Giants Win the Super Bowl and I am Super Screwed...

Hey, imagine that, I'm posting my blog late... again... In all fairness, I had every intention of updating yesterday at noon...but I was in the process of passing out right about then.
For those who don't know, my husband works normal hours the rest of the week, but on Sundays he is given the Overnight shift. Since we have only one car, I drop him off at one in the morning and then pick him up again at ten. This usually results in me needing to drink coffee so I'm awake enough to drive at one o'clock, and therefore I am not capable of sleeping while he's at work.
This also results in me going in to a writing frenzy for about eight hours! YAY! I'm not sure why I can't be productive unless I'm hyped up on caffeine at two in the morning, but I guess it's marginally helpful. I just wish I was equally creative at a less ungodly hour.

So anyway, the blog!

I was passing out at noon, set the alarm for two o'clock, and then hit the snooze for two more hours since I still couldn't keep my eyes open. Now disappointed in myself for not having the blog updated at noon like intended, I got right on starting it. And then my stomach growled. Made the mistake of going downstairs to get something to eat. Our downstairs is one large open area with only small sections of walls separating the dining room, living room, and kitchen. So while downstairs you can hear everything going on in the other rooms.

My husband vegges on Sundays - as he's entitled to after that Overnight shift. However, this typically means leaving the TV on TBS all day. And dammit! TBS actually had good movies on yesterday. I got suckered in! I attempted to at least blog over the commercials, but still didn't get too far. Then my husband started playing a loud computer game on his laptop. So now I had TV on in front of me, and a loud computer game on a laptop right next to me. Total sensory overload... I couldn't put a comprehensible sentence together if I tried. By the time Animation Domination came on Fox I knew I was done. I had been attempting - and failing - to blog for five hours and barely had anything written.

Thus, the post being nearly 24hours late.

Which super sucks! I meant to write out a simple blog update in about an hour at most and then spend the rest of the day in writing-frenzy mode. *sigh* Well, at least I had that eight hour writing frenzy first thing in the morning.

I'm a little less than half way done with my next chapter. The thing really is a beast! Not even half way done and it's already eight pages long. This is clearly going to be the longest chapter I've written so I hope this makes up for the super-extended hiatus.

My issue, however, is that I also promised ChibiSunnie that I would write her a Valentine's Day story to make up for not making her something for Christmas. :D Well, I've been attempting to tag team both stories, but I was having perspective issues for the Valentine's Day story and that created massive Writer's Block.

I talked things over with Chibi - which helped a lot, but I still felt like I needed a male's perspective. I put a call out on facebook and had three guys offer to help. The two guys I actually know in real life didn't help too much. However, a guy from the Hey Arnold! group did help me figure out what I needed. So, thank you, Solace Of Songs. Getting another perspective really is helpful when it comes to breaking down Writer's Block.

Now, unfortunately, this breakthrough didn't happen until Thursday. I then attempted to track down episodes of Hey Arnold! so I could really get the voices of the characters in my head. Only to then be super bummed to discover that I'm missing two of my season box sets! I'm a proud owner of four out of the five seasons, and I was only able to find two of the DVD collections... Blarg!!!! And I guess Nickelodeon/Viacom has gotten pretty hardcore about taking the episodes off of YouTube, since there aren't really any there. Thankfully, I was still able to watch School Play, and that was really all I needed.

So the next chapter of my fanfic is on hold at least until the end of this week. I need to get cracking in order to get this fluff-piece done by Valentine's Day. However, that's the secondary issue with my blog post being postponed until today. As I already said, I had every intention of writing a quick post yesterday, and then spend the rest of the day working on the one shot. The fact that I spent the whole day watching TV super killed me. I now only have today to write this thing, so I'm keeping myself cooped up in my bedroom so my husband's TV watching or video/computer game playing doesn't distract me. Here's hoping for another frenzy like I had yesterday morning.

As for this one shot, well, I sure hope Chibi likes it! The character I had the Writer's Block about is now flowing freely, and it is so much fun writing his perspective! Ironically, the character I thought I'd have no problem writing about is now the one giving me trouble. So I'm writing the story a little unconventionally. I'm starting with everything in the guy's perspective, and then I'll go back and splice in the girl's perspective. Hopefully by the time I have the guy's POV finished I'll have a breakthrough.

On the plus side of everything, this one shot is a beast as well. I'm like, super writing! So, it may be seven months between posts, but when I publish a new story at least you are contently reading for like a half-hour.

Another bonus for you guys. I like to post extended Author's Notes here, so when I post the Valentine's Day story tomorrow I might have ANOTHER blog update as well! So check that out tomorrow or Wednesday! Whoot!

Before I leave, I want to give a quick Shout Out to my darling DarkAngel1326. I spent Saturday doing what she calls a "Writers' Conference" and what I call a "Sounding Board". Basically, writers talk through their Writer's Block. The author throws out ideas he or she is thinking of, and the other writer(s) will give input, or advice, or play the Devil's Advocate in order to make sure the new idea won't cause plotholes. You can also use these Conferences when you have NO CLUE what to write next. The author will explain why he/she is stuck and the other writer(s) can then throw out ideas of where to go. It's a great use of "two heads are better than one". It's basically what I was doing when I put the call out on Facebook for a guy's perspective.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up - aside from giving advice to writers who are stuck as well as further explain what I've been doing all week - is to state that the poor girl is nervous. She recently posted her second chapter to Keep Love in Your Heart, and it is NOT a popular ending to the chapter. Trust me when I say that it is a unique take that not many writers would be willing to do - due to the unpopularity of the key element. Also, trust me when I say the story will be GOOD and will be WORTH IT! So please, give the girl some love!

She also recently posted a story that I've personally read about six times. Check that one out too!

She's also keeping a similar Writer's Blog on her DeviantArt account. CHECK HER OUT, CHECK HER OUT, CHECK HER OUT!!!! :D

Well, I super need to get back to work on my story if it's ever going to be posted tomorrow!
Bye--- Oh wait... Coach Wittenberg has something to add real quick... Coach?

"Well, kids, it seems that the New York Giants have again beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Four years later, for the second time, repetitively. And that's great! Because the number one thing is winning! Well, maybe my wife Trish. No, definitely winning, and THEN Trish. Well, maybe winning, then Air Hockey, and THEN Trish. It's close. Trish, winning, air hockey... It's close!"

Um.... Thanks for that, Coach. Why don't you sort that out while I say goodbye...

So yeah! My Giants won the Super Bowl and I'm on a writing frenzy! February is looking good! :D

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.

Imagine Trumpet Sounds...

Hey...hey... HEY! GUESS WHAT I DID! :) Go on, guess! :D Did you guess? XD

I FINISHED WRITING THE SKELETON OF MY CHAPTER!!!!!!

Yup, it's done... FINALLY! Only took me *looks at watch* EIGHT MONTHS... *sigh*

How could a chapter I've been excited about taken so long to work on!? Why is it that this is the second time I've written this about one of my chapters? I have one more chapter that I'm super excited to work on - it's one of the main reasons I made my story in to a novella. It's about three chapters away right now. I sure hope I don't get stuck on that one too... *sigh*

Man, I really need emotes.... perhaps I'll work on that next.... Anyway....

In all honesty, I didn't expect to finish this portion of the writing process yet. I've been slacking hard-core with the "write once a week" portion of my New Year Resolutions. I've been brainstorming a lot with ChibiSunnie, but nothing was actually put on paper. Every time I attempted to work I was either interrupted, or I'd write one sentence, get weary, and just stop. To go even further, I was CERTAIN this was going to be "plot bunny post" week because I couldn't imagine doing anything worth blogging about. I didn't do my last update until Tuesday, on Wednesday I wrote out the "Plot Bunny Post" to keep on stand-by for whenever I need it as filler, Thursday was one of those "interrupted or vegged" days, and Friday was "invasion of hubby's best friend" day. Thankfully, I was feeling crap-tastic on Saturday and spent about three or four hours in bed. In between the half-hour naps I worked on my story skeleton. In fact, towards the end of my self-inflicted bed rest - when the meds finally started kicking in and I stopped feeling nauseous - I went in to a total writing frenzy! Whoot!

I almost did an Early-Update day by blogging yesterday, but the "friend invasion" on Friday turned in to a sleep-over and he ended up hanging at our house for nearly 36hrs.... so instead of blogging I actually socialized... yay!

Anyway, back to the story itself. As mentioned in previous posts, this chapter has become a beast. So much so that I've decided I'm making a companion story to What is Truly Meant to Be: this chapter as a chaptered story in and of itself. I'll be introducing original characters and an original setting - Arnold's home away from Hillwood. I want to show more of each, but this upcoming chapter is the only time we're outside of Hillwood. Also, I had some fun subplots created, but there is just no space within my chapter. This upcoming chapter alone will be epicly long. Quite possibly twice the size of my previously longest chapter "Lady in Red" - the last chapter I was dying to work on and yet kept forever to write... Anyway, I hope this gargantuan chapter will make up for the forever-long hiatus.

I'm also going to breeze through a lot of stuff in the chapter. Mainly because all the previous - and following - chapters take place over the course of one week at most. Aside from "Nobody Wants to be Lonely", all the other chapters take place over the course of just a few hours. This upcoming chapter however takes place over the course of nearly fifty days. The events of nearly two months are going to be scrunched down to one mere chapter. Man, if I hadn't put the "parent song" restriction on myself I would have separated this thing in to two or three chapters.... WHAT HAVE I DONE TO MYSELF!?

Here's a bit of a taste by what I mean when I say "gargantuan chapter". I have a notebook where I write the skeleton of the chapter in. The first chapter has a skeleton of two-and-a-half pages. The second chapter has a skeleton of five-and-a-half pages. The third chapter - "Lady in Red" - ended up going completely away from my original skeleton, so it is a whole bunch of notes written in the margins. Keep in mind, THAT is my longest chapter so far. The fourth chapter takes up three-and-a-third pages. Fifth chapter takes up five pages of the notebook. The sixth chapter - which happens to be the shortest - only takes up one-and-two-thirds pages.

Then you have the seventh chapter. My beast that wants its own story. This thing takes up TEN-FRIGGEN-PAGES!!! Boy is this going to be fun to write! :P

Anyway, my point is that I'm FINALLY to the point where I'll be actually WRITING the chapter! Whoot! Once that's done I'll go in to more detail about each individual event when I set up the chapter as its own companion story. If enough people like that, I might stay in my little side-setting and write more companion stories of Arnold's life outside of Hillwood. We know what Helga's been doing over the past four years, but what has Arnold been up to? Hmmm.... plotbunnies.....

In the meantime, I'm still chugging along as Darkangel1326's beta. And we're now in a who-can-embarrass-the-other-more-with-complements war. ^_^ So much bonding! So much "I love you...no I love you more" banter! So much "OMG, you're so awesome.... OMG stop making me blush" banter! So much "Stop telling me how great I am, you're gonna make me cry" battles! I wuv her stuff and tell her she's a great writer. She blushes about how much I gloat about her and retaliates with "YOU BEST BETA EVERS!" It's such a fun relationship! teehee ^_^

So, to you my dear Darkangel.... BIG KISSES AND LOTS OF HUGGLES!

She's just as plagued with plot bunnies as I am so I'm thinking this relationship is gonna last a while.... yay.

Well, off to write and/or work on emoticons for my blog! I'll catch you next week for SUPER BOWL SUNDAY! Whoot, whoot!

Cleaning and Brainstorming and Championship Games; Oh My!

So, yet again I failed at my Sunday is Update Day thing. The worst part is that I've actually been waiting to blog this week. I have so much to talk about I almost posted on like Wednesday or Thursday, but I was afraid that I wouldn't have anything else to write on Sunday.

And then Sunday came and nearly went without a post. Just so that my three readers wouldn't get confused I ended up posting a "placeholder" just to prove that I really WILL update every week - even if it's with filler....

Here's my list of excuses:

1 - A friend has become my Jedi Master in the world of "Super Couponing" and my weekends have been pretty full with THAT training.... It kept me SIX HOURS to clip all the coupons she gave me last week. And Sunday it kept me all day to organize the five-inch-thick stack of coupons. Why did it keep me a week to organize the coupons I clipped? Well, reason 2....

2 - It's cold outside and my husband's LARP group still wanted to have our monthly session. And so, knowing I had a week to clean, I agreed that we should have the game at our house so we didn't have to do the session in the local park. Now, had I but kept up with my New Year resolution to keep with a cleaning regimen there wouldn't have been a problem. However, I was distracted with Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword lately. So it kept me all week to clean - but everything was neat, reorganized, and I unpacked a few more boxes in time for the Friday game. So.... yay!

3 - My favorite American football team the New York Giants were playing in the championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. This nailbiting game in the rain was a true Battle of the Defenses with both teams going in to overtime with 17points each. Nearly ten out of the fifteen minutes of overtime passed before the Giants finally called their kicker in for the game-winning score; sending the Giants to the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. When I had given up on the stack of coupons I was going to finally blog, but I just couldn't keep my eyes off of the TV long enough to write something worth-while.

4 - I then had every intention to blog after the game - but I was too tired. And I was going to make up for it by finally blogging yesterday. However, I spent the first half of the day running around STILL trying to find a job. And then the second half of the day was spent sleeping on the couch with a bad reaction to the soup I bought from Subway. I should have just gone for the sandwich.....

Well, here it is, Tuesday, and two days late on the update. But update I still shall!

For a while I wanted to jot all my Plot Bunnies down in one spot, maybe even have my readers comment on which story they'd like me to try out first. However, I keep having legit things to blog about and so the Plot Bunny post got pushed to the back burner... as it is again this week.

Originally, I was thinking I'd actually blog about the Plot Bunnies; since I was still in my rut with the chapter that has been plaguing me for about eight months. Then my script writing buddy ChibiSunnie came to my rescue! The girl that said she'd Beta for me about two months ago never got back to me. I think I overwhelmed her. In fact, ChibiSunnie, who knows first hand how extremely anal about details I can be, still chuckled about being overwhelmed by everything I had bouncing around in my head. Thankfully, due to our co-op during Script Frenzy last April, Chibi knew how to handle the three-pages of info I gave her and really helped me work through a lot of my issues.

My big thing was that I shot myself in the foot. Since the twist at the end of my one-shot-turned-chapter-one was a surprise even to me, I didn't have the entire backstory thought up. Then I had an issue with the chapters surrounding Helga's Sweet Sixteen in which Helga and Arnold got back together when I didn't want them to. And so Arnold not knowing the Chapter 1 twist seemed odd. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how Arnold didn't know. Thankfully, talking things through with Chibi super-duper helped.

BIG HUGS TO YOU CHIBISUNNIE!!!! :D Thanks so much for the help!

So now I can get my butt back in gear, finish my chapter skeleton, and FINALLY get to writing.

Since Chibi worked hard to draw me a beautiful Christmas Postcard as a gift and I didn't even think of making anything for her I told her I'd write whatever fluff she wanted for Valentine's day. So that means I have until February 14th to not only write this chapter that's been haunting me since LAST February, but also write Chibi her fluff. Time to get crackin'!

A little hint on what Chibi would like for Valentine's Day this year - Arnold and Helga weren't the only ones who dreamed what married life would be like after Rhonda's origami fortune teller matched them up....

Yet ANOTHER thing involving ChibiSunnie is that she's currently sketching out a scene from each chapter of my story!!! She already has a pencil sketch of the break-up scene from the first chapter and the Helga-in-the-junkyard scene from the second chapter. I'm so excited to see them finished up, but she's back in school so it might be a while before she inks and colors them. Once she's done I'll have to post them here!!!! I'm so excited that I'm going to get illustrations for my story! I'm still in shock that my writing was able to inspire someone enough for them to want to draw my "powerful scenes" - as Chibi puts it.

My last bit of news is the excitement I'm getting when I realize that people are not only reading this blog - 31 views when I last updated - but people are ALSO finding and reading my stories on FanFiction! January 8th is the only day I haven't had at least ONE person read my stories - which is amazing for me since there have been months where there were more days where no one found my work than days when at least one person did. Having a continued readership when I haven't posted anything new since early November is just shocking to me!

Not only have I had a steady flow of people reading my stuff, but every story I've posted has received one or two new faves this month! The fact that people are still finding my work just amazes me to no end! Perhaps it's because Delaroux and DarkAngel1326 both post me as their beta in their Author's Notes.... It would make sense if that were the case....

OOOh, speaking of DarkAngel1326, I have been beta-reading for her new prose works. I'm so proud of this girl! She's so open to criticism and seems to really appreciate the help. The only thing else I have to say about her is if I were to suck at poetry as much as she claims she sucks at prose then I'd have a poetry book self-published somewhere....

OK, so Lunar New Year was yesterday, so maybe Reboot Resolutions Take 3 will be effective! We'll see next week, depending on whether or not I actually post on time. Perhaps finally a Plot Bunny post, or perhaps it will be pushed back one more week because I'll actually have more story-related news! I sure hope the latter is true.

*This would be where I have a cool signature post-closing line if I were creative enough to think of one.... can I use "See ya, Cowboy" until I think of something????*

New Years Resolutions: Take Two

Boy am I doing great with resolutions already! I completely missed last week! I did have every intention of posting last Sunday so that Sundays would be "update day." I completely zoned out though, and when I attempted to make up for it on Monday I just got focused on how insane my last post looked with all those pictures. Yet, at the same time, I miss not being as expressive here as I can be on DeviantArt. I was thinking of swiping the emoticons from DA, but they specifically state on their website that the emotes are just for DA.... and I don't want to go around and have copyright issues with anyone.

So then I thought about making my own emoticons. That is damn hard to do if you don't want to just make simple smiley faces! And I was attempting to make Hey Arnold! emotes since the one forum needed them anyway. I am decidedly NOT good at making emotes! I spent pretty much all of Monday attempting and the end result was NOT good. Perhaps I'll try again soon with just regular smileys....

The rest of the week was consumed by Legend of Zelda. My husband and I received the latest game "Skyward Sword" for Christmas. I'm dying to play it, but my husband joked that I can't start "Skyward Sword" until I finally beat "Twilight Princess." And for some reason I agreed to this... All I needed to do was go through the last dungeon and beat the game boss. I mean, that kept me like an hour to do! The issue, however, is that I never "completed" a Legend of Zelda game before. Meaning, I've never had all the side quests completed and I never bothered with the optional dungeons. I was determined to "complete" the game "Twilight Princess" however! I wasn't going to enter that last dungeon until I had the optional dungeon done, collected all the gold bugs, found all the heart pieces, and killed all the poes to collect their souls.

And that's where it got annoying. With the wonderful cheating world of walkthroughs I was able to easily find the last of the heart pieces and the golden bugs that I needed. However, since I played the game on and off for nearly SIX YEARS it was hard to remember which Poes I did and did not find. I went through the walkthrough checklist and I THOUGHT I got them all, but still remained about eleven short! After two days of tagteaming video walkthroughs by ZeldaDungeon.net and double checking the same spot in the game - which occasionally meant I had to go back through the dungeons I already completed - I FINALLY found the last damn Poe!

By Thursday - after working almost non-stop since Tuesday - I FINALLY beat the damn game! I was now satisfied enough that I could now get started on "Skyward Sword!" YAY!

Friday came, and when I was done with my cleaning spree to make up for the neglect my house got this week, my husband was ready to go to a second week of "Friday Night Magic" at the local comic book/gaming store. Basically, every Friday the store will host a gaming night for customers to sit and play the card game Magic: The Gathering.

My husband LOVES this game and hasn't been able to play much since we got married - finances being what they are. So when his one friend offered to lend him cards to play with the man was like a kid on Christmas morning.

I agreed to go with him to a tournament last week. BIG MISTAKE! I ended up stuck at the shop for SIX FRIGGEN HOURS. I enjoy my husband's friends, and I'm in to a lot of gamer stuff, but I just don't get in to the card games like Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, etc. So while he was in the forever-long tournament, I was off in the corner with my netbook. Sadly, there was no wifi for me to use, and so I couldn't blog while I was there. I attempted to work on my story some more - you know, work on that "write at least once a week" resolution - but it was so noisy I couldn't really concentrate. I ended up playing computer games like "Diner Dash", "Plants Vs. Zombies", or "Skip-Bo".

For this past Friday's tournament I decided to download a whole bunch of fanfiction on to my netbook so I could casually read while I was at the store. I'm not sure why I even bother - the chairs aren't comfortable, I was cramped, I was hungry, and it was too noisy to do much of anything besides computer games again. My only reasoning for going with my husband is that it is the only time I really socialize - unless you count when his friends randomly invade our house. At least this time I was only at the store for about four hours. At that point I got so hungry I gave up and went home. My husband's friends drove him home another three hours later!

Upside: Two weeks in a row my husband won the tournaments and so the store owner joked about making him a crown as "King of Magic"....

Anyway, this week was shot when it came to blogging AND writing. Boy is 2012 starting off terrifically.

Well, I'm on now. Posting on "Sunday Blog Update Day". So it's a start at my second swing to stick to my New Year resolutions. If I can just get past my blockade as to how Arnold didn't know Helga was dating anyone I just might be able to finish up this chapter that's been plaguing me.

In the meantime, I'll be doing more beta-reading for DarkAngel1326 as she ventures away from poetry and in to the land of fanfiction prose. I'll also try to ween myself off of the addiction to all the role playing Delaroux does on facebook in her discussion board....I'd link the board, but it got pretty hard core pretty quickly - crime syndicates, murder, prostitution, demons, sex.... it's racey....

I'm hoping for a positive post next week... we'll see.

2012 New Years Resolutions and Starting Fresh

Well, a Happy New Year to you and yours!

Image by SilentReaper

I am hopeful that 2012 - with it's obvious lack of wedding planning and packing/moving - is a LOT less crazy than 2011. Don't get me wrong, all in all, 2011 was a great year and 27 seems a great age. However, all the chaos kind of messed with my writing abilities.

So the new year means starting fresh! And I had a nice start! This morning I woke up and was inspired to work on my fanfiction!

Yeah, you heard me! I worked on my writing! Was so inspired I actually wore my ScriptFrenzy shirt! Granted, I didn't actually work on the ACTUAL story, but I still worked on the skeleton and fleshed more of it out.

OK, to sound a little less like a slacker, let me start off this year by letting everyone know how I work when it comes to at least this story.

1. I decide where I want to go with the next chapter, and then I find the song I'll use as the "parent inspiration". Basically, in drawing sense, I get a reference for the chapter.

2. Next, I use the lyrics to get a broad view of the plotline that I want for that chapter. I try to interpret the lyrics in prose form and usually write out next to each lyric what it could mean in the story's prose.

3. I then take these notes and start threading them together to get the actual timeframe of the story. This lyric will refer to THIS part of the chapter, and this lyric will refer to THAT part of the chapter, etc.

4. Once I know where I want to go with the chapter - and make sure that at least most of the lyrics are represented - I start up on the true skeleton of the chapter. I start fleshing out the details. This is when I whip out the handy-dandy notebook...

....not THAT notebook....

....and I write out the broad overview of the chapter.

5. Once my skeleton is complete and fleshed out I finally take out my netbook/sit at my desktop and actually START WRITING!

Yeah, yeah, I know....

Anyway, this is when I take my narration in my notebook and I actually plug in dialogue and go in to the details of everything. I then polish it up and the next thing I know... it's done!

Anyway..... since it IS a new year, I decided to start fresh. My main resolution is to write more. To work on my stories - or really ANYTHING - at least once a week. To do weekly updates here. To just.... WRITE! I am so determined to actually finish this story before 2013. I started it August 2010 and so I think that would be more than enough time! Well, I worked a little on my story this morning, and I'm writing this update, so far the resolution is in tact!

The other fresh start is the new look I have for this blog. I've read more blogs lately and they look pretty swank. A lot of them bring in interest with pictures - hence all the ones above. Also, I use a LOT of emoticons when I'm writing things on DeviantArt.com, and so it just seems blah when I can't use the emotes anywhere else. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that DA specifically requests that people don't use the emoticons outside of DA, I would have them plaster those adorable emotes all OVER the place here!

I'm not sure if I like the pictures though. It takes a while to find them and they just take up a lot of space.

Well, I now know at least two people read this blog, and so my last bit to spruce up this place is to tweak who can leave comments. Now you don't need to be a member of Blogger.com in order to comment. So please, I'd love to know what you think of my posts. Are they helpful? Are they amusing to read? Is there anything I can do to make the read more enjoyable? Just leave a comment below!

Love you, guys, and HAPPY 2012!!!!

OMG My Readers Are Gonna Make Me Cry!

I logged on to my email today and found that I received a notice from Fanfiction.net. Someone had reviewed my story What is Truly Meant to Be: A Hey Arnold! Musical. I went to check on the review and saw my first anonymous one I've ever received. It simply said this:

12/29/11 . chapter 6

Pleeeeease?

Q_Q..... OMG I nearly broke in to tears! I am SOOOOOO sorry I haven't written anything! I just feel so guilty! I am just suck a slacker! I'm in such a funk and I wish I knew how to kick myself out of it. I just can't believe people like my story enough to wait so long for more. I can't believe my story is good enough that people would actually plead for me to return to updating it.

So, to you Anonymous... I am sorry, I love your devotion, and I WILL work on my story again. Thank you so much for sticking by me, even when I make you wait so long for an update.

Much love and hugs to my readers. It may not seem like it, but you brighten my world and I love you loads.