Sunday, February 26, 2012

Beta Reading and Drabble Woes

WOAH! 800+ page views!? That means I've had 100 hits in about 20 days! I'm averaging 5 page views a day! Whoot! Well, technically it's more like 17 hits every time I post an update... but that's still AVERAGING 5 hits a day! I feel all warm and fuzzy like moldy toast! ^_^ OK, moving on to the actual post....

So I've continued with my Beta-Reading tasks and boy has that gotten crazy!
Monday I spent like four hours talking with DarkAngel1326 about her next chapter of Keep Love in Your Heart. She's been in a slump lately. Partially because the next chapter is really depressing, and even someone whose penname includes DARK in the title can have a hard time writing super depressing stuff - especially when she fears it will alienate the fans. She's also in a slump partially because she refuses to believe she's a good writer. Not only do I constantly tell her she is, but also one of our Hey Arnold! friends AJSky7 posted in her Author's Notes that DarkAngel inspired her.
AJSKY7: "One of [DarkAngel1326's] stories, Fast Cars Can Only Take You So Far, is one of my favorites and it made me confident enough to write in this style....[DarkAngel1326] you are an amazing poet and a writer, and I feel a personal connection to your work, so don't doubt yourself either!"

Bah, regardless of us constantly telling her how good she is, DarkAngel still refuses to believe us. I blame 1) All the people in her past who told her she wasn't good, and 2) Her brother who is supposedly a better writer with even less confidence than she has. If HE would just believe he was a good writer than maybe she could as well... PWAH!

So anyway, please, PLEASE check out DarkAngel's stuff and let her know how you truly feel about her work! In the meantime, she's at least getting back in to writing by doing daily writing prompts on her DeviantArt account. She even borrowed one of my plot bunnies in order to write a drabble. She recently re-assured me that she's getting ready to get to writing her next chapter, but our darling Brokenrose24 gave her yet another plot bunny about Suzie and Oskar Kokoshka separating, bettering themselves alone, and then re-meeting in the future. Who knows which story she'll go with. If you have a preference, let DarkAngel know!

I've also started up beta reading for Devious.Editor. Started the same way it did with Delaroux - I made a contructive criticizm on her story and she asked me to beta future chapters. I'm not sure why I keep agreeing - aside from loving the idea of getting to know the next chapter before anyone else! Beta Reading is a lot of work, but it's fun. Plus you have the old adage of "Those who can't do, teach." I guess I'm just up to the "teach" part of writing. LOL. Anyway, I feel guilty that my epic Valentine's Day story made me push back my edits for Devious for a week! Poor thing, waiting for me! Sorry, Devious' readers! She's slacking on posting because I'm lazy!!! On the plus side, we've gotten a dialogue started and I think she might really have something super-good for the next chapter!

By far the toughest Beta Reading I took on is for a mutual friend of my husband and mine. I can't even recall how far back it was, but some time between 2005 and 2007 I was introduced to a webcomic my husband's friend drew. Although the comic itself wasn't terribly entertaining, the thing that really hooked me was that the friend designed his characters off of his friends. So my husband had a character designed off of him, and even I got a character eventually. Anyway, the comic eventually got its own forum set up, and on this forum, Mekonraiba posted a sampling of a story he had been working on. Poor thing... my husband and I ended up MSTing every sentence the guy wrote! To this day we joke about one of Mekon's phrases: Thrashing the Flowers. As we play Legend of Zelda my husband jokes about thrashing the flowers as he has Link cut the blossoms growing throughout Hyrule and Skyloft.

Well, it's been years since then, and Mekon feels he has improved with his writing, but would feel more confident with a Beta to back him. I just couldn't say no to his friggen puppy-dog eyes! I went back through his old fanfiction to re-acquaint myself to his writing style. Boy was it a rough go when reading that old stuff, but I have to admit, the stuff he wrote in 2009 wasn't all that bad. Sure, it still needed polishing, but that just means I have something to do as a beta, right? :D I have faith that he really has grown to a point where he could be just as good as the girls! I just need to ban him from using the words 'And', 'Nodded', and 'Seemingly'.... Sure, he got in to a bit of a Writer's Funk when I critiqued him, but who wouldn't? He seems to have his writing-mojo back and is ready to work. We'll see how this goes, and I'll be sure to link you to his latest stuff once that gets going.

This brings me to my other bit of news. Since Mekon wants to focus mostly on his original story, we would have to work through Fanfiction's sister site FictionPress. This means now that I have a FP account I can start working on original works as well as my Hey Arnold! fanfiction. I might post some stuff about my Dungeons&Dragons character - although I guess technically that could still be fanfiction, who knows. Perhaps I'll convince Delaroux to set up a FP account for all of her Flite11 adventures... Either way, I might go back to my D&D character, tweak things a touch here and there, and post something on DeviantArt as a trial. We shall see; we shall see.

Kind of stemming off of all the beta-reading, there has been something that's been kinda nagging at me lately. My husband's one groomsman's girlfriend Cyhyr has become like my only female friend in my new home. Love her dearly. She glomps me, so she's awesome in my book. ^_^ However, I commented on Monday about my astonishment with people who can write drabbles. These are, basically, stories that are between one hundred and one thousand words - something like that. Point is, they're tiny. We all know how long-winded I am. I'd be surprised if I could write a blog post with less than one thousand words! This is why I have trouble with Twitter.

Because of this, I'm just amazed at the people, such as my FanFiction idol Rachel Cabbit, who can not only write in drabbles, but also tell such compelling stories with so few words. The people that can say so much with so little.

Well, Cyhyr - who is a bit of a hardass when it comes to things she studies, and she happens to be a fellow writer - sternly said that all writers should aspire to the point where they can write a drabble. Publishers want shorter stories with more punch in them.

I know she didn't mean it as such, but it felt like a punch in the gut. I honestly don't know if I can write concise enough to write a drabble. Therefore, I don't know if I could ever truly be professionally published.

I'm too damn long winded and I don't know how to condense! Am I doomed from the start? When I was little I used to be succinct in my stories, but then I was always bombarded with questions when I was done. Clearly I didn't include enough details. Slowly I added more details to my stories so people wouldn't have questions when I was done. Somewhere along the line I past that "happy medium" and now I get too detailed. My mom and even my husband tell me that when I verbally tell stories I just go on forever! Something that should be a two minute conversation turns in to an hour-long one.

In fact, I can feel me doing the same thing with the above paragraph, and yet I'm gonna leave it here as a mini-diary for you to read.

I don't know. This "every author should strive to write short, concise stories" thing is really bugging me. I mean, Delaroux and a fellow FB friend even teased me about it. "And now time for essay writing with [LycoRogue]".... Granted, they both said they loved how detailed I get, but still. Them joking about my FB comments being "essay-like" sends me back to high school when people would comment on long-winded emails and other such letters as "being [LycoRogue] like"... GAAAAH! WHY IS THIS BUGGING ME SO HARD CORE!? *sigh* Pwah....

And my husband is kind of passive-aggressively complaining about the massive time I spend both writing and beta-reading: "You should give THAT up for Lent! LOL"

PWWWWAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

I guess I really DO need to work on that stuff and how time-consuming it is - especially my overly-detailed stories. I mean, check out this blog post? And ChibiSunnie got a long-winded response to her review of For Whom The Bells Toll. *scratches head* I dunno... I'm off to fold laundry and do dishes and other such housework while I figure it out.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Epic Author's Notes are Epic

Alright, so I totally meant to have this go with my last post, but as I stated, it got really long. Also, there are a lot of things about For Whom the Bells Toll that I want to talk about. Making this not only my largest story post, but also the longest corresponding Author’s Notes. That being said, this post turned out to be like six pages! Hence my decision to split up the two posts. Quick little side note: For those who missed it, I goofed and didn’t post last Sunday. I DID post Monday for my weekly update, and I recently posted on Friday as well. We all caught up? Cool-beans! :D

Alright, so let’s move through the story and I’ll MST the Author’s Notes in.

Front and center, let’s talk about the title of the story. For the majority of the time that I worked on the story I had the working title of “Ignorance is Wedded Bliss”. I liked my little turn-of-phrase. Since I normally suck at coming up with titles, I was actually proud to come up with that little nugget! ……….and then I realized that neither character was ignorant – which was kinda the point – and only one thought of having wedded bliss. The title just didn’t work with this story. I’ll have to slot it away for another time though. Anyway, I thought and thought about what I should permanently call this sucker. I then thought of the doom-ridden title of Hemingway’s story “For whom the bell tolls.” I then shifted the “s” because there is typically only one funeral bell, but there are multiple church bells that chime at a wedding. I also wanted to leave in the “ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee” feel. Sorry, Eugene, those church bells are chiming for you.

OK, enough about the darn title! Moving on to the actual story!

First up is my “easter egg” about Helga. I took meticulous care that the actions in my story matched perfectly with the parent episode “Married”. However, when we see the opening of “Married” we see where every kid is except for Helga and Brainy – whom we could perhaps assume was always in that trash can he creeps on Helga out of… So, I am setting the scene to match the episode and realize I don’t know what to do with Helga. Genius strikes! Helga is voiced by the super-talented Francesca “Franny” Smith. Franny also played multiple characters in the Disney show Recess. One of these characters is simply known as Upside-Down Girl.
As you can see, the girl has some similar traits compared to Helga.
Both girls have blonde hair in pigtails. Both are in pink sleeveless dresses with a white shirt underneath. Most importantly, both are voiced by Franny!
When trying to figure out what to do with Helga how could I NOT use this nod to Recess. For those who picked up on this subtle “easter egg” I give you each 1,000 points!
Anyway, continuing with the “meticulous care” train of thought, I want to comment on different points in the episode where we see Eugene and Sheena.
When we first see Sheena she’s at the picnic table already, and Eugene is at the hopscotch board. I built the opening scene from there. Then the scene shifts away from them. Then we see Eugene bolt past Arnold – making him and Sid the first ones in the door. Sheena is the last to enter the building. Both have smiles on their faces. Why does Eugene have a huge grin now, when not even a minute ago he was panicking over the marriage prediction? Why is it that not a moment before, Sheena was holding Eugene’s hand, and yet the two don’t go in to the school together? Why is it that the same thing happens the next time we see Eugene and Sheena? When Rhonda is giving Peapod Kid his prediction, Eugene runs down the front steps. The scene continues, and then about a minute or so later, Sheena exits. Plus, Sheena’s smile is replaced with a blank look. Granted, all of this “Eugene in and out first verses Sheena’s in and out last” plus Sheena’s blank stare were all probably because the animators were concentrating on Helga and Arnold. As much as I love Hey Arnold! I have to admit that not a lot of thought went in to the “behind the scenes” details. I mean, the TREE IN FRONT OF HELGA’S HOUSE MOVES!!!! ‘Nuff said.
HOWEVER, since Eugene and Sheena ARE depicted as stated above, and we treat ALL details of an episode as canon, I had to then get in to these characters’ heads. Why is it that Eugene separated himself from Sheena? Why is he the first one in to the school and first one out? Why does he have this huge grin after being in shock roughly thirty seconds before? Why is Sheena smiling as she enters the school, but zombie-like as she leaves? And then at the end of the episode, why are Sheena and Eugene sitting separate from each other, but still only one seat away? These annoying details the animators probably didn’t think about, and now I had to. So THAT was a fun little task.

Sticking with this concept of “staying true to the episode,” I wanted to have the story read – as I try for all my stories to read – as if it were a part of the series, and yet independent from it. I always strive to write my stories with enough information that you don’t need to remember – or even know of – Hey Arnold! in order to enjoy the story. I try to work in the character dynamics and looks so that it feels natural and non-redundant to someone who is as obsessed with the show as I am, but at the same time gives enough information for those who have never heard of the series. Therefore, I wanted to really recreate that opening sequence with the marriage predictor. I hope I did the scene justice, and everyone could see it in their heads as if they were watching the episode. I just wish a segment that took perhaps a minute-and-a-half of the show’s time didn’t take up about three or four pages of my story! Insane, right? It kept me six pages and a THOUSAND words just to get to the dreams that make up the meat and potatoes of the tale! Stupid attention to details….

Speaking of the “Meat and Potatoes” of the story, I had the hardest time dealing with the formatting of DeviantArt and FanFiction! I would kill to know how to get a friggen Tab Indent for either of those sites! The story was so much easier on the eyes in Word. I would group the paragraphs together and tab the first line so the paragraphs were still “defined”. I would double space to insert a time break. And I put a line to break between the “real world” and the “dream sequences.” It was neat, it was easy to read, and it jaded me. Having to put those stupid ~*~ExS~*~ symbols to insert a time break looks so ugly! But I didn’t know what else to do. Since there is no tab indent, I break paragraphs by spacing them, therefore I can’t space paragraphs to show a time jump. I also didn’t want to use the line break, since that was the easiest way to jump in and out of the dream worlds. I attempted using just a line of ~*~*~*~*~ like I would on DeviantArt, but FanFiction just deletes lines like that. *grumbles* Stupid formatting.
The formatting was even worse on DA! I couldn’t even put in spaces to separate the paragraphs. I mean, TECHNICALLY I could format exactly like on FF, but when I spent like an hour doing so I was then informed via a bright red notification message that the story was now too long and couldn’t be posted! GAAAAAAH! Back I went, away the spaces went, and up the hard-to-read-large-blocks-of-text post went. I’m surprised people are actually reading that thing on DA!

Alright, so let’s move on to the dreams, shall we? I tried to make Eugene’s dream mimic Arnold’s, but with Eugene’s own little twist – hence the black-tie eveningwear wedding. I also had Sheena towering over Eugene in his nightmare because one of the things that kept getting brought up by everyone I talked to was “Sheena’s like twice his height. He might have a nightmare worrying about her always being taller. A lot of guys hate the idea of being shorter than their wife.” Yes, in Arnold’s dream his mind properly “grew” him and Helga so he was a little taller. Yes, it was HELGA who neglected to take puberty in to account and therefore had her dream self still taller than Arnold. Yes, having Sheena STILL twice as tall as Eugene would make her like eleven feet tall. However, if it were an unsolicited, re-occurring suggestion by everyone I asked, and if Snee-Oosh could ignore details like that, why couldn’t I use it? Just forget how tall Sheena would have to be… LOL!
Sheena’s wedding is kind of a merger of my uncle’s wedding and my own. I had a Celtic-themed wedding. Very earthy and pseudo-wiccan. The wood nymph description would be me – well, more accurately, how I described what I wanted my flowergirl to look like. The part of them getting married in the woods in the middle of nowhere is TOTALLY what my uncle did. His wife just had on a simple sundress much like Sheena, my uncle was as casual as Eugene’s outfit, and they got married in a Redwood forest.

Moving on to the honeymoons; that was hard to figure out where they’d dream of going. I didn’t think a simple-things kinda girl like Sheena would want the extravagant, overtly romantic honeymoon like “travel the world…have a perfume named after us” Helga. It kept a little bit, but I finally decided on her dreaming of honeymooning at a national park somewhere. Even though Arnold didn’t have a honeymoon portion of his dream, I just NEEDED to injure poor Eugene, and getting injured on the honeymoon just seemed like a plausible fear of his. The final decision was partially ChibiSunnie‘s. She was the one who suggested Eugene’s honeymoon injury after the torment we put the guy through in our script last year. I just couldn’t decide HOW I was gonna beat the guy up – and then I saw the Geico commercial with the pig on the zipline. BINGO! There are ziplines EVERYWHERE these days – my hometown has a zipline attraction about forty-five minutes away. I figured I could just say “zipline” and let the reader figure out where they honeymooned. YAY, LAZY WRITING!

In the actual episode of “Married,” Helga was more interested in the idea of aging with Arnold, and her maturity I think is why she had outfit changes throughout the dream. Arnold isn’t as mature in that matter, which is probably why he and Helga never changed out of their wedding dress and tux. I wanted to parallel that, so I had Sheena change up the outfits she and Eugene wore. It was tough trying to switch it up though! Eugene got stuck in khakis a lot! I did want to keep an element of Sheena’s wardrobe, even if Helga didn’t keep her signature bow. That’s why I had Sheena continuously having her hair secured with some sort of daisy hair accessory. I wanted to keep the flower Sheena wore on her shirt.
Continuing with the paralleling, I wanted Eugene to not be as creative with the “costume changes” throughout the nightmare. However, I didn’t want them stuck in eveningwear the entire time. That’s why I had Eugene revert everyone to their normal outfits. Plus, it’s funny to think of a twenty-something wearing those elementary-age outfits. I’ll leave it up to the readers to determine whether or not Adult Eugene still has his polo tucked in to his underwear. LOL!

Following Sheena’s dream all the way to the end now….
The playground scene is based off my favorite date with my hubby. I have a video of it on my facebook. :D During a visit with my Now-Hubby-Then-Boyfriend about six or seven years ago, he took me to the local playground. My friend had driven me to Hubby's hometown, and the three of us were the only ones on the playground at the time. We enjoyed playing tag throughout the structures – as well as laughing at the fact that my six-foot-four boyfriend is trying to run through tunnels built for ten-year-olds! Towards the end of the outing, I wanted to go down the slide, but the summer sun made it too hot for my bare legs. Hubby was wearing pants despite the heat and offered for me to ride his legs down the slide. With my friend filming us, we awkwardly slid down together and then went on the swingset. We did the “how high can you swing” challenge; then Hubby jumped off and lost his footing on the woodchips carpeting the playground. He teased that he was going to push me off the swing so I would "jump" as well. It turned in to him sweetly pushing me on the swing before stopping it and us kissing. My friend stopped filming then… LOL! The part about the fireman carry is from Freshman year of college – when I met my hubby. For some reason every guy I knew Freshman year had this impulse to fireman carry me! I was carried EVERYWHERE like that – kicking and flailing about every time.
The rooftop garden was thrown in when I realized Eugene’s nightmare was at least thirty-three percent longer than Sheena’s dream. The sequence sucks in my opinion, but I didn’t really know what else to do. The garden design is partially based off of Harold’s design for HIS rooftop garden in the episode “Aptitude Test” and mostly based off of the rooftop garden at the end of the movie “Just Like Heaven.”
I kinda touched on the Freddy Awards in my main Author’s Notes, but I wanted to go further in to it. As I stated, I wanted to have Eugene and Sheena at the Tony Awards. However, I have never heard of “Eugene, Eugene” and so I assumed it was a musical created for the series. Based on that, and the fact that it’s supposed to be a well-known musical, I figured the majority of the non-classic plays in the Hey Arnold! world would be parodies. So why wouldn’t the Tony Awards be parodied? I was debating on just out-right parodying the award show, but then I remembered that my high school participated in a ceremony called the Freddy Awards. Essentially, this is a high-school-level version of the Tonys. With a “parody” so neatly handed to me, how could I NOT use it!? Plus, 2012 celebrates the tenth annual Freddy Awards. Again, how could I resist? Where the Tony Awards got its name from actress Antoinette Perry, the Freddy Awards gets its name from the fabled ghost Freddy that haunts the State Theater, where the Freddys are hosted. The Tony Award is a silver medal with the Comedy and Tragedy masks. The Freddy Award is a glass statuette of the masks. Both shows are televised – Tonys on CBS, Freddys on local broadcasting. It seemed a natural fit. Now, I was REALLY gonna tip my hat to this great High School Drama acknowledgement by keeping it in the State Theater. However, since the places in the Hey Arnold! world are fictitious, I just went with a parody of the theater the Tonys are now being held: The Beacon Theatre. I couldn’t really think of a good parody of “Beacon” that still sounded like a name of a theater, but eventually I decided on “Lighthouse Theatre.”
The play titles of “Madam Mayhem” and “Someday, Susan” were just simple two-word alliteration phrases that popped in to my head. Most old-school musicals were titled kinda like that, so I went with it simply to move on. Eugene’s play, however, was a super-loose parody.
When I decided I was going to have Eugene serenade Sheena in front of a live audience I wanted actual lyrics so that the readers could "hear" Eugene sing – a decision I’ll discuss further in a moment. Therefore, I decided on a song from the musical “Crazy For You”. Based on the plot of the play, I came up with the Parody title "Baby, Please.” Now, what WAS my train of thought here? Well, I just thought that there was just not enough dancing and show tunes for a Sheena and Eugene coupling. The amount of times Eugene randomly breaks in to song, and there wasn’t a single one in my story!? Plus, Sheena’s dream needed more mushy stuff – another point I’ll get to in a moment. The Freddys present the “Best Actor in a Leading Role” and “Best Actress in a Leading Role” nominations by having the nominees sing a showcase. This gave me the idea to have Eugene perform a song from the musical he was staring in, and somehow manage to serenade his wife at the same time. I really REALLY need to stop having the HA! characters sing to each other! I SUCK at writing songs! WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF!? Anyway, I figured if I just made a show tune parody instead of work from scratch than the whole process wouldn’t be so bad. Recently I had the song “Embraceable You” in my head – my high school performed Crazy For You and I just adored the musical. I figured, “embrace me my sweet embraceable you” was a simple enough line to re-write. In fact, the whole song is nothing but simple lines. I assumed the re-write would therefore be a snap. HAHAHAHAHAHA…. no…. The simplicity killed me! I sat with a thesaurus going “HOW DO I REWORD THIS!?” I mean, come ON! I just… I need to stop with the songs…. *sigh* I DID finally get it though! And I’m proud of myself because it still fits the melody of the original song. SCORE! Also… apologies if anyone was offended by my changing “brings out the gypsy in me” to “makes me Spanish”… I was going with the whole “Spaniards are seductive” thing….
OK, so now going back to the Sheena’s Dream is Mush-Central idea. The first day posted, I already had a reviewer on FF and another one on DA both comment on how Sheena’s dream has TONS of kissing! Even more than Helga! Gah, whoops…. I didn’t realize that Helga only kissed Arnold twice. The rest of the time she either Eskimo Kissed Arnold, or was interrupted by Lila. Oh well, Helga’s dream was drama-filled, which cut down on the kissing. Sheena wasn’t showcased enough for the audience to truly know how mature she is when it comes to kissing – in comparison to Helga at least. However, Sheena didn’t seem too upset with the idea of “kissing a boy” in the Romeo and Juliet episode, so perhaps she’s perfectly okay with the idea of a makeout session. Plus, peace-lovin’ Sheena wouldn’t really dream up the drama, therefore leaving more room for kissing. If Helga wasn’t interrupted I think both dreams would have had about the same amount of smooching. The fact that Eugene is constantly giving Sheena flower-themed pet names just goes off the “Sheena would dream up mush” thought process, coupled again with my flower-child vision of the girl.
Last thought about Sheena’s dream… I had to give her SOMETHING to aspire to besides marrying Eugene, and so that’s why I had her be a Freddy nominee as well. I wasn’t sure where to put her at first, but after seeing how she fixed/replaced that horrendous Juliet costume Helga made, I figured, "what the heck…"

Okay, FINALLY getting to Eugene!
The fact that they have Mighty Pete as their marital home was the FIRST thing I thought of when it came to Eugene’s nightmare. For the longest time it was the ONLY thing. When I asked Chibi for help she told me “[You] HAVE to keep the Mighty Pete thing because I giggled for a good 5 minutes. That's PERFECT for Sheena.” And if the girl who “commissioned” the story liked Mighty Pete, Mighty Pete stayed. LOL. A lot of people seemed to like that idea, so hazzah!
I then thought a small treehouse wasn’t bad enough, it had to be crammed with people – which is why Eugene also got three kids. It would be cramped, and the biggest issue boys seem to have about marriage is the kids. I’m not entirely sure why I aged them instead of keeping it Stork-Delivered triplets like in Arnold’s dream. Maybe my subconscious thought Eugene’s subconscious would picture him and Sheena growing old together. At the very least we know they’ve been married five years in Eugene’s dream.
ChibiSunnie was the one who thought to also add in Earl, “Crazy Uncle Earl might be a fun nightmare scenario--I mean, he talks in sailor-speak already, but what would happen when he's old and senile and living with them….So he might do crazy things like dig up the yard looking for treasure or stand on the roof calling "land-ho!!" or go around with a hook saying any misbehavers will have to walk the plank.” HAHA, that girl comes up with some of the funniest stuff, I swear! Like this depiction of Eugene’s reaction to the marriage predictor, “Eugene was clearly uncomfortable when Rhonda paired him with Sheena. His face when Sheena is running to him is like a scared cat when a little kid shouts 'kitty!!!' and goes after it.” I DARE YOU TO NOT SEE THAT THE NEXT TIME YOU WATCH “MARRIED”!!! DAAAAAAAARE YOOOOOU!
Anyway, the Squirrel Fishing idea was actually mine; brought over from a webcomic idea I had a few years ago – when the Somali pirates were all over the news and Pirate Verses Ninja was still a valid internet meme/debate. I had a strip where two college students dress up as a pirate and a ninja, and the hijinks that occur in their off-campus house. I never got farther than five strips in, so who knows if the comic will ever see the vast interwebs.
The idea of the collapsible foot stool that Eugene would carry everywhere was actually part the Sheena Is Friggen Tall plot point, and part me. My husband is a foot taller than me and so he loves teasing that I can’t kiss him unless he WANTS to be kissed, since he can just straighten his back and be out of reach. Also, all the “important” items in the kitchen are on the top shelves so it’s easier for him to reach – since he does the cooking. This of course means when I put the most-frequently-used dishes away I’m constantly climbing up and down a step ladder. When I put groceries away; up and down the ladder. When I put away his towels; up and down the step stool. And to save space we do have one of those collapsible foot stools. With the suggestion of Sheena being so tall, I almost instantly envisioned Eugene not only climbing up and down as often as me, but enough that it’s just easier to always carry the damn stool!
Well, as I mentioned WAY before, I couldn’t have Eugene – EUGENE – have a nightmare without getting injured. Heck, even in SHEENA’S dream the guy was still a bit of a klutz – although never harmed. With Eugene always on that foot stool I couldn’t resist knocking him off the thing and injuring himself. It was Chibi’s suggestion that Eugene isn’t the only klutz in the family – which is where the “I’m Okay” chorus came from. LOL.

To round out this ridiculously-long Author’s Notes post, I want to briefly talk about the ending. Once again – because I’m incapable of writing anything without her it seems – Chibi came up with the idea of continuing past the end of the episode and having Eugene comfort the distraught Sheena after Rhonda breaks the news about the voided predictions. The mini-speech about being too young to know if they will or won’t get married is about ninety-percent her. I just polished things here and there, and added the kiss and hand-holding interaction. So let’s send props to Chibi for all the fantabulous ideas!
The end daydream of Sheena and Eugene growing old together is supposed to parallel Phoebe’s daydream about Arnold and Helga on the lighthouse. The fact that Eugene also dreams nearly the same thing is supposed to indicate that perhaps they WILL get together one day, instead of finishing with Sheena’s wishful thinking.

*Wipes brow* Dear LORD this was a long post! I should have split THIS one up in like three! :P
Thanks for sticking with me until the end. I hope you at least enjoyed this over-the-top commentary about the story. I also hope you not only appreciate all this behind-the-scenes stuff, but it also clears up some questions I’ve gotten in my reviews.

Now off to Beta read for a new author in my “clientele,” have a writer’s conference with DarkAngel1326, and WORK ON MY DARN STORY!!!! Here’s hoping I have SOMETHING for you guys before the end of the month!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Best Husband In the World and Some Interesting Stats

So, have I mentioned before that I have the bestest husband EVER!? Well, I do! Very much so!

As I’ve stated in the last couple posts, back at Christmas I was gifted a picture from ChibiSunnie.
Isn’t it just adorable!? Well, I felt so bad that she was such a good friend since our Script Frenzy co-op in April, and SHE thought to do something for me… and I didn’t even think to do something for her. How horrible of me, right? So I told her that her belated Christmas gift would be any Valentine’s Day story she wanted, as long as it was still Hey Arnold! related. She decided that no one ever really gives her favorite character Eugene some love. So she requested that I rewrite the episode “Married” but focusing on Eugene and Sheena’s POVs instead of Arnold and Helga.

I’ve also stated recently, that I sort of hit a brick wall with her request because I know how fake a guy’s perspective can feel when written by a woman. I couldn’t really wrap my mind around what would be going through Eugene’s head during this story. So I talked with Chibi, then with Solace of Songs, and my Writer’s Block cleared up.

My problem this time is that the flood gates were now opened when it came to Eugene, and the story – much like my latest chapter – has become a BEAST! I mean, when I finished, the story was seventeen, single spaced pages using Calibri 11pt font. The dang thing is eleven THOUSAND words long! The dream sequences alone take up over three thousand words each.

Let’s put this in to perspective, shall we? Prior to this story, I have written three one-shots, one story that is currently up to six chapters, and last year’s Valentine’s day story with two chapters; totaling in eleven posts and about fifty-four thousand words. The shortest story I wrote was last year’s Valentine’s tale - the first chapter at least – which was about twenty-four-hundred words. The longest I’ve written was the chapter about Helga’s Sweet Sixteen party that had a little shy of nine thousand words. My average post size was shy of five thousand words. This means my most recent story is about twice the size of my average post and nineteen percent of my over-all word-count as a fanfiction author!

Okay, enough of that boring, statistics stuff! I’m sure you get how overwhelmed I am about how large this story ended up. Let’s get back to my opening statement: I HAVE THE BESTEST HUSBAND!

Clearly, he knew how much trouble I was having with my story, and how important it was for me to get it done by Valentine’s Day. So when I started yelling at myself for my slacking off last Sunday, he made sure to comfort me, telling me that he knew I would get it done in time. When I forced myself in to seclusion on Monday, he was perfectly fine with me vanishing all day. In fact, the man had the most PERFECT timing! Every time I stopped to take a meal break I would get as far as the bedroom door before he greeted me with a tray of food and a new drink. I never even let him know I was getting hungry, he just KNEW. How awesome is that? :D

Then, when I finally came downstairs to watch my Monday evening shows – and to take a break – he was alright with me staying up until one in the morning while he went to bed. Now, this is a man I just spent eight years in a long distance relationship with. One would think since we spent so much time apart that he’d be used to it. Actually, now that we’re finally together, he doesn’t like us being apart. As I stated in my last post, my downstairs is completely open, and yet he doesn’t even like one of us sitting on the couch in the living room and the other not even ten feet away on the computer. He’s so lovably clingy. :P Anyway, this means him being alone all of Monday is kind of a big deal.

Then while he was at work for four hours on Valentine’s day I SHOULD have used that time to work on my story, but instead I spent it getting the house and myself ready for the day, which now seems silly since I then spent the time he was home working on the story. It was Valentine’s day and I was still working on my fanfic until about eight at night! I kept apologizing for taking time away from our first Valentines as a married couple. He just kept telling me, “I know how important this story is to you. Don’t worry about it.” I mean, I could tell he really just wanted to spend the day with me, but he was just so supportive!

So yeah, super supportive even when it took away from our first Valentine’s Day together as newlyweds! Plus, the intuitiveness of knowing when I’d be hungry and having the food ready. I just totally have the bestest husband! Am I right?

And now I’m taking a short writing break to work on all the cleaning I’ve been neglecting while working on the one-shot gift for Chibi. I’ve also been ignoring Facebook over the past week. I’ve only hopped on long enough to post that I published the Valentine’s day story and where on DeviantArt and FanFiction they could find it. It’s kind of funny though. In the past I never announced my story updates on Facebook, and yet I think I had the lowest response to my story WITH these announcements. Contrary to my “advertising” this time, or the fact that there are only ten other stories written for Hey Arnold! this past week, my story seems to be “hard to find” as it were. Prior to posting For Whom the Bells Toll, the smallest response I had to a story debut was the twenty-six visitors and thirty-five hits I had for my third chapter of What Is Truly Meant to Be. I do have to say that even though fourteen visitors on Valentine’s day does clock my most recent post as the least-found debut, I think For Whom the Bells Toll is also my most reread story with thirty-six hits. Basically, either there are some super-zealous readers out there, or virtually every person who came to my story returned at a latter part of the day. I’ve also had great reviews of the story, and coming up on forty views on Deviant Art, so I’m not really sure how to gauge the response to this story, but I guess I’m still proud. I’m not sure if I’ll do any further announcements on Facebook, though. I seem to do better with readership without the “advertising”… LOL….

And normally this would be where I start up my extended Author’s Notes for my story, but this post is getting kinda long already, and it’s filled with so much gibberish I doubt anyone is still reading. So I guess I’ll just focus this blog post on my Uber-Awesome Hubby and the insane stats of my story.

The Extended Author’s Notes will be posted during the Sunday Update Day. Since I’ve been gradually writing this blog post over the past three days I’m sure I’ll do the same thing with the Author’s Notes. That being said, I SHOULD have the darn thing posted on time this week. So, sorry to all of you who stopped by last Sunday looking for an update and not finding one. I’m gonna try really hard to not have that happen so frequently anymore.

Until, Sunday! :D

Monday, February 13, 2012

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

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

So anyway, the blog!

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

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

Thus, the post being nearly 24hours late.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Plot Bunnies Post!

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

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

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

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

Anyway, for those of you who haven't checked out the fanfiction dictionary I have in the "Handy Links" section to the right, here's what I mean by Plot Bunnies:
"Plotbunny - An affectionate term for an idea that sticks in your head and you just HAVE to write it even if it goes nowhere or keeps going off into other ideas."
Thank you to Megan Freeman who created the site that hosts the dictionary, and therefore I'm assuming she also wrote it....

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