Another Crazy-long Author's Note

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now for a bit more in-depth stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

*cue the “awww” *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I discovered it didn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh the temptation to retcon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

And Time Flies By... But Maybe Some Writing CAN Be Done

Man, I did NOT think of a good time to get married and move! October is the busiest wedding month! Plus, there's the craziness of packing, moving, unpacking, AND Halloween! Once THAT holiday is over, here comes Thanksgiving, and my family visiting! And THEN Christmas comes marching around the corner, along with the craziness THAT holiday brings... as well as MORE unpacking/organizing the new house, and going down to visit my family. New Years is just a few short days away and I still don't really have much free time to do anything. February has Valentine's day. And March has my sister's birthday and St. Patrick's day. I'll have to check my calendar, but April MIGHT bring Easter... either way, it will DEFINITELY bring my Mom's birthday. On top of that, it will also bring another ScriptFrenzy month! So there goes ANOTHER month of not writing! If May doesn't contain Easter, that MIGHT be the next big break I get. Funny how 1/2 the year has a holiday every month, and the second 1/2 only has Independence Day on the Fourth of July - unless, of course, you're also counting Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc.

January seems to be my only reprieve from the holiday season. So I guess I'll have to make the most of it!

I FINALLY got around to skeleton-ing the next chapter. Perhaps I can write it before a YEAR passes... sheesh!

I never heard back from that supposed Beta. Oh well, I *DID* overwhelm her with stuff. On the plus side, Good Old Delaroux popped on by and read my blog, and she gleefully volunteered to be MY beta! haha. ChibiSunnie also stopped by and ALSO volunteered to beta! I love my girls! Unfortunately, they too were just as stumped as me as to how to finish the chapter, but it is as I always say: "You never know where the seed for a great idea might come from!" Saying some of the dumbest things just in passing might be just the direction you need for the lightning bolt from your muse to finally strike you! Just spitballing with those ladies got the juices flowing and I think I finally know what to do with the story! So... YAY!

NOW my only problem is that I dove a little too deep. The chapter as a mind of its own and became its own story! The chapter needs chapters! Normally I would break this chapter up like I did when the Sweet 16 chapter ran long. However, I pigeon-holed myself in to this "every chapter needs a parent song" format, and so I can't really split the chapter up. So now I think I'm gonna do what I tried to avoid before... I'm going to make it a bam-bam-bam kind of chapter. No delays, just in your face "HELLO! YOU NEED TO BE SOMEWHERE ELSE RIGHT NOW!"

I had a subplot all figured out and everything, but having a subplot that is only relevant to one chapter, and centering on OCs that we'll only see for one chapter seems a bit much. I'll spend too much time - and force the readers to invest too much emotion - on a situation and characters they won't see again. INSTEAD! I'm going to eventually write this chapter as it wants to be: it's own story. I'll elaborate on the events that occur, but it has to wait for now. Dear lord, this story births so many plotbunnies! I already have two "spin off" stories bouncing around in my head!

I'm not going to know until I write this bugger how much I'll like writing the chapter the way I must, but it's better than postponing any more, right? Plus Delaroux is finishing up her story Something to Return to. True, she's already being a busy-little-bee and working on ANOTHER story, but perhaps once she's done with this main story I'm beta-ing for I can concentrate on my OWN story, instead of investing so much time in the wonderful Flite11 universe she created!

Delaroux - don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE living in your world, which is why it's so hard to leave! XD I'm not blaming you, chica, for postponing my writing, I charish every minute with your story, I'm just saying that sometimes a writer finds something so grand they forget about their OWN stuff... ya know? BAAAH! I should have deleted that last paragraph... now she's gonna feel guilty again! *runs away crying*

ANYWAY, I guess what I'm trying to say is... Since the job hunt thing seems to be flopping, I might as well use my time wisely and write. ^_^

Going in a Different Direction

OK, so I don't usually have enough time after I'm done with work to write daily. This is one of the reasons I take so long to post new chapters - each chapter is completed in one day. I usually put off so much to just sit and write that I take a mini-break after posting the new chapters. For about a week I just focus on things I neglected in order to write - laundry, wedding planning, answering emails, packing up holiday decorations, etc.

During this mini-hiatus I also tend to either think up the plot of upcoming chapters or I even think of plot lines or scenarios for future story ideas. Today was one of those occasions in which I thought of a concept for a new story. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with this, and even if I do it will be after I'm done with my chaptered story - unless I have writer's block and need to work on something else to get the juices flowing again.

Anyway, I'm a manager at work, and this is very strange to me. I'm still in my twenties - granted I'm in my MID-twenties, but still - and so I'm still used to listening to authority figures; not BEING the authority figure. Therefore I have a hard time reprimanding my staff. Unfortunately, today was one of those days where I needed to confront an employee and write her up. So, during the four hours I was at work by myself and waiting for her to show up I was trying to psych myself up for the confrontation. I kept imagining myself snarling and growling. I kept reminding myself about how much she screwed up and crossed a MAJOR line with me. I got myself so worked up that I nearly started throwing things. This chick wanted a bitch? I was going to SHOW her a bitch! She had the kitten before, and now she was getting the rabid pitbull! Yeah! Pitbull! Snarling pitbull! She was going to think again before messing with me! And then she showed up.

In my head I kept reminding myself of what she did. I kept telling myself that I'm done trying to be the girl's friend. I'm done being nice and having people walk all over me because of it. Remember, she lies so frequently I wasn't sure if she knew how to tell the truth anymore! I was mentally set. And then I heard myself tell her promotional information she needed for today's shift.

Sure, I was cold, matter-of-fact, and stern about it. I wasn't friendly - it was a start - but I wasn't this badass pitbull I was trying to be. Worst yet was that the confrontation about her behavior didn't occur until the end of the shift. *sigh* I'm a pussycat and I can't avoid it.

Alright, now ready to find out what the hell this has to do with fanfiction???? Well, focusing on my main fandom at the moment - Hey, Arnold! - I had to chuckle at the fact that I was acting fairly similar to Helga G. Pataki, just reversed. She could spend HOURS psyching herself up to be nice to Arnold, to finally show him a new side of her, to finally state exactly what was on her mind. And yet when the crucial time comes - even if she reminds herself of her goals just a second before - she reverts back to what she knows and becomes the bully everyone is used to. Same concept, except I reverted back to the friendly people-pleaser everyone knows. I then thought how much fun it would be to write a story focusing on the conflict between wanting to act one way and then - at the last second - reverting back to the usual default setting. This coupled with the fact that although both Helga and I are Tsunderes, I'm more dere-dere to Helga's tsun-tsun, and also thought it would be fun to show the conflict from a dere-dere's point of view.

Train of Thought chugged along to make me think of inverting Helga to write this story, and then I thought of the canonical anti-Helga - Gloria. How many people actually write fanfiction staring Gloria? It would be such a new take! I just needed an anti-Arnold for her to go all tsun-tsun over! I was thinking maybe Arnold's polar-opposite cousin Arnie. Would it seem too AU or AR to write a Gloria and Arnie fanfic? Basically, I would completely invert the dynamic of the traditional HelgaxArnold romance story. Should I just make it AU/AR and keep Helga and Arnold? Just stuff to think about.

I also thought about an OC I was creating for the sequel I'm planning for "What is Truly Meant to Be: A Hey Arnold Musical" (like I said, I had four hours alone - I had a lot of time to think about fanfiction...). I thought of maybe making her be my Dere-Dere Tsundere character who needs to psych herself up to lash out at Helga, but I'm not too sure if I like that. I'm also nervous that the OC will end up as a Mary Sue, and so I think I'm going to need a Beta reader by the time I'm ready to create her.

FINALLY I actually did think of a few things for my current story. A few lines and images for my sixth chapter (I'm currently working on Chapter 4). I also thought about a LOT of things to thread together the basic plotline of my seventh chapter. Now if only I could back-track and figure out what to do for the NEXT chapter (instead of two or three chapters down the road X-P).

Anyway, this is my current progress. What does everyone think?