college habits die hard. Anyway, it's filmed, but I might need to update a few facts on it, I need to capture screen shots and videos to edit in to it, I need to make a few graphics, and I might have to record some more audio with some updated information. It might be a bit of a process, and I want that done before June. If the Thank Yous and Operation Ruthless are completed easily enough I SHOULD also have the next chapter done this month as well! Oh! And don't forget I'm going back to my weekly blog updates. Busy, busy, busy!

Also, I've been obsessing over a small multitude of things lately, which has spawned - at the very least - two new plot bunnies. First up is the song "Do You Want To Date My Avatar?" which is a promotional music video for web series "The Guild" staring Felicia Day. If you play any type of MMO game than THIS is the show for you. Even if you haven't, it's still a great show. Check it out if you haven't before. As for the song I mentioned... well, check out the video yourself!   :D

Anyway, the plot bunny from this song also has a taste of "You've Got Mail." Basically, Helga discovers that Gerald got Arnold in to an MMO, finds out Arnold's character name, creates her own character, and tries to "revive Cecile" via the MMO avatar. She figures she can retry her "Cecile" approach of being her true self via a persona and this time she doesn't have the REAL Cecile ruining everything. The "You've Got Mail" tie-in is that - much like Joe Fox - Helga would know who Arnold is and tries to get him to like her for who she truly is before revealing herself. I think it could be really fun to write. Only problem is that I never had enough expendable cash to actually play a MMO aside from Fiesta. So some researching may be needed. We'll see.

The other plot bunny goes back to an old one actually. Prior to my "I want to do a Hey Arnold!/A Midsummer Night's Dream crossover" idea I had my "Hey Arnold! would be super cool as a Much Ado About Nothing crossover" plot bunny. My biggest issue with that was the sub-/parallel-plot of Claudio and Hero's love gone array. Quick overview of the play:

There's Hero and her Perpetual-Maiden cousin Beatrice. Hero's father is hosting the Prince and his men as they all return victorious from war. Now in a time of peace, they can all think of love. So the Prince's "favorite" Claudio pines for Hero and is quickly engaged to her. Meanwhile, self-proclaimed Perpetual-Bachelor Benedick teases Claudio - a short-lived wing-man - for getting married. Beatrice and Benedick continue a long-standing battle of wits with that Love-Hate passion. The Prince decides to liven up the boredom of waiting for Claudio and Hero's wedding by plotting to get Beatrice and Benedick together. Meanwhile, Prince's half-brother - who fell out of favor with the Prince - plots revenge on his brother's favorite, devising ways to emotionally harm Claudio. I won't give away more than that. 

Now, my issue with doing a straight crossover is that the Poison Tongued Beatrice is the perfect part for Helga, and yet Arnold would better suit the Love-struck and Gullible Claudio. So the "casting" of the play's characters just wouldn't work with their personalities.

HOWEVER, if I take out the Claudio/Hero plot and just focus on friends trying to trick two people in to converting their Love-Hate relationship to a purely Love kind, we might have something. So my idea is to do an "inspired by" adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Gerald and Phoebe, for whatever reason, decide to "kill time" during the last few weeks of summer vacation by plotting to get Helga and Arnold together. Chaos ensues. Another one that could be fun. YAY!

Alright, well as I opened with; clearly this wasn't the Author's Notes post I set out to write originally, but it needed to be written first. YAY! The Author's Notes post will either be next week or a "Special Edition" sometime later this week. Depends on my scheduling. :D

Love you all so very much! I'm so glad I'm back. Big internet hugs!

The Plot Bunnies Post!

Well, I didn't expect to get any writing done on Super Bowl Sunday. Especially since my favorite team the New York Giants is battling one of my most hated teams the New England Patriots. The last time the Giants and the Patriots met up in the Super Bowl, it was 2008 and the Patriots were about to close out a perfect season. The Giants bested them and released shirts that read "better than perfect." Meanwhile, back in Boston, a whole bunch of newspapers were wondering what to do with their already printed victory front pages.... derp.

So naturally, I'll be a bit too busy watching this rematch to concentrate on writing a blog update. Which is a shame because I've been working on both emotes for this blog AND finally legit-writing my seventh chapter! YAY! However, it's just too much to write out about THAT and I just don't have that kind of time today! *Busily works on cleaning the house for the Super Bowl party*

Luckily, I've been wanting to do a Plot Bunnies post for a while now, and it just happens to be the perfect filler post for days where I don't want - or don't have time - to write a blog update! The best part is that I actually wrote this post a while ahead of time and I just held on to it. YAY laziness! Or yay, thinking ahead - whichever.

Point is, spending five minutes strapping on that Super Bowl opening to this post was a LOT faster than spending over an hour typing up a legit post about my emote-making and legit-writing... At least you have something to look forward to for next week....

Anyway, for those of you who haven't checked out the fanfiction dictionary I have in the "Handy Links" section to the right, here's what I mean by Plot Bunnies:

"Plotbunny - An affectionate term for an idea that sticks in your head and you just HAVE to write it even if it goes nowhere or keeps going off into other ideas."

Thank you to Megan Freeman who created the site that hosts the dictionary, and therefore I'm assuming she also wrote it....

Anyway, here are the ideas bouncing around in my head waiting for me to write them.

1. The main spin-off of What is Truly Meant to Be. I've had this baby in my head nearly as long as I've had the main story in my head. This would be a companion story, sort of. The story would be mostly centered around an original character named Celeste. She has a thing for Helga's boyfriend *SPOILER*. While Arnold is desperately trying to win back Helga, Celeste has been trying to find a way to work up her courage to tell her own beloved how she feels. This story will be similar to the book "Ender's Shadow" in which scenes from the parent-story will be revisited, but from the perspective of the new lead character. The story will run mostly parallel with What is Truly Meant to Be and then continue past the ending of the parent story in order to show what happens after the parent story concluded. My biggest concern is trying to hint at Celeste during my main story, without really giving too much away. My other concern is to make her the perfect match for her intended, but not turn her in to a Mary Sue.
2. A secondary spin-off cropped up while thinking about this dreaded seventh chapter. As I've mentioned before, the chapter grew a life of its own and pretty much pushed to become its own story. I want to allow it. So I'll give the broad strokes in the chapter -as painful as it's proving to be to do that, and hopefully create a companion story that goes more in depth with the events. This will also allow me to play more with the OCs I created for the chapter, as well as a subplot I created and then had to discard because the chapter was getting too huge. Out of the two spin-offs, this one will probably be written first since I can work on it as soon as the next chapter is done and up. Whereas the Celeste spin-off mentioned above would have to wait until the original story is done - well, more or less.... Plus, even though I'm going in to more detail with this story, none of the chapters feel that "big" and so it might be a quick write.
3. As I was thinking about the Celeste story and which characters would be matched up when they are in high school, I thought about Harold and Patty. I know people like to ship Rhonda and Harold together, but I'm a big Harold and Patty fan! I also think that they'd become those childhood friends who never new how to break out of the friend zone with each other. So they'll be in high school, crushing hard on each other and not doing anything about it for fear of "ruining the friendship" *gag* I hate that line.... This got me thinking about how much fun it would be to write a fluff story about Harold and Patty. YAY! Perhaps I'll stash that one away for next Valentine's....
4. There aren't nearly enough stories about Arnold's grandparents "Steely" Phil and "Pookie" Gertie. I want to write a story about their lives. How they started off similar to Arnold and Helga - Gertie picking on Phil all though school but in reality she loved him - and how that grew in to the ageless love we all know. The show canon seems to display their love as one that truly blossomed mildly-late in life and it sort of reminded me of the Nicolas Sparks book "The Notebook". I want to do a loose parody of the story, using Phil and Gertie. I already set up a rough timeline of Phil's life. You can check that out under my DeviantArt account.
5. My favorite Shakespearian play is "Much Ado About Nothing" and I attempted to come up with a way to do a parody using the Hey Arnold! cast. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to fit naturally. Then I re-watched the episode "Weird Cousin". In that episode, we're introduced to Arnold's antithesis cousin Arnie. Arnold's love interest Lila falls for Arnie. Helga tricks her love Arnold in to dating her to try to make Lila jealous. Instead, the charade just causes Arnie to fall in love with Helga. So now we have the weird love circle of Helga loves Arnold who loves Lila who loves Arnie who loves Helga..... That's when I realized that the Hey Arnold! cast works PERFECTLY for Shakespearian comedy - just not "Much Ado About Nothing"! I want to now do a Shakespeare parody of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
   ** Gerald and Phoebe will be the betrothed Theseus and Hippolyta whose wedding starts all the chaos.
   **Arnie is Lysander - a man who runs away to marry Hermia, but ends up in love with both Hermia and Helena throughout the course of the play.
   **Arnold is Demetrius - a man who loves Hermia and is betrothed to her, forcing her to run away with Lysander. He also ends up falling in love with Helena throughout the play.
   **Lila is the fair Hermia - the woman who gains affection from both Demetrius (her intended) and Lysander (her beloved).
   **Helga is the poor Helena - the woman who is in love with Demetrius, but is frequently shunned affection from him. She gets surprised when she goes from undesirable to being the center of a love triangle between Lysander and Demetrius.
   **Curly is crazy Nick Bottom - the eccentric and cocky actor whose head gets turned in to that of a donkey and whom Queen Titania is tricked in to loving.
   **Which of course means I need Rhonda as Queen Titania - Queen of the Fairies and estranged from her husband over an argument about a changling ward of hers. She's tricked to fall in love with the donkey-headed Bottom.
   **If Rhonda isn't with Curly she must be with Harold - the King of the Fairies: Oberon. Using "An Egg Story" as a base, we'll have Rhonda and Harold unhappily matched up and that poor egg as Titania's changling ward. As a prank, Oberon convinces his right-hand-man Puck to trick Titania in to falling in love with Bottom.
   **I'm not sure who I'd like as Puck. Someone so crazy would be perfect for Curly, but I just HAD to make him Bottom so he and Rhonda could hook up. Harold's lackeys are Stinky and Sid, so perhaps one of them could be Puck. Then again, they also would fit perfectly with the rest of Bottom's acting troupe. I could just picture Stinky holding up his arms and going "I am a wall..." At one point it was mentioned that there was another prankster of the series - who happened to wear wings - Gerald's kid sister Timberly. It also works since, like poor Puck, Timberly has the best intentions, but goofs things up. Perhaps I'll do a gender swap and make her Puck aka ROBYN Goodfellow - see? The name can be gender swapped! ^_^ Now my only reservation is that Timberly doesn't interact with Harold too much and therefore Gerald would now make the best Oberon.... but I can't have him and Phoebe fighting - let alone have Phoebe fall for someone else, even if it is through a love potion....
   **Anyway, I'd combine Titania's fairy entourage to simply the most wellknown: Peaseblossom - Nadine.
   **Along with Bottom, there are five other members of the acting troupe.
   *~*~*Eugene would probably be Peter Quince as the leader of the troupe.
   *~*~*Although it was customary for only males to be actors back then - and it's funny to see a guy dressed in drag - I think Sheena would be Francis Flute, the (wo)man who plays the female lead Thisbe. This works out well since Francis is uni-sex and can easily be gender-swapped.
   *~*~*As I said before, I just can't help but think of Stinky as Tom Snout, the man who plays The Wall.
   *~*~*The last two would be Robin Starve who plays Moonshine, and Snug who plays the Lion. Sid has to be one of them, and I need to think of one last player. I'll have to re-read the play to figure out who best fits these last two parts.
   I also need to decide if I'm putting the HA! crew in to the setting of "A Midsummer Nights Dream" or if I want to take the SITUATION of the play and put it in to the HA! setting. I also need to determine if I want to use the play's character names, if I want to change the play's characters to the names of the HA! characters "playing" them, or if I want to do something like the "What's Opera, Arnold?" episode and make a parody name combining the HA! and play character names....
   Man.... I thought A LOT about this idea! I want to write it so bad!!!!
6. I don't exactly have a plot yet, but I kinda know what Lila must go through - single parent scraping by best they can, child has to put on a cheerful face to keep the parent from getting discouraged, the rough financial homelife and/or other such reasons results in the child wanting anything and everything outside the home to be sunshine and roses, the child wants EVERYONE to love and accept them, the "perfect, people-pleaser" persona takes over so much that when that mask is down for even a moment everyone wonders what the hell is wrong - or you go from "everybody loves me" to "everyone thinks I'm a bitch". I get Lila, I really do.... even the "I'm a flirt and don't realize it, I just think I'm being friendly".... so I want to write a Lila story so people can truly get people like us. Lila, I might HATE you for messing with Arnold's feelings and for being in Helga's way.... but I GET YOU, sista! *fist bump*
7. Another one where I don't really know the plot, but I know who I REALLY want to write about. It's another misunderstood character who is a lot like me: Olga Pataki.
   Olga is the older sister who just tries her best to make her parents proud, and along the way, has put the pressure to be perfect on herself without realizing it. She's the older sister to a rebellious girl who seems cranky all the time and can't stand the older sibling for whatever reason. My younger sister is also very artistically talented, but won't let anyone really see. Olga and I both don't understand how we could offend our kid sister so much, how our attempts to bond just seem to push the sister farther away, and we both get along with our sisters sooooo much better when not living under the same roof. Although I KNOW my mom doesn't have favorites, since I'm the one who stays out of trouble and my mom and I bond to the point of being best friends - whereas my sister butts heads with our mom - Olga and I are also similar in the fact that we're the "good daughter". Our mom also confuses us sometimes - but that's usually when I'm being a pain in the butt, and my mom calls me my sister's name by mistake since I remind my mom of my sister at that point. The line is usually "YOU KNOW WHICH ONE YOU ARE!!!!!" LOL.... Mom.... :D
   Anyway, my point is that I want to write an Olga-centric story once, about the pains of being an older sister, desperately trying to bond with a younger sibling that was the greatest gift the parents can give, and waiting patiently for the day that the younger sister will openly try to bond. I have hopes for Olga and Helga. My sister and I are only five years apart and so we're both in our 20s. It kept us until I moved away after marriage for my sister and I to bond - over football no less.... Perhaps once Helga is in a "happy place" her and Olga can finally connect.

And there you have it! I thought I had more bouncing around in there, but here are my plot bunnies! YAY! Leave a comment below and let me know what you think of them, which one I should nourish first, and if you'd like to pick any up for adoption.