Starting up on Flash Fiction and progress in the X-Men RPG

I'm not entirely sure how or why, but according to Blogger's stats graph I received 179 hits yesterday alone! All the days leading up to yesterday, the highest hit count I've ever received was maybe 30. Most days I have 8 hits an hour, tops. Yet, at about 2am yesterday morning I had a mind-boggling 144 hits within the same hour!

I doubt that was all readers. I most likely got bombarded by bots/spyware/whatever. But still..... if you are one of those people that stumbled upon my blog yesterday and came back again today.... I thank you! That was quite a surprise and it made me smile.

Now for a shocker for you guys. I started reading again! Whoot!

It started off with me FINALLY reading Devious.Editor's latest chapter after the thing sat in my inbox for a month!




So, sorry to DE and to all of her readers. She would have had the chapter up a month earlier if I wasn't being so lazy. Anyway, go check out her story/latest chapter.

Beyond beta-reading, I got back in to reading some Rick Riordan! Whoot again!
I was going to finally start up the Heroes of Olympus saga so that Hubby and Devon's player could FINALLY talk about it in front of me. Sadly, I have yet to unpack the library since our move this past winter; resulting in me rummaging through boxes only to find every book in that series except the first one: The Lost Hero.

I did find the first book in the Kane Chronicles saga, however, and so I started reading that last night. I'm enjoying it. I've always been a huge fan of Egyptian mythology, so I'm getting a kick out of the book. Already six chapters in to it. If I wasn't so exhausted I'd probably be further, but alas I ended up falling asleep on the couch with the book on my lap....




So I feel a touch accomplished since - as I have been mentioning frequently as of late - the one thing every author repeats is the importance of daily reading. As an author, you may only write on the weekends, or every other day, or some other non-daily routine. Reading, on the other hand, should be done just about daily. Absorb in as much as you possibly can with this daily reading; even if it's just half-hour a day.

I somehow fell out of this "taking time to read" routine, and I'm attempting to rectify that.

I also signed up for Holly Lisle's online course that I told you about last week: How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn't Suck.
I'm proud to announce that both DarkAngel1326 and Cyhyr also signed up, and we're doing the course together! YAY! Sadly, I don't know how active either lady shall be. DA is in the home stretch of her college courses and won't have any time to concentrate on anything else until mid-June. Cyhyr still doesn't have reliable internet at home, and so she can only be online when she goes to the library or hangs out at my place.

Thankfully, the course isn't as "intense" as I had feared. I received an email on Tuesday to start off the course. The email had links to the first week's worksheets as well as links to the "classroom" forum threads. I don't know about DA or Cyhyr, but for some reason I can't log in to the forums; so I'm doing this on my own. I'm not getting everything I should be out of this course this way, but it's still better than not doing anything at all. I'll just catch up once the whole "I can't log in" issue is figured out.

I'm also cheating a touch on the "assignment" anyway. I obviously won't state exactly what the exercises and worksheets talk about because it's Holly's course, not mine. I do strongly suggest the course if/when she opens it up again.
Anyway, I will give you the broad strokes so that you know what I'm working on. Plus, maybe it can help you out a little too if you're struggling.

For the first "assignment" we're supposed to come up with a list of desires, such as "financial security" or "a long-term romantic commitment" or "Save a life", etc. We are to also come up with two-word character descriptions: one adjective, one noun. Examples here include "heartbroken boy" or "hungry dragon" or "desperate mother" or "crafty dog", etc. Once you have the lists made up, we're supposed to match the character descriptions to the desire. Next was coming up with a problem that would stop the character from achieving their desire. Things such as "Unknowingly befriending a serial killer" or "Being abducted by aliens" or "Framed in an armed bank robbery", etc. Our top five groupings of character description, desire, and problem became the core elements of the five flash fiction stories we'll write throughout the course. The next two steps were to come up with a "Problem Sentence" - almost like the tagline of a movie - using a dozen or fewer words, and then write the opening of our stories using 150 words or less.

So how did I cheat? Well, the worksheet obviously went in to more depth than I described above. We were supposed to start clean with these ideas and just let them grow and develop. Really let our imaginations go free. Holly is writing flash fiction right along side us for the course and shared two of her stories.

The first one is about a boy who found a dying fairy in the modern world.
The second story is about a dragon who befriended a princess who feeds him her would-be suitors.

I'm cheating because I'm purposely not starting from scratch. Maybe some time in the future when I want to work on original fiction I'll go back through these worksheets and do them as intended. In the meantime I just jumped over all of the opening exercises and went straight to the character description, desire, and problem groupings.

I'm using the course to help me with my current stories; namely, the X-Men RPG and the Gyateara story I was working on for NaNo. So, instead of five completely original and unique flash fiction stories, I will end up with five flash fiction snippets of my characters; much like the scenes I've already been working on for that X-Men anthology.

Instead of the intended 10 two-word character descriptions, and then grabbing the most interesting five I came up with, I decided to come up with 2 two-word descriptions for each of my five characters. Didn't work out too well, I only have Trish, Willow, and Lia as definite characters I'm going to use for the course; still not sure who the last two will be. Even then, only Trish has both character descriptions figured out.

Trish: Psychotic Pyrokinetic & Patient Strategist
Willow: Imaginative Trickster
Lia: Motherly Teenager
Yeah, Willow and Lia's descriptions are so lame. I guess Trish is so much easier to give a description to.

Now that Hubby officially handed over the reins of the one NPC Crystal over to me, I'm debating having her as my fourth character. If so, who would my fifth be? Amara? I already know so much about her, but at the same time I don't have any of her stories written down. Perhaps this would be a great excuse to do so.

My other option is to use this course to figure out Natalie and Connor some more so I can get back to my Gyateara story. In the end I'll be sure to post my flash fiction for you guys to read, so please let me know what you'd prefer.

You know you'll be getting a 500-word story about Trish, another about Willow, and a third about Lia. Question is, who do you want the last two stories to be about? Crystal the 14-yr-old mutant with the ability to turn off other mutants' powers, and is beyond elated that she's going to the Xavier Institute with her pop idol Tyler? Amara the half-elf/half-gypsy disowned by her people who is struggling to find a way to win enough honor to finally be accepted? Connor the half-demon whose family was slaughtered in a bandit raid and was raised by the Heroes Guild, only to discover he alone holds the key to save his country? Natalie the Earthling magically transported to Gyateara who discovers she's some sort of prophesied "goddess" who has the ability to help Connor in his destiny?

Keep in mind, I'm trying to keep Connor and Natalie as a package deal, which means Crystal and Amara are also a package. Choose wisely. This isn't to say I won't go back through and attempt to do two more flash fiction stories with the "unpicked" character couple. I'll just be doing so after I'm done with my original five for the course.

Anyway, while working with the known three of Trish, Lia, and Willow I discovered that Lia is insanely boring! Now, that's not entirely true. Lia is dealing with the normal problems that plague teenagers: heartbreak. It's a problem everyone can relate to, and I already have a scene between her and Hubby's character Ripley that feels compelling. It's just, her "Problem Sentence" seems so boring compared to the other two.

Lia: "A heartbroken teenager struggles choosing between her ex and two others."
The others being the love triangle between her, Ripley, and Lincoln; all while she's still attempting to get over Chayse. See? A bit more compelling when I can use more than a dozen words, right?

Willow: "A playful trickster turns serious to get both answers and revenge."
Answers on why Devon betrayed them. Answers on who blew up the Xavier Institute and why. Answers about who Screw Driver truly is, and how he became a member of the Brotherhood. Answers on who the Challengers of Heaven are. Answers about what happened to Nix, Lucas, Idie, and Brianne - all missing persons from the institute. Finally, revenge on those responsible for the explosion that killed six students. Revenge on those who took Nix and the others. Revenge on Devon for the betrayal. Revenge on Pyro and the Brotherhood for turning Devon against the X-Men. Revenge on Screw Driver for scarring Chayse.

Trish: "A psychotic pyrokinetic attempts to secretly destroy the life of her rival."
She can't out right kill Devon now that he's proven to be a rival for Pyro's time and affection. If she killed Devon in cold blood her plan would completely backfire; causing her to be hated and hunted down by the very man she would kill Devon to be with. Her jealousy of Devon's connection with Pyro drives her homicidal thoughts, but that same desire to have what Devon has keeps her at bay - for fear of forever losing her opportunity. She must now strategize how to get rid of Devon while becoming the favored in Pyro's eyes. Unfortunately for Devon's traveling companion Nys, no one but Devon seems to care what happens to her.

So there you have it, the basics of the flash fiction stories you should be receiving by the conclusion of the course. Which one are you most excited to read about? Does anyone care about poor Lia's story?

In the meantime, Hubby had another mini time skip over on the forum. This time only a month time jump. However, one of the players suggested we start up a new topic thread folder specifically designed as character journals. This way we can let everyone know what our character did over the course of that month. A brilliant idea so we can see the character growth that happened, plus it gives us a springboard for what to do now that the time jump occurred - instead of our normal "duuuuuuuuh, I'm not sure what my character is doing now..."

They've been quite interesting reads. However, they are far from complete.
- So far Tyler has been working on his latest album, which includes a song dedicated to Crystal. It reads like a boy band love letter. It's so cute!
- Crystal has just been fangirl-ing it up; enjoying every waking moment she gets to follow Tyler around like a puppy.
- Lia is trying to get over the break up with Chayse, and is doing so by going full Mama Bear Mode; being overly protective of Tyler, Crystal, and Lincoln - the three youngest/most skiddish new recruits. I even have a scene going with her interacting with Lincoln to see how he's coping with the new disappearances. Eventually, I'll have to also work in more interactions with Ripley to set the ground work for that. Hubby and I already discussed that Lia helped Ripley study for his college finals - which he aced.
- Lincoln's journal is amusing to read as the poor thing completely freaks out over the chaos that has ensued in just the first week that he has lived at the mansion. I'm curious as to how the journal will reflect his interactions with Lia....
- Chayse and Willow each have journals set up, but neither of us have anything written in them yet. Neither of us really know what these two have been doing over that month time skip.

As for Trish? Well, we're still 2yrs back with her, Devon, and Nys. She just finished having the new recruits run the Brotherhood's obstacle course to gauge if they're "Brotherhood Material". Quicksilver - one of the two heads of the organization, the other being Pyro - declares all four recruits - Devon, Nys, Screw Driver, and a lunk named Warbash - passed and are now probationary members. Trish was already a bit upset about that, especially since she didn't see anything special in Devon or Nys. Then Quicksilver slipped Trish a note letting her know that the Brotherhood officially knows that Devon is indeed Pyro's son. Devon still doesn't know this, but Trish is beyond pissed off at this realization. She stormed out and we're all waiting for Hubby to make a move as one of the Brotherhood members before we can do any further interactions.

So that's where I am with all of my writing. Yes, it's still exclusively X-Men related. Yes, I'm still WAY behind in working on my Hey Arnold chapter. Yes, even though the chapter has been scripted out for MONTHS now I'm still uninspired to actually write the darn thing. Yes, I am still working on the introductory chapter(s) of my X-Men anthology, but I am hoping to finish that up soonish.

Don't forget to let me know in the comments which character(s) you want me to use for my final two slots for this course, and/or whose story you're most excited to read when everything is completed.

Important Info For A Free Online Course!

As predicted, I didn't really have any time to work on ANYTHING this week. I spent my free time cleaning the apartment like a mad-woman, and then I spent my weekend either at work or with my mom. Beyond that, I was working on my niece's baby blanket some more. At this pace I might actually have it done by Christmas....

Barely anything major went on at the forum either. However, due to some coaxing words from ChibiSunnie I started to go back on to Writer's Huddle a little more frequently. It's a good thing too, because I discovered this little tidbit and I wanted to pass it on to you guys.

Honestly, this is the sole reason I wrote ANYTHING for today's blog post. I wanted to make sure any writers out there didn't miss this opportunity.

There is a three-week Flash Fiction online course hosted by Holly Lisle. It is completely free. All you need to do is sign up for her - also free - online writing community. Just go to her writer's boot-camp How To Think Sideways and sign up. Once you do that, there will be emails with links on how to sign up for this specific course. Once you sign up, you're receive the course materials (lessons and demos, etc.) automatically.

Here's a little bit about Holly and how she runs her courses via the Writer's Huddle member who brought this course to my attention:

"Holly Lisle has had over 30 (approx figure) of her fantasy novels published traditionally. I'm currently taking her "How to Revise Your Novel" 22-week, very demanding online course, but I'm super-glad I took this course since my novel has really improved considerably, even without the formal re-write yet.
"Holly can be to an extent profane at times, she's opinionated, and a bit controlling (though she leaves you alone to decide how you want to proceed). She is not aiming at arming you to write literary fiction–or for that matter any specific genre or particular quality-level. She teaches how to write a good story that is marketable in today's market.
"She is an excellent teacher, direct, plain spoken and rather brilliant. Her aim is to train those willing to work to make a living selling fiction, and to that end she is very practical in her approach."

I already joined, although I'll admit I'm a bit intimidated by the whole prospect. I have no clue what I'm about to get myself in to for the next three weeks, but I swore to you guys last week that I'd have something productive to talk about next week. So here's hoping it gives me the kick in the butt I need to get serious about writing.

I also posted this info here so that you guys can join me on this journey! If you do, please let me know in the comments below and we can cheer each other on as we push through this boot camp together!

But hurry up! You only have until

Tuesday, May 14th

to sign up!

So, until next week, one last round of applause to everyone's mother and to every who is a mother.

Ten Years With My Hubby!? But No Writing to be had.

I honestly have no clue what to write here this week.

Aside from maybe this:

HAPPY PSUEDO-ANNIVERSARY, BABY! 

HUGS AND KISSES!

Ten years ago, at 12:19am on May 3rd, my husband asked me out via AOL Instant Messenger. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend and was feeling lonely. Hubby had a crush on me for a while now - although I thought he was still crushing on some other girl at the time - and when I told him I was ready to move on from my break up he asked me out. It threw me for a loop since A) I didn't know he liked me like that, B) I never really thought of him like that, C) We were best friends, and D) He had just gone home for summer break and so we wouldn't be able to see each other again until the fall semester. After staring dumbfounded at the screen for about three minutes I finally responded back with something wonderfully poetic and romantic like "Sure, why not?". We "dated" by calling each other every day - which is how we continued our long-distance relationship over an 8-yr courtship after he stopped going to Lycoming. He came to visit me in July for my birthday. We shared our first kiss and watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" on our first date. We didn't see each other again until school started back up the last week of August.

It was an odd courtship. A hard courtship filled with lots of sacrifices. I have to say though, I think the smartest thing I've ever done in my life was type back "Yes" when Hubby asked me out. A day shy of 101 months of dating we got married; so our "official anniversary" is in October, but May 3rd will always be our "anniversary" as well.

AAAAAAAAAAAnyway. Enough of that mushy stuff.
You care about writing! Right?
Well, sucks to be you then, because I didn't really do any....

My week has been overrun by more crocheting and lots of work. Lots of work also means lots of work drama. Bucket-loads. I won't bore anyone with the details, but it's been insanity this week.
Joy.



When I wasn't at work, I was massively Spring Cleaning. Anyone who invaded my house before we went to go see Iron Man 3 last night would beg to differ as they wove around a maze of covered snack tables, laundry baskets, and boxes I'm still unpacking. However, it's true. I spent a great deal of time cleaning this week.

So the extent of my writing was once again focused solely on the X-Men RPG. Trish, AKA Lighter, finally got to come out and play. It's a little slow going since Devon's player only really has internet access when he visits us. Sure, he's starting to pick up the weekly-visits routine he and Cyhyr had before he proposed to her; resulting in them not visiting as frequently to start saving up for the wedding. However, when the two do visit, there's a lot of socializing and the forum posts take FAR too long to write and publish. The last few times he visited I would put up a post, he would respond, I would respond, and he would have to head home. It's been kind of pathetic.

On the plus side, though, his one other character Nys - a female traveling companion of Devon's - has really had time to grow and develop within his head. I can't wait to see how she's turned out over the past week or so that she hasn't really been active due to the lack-of-internet.

Side note about Nys. Originally, she was going to be a quick, passing character that Devon would run in to and direct towards the Xavier Institute. That was it. Somehow, she weaseled her way in to becoming Devon's cross-country traveling companion as he searched for the Brotherhood. Devon's player was alright with that and decided it could be helpful for Devon to have a friend while on the road and when he finally joined the Brotherhood. The thing he DIDN'T take in to consideration though, was that Devon and Nys are becoming attracted to each other.

It's subtle, but even from Nys' introduction you could tell that there was something there. There was something about how he wrote Devon and Nys interacting that just called out "These two want each other". The problem is that he apparently didn't realize he was writing them like that. In fact, he was purposely trying to avoid that and thought he was doing an alright job at writing them as a platonic traveling duo. So, naturally, when I asked him "So when are these two going to kiss already!?" his response was "Wait. What!?"

He now rages as he notices more and more how romantically involved they're getting with each other against his will. So - naturally - I have to constantly tease him about the DevonxNys shipping; as well as the possibility of Nys getting killed off simply because Trish doesn't like Devon and it's the best way to hurt him. Whoops.

I'd also like to take a moment to apologize for apparently getting Writer-Emo/Fishing-for-Complements again last week when I talked about Cyhyr.

I appreciate the concern and insane amounts of motivation I received in response; especially from ChibiSunnie who seemed to be nearing a panic attack at the thought of me not writing anymore.




I'm sorry for any concern I may have caused. I just get in to these Emo-Fits. Considering Omnibladestrike seems to do the same thing, it may just be a natural "Am I good enough?" reaction us writers fall in to every once in a while, especially when faced with superior writers.

I have another semi-heavy work week this week, plus the crocheting, plus my mom is visiting ME for Mother's Day; which means excessive cleaning on my days off. Also, before anyone jumps the gun, no, I am not "with child". My mom is visiting ME for Mother's Day because she wants to spend it with her daughter and knew I wouldn't be able to take the time off to drive down to her.

Anyway, my point is that it will be yet another crazy-busy week where I will probably only write on the forum, if at all. I also might not get around to posting next week depending on if I have a moment to write up a blog post with Mom visiting and me still having to work at 3:30pm.

So, maybe I'll catch you next week. If not, happy Mother's Day to all of my maternal readers, and I'll try to be productive enough to have something worthwhile to write about for May 19th.

Script Frenzy? More like Crochet Frenzy.

Well, I somehow managed to fail worse than usual at Script Frenzy. This year I didn't even bother attempting to write anything remotely close to a script!

So, so sorry, ChibiSunnie! She put all this time and effort in to gathering up all the materials again. She was excited about getting back to working on our Hey Arnold The Jungle Movie fanscript. I didn't even read any of the notes she sent me - let alone attempt to write anything.

I'M AN AUNT! <3 My sister-in-law had her baby girl on April 5th! Hubby and I didn't have any money to get her or the baby girl anything for the shower, and so I offered to make her a baby blanket using any pattern of her choosing. It kept her a little bit for her and her husband to decide on a pattern. Then I just could not get the pattern to work for the life of me. I don't know, something about how the pattern is written.... So thankfully she had a second pattern marked off and I've been working on that more-or-less non-stop since the kid was born. Nearly a full month of working and I'm STILL not done with the thing!




So that's why I haven't updated here and why I didn't do Script Frenzy after all. My free-time, much like it was in December when I was making everyone's Christmas gifts, has been overtaken by constant crocheting.

Well, that and more role-playing.

Once again it has taken us about three weeks to finally role-play through a full day. This time it was the aftermath of the one character's death, the arrival of his player's new character, Chayse breaking up with Lia and hooking up with Willow, Lia talking to Hubby's one other character Ripley about the break-up, Willow trying to track Lia down to talk to her about the whole situation, Lia and Lincoln interacting some more, Lia interacting with the one NPC Crystal, and finally introducing Crystal to her idol Tyler - another player's character who was formally a lead in a boy band. It was a busy day!

The boards have been a touch halted for the past few days as we all try to figure out what the new day will bring - or if we just want to do like a week time jump or something.

In the meantime, Devon's player FINALLY finished off his solo role play session and has Devon with The Brotherhood of Mutants. So Hubby started up a new section specifically for The Brotherhood. This means my most talkative character can FINALLY be introduced and played! She's excited. I've been listening to angry alternative rock for the past week or so to help get in to her head.

Although I haven't quite figured out what "the next step" is in role playing any of my girls, that doesn't mean I haven't thought about their future. I recently sent DarkAngel1326 a few scene snippets that I keep having flash in my head. Three of them are for the new chick - one of which is a super fun scene between her and Devon's traveling companion Nys - and one semi-long dialogue between Lia and Ripley. Hubby wants to set things up so that Lia ends up with Ripley now that she's single. However, with the interaction Lia's been naturally having with Lincoln, I almost feel like there's something there. The scene I have between Lia and Ripley is one where she tells him that she chose to be with Lincoln instead, and Ripley calling bullshit because he knows she loves him more than Lincoln.

Although I haven't finished working on the prologue for my Willow story, I still want to get around to posting these snippets. Perhaps I'll start up an anthology of "scraps" - short scenes the characters show me that may or may not actually happen in the role play. I already pseudo started up the file for it over on Fanfiction.net. My issue is trying to figure out how much info my readers will need to know in order to understand the snippets - as well as presenting that info in an entertaining way as a bit of a "Prologue" for the anthology. I'll be sure to post the link when I do eventually set that anthology up.

SPEAKING OF PROLOGUES! Omnibladestrike redid his prologue YET AGAIN. He doesn't have it published anywhere online - that I know of - but I will say that he's certainly improving! Best re-write yet. Hopefully now he'll find the motivation to just keep writing instead of stopping and re-writing. He does seem re-energized and excited this time around! If he posts anything online I'll be sure to link that too.

Also, Delaroux posted on her Facebook page her own little heart-wrenching oneshot about an unrequited love between two of her original characters. It was wonderful, but she still wanted me to beta the story. I don't know where she might be with the rewrite. Anyway, since Cyhyr was visiting I had her also look over the story to see if there's anything I missed.

THE GIRL TORE THE THING APART!


Someone is super hard core when it comes to what she reads! I both would love to have her read my stuff so I know how to best improve, and I'm also terrified to show her my work EVER out of fear of every sentence being shredded apart! I know she's only as harsh as a professional editor would be, and it would be best for my professional writing to have someone so strict critique my work. However, I'm still so unsure if I'm "cut out" for professional writing that I'm kinda scared to have her tell me how crappy my stuff is!




Cyhyr is both my greatest motivator and greatest demoralizer! On the one hand, she's seriously working hard on her first manuscript. She's doing all the things she should: read, read, read, and read some more; writing at least every other day if not daily; writing out her plot so she knows where she's going to avoid Writer's Block; researching a ton; not restarting the story once she realized she was in the wrong POV - she'll instead finish the manuscript and fix the POV problem in the second draft. She's certainly on track to get this manuscript actually completed - quite a task for anyone. So she's certainly motivating me to work right beside her. Seeing her work so diligently and passionately - plus her talking to me about writing - just gets my juices going as I crave to do the same.

All of the above traits also are my biggest source of writing depression. She's younger than me. I watch this younger person working so hard on a manuscript and sticking to it so fully. I know in my heart of hearts that she'll be published before me - if I ever get published at all. Her discipline, motivation, and passion for her story just reminds me that I'm the exact opposite. I don't have an original idea - not really; although there is the Gyateara story. I don't write even close to daily - unless you count the role play. I haven't read a single book since I read Lycopolis back in like October or something. I haven't really taken advantage of The Writer's Huddle; only going on the forum once every few months. I haven't even kept up with this blog. I haven't really shown any true commitment to writing, and if it's what I want to do for the rest of my life I really should have most of my focus on writing. Watching Cyhyr just seems to point out this massive lack of commitment to something I claim is my passion, and that just adds salt to the wound.

We'll just have to see if finishing the blanket and being able to use my free-time to write instead of crochet will help. Perhaps all the anthology of RP scenes will also help me at least write daily. We'll see.

Hopefully, this post will bring me back to my regular updating schedule. Cross your fingers.

OH! One last thing before I go.... in case she's reading....

An Easter Miracle! (But not really)

Image by Celesse

Well, don't I totally rock at this weekly update thing, huh?




Do I get forgiveness if I say I missed last week's update because I've been writing almost non-stop for the past two weeks?


Probably not much consolation when you guys realize that you can't read anything I've been working on... not for a while at least.


But, let's backtrack and see what I'm talking about.

First off, I've gotten off the doll-making kick; at least, for a little while.

I had the 20th, 21st, and the 22nd off.... and I spent them WRITING!

Yeah, that's right...

writing!

I was able to hand write the opening of the next What Is Truly Meant To Be chapter on the front and back of a legal-pad page. Not too much once it's condensed down in typed form, but it's something, right?

But that little bit was done during breaks at work. The rest of the time I've been getting mad inspired by the X-Men RPG. We've had a couple of days two weeks ago where we actually had nice little role-play groups going. Most of them consisted of me mainly running my character Willow. She's a flirt and a prankster who gets her kicks out of getting a rise out of her fellow classmates - one in particular being the stick-in-the-mud William. She's just becoming so much more fun to run as a character and she's quickly surpassing Lia as my main character.

A LOOOOT happened that week in Willow's world and it just developed and expanded her character. I love it! I'm getting super connected to this character - a lot more than poor Lia - and I'm starting to finally hear Willow's voice in my head.

She's also a major case of "The Character Tells The Author How Stuff Is Gonna Go Down."

In other words.... this:

"So, You're a Cartoonist? - Following the Leader" by Tom Preston

It has inspired me to translate Willow's story in to prose so that all of you fine readers could also partake in her tale. I also still want to eventually try turning the entire forum game in to a series of webcomics, but I'll need an artist for that.

Anyway, on Thrusday, March 21, a cataclysmic event happened on the forum that turned it in to a massive bundle of heart-wrenching, edge of your seat, "For some reason I completely care about these characters" emotions. If you're keen to Tumblr's own little sub-genre language, the emotions would be simply summed up as "The Feels!"

I'll try not to be too specific with details so that when I DO translate everything over in to prose I wouldn't have let spoilers slip too much, but a player didn't want to run his character anymore and decided to start up a second one instead. However, he didn't want to bring in the new one until he got rid of the old one. This was the catalyst.

He killed off his character, and now mine are not only trying to come to terms with the loss of a friend, but a lot of other unresolved emotions that are building up to a head. The death of the character resulted in Willow completely breaking down. To the point in which I was weeping like a baby all of that Thursday night. Like.... legitimately, "Hand me a damn box of tissues, I can't see over here" crying. To this day, over a week later, I can't read any of that stuff without choking up. She had a very touching memorial that even got the killed-off-character's player crying, welled up Hubby's eyes with tears, and got Devon's player to choke up a little.

Mad skills!

One of the many reasons I want you guys to be able to read this stuff! I want to know if this stuff is just emotional because we're running these characters and feel connected to them, or if this stuff truly is that emotional.

Since I have no clue how many of you are X-Men fans, and because we created our own universe canon for this role play, I wanted to write up the main events of the world these characters live in. This way, everyone sort of gets what's going on. So last week I started writing down the key plot points of the X-Men: Evolution TV series, since this is the basis of our world.

I didn't get very far before the forum continued to blow up. So much emotion going on, so many characters reacting to the character's death, and reacting to the repercussions of the event.... it's taken us about a week of nearly non-stop role playing to finally finish off everything that happened that day!

It's been mad crazy! That's why I missed last week's post. Between bringing Hubby home from work and going in to work myself I spent the rest of the time working on the role play instead of my blog post. I had every intention of going back and writing the post after work was done, or on Monday, or even Tuesday. Yet, the forum always seemed to take over every waking moment.

And there were a LOT of waking moments. Even with me having to get up at about five or six in the morning nearly every day during The Week Of Feels Hubby and I still stayed up until midnight, 1am, and even 2am.

I am certainly not a college student any longer. I cannot survive on minimal sleep.... and my body sure as hell reminded me of that this past Tuesday. After I was done with work I got hit hard with a nasty head cold. I've gone through two tissue boxes easily. I frequently sit with my nose clogged with tissue and wonder if people would buy a product that is essentially tampons for your nose. I mean, doctors already use tampons to help with nose bleeds after a head trauma or nasal surgery...

I'm going off topic.

Anyway, Wednesday was miserable. My head was swimming, my eyes wouldn't focus, I was constantly either sneezing or blowing my nose, my throat was scratchy, and I couldn't seem to medicate the symptoms away no matter what. Dayquil? Doesn't help with runny nose. Herbal Tea Cold Remedy? It usually works, but this time, no dice. AlkaSeltzer? Didn't touch the cold at all. Dieting Tea with a hint of caffeine to keep you energized enough to exercise? Well, this one was mainly for the steam and to attempt to combat the drowsiness the meds were giving me. Still.... down went another tissue box.

I'm still getting over the nasty cold. I hate being sick like this now that my netbook died on me. If I am able to lay in bed, snuggled up in my covers, being on "bed rest" while sick is the best thing for my writing. I just go off like a beast. When I feel craptastic, but I'm forced to sit in a computer chair? I start to slowly slouch, my neck, shoulders, and back begin to ache, my eyes strain to see the monitor two feet away, and I'm just a grouch. Blah.

Hubby helped a little by offering up his laptop while he used the desktop. But that was mainly so I could continue role-playing in an insane attempt to finally close out the day so the rest of the players didn't have to sit and twiddle their thumbs for much longer. The player who killed off his character had to wait about a week before he could bring in the new one, since we wanted his new one to literally start where the last one stopped. It was a cool scene, but his grand entrance couldn't be on the same day as the other's demise.

I sure hope all of this massive role-playing will eventually result in the two prose sagas I'm hoping for - one for Lia and one for Willow - and when that happens I hope you all will let me know whether or not it was worth this blog and my Hey Arnold fanfic being put on hold.

I think it is helping me out as a writer at least. First off, it blasted through my writer's block. I'm now writing daily, and I'm writing a lot. I'm getting emotional and personable with my characters. I'm finally "hearing" them speak to me the way that DarkAngel1326 and Delaroux tell me their characters speak to them. Which is exciting.

OH! Quick sidenote about Delaroux! I just got a message from her that she has a new story idea and wants me to beta again. I have no clue what the story is about. I don't know if it's going to be another Hey Arnold fanfic, if it's going to be solely about her Flite11 group, if it's going to be about other demons and supernatural beings based on the universe she created for Flite11, or if it's going to be something completely different. I also don't know how long it will be before I start getting stuff from her, let alone my turn-around time. If it's anything like Something To Return To then I'll be getting something soon, and frequently!

Now, back to me.



I'm super excited about hearing these characters in my head! It's weird though. Because I don't legitimately "hear" them in my head per se. You know how when you think to yourself you hear your own voice in your head? Or when you read a piece of fiction - especially if there is a visual representation of it - and you "hear" the character's reciting their lines? Oooor, maybe not. Maybe I'm odd.

Anyway, that was how I was picturing the characters "chatting" to DA and Delaroux. Maybe that IS how it works for those girls. But for me, it's more of a series of Freudian Slips while I'm typing. Kind of like how Arnold and Helga just sort of take over while I'm writing WITMTB. I have every intention of writing one thing, but when I look at what I actually wrote, it's something completely different. Yet, if I try to change it back to what I intended, I get this weird feeling inside like the character is telling me that what I wrote was wrong, and what I originally had was what was "natural". Most times I comply, and this leads to the above comic strip.

My only thing is that Willow is a lot smarter than I gave her credit for, and Hubby's character Chayse is a lot more honest and straight forward. This resulted in a MAJOR plot twist/story arc device to be figured out WAY too soon. It would have been a lot more fun playing around with a certain element that was brought in, but noooooo Chayse had to confess something and Willow had to put the pieces together. Stupid characters.

This whole "The characters take over" thing is why Lia and Chayse ended up hooking up so shortly after the game started, instead of having Chayse take his time woo-ing her. Anyway, during The Week of Feels, the majority of the time Lia stayed "quiet" and just did whatever it was I deemed "natural" to do. Sadly, since Willow exploded as a much more developed and dynamic character, most of the time I had no clue what to do with Lia - so she sort of sat in the background.

Then Hubby started "hearing" Chayse in his head the same way I heard Willow. Soon our apartment was filled with a chorus of us verbally asking Willow and Chase "What are you doing!?" just before posting. We knew that the characters shouldn't say this, or act like that, but they had other plans.

As the Week of Feels came to a close and I realized that Lia never really did anything to say goodbye to her fallen classmate, I created a touching series of scenes for her. Nothing as emotional as Willow's farewell because Lia hadn't yet blossomed, but still moving - hopefully. What really surprised me though, was finding out that Lia is like a Mama Bear protecting her cubs and she gets SCARY when provoked!

A few days later she finally started to grow as well, and I "hear" her along side Willow now - although Willow is still the more dominant talker.

Hubby has also had a few of his secondary characters start "talking" to him too. This game has really gotten him in touch with his own writing side. This is big considering the fact that he has HATED any sort of transferring what's in his head down on paper since about high school due to his Aspergers. So the fact that he's writing just as frequently as I am, with such compelling stuff, and loving doing so is FANTASTIC to me. YAY, Characters Talking!




The biggest concern for him is that one character in particular, who he WANTS to get more involved in the game is NOT talking to him, at least, not for a while. Yesterday Ripley FINALLY opened up and we got some real good stuff from him. Completely surprised both of us. Mr. California Surfer Dude is actually quite the gentleman and apparently wants to become a therapist. Neither of us saw that coming.

Now, when either Hubby or I are on our lunches or breaks at work we always make sure to have paper and a pen on hand so we can jot things down as it comes to us. Hubby was shocked as the stream of consciousness for two of his main characters came out majorly different than what he was expecting of them - given the situation he left them in. He's also developed more backstory to fill in the two year time skip we just participated in, as well as the over-all driving force story arc for the universe.

I played one campaign of D&D with him as the Dungeon Master, and yet I forgot how epic his stories can get! I'm so super excited!

One last thing before I rap up with all this role-play talk. A new character just came on the scene and he's "scaring" his player by doing the same thing of "talking" to the player. The player was joking around that it's like the character is just channeling himself through the player. This just adds to my love of this new character.

His name is Lincoln, and when I get back to building avatars he's the next one I'm working on... even though I was in the middle of building Lincoln's player's main character when I stopped. XD

Anyway, Lincoln started off as just this shy, awkward kid who was raised in a different world/dimension. He's not the only one, another character Sasha was also raised like that. Lincoln was socially awkward and unsure as to how to carry himself on Earth.

This awkwardness developed a stream of consciousness where his thoughts would contradict his actions. Sort of like these new line of Speed Stick commercials:

    

If that wasn't adorable enough, this "my thoughts contradict my actions" back and forth quickly developed in to full-on multiple-personality-like conversations with himself. He is just too friggen adorable!

For those who watched the anime Soul Eater.... Lincoln is kind of like my obsession a few months back when I watched the show.... You might remember a loveably glompable character named Crona:

Crona being the kid.
Ragnarok - Crona's weapon and secondary personality - is the X-Faced thing messing with Crona.

We don't have a name for Lincoln's head-friend, but he picks on, messes with, and delights in Lincoln's pain just as much as Ragnarok does for Crona. Lincoln and Crona are just as equally socially awkward and may find their first friend in the maternal character of the group. Bonus: Crona and Lincoln are both raised and taken care of by a woman named Medusa!!!! How trippy is that!? Especially since Lincoln's player doesn't really watch anime and has never even heard of Soul Eater or Crona! I'm telling you, give Crona a set of green butterfly wings and an acknowledged gender and you have Lincoln! It's fantastic! My instant fave character! <3

Alright, enough ramblings about the forum for today. Hopefully this makes up for the two week delay. I'll try to work on converting stuff over in to prose, but no promises that I'll have anything concrete.

Aside from the forum itself possibly taking up more time, tomorrow also marks the start of my unofficial continuation of Script Frenzy! One Month. 100pgs script! Can I do it!? I haven't in the past, and I'm saddened that I will now never officially have a "winner" badge, but that doesn't mean I can't still participate in Script Frenzy - at least in my heart.

Normally, the script would be started completely from scratch, but since it's no longer official, I'm just going to use the month to get as much done in a script written format as possible before May hits. I'm supposed to be re-starting my The Jungle Movie fanscript with ChibiSunnie this month. I just need to sit down and take the time to go back over all the notes and what we have so far.... I've been slacking on that....

Depending on how adventurous I feel, I may start converting the forum posts over in to webcomic scripts. We'll see how that goes.

Since it isn't an official Script Frenzy I'm debating if I will be purposely skipping weekly updates in favor of my end-of-the-month diary recaps that I've done the past two years. Considering I've been doing bi-weekly updates this year so far, it's not like you'd really be waiting all that long. However, I do fully expect to just go ahead and continue with the weekly updates. I guess we'll have to see how work-heavy April turns out to be.

So, I may or may not catch you folks next week.... sorry about being so vague.
You can follow my blog or me directly if you haven't already. This will guarantee that you won't miss an update. Over along the right side of the page you'll see a spot where you can either add my blog to your RSS feed, or you can input your email address. I don't spam you and you'll get my blog neatly wrapped up in email form. If you have a blogger account you can also follow me by logging in to your account, scrolling down your Dashboard page until you reach "Reading List" click on the "Add" button, and drop in my URL: www.TheRoguesScribe.blogspot.com! Super simple! You can also follow me directly by checking out my Facebook Account, or following me on Twitter: @LycoRogue.

OH! Another quick sidenote, speaking of following blogs. Cyhyr just started up her own blog about writing! You should go check out her stuff here:

The Writer Cyhyr

And while you're at it, go hop over to DA's blog and poke at her until she remembers to post something.

Random Creativity Blog

In the meantime, please wish me and Chibi luck on our Script Frenzy, and wish me, Hubby, and the other X-Men Forum players luck with all the voices in our heads.

I'd like to close out by again wishing everyone a Happy Easter!

Image by MoogleGurl 

Making more dolls

Another really rough week of not wanting to write a darn thing. To be completely honest, I didn't even want to write this week's update and I seriously debated just throwing up that "Temporary Post" yet again.

I'm really not sure at all what's wrong with me. My brain is just totally fried. I'm pretty much set for the next chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be, and yet I have NO DESIRE to start writing. I have no clue why.

I even read a fairly good HelgaxBrainyxArnold love-triangle story this morning. It really made me THINK about my story, but still no desire to actually WRITE anything. Oh well, read the story anyway!

It needs some polishing here and there, but it's still a nice, quick read:
Life With Brian

I also completely missed the first bi-weekly writing challenge of "Someone confronting a moral dilemma" that was "due" on the 15th. I had a possible story picked out from my list of Plot Bunnies, but I just never had the urge to type anything up. I honestly don't know if I'm going to attempt the prompt for the next two weeks either:
"Your least-favorite character lets slip the secret of your favorite character"
I honestly don't even know who I'd pick as my least-favorite character....

DarkAngel1326 and ChibiSunnie have been amazing this past week. Nearly every day one of these two ladies would send me a Facebook message with something along the lines of "I heard this song and it made me think of your story" or "I saw this show/movie scene and it made me think of your story" or even "I found this article online and I thought it could help you with the latest chapter".

So, thank you ladies for both your continued effort to jumpstart my muse as well as showing me how much my story affected you on the day-to-day basis. Love you both so much!

I did start doing more on the X-Men forum though... so I guess I did do SOME writing this week. It was mostly boring stuff like having the girls chill at the pool or in the living room, but it's something. I also seem to focus mostly on Willow. Poor Lia hasn't had much game-play as of late, but Hubby hasn't really been inspired to RP either so Cajun just sort of stands around more often than not. Lia doesn't really do much more than interact with him, so that sidelines her too most of the time. Plus, Lia is more reserved and a bit of a goody-two-shoes.

Willow is much more fun to play. She's wild and flirty. She loves teasing and pulling pranks and I'm having a world of fun of having her flirt with EVERYONE. Yes, that means the two new male players as well as the one new female member and the new female NPC. She doesn't care where she gets the love, she just enjoys making EVERYONE blush!

I could have even more fun with my newest character, but Hubby still isn't sure if he'd allow me to bring her in - at least, not anytime soon. I'm still waiting for Devon's player to finish up his recap of what Devon had been doing over the past two years, so my newest character won't see the light of day for a WHILE it seems - and that's still assuming she'll EVER be used in this game.

As with last week, this week was mostly spent creating avatars of all the characters. Sadly, my computer had a major issue last Sunday and everything I had done previously was somehow lost. So I got to start from scratch and it kept me nearly all week to get back to where I was LAST week, so I sadly don't have too many new characters for you guys to meet - as if you care anyway.
Again, it isn't definite yet because I have a few more things I want to tweak and I don't have approval from his player, but first up is the newest member/character: Tyler Cassidy.

Yes, that IS a picture of himself on his shirt...

The interesting thing with Tyler is his parentage. I explained this back when the board was first created, but as a reminder the way we set up our characters is mostly random.

The game is played exclusively with characters that are the "next generation" of X-Men - as in, the children of former X-Men or Brotherhood members. When a member joins the boards he or she gets a list of approved mutants that are available for parentage. The player chooses ONE, this way the character isn't COMPLETELY random. The other parent is then decided through dice rolls. The options are as follows:

• The other parent is also selected off of the list - obviously being the opposite sex of the mutant the player picks
• The other parent is a random un-named mutant - there are a lot of mutants out there and not all of them join "the fight"
• The other parent is a human
• SINISTER SHENANIGANS! Mr. Sinister did what he does best - steal DNA from famous mutants and conjure up an artificial being. In this case, since the character is just genetically spliced together the parents don't need to be of opposite sex. The last time I talked about this option I stated that Hubby's character Chayse "Cajun" LeBeau almost ended up as a Sinister splicing of Gambit and Bishop.

There are also rare occasions - if Hubby feels the player is capable enough - where a player can select a mutant that isn't on the "approved" list.

The random-creation continues with Hubby rolling to figure out what the character's starter powers are and the like, but I want to get back to Tyler.

The player picked Siryn for his mother. Then Hubby rolled that Multiple Man was Tyler's father! This is a huge OMG moment for two reasons.

ONE: For those who don't know/remember, my character Lia is the daughter of Amara "Magma" Aquilla.... and..... Multiple Man..... And, on top of that, he was set up as this loving husband and father, and yet Tyler was supposedly born a year after Lia..... Hmmmmm, me thinks foul things are afoot.
TWO: Although our game doesn't use the main comic book timeline - therefore rendering what I'm about to say completely moot - it seems that Multiple Man and Siryn DID hook up in-canon. And Siryn DID have his son... only to find out that it was actually the son of one of his duplicates and when Multiple Man first held his baby boy his body accidentally absorbed it thinking it was a Dupe ready to re-merge with him.

So, needless to say that the creation of Tyler has proven a bit..... interesting. First, Hubby had to figure out a backstory to explain away the shared parentage between Tyler and Lia while maintaining Multiple Man's "loving husband and father" persona. It's a good story that I'll get to in a moment. Secondly, I had to figure out if Lia had a half-brother or a "cousin" as well as how she'd react to knowing of Tyler's existence after 17yrs in the dark. She hasn't met him yet, so I still have a little bit of time to figure it out.... Finally, Hubby had to try to figure out if Tyler was in as much danger of being absorbed by Multiple Man as his canon equivalent.

Personally, I think Hubby's solution was brilliant! I won't give away all the details in case some of my readers are also players, but I will give the highlights. Namely, that Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox isn't TECHNICALLY Tyler's father. In comic book canon there have been occasions in which one of Jamie's doubles forms a completely different personality than Jamie Prime and creates his own life. These "rogue Dupes" refuse to be reabsorbed by Jamie and live their own life away from him. Eventually he loses track of them. Tyler's father is actually one of these "rogue Dupes" - therefore giving him the proper parentage without messing with the backstory I already created for Lia. Also, Tyler's father feared one day encountering Jamie and be forced to re-merge with Prime, and so he took precautions preventing such an occurrence; a side-effect being that Tyler is equally safe of never being absorbed by Jamie - either accidentally or forcefully. We're still trying to figure out the half-brother versus cousin thing.... but we're leaning more towards cousin I think.....

Anyway, enough of that! I doubt you guys really care since this all means I wasn't working on any writing. So, to make it up to you I will finish up by talking about story writing again.

Namely, about the Valentine's Day contest the Hey Arnold group held last month. As predicted - assumingly because I didn't have a fluffy, gushing romance story - I didn't even place. I honestly don't know how well or how poorly I did since I don't have the score sheets yet; I'll keep you posted.

But guess who got second place in the writing category again!?

Did you say ChibiSunnie? Well, you should have! So let's all congratulate Chibi for another fantastic job well done!

The winner of the fanart portion is UrielManX7

I'm not entirely sure, but I THIIIIIINK this is the runner up's picture submission

And now a reminder of Chibi's entry


But anyway, you wanted to know about STORIES, right? Well, the winner of the contest was PinkRose34 with her entry The Photo Album.

Personally, I was a little put-off by the story at first because it felt SOOOO much like my very first fanfic The Moral of Gertie. It was a story about Arnold and Grandpa Phil sitting around a photo album and talking about Phil's childhood bully Gertie and the parallels between her and Arnold's personal bully Helga. It was set shortly after the events of the Hey Arnold movie - as was mine - and it even described the aftermath of all the explosions that occurred at the climax of the movie. As far as I knew, prior to PinkRose34 writing her story, mine was just about the only one that did that.

Now, by NO WAY am I claiming that she stole my story. The similarities more-or-less end at the above list. Plus, the coincidental similarities in PR34's story parallels those of DA's Valentine's story she posted last month. The one that was scary similar to my V'day story I Caught You a Star. Great minds just think alike, I guess. Regardless, although I hold firm to my belief that Chibi deserved the win, PR34's story WAS adorable. It was a fun take on Grandpa Phil's past and how Gertie went from bully to friend to lover. Give it a read.

Done with "The Photo Album" yet? Great! Now you can go and read Chibi's runner-up story My Oh So Special Someone.

Might as well finish off the trifecta by including my entry one more time:
The Adventures of Brainy

Until next week - when I'll hopefully have SOMETHING more productive to showcase....

Creativity flows and halts at the same time

Well, I'm once again full of fail.... I didn't attend the "temp post" to be a permanent one, but for the third week in as many months I seem to have failed at going back and posting the delayed update.

FAIL!

To be fair, the reason I missed last week's post wasn't because I was busy or lazy. It was because the week before consisted of little to no writing. I am completely stuck behind a Writer's Block.

Since I had talked about writing an inspirational postthree weeks ago I thought last week would have been the perfect time to go ahead and write it. One, I promised that if I didn't have much of an update - which I didn't - I'd work on that post. Two, it seemed fitting since my lack of update meant I'm in the same boat as some of you.

And then the post just took over and became this massive beast! Instead of at least attempting to go to sleep while Hubby was at work last week, I spent the seven hours he was at work writing last week's post. SEVEN. STRAIGHT. HOURS. Seven hours of collecting all of the "I can't do it" issues that my writers have come to me with. Seven hours of me gathering up my "yes you can" responses. Seven hours of finding articles online that could help motivate and inspire. Seven hours of me organizing and categorizing. Seven hours, and I still wasn't done when I had to leave to pick up Hubby.

When we got back home I tried to get back to work, but I was dead tired and napped before work. Throughout the rest of the week I kept going back and slowly worked on the post, but this thing is a beast! It's LOOOOOONG. Plus, I want to have the time to also update my Handy Links page to make sure all of the links I have in the post are also there. It's a bit of a task!

So I might break that post down in to two or three smaller posts, work on them off and on throughout the rest of March, and then drop them as a series during April while I'm on my Script Frenzy Hiatus. So keep an eye out for that.

Now, as for my writing. As I said, I still haven't written a word for the latest chapter of What Is Truly Meant To Be. So there goes two of my resolutions: Post a new chapter of WITMTB each month, and finish the full story by the end of 2013. That doesn't mean I won't still try throughout the rest of the year.

Anyway, I think I MIIIIIIGHT have the issue that's been holding me up figured out. I did end up sending inquiries out to DarkAngel1326, ChibiSunnie, and AngelBlood666. All three of them have been helpful with their advice. In fact, every time I log on to Facebook I seem to have a new message from DA with yet another article she found somewhere in hopes of helping me out. Now for me to return the favor and finish beta reading something she sent to me late yesterday. Poor thing is just as stuck as I am, so let's see if I can help her as much as she helped me.

In the meantime, I must struggle against a weird lack of desire to write. I'd much rather play video games.
I dunno. I guess I just feel tired and uninspired lately. I'm hoping to break myself out of the funk soon - even if by force.

One way I'm trying to "force" myself back in to writing - aside from keeping up with this blog - is to participate in a new writing challenge the Hey Arnold group is holding. Once every two weeks we'll be given a writing prompt; we have until the next prompt to complete the story. The prompt that started this challenge was given out on March 1st, and we have until the 15th to write our story. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with "Struggling with a moral dilemma".

Another creative outlet has once again become the X-Men Forum RPG that Hubby started up in June. We recently had a few new players sign up, which also resparked interest for the game for some old players. So now Hubby and I have been trying to figure out how to restart the story after the 2yr time skip he created when everyone slowed down posting.

He decided to use the same tactic as when we started officially role playing last year - jump-start everything with a real-time "mixer". He set a time on the first for everyone to try to be on the forum and we all enjoyed a little party role playing. It was fun and mildly eventful. It was a great way to meet the new players and have them interact with our old characters.

Unfortunately, there's been little activity on the forums since the mixer ended. It seems that no one really knows what to do with their characters when they're the only ones on the boards, and since we have so few players - only about nine people - it's rare to have two people on at the same time unless an (like the mixer Hubby hosted)online get-together is pre-arranged. Sadly, I'm one of those people. I still don't really know what I want to do with Lia and Willow now that there has been a 2yr time skip. I'm still figuring out how they changed over those years I guess.

However, the one character Devon is active again. The combination of reading his posts and obsessively listening to "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy resulted in mini-inspiration. I have Willow, a wild-child prankster who can create illusions, and I have Lia, a magma-controller who can also be sort of considered a pyrokinetic. However, the angry passion of the Fall Out Boy song just calls to my inner pyromaniac. I wanted a character that was a pyrokinetic, but not as reserved as Lia. Essentially, I wanted a character who was crazy-impulsive like Willow, but with Lia's powers. Thus, a new character was born.

Whereas I had a mildly healthy chunk of backstory for Lia, and Willow's backstory is as bare-minimum as it gets, this new character's backstory is massive. I started writing and just didn't stop. It's almost a page long on its own. She is the first character that really took over and spoke to me in a while, so "YAY" for that. She feels like she'd be a lot of fun to play.

However, I'm also a bit fearful that I'll never get the chance to play her, for multiple reasons.

1. There are already easily 100 pyrokinetics in the normal Marvel universe. Add in Devon - who has his father's powers - and Lia, and my newest character may be one pyrokinetic too many.
2. I created the new character as someone to interact with Devon while he's considered a betrayer by the X-Men, but Devon's player already has three of his own original characters that he was going to throw in while Devon was on the run. Does he really need my character if he has so many of his own to interact with? Would my new character just complicate things too much?
3. With my character's personality and power combo, she may be too unstable and uncontrollable. Yes, I'm very good at not going overboard with my characters; being able to hold them back. Both Willow and Lia could probably be a lot more powerful than I'm allowing them to be. However, my newest character may be too volatile regardless.
4. I have two characters already that I'm not entirely sure I know what to do with. Do I really want a third character to run? Especially since it will be a little while before Devon would be ready to meet her? Also, considering that I'd pretty much exclusively use her to interact with Devon and his player has very limited internet access, so I could go days or weeks before I could do anything else with the character.

I'm still proud that I managed to write SOMETHING this week, even if she never joins the fray of the forum. Maybe if I don't end up using her for the X-men game I could find some way to rework her for one of my high fantasy stories. She'll most likely fight her way to the surface somehow. I won't be able to keep her confined in my head for too long, I'm sure.

Another bout of creativity hit me this week by way of avatar-making once more. Back when the X-Men forum game was first started up I was having difficulties visualizing what Lia and Willow looked like - as well as the other characters. I am a majorly visual person and have to have some sort of reference for nearly everything. So I started building a floor plan of the Xavier Institute so I knew where my characters were and where they needed to go to get to different rooms and such. I also found this pixel-doll making site.

Taking elements from multiple doll-makers and combining them in Photoshop, I started creating avatars of the different characters. Over the summer when I started this project I only managed to create Willow and Lia - along with an extensive "closet" so I could switch out their outfits whenever I needed to describe them in something other than their "every day" clothes. I have fun playing "dress-up" with them.

The process was long and tedious the way I was doing it originally, and so I stopped with my characters even though I wanted to do the full "cast" that we had at the time.

Well, something about the new characters got me obsessed with avatar making again. I even found a way to make them that was MUCH easier than how I was originally doing it. I'm breezing through the guys easily. The girls will be a bit trickier since there is easily seven-times more outfits I would have to sift through. Again, it will be fun to play dress-up.

Even with the easier set up, however, it is a bit time consuming. I've easily spent about 14hrs this week just messing with this stuff.


So, before I leave to maybe be productive elsewhere, I'd like to introduce you to a few members of our RPG:

Lia as her 14yr old self

15yr old Willow in her X-Uniform

Hubby's character Chayse "Cajun" LeBeau 

Devon - Kinda looks like The Terminator here

William, son of Nightcrawler and Dazzler

Most of these guys need some tweaking still, but it's a nice start.