shutterbug579

I actually see Lesley with two school age children, maybe a 6 year old and a 4 year old. Boys? Girls? One of each? Can you imagine Courtney's reactions if Lesley starts bringing them to story time? She'll never be able to get away from her. I'd also like to be able to avoid any angst on Sam's part about no longer being an only child. If we have any sort of angst in that area, I'd like it to be light-hearted angst, maybe something with Sam being forced to baby-sit.

For Alana, we've decided on Landon and one other child. Once we decide on Landon's age we can make the other child two or three years younger. Do we want Alana to have two boys or a boy and a girl?

Fearlessღ

Since I'm used to seeing HMC with two boys from Charmed, I would love for the younger child to be a girl. I would place Landon around 4 and maybe the little girl around 18 months like you had suggested before.

As for Lesley, we could give her some children. I don't know why I only had her with one in my mind. If she has a nother girl around 4, maybe the baby could be a boy. Also, I noticed on the outline you have Lesley and Sam's last names as Foster, weren't they Evans'? Anyhow, I like getting the children out of the way - more time to put in on Alana, Nick and Courtney's characters

shutterbug579

Lesley and Sam's last name is Evans. I guess it was just a typo; thanks for catching it.

What if both Alana and Lesley had 4 year old boys? They could be in the same pre-school class and we could set up a rivalry between Courtney's little buddy and her nephew. Children that age are often possessive of the people they like. As for Lesley's other child, I'm still seeing that one as older than 4. I've been picturing Alana and Courtney as the same age and we know Lesley is older. I also keep picturing both of Lesley's non-Sam kids as boys.

Here's a rugrat rundown of what we've decided so far.
Lesley
stepdaughter, Sam, 13
4 year old
another child to be determined

Alana
son, Landon, 4
daughter, 18 months

Fearlessღ

That would fill our kid quantity up, wouldn't it? Names - let's get these out of the way. Do you have anything that you like Rachel? Anyone else?

I have this huge name listing that I've had for a long time to I can easily look one up and see what it means and stuff like that. For Alana's daughter, I think Alana would name her daughter something unique, like her son has too. Maybe something like Cailin, Grayson or Tessa. Those are just suggestions though.

On Lesley - we can do two boys, maybe one around Landon's age as you suggested and maybe another just born or a few months old. I imagined Lesley with a baby actually.

shutterbug579

Lesley
step-daughter Sam, 13
son, 4
son, baby

Alana
son Landon, 4
daughter, 18 months

If we're going unique with Alana, then we should go traditional with Lesley. I could see her going with something like Joshua and Jacob.

Alana's daughter - Camilla, Olivia, Beatrice? What about Elizabeth? There are tons of nicknames that go with that so she could have a more traditional name but a really unique nickname. There's Liz, Liza, Beth, Betty, Betsy, Bess, etc. or we could make something up.

I think this is a good amount of children. We've established that Natalie, Courtney, and Christopher are all childless. The older brother could have a lot of kids but he lives far away so we don't need to deal with them. Plus, the ones we do have to deal with are all young enough to still take naps.

Fearlessღ

Definitely. I think the only ones that will be getting a lot of "screen" and "script" time would be Landon and Sam.

For Lesley - Maybe a William and Daniel, after her father?
Alana - I like Elisabeth or Catherine too. I have a friend whose name is Catherine but she goes by Hera. I don't know, I'm always up for suggestions.

Did we decide on a name for the eldest brother? I saw Noah in the outline and I wondered about that. I like the name, maybe I just passed it by when we were actually discussing it too.

I have some other ideas on the Nick/Court/Alana relationship but will hold off until we get past the children of the show

shutterbug579

I was thinking of Daniel too. If we do that it should probably be the older son, we can call him Danny to differentiate from the father. What about David for the other son? For some reason, I'm picturing Lesley as the type to give her children names that rhyme or all start with the same letter.

What about Stella? Stella Catherine Prescott sounds pretty good.

I put Noah in the outline because it was suggested and used in the previous thread but never in a way that indicated it was a final decision. I really like it and am more than happy to stick with it if it works for everyone else.

I have family visiting this weekend so I probably won't have much computer time but I'm going to start moving things from the outline to the site as soon as I can. I also want to expand the discussion questions section because I think that's something that's really going to be useful down the line.

Fearlessღ

David, Daniel and Samantha - that sounds like a very traditional family which I can so see Lesley in. I can see her wanting to be the All-American Mom.

I like Stella. It flows very well together. Is Matt okay for the husband's name?

And Noah for the eldest brother is good for me too. It's a strong name, which gives me a sense of his nature and how he lives his life. And for everyone - a new banner



with icons

elizas_dude

those are wicked

Naive Girl

Love the banner!

shutterbug579

Matt works for me for Alana's husband. I think we have most of the names decided. The only other ones I think we might need are Lesley's husband and Natalie's fiance. If we do a family dinner scene it would make sense for them to be present or mentioned.

That banner is just pure perfection. I think the site is in for another revamp next week. I love the icons too.

Fearlessღ

Yeah, most of the names are decided now. Now we can get on to discussing scenarios and some other questions that were arising. For the pilot, maybe instead of the dinner to introduce everyone that will be on the first season or so, have them each pop into the Bookstore somehow. Whether it be Lesley's husband calling to see if Lesley was there for Natalie showing off new pictures of her and her fiance to Courtney, I think it would be a good way to introduce everyone.

Glad everyone likes the banner and the icons. The Scott and Holly pictures blended perfectly together. And believe it or not, the only trouble I had with the whole thing was finding a good picture of Charisma to put in there.

shutterbug579

The new banner is up on the website. I added an Art page, where I put jillrenay's icons. I also transferred some of the details from the outline to the site. Should I put characters like Sam and Charlie on their own pages or leave them as subsections like they are now? I keep going back and forth on the matter so I could use some input.

Things to be decided next

• We need names for Lesley's husband and Natalie's fiance.
• Are we going with Courtney owning a bookstore or another scenario?
• What's the name of the town they live in?
• We need to name some of the locations, i.e. Nick's firm, Rhona's company, etc.
• What is/was Alana's occupation?
• How did Courtney meet Alana and Nick? How long has she known each of them? Do they know each other beyond their connection through Courtney?

Fearlessღ

The site looks great Rachel. I personally like the new banner up there instead of the old one. On Charlie and Sam, I think we should leave them for now, but maybe if they get more detailed as we go on, put them in their own separate category. I figure we'll be seeing a lot of the both of them, but until we get to work on the, I say leave them there.

• Lesley's husband: Since we are going the traditional route with her children, maybe continue that in her husband's name too. Something like Jonathan or William.
• Natalie's fiance: I see her fiance as kind of the complete opposite of her, so his name would have to reflect that. Jarrett, Dylan or maybe even Quinn?
• Alana's Occupation: Since she needs to stay at home to care for her children, maybe she's a freelance web-designer. She knows the lingo, loves to play with websites and has made a career out of it. She even sets a site up for Nick's firm and Court's bookstore too.
• How did they all meet? I want to say that Nick and Alana are old friends. They probably met at a bar and he introduced her to her husband, or something like that. Courtney met Nick when she bought the bookstore and wanted to do some renovations. Courtney met Alana when storytime was introduced and Alana wanted to get Landon out of the house and hair for just a while. I can see all three of them meeting up just by chance too and realizing that they all know each other after they introduce everyone at the same time. One of those - "Alana, Nick, Courtney, wait, you know each other?" with all three of them saying it at the same time scenes.
• For the names of Nick's firm, I'm not really sure on that one. But Rhona's, since she seems to be a person of power, make it a powerful publishing house name. And all the names just seem to have slipped my mind.

shutterbug579

• Leslies husband: I really like Jonathon for this. He could go by Jon. I see him as laid-back and kind of athletic. When we get to the Evans branch of the family we'll have to discuss his relationship with Sam.
• Natalie's fiance: I like Quinn. What about Quinn Hartley for his full name? We had decided earlier that he worked for the same law firm as Natalie. We'll have to decide on their specialties when we get around to developing Natalie. I think one of them should have a business specialty since it could come in handy with regard to Court and her business matters.
• Alana's occupation: I definitely like the web/graphic designer idea. She could be the one that designed the logo for Courtney's store, in addition to doing the website. This gives us plenty of opprotunity to have scenes between the two. Most authors these days have official websites. Maybe Alana takes care of that for Courtney too.
• How they met: I keep picturing Alana and Courtney as having known each other for more than a couple of years. Perhaps they met in college and realized that Alana had family that lived in Courtney's town. That could explain why Alana and her family settled there. As for Nick, what if he's an old childhood friend of Alana's husband? Perhaps he moved to town fairly recently because he needed a change for some as-yet-undisclosed reason.
• Nick's firm: I'm stumped on a name for Nick's firm too. Maybe we should decide what kind of firm her works for first? If it's a large firm that does primarily industrial design then it would most likely be named after the partners. Personally, I'm leaning more toward the type of firm that does mid-size buildings like libraries, schools, and some homes.
• Rhona's firm: What about Athena Publishing? It could be one of the smaller publishing houses that primarily publishes women authors.

Would anyone be willing to make a few link buttons for this project? I'd like to have some to offer on the site. Also, I found some hi-res pics of Wendie Malick from Hello Sister, Goodbye Life if anyone wants them for project-related art. I know she's been one of the harder actors to find quality pictures of.