I Was A Teenage Ballerina...

I didn't write much last night.  I created a file for A Glitch in Time, the story idea I wrote about yesterday, but then I spent time updating my Anarchy World Background folder instead, and I went to bed early.

Before I went to bed, I came up with at least two other story ideas:  one, I have two couples I've written about now, Fire Maiden and Lady Lune, and I've mentioned that Sun Wukong and Ravella the Traveler were dating as well.  It occurred to me that a double wedding would be a fun setting for another story... maybe villains show up to spoil it, maybe Grandpa's late because he's fighting someone, maybe he's been kidnapped by some deranged villain who wants to marry him, I dunno.  I figure if I write the story, the ending will come to me.

Second, I decided I needed to do a story about Nina Ballerina.  I've never actually done a story that predominantly features her.  In Dancepocalypse a magical clone of her is summoned to aid Grandpa, but it's not really Nina.  In World of Hero she's one of the heroes because the entire League of Two-Fisted Justice is there... so I don't really get to shine a spotlight on her.  But that story is in the middle of a major rewrite in any case.  She appears in the background of several other stories -- Anarchy Is Forever!, Brothers and Sisters, she gets mentioned in Dig My Grave.  Most recently I added her at the last minute to a story I wrote Monday, Youth Is Wasted on the Young.

That story desperately needs to be rewritten, but anyway, it involves the Archons of Excellence on a quest to find a fountain of youth for Popeye Khan.  Grandpa Anarchy is along for the ride, and I decided at the last minute that, if they're going to all that trouble, maybe one of my other heroes would want to be younger.  I decided on Nina.  In the story I state that she's nearly 48, not as old as some of my old-time heroes but old enough that she might really jump at a chance to dip in a fountain of youth.

Because she's younger, my idea was that she emerges from her dip really young -- like, possibly 13 years old.  Much younger than she suspected.  I didn't really have the opportunity to show that in my story because the focus is on Popeye Khan and what happens to him.  Sometimes that's how things go -- I know things that have happened off-camera, as it were.  So my other idea last night was to write a story about Nina Ballerina and her struggles with being 13 again.

I may have had another story idea too, I can't remember.  I wanted to get to bed and I didn't have any good titles so I wrote nothing down.  In the morning, these were the ideas I remembered.  For the double marriage idea I created a file called Vows, which allows me to also write about some other kind of vows in the same story if I want.  It's a good title.  For the Nina story I still didn't have a title, but in the shower I realized I should call it I Was a Teenage Ballerina.  I created that file before heading to work.

Or should I call it that?  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that a title of that sort should feature someone other than Nina becoming a teenage ballerina.  The obvious culprit would be Grandpa, of course.  I've kind of avoided doing any transformation or body swap stories on Grandpa, but after all, he's seen it all and done it all, so maybe it was time.  And then I hit upon a funny scene for how it would come about, and I was off and running.  My new Nina-as-a-teenager story was titled Teenage Curse, although I'm not sold on that (maybe Curse of the Teenager, or Teenage Rampage or something similar).  But I knew how the story should end, and I figured out over the course of the day how the rest of it should go.  I also saw that I Was a Teenage Ballerina should immediately follow it, and I saw how it should end.

Both stories are now complete.  I think I like both.  And I'm not entirely certain there shouldn't be another follow up to those two.

So yeah.  No shortage of things to write about just yet.