Oh No! NaNo's Starting To Wind Down

NOVEMBER 11^TH – SUNDAY

So I posted my last update super late again, but this time it wasn’t because I was slacking on my posting of the chapter. I had both of my new chapters up at about 11am. This meant I had an hour to post my weekly update here. That should be plenty of time for normal bloggers. Not so much for me since I’m so long-winded. However, since I’ve been writing these diary entries at the end of each day all I had to do was copy from Word and paste here on Blogger.

And then all hell broke loose.

Ever since January’s start of the weekly updates and new formatting I’ve instituted, I’ve been slowly learning HTML code. For almost a month now I’ve been writing only exclusively in HTML because it was easier and faster to write the code ahead of time; instead of going back through and finding all the places to add all my links and all of those yellow underlines so you get more info when hovering over with your mouse. For about a month this tactic worked. I thought I was slowly mastering HTML.

Boy, was I ever wrong! This past week when I tried posting everything I wrote at least half of it got erased because some line in one of the codes was off, and everything written after that bad code got deleted. I battled for almost four hours – Hubby sleepily rubbing my back to help calm me – before finally getting the post up. Didn’t even bother announcing via twitter or my Facebook account. I was too ticked and I didn’t have time. I was already running late for work.

By the time I got home, celestialTyrant was hanging out with Hubby and we stayed up until 11pm playing Super Mario Bros. Wii. So, the day that is normally fantastic for my writing availability ends up being a day I crash my writing streak. *sigh*

NOVEMBER 12^TH – MONDAY

Hubby coerced me in to watching Highschool of the Dead before work. So there goes three-some hours I watched TV instead of writing. I then did my shift, which ended up being longer than it’s supposed to be because no one else took out trash the entire work day and so the trash bags were piled up higher than the container could handle, and the bags were stuffed heavier than they could handle, so I’m doing a balancing act trying to get these bags to the back. Meanwhile, at least two bags ripped on me when I tried to lift them. Awesome.

By the time I got home all I wanted was a shower, late night dinner, and watch my Monday night shows.

Therefore, I go from a super-awesome writing streak to yet again going days without writing. I need to seriously tweak some things in my life if I’m going to get a proper writing rhythm down.

NOVEMBER 13^TH – TUESDAY

After wasting my Monday evening checking in on Facebook and DeviantArt in search for the winners of the Hey Arnold Halloween contest, I started off the day nervously checking once more.

Sadly, as predicted – especially catching all those stupid typos – I didn’t even place. I’m hoping to one day read all the other entrants in the contest, since I’ve now seen all the pictures entered. Sadly, ChibiSunnie didn’t place with her picture, which I thought showed so much more attention to detail and creativity than any of the other drawings – no offense to the other contestants. However, the winner and runner up were very well executed in their own right. I think they demonstrated more mastery over the art than Chibi – cleaner; more polished.

Here’s the runner up:

And here’s the winner: 

And here’s a refresher on what Chibi’s looks like:

Although Chibi didn’t place with her picture, she still took SECOND PLACE WITH HER STORY! XD Hazzah!

For a girl who claimed she couldn’t write prose; for a girl who never wrote prose outside of school work; for a girl who never wrote any fanfiction before; for that girl to get second place WHEN I DIDN’T PLACE AT ALL…. now THAT is saying something! And it should be saying it pretty loud and clear to all of you self-doubting writers.

NEVER DOUBT YOUR SKILL TO TELL A COMPELLING STORY!!!! 

You are always going to be your worst critique and doubt how good you are. However, you’ll never truly know until you get those words out there and see how people react to it.

SO STOP DOUBTING YOURSELF YOU SILLY PEOPLE!

Also… this story holds the lesson of

“LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TELL YOU THAT YOU’RE GOOD, DANG IT!” :-D

Yes, that goes for ALL my writers – as well as my readers here that might also write, but haven’t let me know so I could read their works. *hint, hint*

But there’s also a flipside to this lesson. And that is how to bounce back from rejection.

Yes, I was “graded” by “my peers” – the administrators of the Save The Jungle Movie Hey Arnold group – and not a publisher or professional editor. Yes, my career didn’t sink or swim with this contest. Yes, my story wouldn’t be “otherwise published” or “made money” if I had won. And finally, No, Craig Bartlett – the show’s creator – was not a “secret guest judge” for the contest and therefore my lack of winning was not him telling me that I suck at writing episodic-style stories. So, aside from not getting my name announced and not receiving the autographed book – which I would have given to Chibi anyway if we actually did collab on her gourd scarecrow story – nothing changed in my world.

But not winning still stings. Knowing that at least two other stories were better than mine – when I only know of five submitted stories total, including mine – is a bitter taste. Although having my name announced as a winner isn’t a groundbreaking achievement, it still could have been. My name could have finally been out there as a fanfic writer. I could have actually gotten more of a following. And there’s that nagging “what could I have done better if I had time to proofread” question – as well as the “should I have gone with one of the seven other ideas bouncing in my head” quandary.

I’ll admit that I tried to psych myself up. I tried to tell myself to just focus on my NaNo story now that I knew the results. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t really matter because I still have a faithful following regardless. I tried to tell myself that I could just start breeding plotbunnies for the Christmas contest coming up next month. Yet I still got in my writing funk and couldn’t shake it. Rejection – no matter how tiny – stings and all writers have to learn how to deal with it in their own right.

But enough moping! I say we celebrate those who properly beat me out of my prize!

So here is a reminder of Chibi’s amazingly awesome, secondplace earning, first ever fanfic!

But let’s have a drum roll for the fantastic winner of the writing portion of the contest.

Well, now that I’ve done almost an entire blog post just about the contest…. Let’s get back to the NaNo updates, shall we?

As I mentioned above, I was in a funk. I TRIED to concentrate on my NaNo story, but I just couldn’t really get in the mood to write. I punched out about 600 words – which is better than the NOTHING I’ve done the previous two days – and then stalled.

Part of the stall, however wasn’t because of the funk. It’s because I got to a part where I need to write a prophecy. I know prophecies tend to have significant years and that certain significant events usually occur on significant anniversaries of other significant events. All this said; I went to my handy dandy word document where I wrote down the backstory timeline of the world of Albion – well, the current era of Albion at least. But as I read through it I realized I based my dates too much on the ages I wanted key players to be when main events happened, but didn’t put any thought in the years between the events. For instance, the events of the main story take place 73 years after the main villain is born, 33 years after the cornerstone event, and 26 years after the main antagonist is born. These main events should definitely have more of a significance in the years passed between them. I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked for about two hours and still wasn’t content in how everything turned out. Such a waste of a day!

NOVEMBER 14^TH – WEDNESDAY

I just could NOT get started on my writing again until I had that timeline figured out. It was driving me bonkers! Working and re-working the timeline in my word document just wasn’t working. I needed something more visual than that.

So I got some of the multi-part continuous printer paper that we have stored with our D&D resources. I only had four sheets to work with, so I divided the full sheet in to four rows and 27 columns – each column just barely wide enough for half a sticky note. Although I knew most spaces would be blank, some of the events were moveable by a single year or two, so I needed exactly the count of 100 years. I then wrote down all of the important points of the backstory on half-widths of sticky note, and proceeded to place them on my gridded out timeline.

I started with the timeline I had after fussing with it yesterday. I then tweaked and adjusted so years were more significant to each other and people didn’t seem insanely old in the grand scheme of things. Creating world backstory is HARD WORK! Sheesh.

The construction of the grid, plus writing out the events, and shifting everything until I was satisfied took a total of about two hours! Either way, I feel accomplished and I think this visual representation was a LOT easier for me to navigate so I could progress faster. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future endeavors – although I sort of always knew that… I mean, I need to stop and draw nearly every character I’ve ever created to get them fully in my head. Same for house layouts. When I did the Halloween story last month I stopped for a few hours so I could research normal layouts for rowhouses, then take the rough layout of the Pataki home – which ALWAYS changes if you pay attention, I don’t think even the creators knew the layout – and finally compiled my own layout for the Old McKinney house. Even though the reader didn’t really know much of the layout, *I* needed to in order to continue my writing. u_u boy am I pathetic…. :-P

Well, I sat waiting for Hubby at work – similar to what I’m forced to do on Sundays when he does the price changes – and in my two hour wait I managed to finish off chapter 4. So even if I’m still over 9000 words behind, I’m at least hitting my secondary goal of at least one chapter completed each week. It’s only Wednesday, though. Perhaps I can get a second one done again.

NOVEMBER 15^TH – THURSDAY

The Great American Smokeout.

Once a year in November, Americans quit tobacco use for at least 24-hours in an attempt to have it kickstart a lifetime of being tobacco free. As the Wellness Champ of my store, one of my job duties required me to do SOMETHING to promote the day. Thus I spent about four hours of my own time to organize. That’s my OWN TIME, unpaid, at home, while CT was visiting last night. I put together Quit Kits with a whole bunch of information and goodies for people attempting to quit today, I made a promotional poster, and I “laminated” some anti-smoking posters using transparent contact paper. This resulted in me listening to the guys while they played Mario Party 8, but I couldn’t join in… :-( It also resulted in me not writing another word for the rest of the night. So add another 400 to the tally of how far behind I am.

As for today, I woke up bright and early to get ready – dressed professionally and whatnot. I set up one of those sample carts they have at grocery stores; I plastered it with the anti-smoking promotional posters and the Quit Kits. I called it the “Propaganda Cart”. I then stood by Customer Service all day while every single smoking employee avoided me like the plague. I did give away seven of those Quit Kits to customers, so I guess it wasn’t a total wash.

By the time Hubby and I both finished with work, did some quick shopping, and picked up Chinese food – Hubby had a craving and some extra cash in his paycheck - it was roughly seven when we got home. We ate dinner, watched our Thursday shows, and I didn’t write a friggen word! So much for catching up.

NOVEMBER 16^TH – FRIDAY

Both Hubby and I had to be at work bright and early today, but I did notice before heading in that I had a Facebook message from one of the admins of the Hey Arnold group that hosted the Halloween contest. She sent me the grade sheets five of the admins filled out for my story; even though PinkLotus27 kept saying there were nine judges. Unfortunately, I had to wait until I got back home at about four before I could see what I got. I averaged out to having roughly an 84% on my story. Not too shabby in the grand scheme of things, but still not good enough to have placed. Now I’m super curious what Chibi got for her story, as well as what she and Chopfe got on their drawings.

The thing that really got me though were the conflicting comments. How am I supposed to improve on stuff like that? Some people told me that everyone was in character for the most part, but I slid Arnold out of character a little here and there – which I’m inclined to believe; I’m horrible with keeping the stupid football head in character. Others told me that I had everyone dead on the entire time and that it was like they were reading an episode. Then there were some comments stating that I did the transitions perfectly, and others who said they were a bit “robotic” and “rushed” – whatever that means.

Another thing that got me was that I lost points in originality! The main reason why? Because I purposely wrote the story to play out like an episode. I ended up losing points in originality because of that! One of the judges even commented that I lost originality points because I wrote an urban legend which “has been done”…. Um… the rules said “Halloween-themed, ghost story, or URBAND LEGEND”. Since I purposely avoided them doing something on Halloween specifically – a refreshing twist I would think – I therefore HAD to do either a ghost story or urban legend in order to fit the criteria. I then lost points for it? Worst part? I thought my story was a GHOST STORY and not an urban legend at all. :-P

I do have to say though, that Hubby was adorable. Yeah, I was a bit bummed out when I saw exactly what my marks were – and the comments that went with them. However, I tried shaking it off. Again, this is an inconsequential fandom contest. If I can’t brush off this “rejection” how can I handle publishers telling me no? Hubby on the other hand – who hasn’t read the story yet, mind you – started raging. “What are these people’s criteria for judging? Why is grammar part of the grading when most of these people speak Spanish? How can some of them say something like ‘You did great with your transitions,’ and then give you 14 out of 20 in that category? It makes no sense! How can they possibly think your story wasn’t original? Who else thought to write like an episode? That’s unique!” The overly protective and defensive comments continued. I think he got more riled up than I did. I kept trying to remind him that he hadn’t read the story yet and so most of the comments COULD be very valid, but he wasn’t hearing that. He’s adorable and I love his support!

Anyway, after the Contest Grading Raging, Hubby and I quickly got ready for our Vampire LARP. I personally wanted to skip it since I was still so far behind on my NaNo writing, but we haven’t played in about three weeks, and since I was in the fight scene we were finishing today if I didn’t attend I would sort of screw it up for everybody. Especially seeing as how “everybody” ended up being Hubby, his BFF who runs the game, and Omnibladestrike. There was no way they’d be able to do anything with any fewer players.

Considering the last time we played I sat around twiddling my thumbs for about an hour or so while we were waiting on Omni to show up – time I COULD have spent working on that Halloween story – I decided to bring my netbook with me this time. Perhaps I could get some writing done.

Nope. For the first time like…. EVER… when it came to LARP we actually started up more-or-less on time. Yes, we again had to wait on Omni, but BFF had something planned for one-on-one with my character and his, so we just played that out.

I did manage to type out forty words before he decided to do that quick scene…. So I got SOMETHING typed today. Does that count?

NOVEMBER 17^TH – SATURDAY

Another semi-worthless day.

Did my normal wake up early for work thing. Got out of work super early – 11:30am – and hung out with Hubby and the guys. If you haven’t noticed, it’s now become a thing for the guys to crash my home on Saturdays. Since Cyhyr and her boyfriend can no longer make their weekly Monday visits it’s nice to have this new weekly social get together – even if I miss out on a lot of it due to work and them playing Magic.

Anyway, I caught up on my massive amount of Facebook notifications – since I hadn’t checked FB since reading the grade sheets – ate, and waited around downstairs for a little bit. Since Omni and CT were both at the house we were gonna continue our Super Mario Bros. Wii game and try to beat it today. Instead they Magic-ed.

At about 1:30 I gave up and went upstairs to write. I managed a little over 900 words before passing out. Whoops. Well, fully refreshed, I woke up when I got called back downstairs so we could play Mario. That lasted until about 11pm. OMG, I’m so awesome with this “Don’t be sociable for just one month; just write, everyone will understand” thing, aren’t I? :-P So….. yeah…. So much for catching up on that word count today as well.

NOVEMBER 18^TH – SUNDAY

Alright, so, admittingly, considering how long this one post is, if I did give up on the diary blogging and just stayed offline throughout November – like I do in April – I probably would be a lot farther in my story. I just spent an hour updating this blog post, and I’ll probably spend another hour fighting with the formatting like I did last week.

Anyway, I had a sandwich and a nearly-full mug of coffee chillin’ next to me first thing this morning. So I once again attempted to conquer my story. Especially since this boring thing is four chapters down and STILL in the exposition phase. We haven’t even started the epic tale of them searching for the jewel shards, meeting the antagonist, or finding out the secrets of Connor’s past.

I did manage to at least tear through today’s 1667 words while I was awake via shots of my mug of coffee. Woke up at 2am to bring Hubby in to work and have been up since! Sheesh! To be fair, though, between this blog update and a lot of time doing more research – I really need to stop doing that - I only wrote for about two to three hours in the six I had available. Still, that just demonstrates that if I get my act together and find two uninterrupted hours I should be able to at least avoid falling farther behind. I mean, if I keep up the pace of 1667 words per day from now on out I’ll only hit 33,487 words, but it’s better than stopping at my current 16,513… right?

I’m just super nervous about this upcoming week. The house is a disaster. There’s crap EVERYWHERE. The dishes are all in the sink. So I have at least one full day of cleaning to do, but I’m working every day until Friday – yup, that includes working Thanksgiving. We’re hosting Thanksgiving on Wednesday, which means I have Monday and Tuesday to clean – like THAT’S gonna happen! @_@ We also need to fold and put away laundry as well as packing for our trip to PA for Thanksgiving with my family. We’re going to attempt to head down to PA after I’m done with work on Thursday. We’ll probably miss the Thanksgiving dinner my mom is making, but we can have leftovers! Then I’ll spend time with my family on Friday and probably won’t have any writing time. Saturday is the extended family Thanksgiving gathering. Sunday we’re heading home. That’s pretty much an entire week that I don’t foresee any writing time! I’m hoping to at least finish Chapter 5 so I have that new chapter for you folks next Sunday, but who knows.

So, I guess I just need you guys to wish me luck and we’ll see how well I do next week.

For my fellow Americans – I sound like such a politician – I wish you a very happy, healthy, and safe Thanksgiving. 

Continuing NaNo

NOVEMBER 5TH – DAY FIVE
For a decade the graves of my father-in-law’s parents were unmarked in a family cemetery. A few weeks ago everyone FINALLY got their inheritance and the siblings all chipped in to finally get a joint headstone for the parents. Yesterday was the family “ceremony” where they finally placed the headstone. My in-laws and one of Hubby’s cousins were all at the site yesterday.
Everyone was there but me and Hubby.
I was exhausted and slept when I wasn’t writing. Besides, I was supposed to be at work when everyone else was at the cemetery. There really was no way I’d be able to attend. Hubby was just as exhausted – if not more so since I at least had about three or four hours of sleep before work and he only had a little more than one. So he was beyond zonked out and didn’t really wake up until I got home at 8:30.
Even though his parents KNOW about his overnights on Sundays and KNOW that I go in to work every Sunday at 3:30, they STILL scheduled this dedication on a Sunday and then were kinda ticked off that we weren’t there.
So after a long day at work today – in which I was again faint and mentally chanting “don’t throw up” while working through a headache – all I wanted to do was shower, sleep, and then get to writing. What I ACTUALLY did was quickly change so Hubby and I could go with his parents to his grandparents’ graves so we could see the headstones….. And then we got a mini-tour of the cemetery and shown where all the other family members were buried and yada-yada.
I know, I’m sounding really rude, but I don’t even visit my FATHER’S gravesite. And I was feeling kinda sick.
Anyway, when we finally got home I went to write my second chapter. I cranked about 200words out before passing out. So now I’m 4167 words behind. Sheesh.
By the way, has anyone read the first chapter? Is it as craptastic as I think it is? One of the things about NaNo is that you just write. You don’t take time to go back and read. So I honestly have no clue how that first chapter turned out. :-P

NOVEMBER 6TH – DAY SIX
Election day!
I had to work first thing in the morning, and then I brought Hubby in to work at 2. I had the house to myself until 7:30, and so I was originally going to use that time to catch up on my word count. Unfortunately, celestialTyrant was having a bit of an emotional crisis so I talked to him for almost two hours. Between that, showering, and checking my Social Media stuff another hour went out the window. I also was aiming to head out at about 7 so I could get some shopping done before picking Hubby up. So my time was quickly shrinking down to about three hours to write.
I then came upon the same snafu that I had when writing the third chapter of my story. I just couldn’t properly picture my male lead Connor in my head. I knew he was a sort of compilation of the hero of Fable, Link from Legend of Zelda, Sesshomaru from the show InuYasha, Van from the show Vision of Escaflowne, and Tamahome from the show Fushigi Yuugi. But what do all these guys look like when mushed together? What elements of each of their looks am I stealing?
And thus two hours were spent grabbing pictures and trying to compile them in to one person. I’m so horrible at this! :-P Perhaps one day I’ll attempt to draw Natalie and Connor, but anyone who reads my story and wants to draw fanart of them I’d be more than happy to see how you see them.
So now I’m down to an hour to write before going to shop before picking up my husband and then going to vote. Even though a normal person would think this is ample time to at least punch out the word count needed to describe Connor, I fell in to my normal “I won’t have time to write! I’ll either get caught up in what I’m doing and run late with everything else or I’ll have to stop before my thought is complete and I’ll lose where I’m going with it” panic. And then I spent an hour on Facebook….
No writing was done that day….

NOVEMBER 7TH – DAY SEVEN
Obama won the election. I’m personally happy with this result, but I can understand how the other half of the country feels this is a sign that bad times are going to come/continue. However, I just can’t stand all of the people who voted for Romney going on and on about how the United States is now “doomed” and “on the road to Socialism” now that we have “four more years of Obama”. I mean, I was ticked off that Bush won re-election in 2004; I thought there was really no way he could improve enough to make up for what he already did to the country, and yet I don’t recall ever calling the United States “Doomed”… It’s a childish, extremist outlook and I can’t properly appreciate the lack of political ads the day after Election Day when I’m seeing this BS all over Facebook.
Anyway, enough of that. You guys don’t care about that.
What you do care about is how brilliant my husband is. I got done with work at 12:30 today, stuck around until 1 for Hubby to have his break, and then I had every intention of going home until I had to pick him up at 5. Hubby then suggested that I just stick around in the break room since I had everything I needed to continue with my NaNo writing. Most of the time the room would be empty, so I wouldn’t have to worry about being distracted by people wishing to socialize. There’s also no internet access, so I won’t have to worry about being distracted by that either! I spent $1 on a frozen dinner, another buck on a box of strawberry Moon Pies, refilled my water bottle, and set up camp. 2100+ words and a second completed chapter later it was time to head home. At least I’m slowly chipping away at that “Words Behind” count. Plus I have at least that one chapter for you guys to read this week.

NOVEMBER 8TH – DAY EIGHT
My first day off in a week. I was lazy the first half of the day. Well, mostly lazy. I did go online and do some more research on the game “Fable” so I had more to work with while writing.
When I got back from dropping Hubby off at work and running errands I grabbed some chocolate, made a cup of coffee with about ½ cup of sugar in it. And I got to plowing through some more word counts. I’m not entirely sure, but perhaps I’m ½ way through my third chapter. I’ll have to just keep going until I feel a natural stopping point.
By the time I had to pick up Hubby I had over 2600 words. Not amazing numbers, but it was just a little over two hours of work and it means I surpassed the 1667 daily word goal two days in a row. Now, if I could just hit a few more 3000 word days like I did on Sunday I should be able to catch up to where I’m supposed to be easily enough.
I also finally got around to hopping on the forums over on the NaNo website. I was excited to see one of my favorite thread topics was already started: “Your Last Sentence”. At the end of every day participants post the last sentence they wrote. It’s so funny to read these lines out of context and try to envision what the story is about. For instance, the first “last sentence” listed is “Never before had he heard anyone laugh while fighting a dragon..”
I had to laugh when I went through all of my last sentences…. Out of context, the places I stop for the day all feel like lines from a smutty romance novel! Here, check out what I have so far!

Shaking, she fell in to his chest and sobbed, “I just want to go home,” before fainting.

She was both scared and comforted with the idea of being alone with him.

She shyly looked away as Connor finally exited the room.

“Alright, that was amazing,” Natalie breathed with a nervous laugh.

NOVEMBER 9TH – DAY NINE
I thought I’d have the same opportunities today as I did on Wednesday in regards to writing in the break room at work. Hubby had to go in an hour before my shift started, and he finished two hours after I was done. I figured I’d again set up camp and just write in the break room while bookending my shifts.
What actually happened is I used some of the time to work on the Wellness items I have to do as the store’s Wellness Champion. The rest of the time was spent talking to people since of course TODAY the break room is all abuzz with employees. *sigh*
So it kept until 5:30ish – when we were both home again – for me to start writing. Only to be stopped a mere half-hour later for dinner prep/eating purposes. I didn’t crack my netbook back open until 10. Thankfully, this week I actually had Saturday off for the first time since April or May, plus Hubby always has Saturdays off because of his Sunday overnight shifts, so I took full advantage of my ability to just stay up as late as I wanted since I could just sleep in the next day.
I stayed up until 11:15 in order to write! Aren’t I such a night owl!? *sigh* Well, I didn’t hit the needed daily count, but I still cranked out about 900 words, so I’m not falling terribly too far behind.

NOVEMBER 10TH – DAY TEN
Alright, so today was my day off. I had from 3pm yesterday until 4pm tomorrow to just write. I should have easily plowed through and at least caught up to the 16,666 words I was supposed to have by the end of the night, correct?
Yeah…. No…..
So I woke up and did the whole Social Media thing before hiding upstairs to finish off my third chapter. I decided to take a bit of a break after completing the chapter. Seemed natural to do so. I went back downstairs and had something to eat, hung out with Hubby a little, and had a strong desire to play some more “Fable” today.
Although it seems logical and natural for me to want to play the game that my story is based on – you know, since I’m constantly thinking about it – I’ve been resisting the urge since I could use that playing time for either writing or actually doing some ignored chores around the house. But since I hadn’t played since September I decided to cave in, under the excuse of “reinspiring” myself for the next chapter.
My INTENTION was to play for about two hours or so and then either get back to writing to try to chew up some more of that “Words Behind” count or do some cleaning….. What HAPPENED was I played “Fable” while Hubby played “League of Legends” on the computer, Hubby’s BFF randomly stopped by, and that’s when I realized that Hubby and I had been playing our respective games for over six hours straight!!!!! HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!?
So we did the Socializing thing for a little bit while BFF was waiting in town for his roommate to get off of work. He headed home at around eight and I got back to writing. Hubby helped me out with a few things while snuggled next to me playing Pokémon. About an hour later he decided to call it a night in an attempt to actually get a decent amount of sleep in before going in to work tonight. I stayed up for another half-hour to finish off my thought before joining him.
I had a full day to myself to either write like the wind, clean, or have a happy combo of the two. What I actually accomplish is just barely making my daily word count goal and six straight hours of playing a video game. Sheesh!

NOVEMBER 11TH – DAY ELEVEN
I caved. My eyes were still so sore from staring at a computer screen for so long that even though I had an unusually high amount of sleep this week I still passed out again once I got home. So there goes my ability to use my exuberant amount of free time in order to catch up with my writing. On the upside, though, according to the NaNo website, if I change to writing at least 1800 words a day I could still reach the 50,000 words goal by the end of the month. A lot of the days that I actually did write I ended up writing at least 1900 words, so I’m not terribly too nervous yet.
I did forget to mention that a few days ago that I put up a call for help on Facebook. I’m horrendous when it comes to naming anything – I mean, check out these blog titles! I couldn’t just keep my NaNo story title as “Massive Hybrid Crossover”. Granted, I’m not terribly sure I even want people to read this story – I’m only posting my chapters to keep me accountable. I mean, I’m almost positive that I’m rambling through a lot of the story, giving far too much unneeded description to help readers see the world portrayed in “Fable”, and I noticed I use the words “blush”, “gentle”, and “nod” a lot. Regardless, who would even bother clicking on a story titled “Massive Hybrid Crossover”? So I asked for help naming my story.
The synopsis of the story consists of Natalie’s and Connor’s destinies being intertwined with both each other and the country of Albion, plus they’re racing to get to the sword "Destiny" in order to defeat the antagonist. Therefore, most of the title suggestions included the word “Destiny”.
Although most of the title suggestions were really good, they sparked a title from myself. When that happens I almost feel obligated to use the title I came up with. So thank you, everyone. I’m currently using the working title of “The Race For Destiny”… it might have the wrong connotation, however, and once the overall story is finally played out I might find a better title.
Unless you, my readers – some of whom already through their suggestions in the ring :-D – prefer one of the following suggested titles:

• The Way to Destiny

• Unlocking Destiny

• Gyateara's Jewel

• Legend of Albion

• Natalie and Connor's Excellent Adventure

• Agents of Destiny

• Connor's (or Natalie's) Path

• Albion Destinies

• Destiny's Destiny

• A Stranger In A Strange Land

• Saving Albion

• Albion's Destiny

• The Rise (or Fall) of Albion

• A Hero's Destiny

• Heroes of Albion

• Legacy of Gyateara

• Gyateara's Destiny

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the link for “The Race For Destiny", now with two new chapters – over 8000 “glorious” words - to read! Yay!

Conquering National Novel Writing Month

Alright, my first blog post since starting NaNo on Thursday. Before I get in to the daily play-by-play I just want to remind everyone that I did post on Halloween as I promised – it was a late post, but it was done! If you missed it, go back and check it out and don’t forget to give ChibiSunnie some love! You can also use this time to sign up for alerts to make sure you know when I post outside my normal Sunday updates - or when I post late like today. All the info on how to get alerts is at the start of that Halloween post.

I do want to better explain how to follow my blog via blogger. If you have any form of google account – gmail, google+, chrome-user, youtube, etc – you can use that same account to join Blogger. Once you have a Blogger dashboard you can scroll down until you see “Reading List”. Below that is the option to add. Just drop in the blog’s address and tada! You just followed my blog via Blogger. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to give you alerts this way, but it might be an easier way to keep track if you have a lot of different blogs that you follow. For instance, my reading list includes Rick Riordan’s blog Myth & Mystery, Rachel Aaron’s blog Pretentious Title, and my own beloved DarkAngel1326’s blog Random Creativity Blog.

I also want to state that I’m such a heel! I commented about Chibi’s story last post, and made sure to include the link for all to see. However, I had completely forgotten to show off her DRAWING for the Halloween contest as well! She hadn’t posted it by the time I updated my blog last Sunday and it slipped my mind on Wednesday! So, without further ado, Chibi’s Halloween drawing entry:

She put so much detail and amazing thought in to this.
Check it out on DeviantArt and tell her what you think!

Now that I have all of that backlogged stuff out of my way I can talk about NaNo!

I tried again to build my female lead before starting NaNo. I knew nothing about her aside from a few characteristics that I was thieving from various anime heroines. I finally decided on the name Natalie Myers as of Halloween. I tried going through the Character Building Checklist – written by Larry Brooks and excerpted from his book “The Three Dimensions of Character” by Jennifer Blanchard. Most of the questions I had to skip over since I know NOTHING about my heroine. However, the few that I WERE able to answer gave me a tremendous discovery.

Natalie Myers is me!

Before I realized what I was doing I discovered that in order for my character to work the way I wanted her to I had to write her more-or-less as me. Now, I’m not terribly concerned about writing her as either a Mary Sue or an Avatar. Natalie won’t be a Mary Sue since she’ll have my flaws, and then some. However, she won’t be my direct Avatar either since she has to be BETTER than I am in order to survive in Albion. As much as I’d love to be athletic… I’m far from it. As much as I’d love to be a master archer, I haven’t picked up a bow since high school – except for one shooting range booth at the Renn Faire, but I did horribly with the long-bow. Also, when I go back and slowly shave off the FanFiction aspects of this story in order to make it a marketable original work someday I’m sure Natalie will become less “me” and more “her” as I begin to know her better.

But, for quick writing purposes during NaNo…. Natalie is me…. It’s easy to write a character when you ARE the character… So now I have to go back through that checklist and fill it out as me I guess….

Now that all that prep-work is done, let’s get to that play-by-play!

NOVEMBER 1ST – DAY ONE
I had the day off. I needed to go in to work to do some presentation thing for corporate, but for the most part I had the day off. I was excited to get started on my very first attempt at NaNo. Since my latest blog posts have been 2500+ words long I figured 1667 words per day would be a piece of cake. Lock myself away for a few hours and I’d be golden.
Then I had a pretty major life stressor fall in to my lap. For possible legal reasons I don’t want to really discuss it online – although I DID mention something over on the Writer’s Huddle… Anyway, although my husband and I are pretty certain we have the law on our side, it’s still pretty stressful and I ended up doing a lot of researching and asking people questions to get the best legal advice. I just couldn’t clear my head enough to write anything. What a fantastic way to start off this month-long journey, huh? However, anyone who has followed me during my two tries at Script Frenzy knows that this is about par with the months I attempt to hide away to write….

NOVEMBER 2ND – DAY TWO
Not a good day. I had to work and the entire time I just had to keep mentally chanting “Don’t throw up”. I was dizzy and faint – which is a great state of mind when working meat slicers. :P
I tried to work on my story, but I couldn’t get my eyes to focus on anything. They were hazy and blurred most of the day. It just wasn’t a good day. So I used my time instead to do a trick I learned via the Huddle.
Daydream.
So I have the entire craptastic opening mapped out. I just need to get to writing it.

NOVEMBER 3RD – DAY THREE
Well, I’m feeling better, and the possible-legal issue wasn’t stressing me out too much today. Hubby had the guys over, but they were all playing Magic: The Gathering, so I used that time to hide away upstairs and just type. At least, I ATTEMPTED to type. I couldn’t resist first cleaning out my email, DeviantArt notifications, and Facebook notifications. By the time I was done with those, my father-in-law had stopped by to discuss our options – in regards to the possible-legal issue, once he left we went to get food, and then I read a few blogs while eating and waiting for the guys to finish up playing Magic. By the time I gave up waiting for them and went back upstairs to again ATTEMPT to write, Hubby called me back down so we could all play Mario Wii. That lasted until about 11:30pm… at that point we crashed until Hubby needed to go in to work. I then stayed up attempting to hit that same late-night Writing Frenzy that I used to do before I got a job and needed sleep. :P
Oh, and before I forget, one of the blog posts I read was from the author Rick Riordan – of Percy Jackson fame – and I think it’s a fantastic read for everyone.

NOVEMBER 4TH – DAY FOUR
Thank God for daylight savings time ending, especially with the guys over so late. Got a little over an hour power nap before taking Hubby in to work. When I came home I was moderately awake and so I knew if I didn’t tackle SOME of the story I would never hit my goal of “a new chapter every week” before updating. One of the reasons this post is so late today...
It was definitely a struggle to get started, but by 2am I was finally cranking through. My opening prior to the first Plot Point was longer than I intended and may actually be a touch boring. But I’m going for word counts, baby! This story is raw, unedited, and probably craptastic. I know I have a lot of similes and metaphors in there. Heck, nearly an entire paragraph is “blah blah like a yada yada… such and such resembled this thing… doodad was as if it were whatchamacallit…etc.” So…. Sorry to anyone brave enough to actually “follow along”.
The first chapter was probably the most derpirific somewhere around the middle. I got to the point where I was starting to feel sick again – stomach pains, light headed, eyes couldn’t focus, nausea – and I was all “After I’m done with this paragraph I’m going to bed; screw the chapter.”
Yet, my determination to at least finish a scene – so that those reading will have something moderately complete, even if it isn’t the whole first chapter – drove me to just fight through. It’s this same motivation that keeps me writing for seven hours straight; and the same “I’m not stopping until this scene/chapter/story is done” attitude that kind of scares me from starting in the first place. Even if I could train myself to stop even when I’m not done, what if the next time I start up again I don’t have in my head the “great line/scene” that was in my head while I was in the thick of things? This is why for the longest time I ONLY wrote when I had a day off and could just sit in my room with my computer all day.
Anyway, fear not, for at around 5:30am I felt better and became awake again. Well, for about an hour at least. By 7 my eyes gave out and so I succumbed to an hour long power nap. I powered through the last portion of the chapter and posted it on FanFiction. The chapter is 3767 words long, so that covers today and yesterday. I just need another 2700 words to be caught up….
I’m not going to post my story on DeviantArt – it’s going to be too long and too messy – but I am debating posting it on FictionPress. However, I think I want to hold off until a)it’s polished – it would be my FIRST piece of work posted there, and b)all the “fanfiction” elements are taken out so that it’s definitely an original work. Thoughts?

Happy Halloween!

A Happy Halloween to everyone!

Those of you that were in the path of Hurricane Sandy’s Frankenstorm, how did you fair? Is everyone alright? Dry? With power?

As promised, I’m giving you this last blog update before I start on my grand journey in to the chaos known as National Novel Writing Month – or NaNoWriMo for short… NaNo for those of us that are super lazy. Are you reading this on my normal Sunday Update Day instead of Halloween when it was posted? Were you out of power/internet until now? If you answered “Yes” to the first question but “No” to the second, was it because you didn’t know I updated? You can make sure you read my posts the day I publish them by following this blog via blogger – I can let you guys know how if need be, just drop a comment below – signing up for the email updates – they’re not spammy and just drop the post conveniently in an email – follow me on Twitter @LycoRogue, or follow me on my facebook page. I’m actually thinking of also starting up one of those Fan Pages or whatever on Facebook. What do you guys think?

Anyway, I think I made progress with some of my planning for my upcoming story. It’s still the awesomely lame working title of “Massive Hybric Crossover Fanfic” but at least my female lead finally has a name: Natalie Myers.

I’m also in the process of filling out the Writing Checklist bullet points brought up in Larry Brooks’ StoryFix blog post. I think I’m doing pretty well. I’m confident so far that I can at least crank out a few chapters in the next month – even if I don’t make that 50k word goal.

This brings me to my next great announcement: My Personal NaNo Goal.

I will still blog during the month! I’ll do the Diary updates like what I do for Script Frenzy, but it will be during my weekly updates instead of my normal end-of-the-month one. Also, I am aiming to have at least one new chapter done by the time I update each week, so aside from knowing how I’m doing you can also read my horrendous updates! It won’t be pretty, but it will hopefully keep me accountable when it comes to my writing.

Finally, before I leave, I'm beyond psyched to announce:
CHIBISUNNIE HAS POSTED HER VERY FIRST STORY!!!! I personally think she did so well and that I've got some competition in this Halloween contest. ;D

Go check out my awesome beta's work and let her know what you think!

Legend of the Gourd Scarecrow

The Story is Finally Done!

Oh man, this week flew by so fast I legitimately can't recall what I did.... I only have the chaos of Friday and Saturday in my head.

I remember being annoyed with myself on Tuesday and Wednesday because I had about seven or eight hours alone in the house and I accomplished NOTHING. I didn't do chores. I didn't write. I didn't even continue playing Fable so I had more to think about for my story next month for NaNo.

I honestly can't recall what I actually did on those two days. I know I continued pondering my Halloween Contest entry. One of those days I think I actually spent about five hours putting together a "creepy music" playlist so I had background music to inspire me. How do I spend five hours putting a playlist together that only has 18 songs!? Sheesh! My tunnel vision is HORRIBLE! Do they have meds for this reverse ADD? They should... I lose HOURS of my time and don't know how!

Thursday both Hubby and I had the day off, but I don't recall how we spent most of the day. I know I sat next to him on the couch for an hour or two scribbling out a rough outline of how my story would go - after spending all week harassing him and poor ChibiSunnie about what I should do. At around three I gave up and decided to use the good pre-hurricane weather to mow our lawn. I figured, "The grass needs to be cut anyway, and the exercise and quiet might help me think."

That quickly blew up in my face. I mowed three quick strips of the grass and nearly tossed the darn thing. The wheels or the actual reel-blades were rusting and giving off this high pitched squeak that was grating on me. After storming through the house - which apparently scared the daylights out of my husband - we both went to the store to pick up our paychecks and some WD-40. This, that, and the other thing happened in regards to people talking to us about work-related topics and we didn't get home until almost an hour later.

I was now ticked because I hadn't accomplished anything - even chores - throughout the week and I didn't have enough sunlight to mow the entire yard with our reel-mower. I still mowed the large section of the grass next to an apartment complex next door. It's silly that we have the property, actually. We have two trees with insanely low-hanging branches - which scratch me up like crazy when I try to mow under them by the way - cutting off this patch from the rest of our property. Plus, the apartment complex has a strip of grass maybe two feet wide and that's it. Why our landlord doesn't try to break off this part of the land and attempt to sell it to the apartment complex is beyond me, but I hate cutting something that doesn't even feel like my lawn.

Anyway, I go to mow under the empty trees without a care that I didn't rake first. One - I just wanted the grass done and didn't feel like I had time to rake. Two - I figured I could just mulch the leaves like I would with a gas-powered mower. I soon realized that I don't have enough horse-power in me to actually tear up the leaves and all they did was clog the mower. That meant I couldn't actually cut anything. So a little more stomping around before spending an hour raking leaves - and now grass clippings - in to a huge pile. I didn't even reach the trees where I actually wanted to rake before I ran out of sunlight. I did have one of the apartment tenants comment about the huge pile. Sheesh.

Friday I got in to a battle with my department manager, and was run ragged by the herd of people at the deli in preparation for the hurricane that's supposed to hit on Tuesday. I also stayed later than scheduled to wait for Hubby to be done with work. Originally I was going to use that time to FINALLY get to my story so I wasn't waiting until the last possible second to write it. I ended up using that time to work on stuff for my Wellness Champion position at work. I did manage to write a little bit during my lunch break - about a page's worth - so that was something.

When we got home I instantly changed in to crappy yard work clothes and headed out to get rid of that pile of grass and leaves. I raked the pile, as well as the leaves I intended to rake the day before, in to an old tote I had from our move. We now have a huge pile of leaves by our driveway because I have no clue how to dispose of the compost. At my mom's house you line the curb with it and a truck comes by to collect everything. We don't have that service here.

The intent was to finish the yard work - screw the mowing on "our side" of the property, no one notices the tall grass but us - by the time dinner was done and then write the rest of the night. Then Hubby reminded me that we had the LARP. I'm still so use to it being once a month that this new every other week schedule throws me off every time.

I really need to remember to bring either my netbook or an actual paper notebook with me whenever we do LARP and just lock it away in my car when we're playing. I should know by now that we won't actually start playing until an hour or so after we're supposed to - usually waiting on players to gather or update their character info. I wasted two or three hours that I could have been writing. Flarg....

Saturday was my Last Chance day. I went to work, got almost nothing accomplished because of yet another pack of customers fearing the worst with this hurricane, wrote a little more during lunch, and then dragged my tired butt back home to a house full of guys.

Granted, I was the one who invited everyone over. I figured if I was done writing we could all hang out, if not then Hubby could play Magic: The Gathering with the guys - a game I have no interest in - while I write so he wouldn't be bored. I then "sequestered" myself in my room with a couple sandwiches, a bag of M&Ms, and two bottles of water. Aside from a few bathroom breaks, I was in my room writing like a nut for SEVEN HOURS!!!

I felt a little guilty since Omnibladestrike brought his laptop and wanted me to maybe help him out with the next chapter of his story. At the same time, Chibi wrote her first fanfic - YAY - for the contest and wanted me to beta read it; which I didn't have time to do. I hope she does well. I still need to beta the story anyway. She wants it nice and polished up before posting on DeviantArt. I have off tomorrow, so aside from massive dish washing and laundry - in case the impending hurricane knocks out the water supply - I guess I'm beta reading as well. YAY! :-D

Anyway, the Drop Dead Line was 11:59pm Central Time, October 27th. I finish my story and submit it at 11:30pm ET. I'm just as bad as when I wrote that birthday story for PinkLotus27 last year. Seven hours, sending it to her right about 11:30 my time, which meant she had an hour or so her time before her birthday was over. Nearly identical situations! XD
Major difference is that "I Thought You Liked Redheads" is one of my shortest stories due to the limited time and my Halloween story was able to make it to 6,000+ words and 11pgs. Let me remind you that the minimum it needed to be was 2500 words. I feel sorry for the judge(s).

I'm also a little ticked off at myself. Since inspiration - or opportunity - didn't hit until the last possible moment, I was still finishing up my story, in bed, next to my poor husband who was trying to get a few hours rest before going in to work at 1am. I felt so bad about keeping him awake - but he didn't want me to leave the bed - that as soon as I concluded my story I just sent the dang thing. No proofreading. No editing. First draft and submitted to the contest. There are only three rules to the contest: 1) 2500 words minimum, 2) must be "Halloweeny", and 3) PROOFREAD! Admittingly, I probably wouldn't have proofread anyway. After staring at a screen for 7hrs straight - yup, laptop came with on the potty breaks - my eyes were killing me.

Once Hubby was at work and my eyes were a bit rested up I went back through and found a typo - I used a singular noun instead of the intended plural - in the THIRD SENTENCE. There were three or four typos in the first page alone! I think I had about a dozen throughout the whole story. I don't think my story is going to do so good in the contest after all. *sigh* Oh well, at least I tried, right?

Chibi's drawing for the contest - she did one story and one picture to put in each category - is amazing so I hope she wins! Sorry, Chopfe, I know you entered as well, but hers is just.... WOW... so much detail! She hasn't posted the picture at the time of this update, but be on the lookout. If I find the time I might go ahead and do a Halloween Post this Wednesday! If I do I'll be sure to include Chibi's picture as well as other pictures and writings I can get my hands on that were submitted in to the contest. I'll also announce - if I know at that point - who won the contest!

In the meantime, you can read my entry either on DeviantArt or over on FanFiction. This is the first draft with the typos edited out. I'm probably going to update both once Chibi gets me her notes, but I wanted to have them available for you guys to read now if you so chose. I'm going to try - depending on when Chibi has time to beta - to have the edits done and up by that Halloween post. That is if I have time with work, the hurricane, and Halloween itself to write one.

Given that Thursday starts National Novel Writing Month I'm certainly going to try to squeeze that last blog post in on Halloween. I'm still not sure if I'll be blogging during the month of November.

Regardless, I WILL have one more post before I go in to writing craziness, be it Wednesday or Sunday.
Love you all! Have a safe and happy Halloween and take every precaution you can if you're in Hurricane Sandy/Frakenstorm's way.

Catching Up and Hating Halloween Stories

Boy do I officially suck! I was so all over the map lately. When I posted my “temporary post” last week I never anticipated that I would never go back to replace it! So I guess this is Catch Up Week.

So let’s backtrack and review the month so far.
October 1-4 Hubby and I were on a mini-vacation to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. October 3rd I became an official member of Ali Luke’s Writer’s Huddle. The first week of October I also decided to participate in a Hey Arnold Halloween contest over on DeviantArt. I now sort of regret that decision….But first… Writer’s Huddle…

October 8th and 9th I sort of tinkered with my Writer’s Huddle profile and checked out the site.
Wednesday the 10th I had the day off and Hubby was at work. The house was still clean from our mad scrub down before our trip, so I had no chores. A perfect set up for me to get lost for hours in writing. Instead I got lost for hours on Writer’s Huddle. I ended up spending a full 7hrs straight on the Huddle’s forums, reading and responding.

Seven hours straight! As in, I didn’t even stop to eat….

I am such a forums junkie. I have always been this way with every forum I’ve been on. I make sure I’m a prominent presence on them all. I lose HOURS just reading, responding, and refreshing to see if there’s any new posts. I lost hours at the Huddle, I lost hours on the X-Men RPG, I lost hours on the short-lived Hey Arnold forum, I lost hours on the forum for the webcomic Game Destroyers, and I lost hours on the forums of the MMO “DragonFable”. What most people do on Tumblr, I do on forums. Ali herself had to stop by my main facebook account and “yell” for me to get off the forums and go eat something!

So anyway, that was Wednesday.

Thursday I spent almost literally the whole day mowing our stupid lawn with that stupid push mower. I started wearing a pedometer at the beginning of the month and push myself to get to that 10,000 steps per day mark. It’s relatively easy to do while working a Deli. Anyway, this 10k steps goal is because it’s the rough equivalent to walking 5 miles a day which in and of itself is like working out the 1/2hr a day recommended. Well, I hit that 10k mark just mowing my friggen lawn! In fact, I hit about 11k mowing and 13k the whole day. That means I walked over 6miles on Thursday! I was in NO mindset to write anything that day.

Friday was the bi-weekly get together for the vampire LARP. So I didn’t really write anything more that day when I only had about four hours at home, but I did talk things over with Cyhyr. It didn’t really help matters because it was just broad generalities when it came to writing and NaNo coming up next month.

Saturday I researched TONS of urban legends and ghost stories, as well as watch all of the “halloweeny” Hey Arnold episodes to really try to nail down what I wanted to do for the contest. I have a word document filled with notes and bullet points. Nothing seems to really work though. Nothing seems to feel “natural” if you get what I mean.

Last Sunday I wrote to ChibiSunnie to see if she could help me out. I also sent a note to my sleeping husband for him to respond to once he was awake. I was really hoping that they could help me really figure out what I could do for this contest.

I’m trying to keep the story True-To-Show. Therefore I want to keep them nine and I want them to follow the traditional formula used for the “creepy” episodes:

• Kids are bored/at a sleep-over 
• A ghost story is told (usually by Arnold’s Grandfather – or in one case Arnold after his grandfather told HIM the story) 
• The kids go to check out to see if the story is true 
• The kids find “proof” that the story is true, but the “proof” is logically explained away 
• Everyone is convinced the ghost story isn’t true, but then the ghost reveals itself to the viewer – and in some cases, one of the characters as well. 

 My main issue is that I don’t know how to create a ghost story. I had a handful of ideas bouncing around, but none of them seemed to work.

• Urban take on the Blair Witch 
• The kids hear about the Witch of Elk Island, and it turns out to be the author. Not sure if I like this though since there's already the Wheezin' Ed myth about the island and I have to set up that this story takes place before the "Crabby Author" episode so Arnold doesn't realize it's Agatha.  
• There's a run-down industrial district with a shack snuggled in the middle of all the buildings. So the legend goes that a witch lives there. The companies tried to buy her out, but she refused to move, so they built around her and she cursed them all, which is why the buildings are now all vacant. Little "eh" about this one too. 
• Regardless of which angle I take with this, I sort of want it to play out like "Ghost Bride" in which the "proof" is just people pranking, and I want Wolfgang and Ludwig to team up to scare Arnold's group. Then the real witch will scare the 5th graders as they laugh about how the 4th graders were so easy to scare. 
• I dunno, I’m just not really feeling these… 
• The school is haunted 
• The school hosts a haunted house for halloween and the kids hear a tale about a janitor (or something) haunting the school. 
•  Again sort of want the 5th graders to prank Arnold et. al and then come across the real thing. 
• I sort of want this to go along the lines of the halloween episode of Ouran High School Host Club with the bravery test. 
• The kids have been at the school after hours already, so would they really fall for a "ghost haunts the school" if they haven't witnessed this before???? 
• I think this is the most plausible to write…. 
•  Haunted Hay Ride 
• Arnold's class takes a field trip to a farm and it just so happens to be Arnie's 
• Who is going to tell the ghost story about Arnie's farm/town? Doesn't seem like something Arnie would do.... 
• There was a hay ride in "Arnold visits Arnie" and a carriage ride in "The Headless Cabbie"... would it be too overdone if I did hay ride again???? Or is it just "The Haunted Farm"? 
• Not sure what the "haunting" would be about... 
• Not really feeling this tale…. 
•  The Midnight Man 
• Was going to do a parody of The Midnight Channel from Persona 4, but couldn't figure out how. 
• The Midnight Man is a Pagan game. 
• You turn off all the lights, light a candle, write your full name on a paper, prick your finger, and let a drop of blood soak in. Place the paper with your name on the floor in front of the door. Knock on the door 22 times in time with the ticking of the clock. The 22nd knock must occur at 12am. Open the door, blow out the candle, close the door and immediately relight the candle. Now the goal is to "survive" until 3:33am by avoiding the Midnight Man. You know he's near when it gets chilly, there's a low whisper, the candle goes out, and he appears in front of you. You must relight the candle within 10 seconds to ward him off, otherwise throw down a circle of salt around yourself and stay within it until 3:33. 
• Checking to see if the Ghost Bride is true was sort of a dare and so doing stupid dares like this and Bloody Mary seem to be in-canon. I just need a better way to do this. No 9 year old will prick their finger and run around the house with a lit candle to avoid being tortured to death.... 
• I could possibly do something with this idea…. 
•  The Escaped Convict In The Woods 
• Based off of how we freaked out this one girl in my Girl Scout troop when we all stayed at a hostel on a white water rafting trip. 
• My girl scout troop (split in two vans) were driving down the highway towards the hostel and turned off in to this rural town. The hostel was along the Appalachian Trail, and so we drove down these rural back roads. Meanwhile, a thunderstorm came in, making it mad dark even though it was only about 6pm in May. That’s when we turned off the main roads and on to a well-driven dirt path in dense woods. The “driveway” to the hostel was easily 2 miles long, and windy, and dirt/gravel, and flanked by insanely dense forest that created a tightly-knit canopy. The canopy blocked out even MORE light, making the drive pitch black except for when the lightning struck. 
• We pass through a large, stone wall/fence that lined the entrance to the hostel’s property. The wall looked worn down – as if it were built in the 1800s and never cared for. As we continued down the road we passed a burnt down utility shed, but the stone skeleton of the structure almost looked like it could have been a mausoleum. Two other girls and I started joking about how the building used to house a vampire. As our discussion started to freak out another girl in our van, we switched the conversation over to the more-likely scenario of "have you heard about the escaped serial killer that's supposedly hiding out in the Appalachian?" The lightning flashes, “things” (tree limbs, animals, whatever) moving in the woods with the limited visibility, and the feeling that we were in “the middle of nowhere” just made everything creepier. 
• We get to the hostel and it’s this insanely old farmhouse that used to be part of the Underground Railroad. We enter the hostel through the basement/lower front door. Because of how old the hostel was, going through that door took us through this long, narrow hallway lined with rock walls and an unfinished floor. Once we climbed the stairs to the main portion of the hostel it looked like a warm, cozy farm house. Very welcoming. But up until that point it was MAD CREEPY. 
• I was going to switch up the creepy farm house for a family cottage/cabin in the woods. Grandpa Phil never took the boys there before because when he got the boarding house his twin sister Mitzi got the cabin. Now that Arnold helped the twins reconcile, Mitzi allowed Phil to use the cabin. 
• I wanted to have at least Helga, if not also Curly, with the group pranking everyone a la “Ghost Bride” episode, but I couldn’t figure out a reason they’d be out in the middle of nowhere. Arnold wouldn’t have invited either of them on his sleepover/camp-out with the rest of the guys. 
• Chibi suggested an overnight class trip to get everyone to a hostel, but then I’d have too many characters to worry about. It’s a great idea and I might use it someday, but this feels like it would easily lend itself to a multi-chapter story and I don’t have enough time to write that much. 
• This, among other things that I thought of but didn’t list here, is nice and creepy in person because the ATMOSPHERE is what’s creepy. It gets people thinking, doubting, and freaking out. However, there really isn’t a story here…. 

Pretty much all I’ve done this past week was mentally try to figure out what to write. Every free moment of the day was spent bouncing around all of the above ideas – plus others that I’ve dropped – to see what I can do with any of them. I’ve watched Hey Arnold episodes to get in the mood to write. I’ve researched more scary stories. I also tried using a technique I learned via the Writer’s Huddle forum: The Secret to Writing 4,000 Words A Day. Namely: Daydream whenever possible.

Oh, and on Monday, October 15th I officially set up my NaNo profile. So go ahead and send me a Writing Buddy request if you’re NaNo-ing too! 

Anyway, here I am, 6 days from the contest deadline and I STILL haven’t even decided on what to write yet. I have no clue if I’m going to make the contest deadline, let alone polish the story up enough to actually win. And since I’m spending all month working out the logistics of my Halloween story I haven’t continued playing Fable, which I was trying to finish so I was more prepared with my “base story” for NaNo. So I’m flying blind there too. Still haven’t really figured anything out – including a name – in regards to my female lead for the Super Massive Crossover Hybrid Story. 

On a sidenote, Chibi linked me to an AWESOME interview one of the Hey Arnold fandom members had with the show’s creator Craig Bartlett! It’s two hours long, but I listened to it while doing house work, so I suggest you take the time to listen too! You can find it here. Soooooo much awesome stuff there! 

Chibi and I are actually super excited because of two things in regards to scripts/TJM. 1) Craig’s scripts would be roughly 2pages/minute of screen-time, which means where I was with our fanscript was actually about right-on time-wise, instead of INSANELY LONG like we originally thought. 2) Craig just sort of thought “The Green-eyed people can live in a place like that and even have a hidden city that’s probably in the crater of a dormant volcano.” When I had to figure out where the GEP hidden city was I placed it inside a dormant volcano! So both the volcano thing and the “on the write page count track” thing really made us think that perhaps our fanscript was kinda spot on! So now we’re rejuvenated about the whole endeavor and will try to pick it back up again come January. In the meantime, Chibi has the script thus far and is figuring out any tweaks we should do and where to go from where we left off. I’m just SUPER interested in getting this done and sending it to Craig as a “thanks for the inspiration” sort of thing. Sure, he doesn’t read fanfiction – and probably makes super sure not to read TJM fanfiction to avoid being influenced in case he ever got the chance to make the movie – but maybe…. maybe he’ll read ours if we snail-mail it……….. 

Speaking of Craig Bartlett acknowledgement and praise, I want to give a shout out to the awesome Chopfe who excitedly posted this status on October 12:

Chopfe: Craig Bartlett, the creator of the Nickelodeon cartoon HEY ARNOLD, liked my picture of Crime Inyy. There are no words to describe how awesome that is.

And here’s his awesome picture that got such high praise: 

 

And so now I’m off to again ponder how I’m going to manage this story before this upcoming Saturday… wish me luck. Any advice would be welcome.