Ah. Well, it looks like someone else is doing a story format, so I’ll leave them to it. I personally love excel, but I know it’s not the most user-friendly format for other people. I thought you meant some kind of timeline software or something.
As for the shapeshifting magic…Rumple rarely outright lies. (He does lie sometimes, e.g. Gaston being an old lady selling flowers, but usually his deceptions are omissions, fine print, or playing with words.) I don’t think he would have lied about the difficulty of the spell; he could have gotten what he wanted by just teaching it to her (price for learning it: cut of trade with George; effect: she sees what people really think of her). The only difference would have been her having magic and probably calling off the whole thing earlier. Also, considering that he needs Regina to trust him–just enough–to cast the Curse at that point, he’s not going to risk her learning the spell later and discovering that he was lying about it.
And I do think that holding the shape of another would be more difficult to sustain when magic is powered by emotion. I’m a bit of an emotional person myself, and it’s hard to sustain the extreme emotions for long periods of time (though clearly it gets easier with practice in FTL). Taking a heart, though, is done quickly, and I don’t think we’ve seen anyone do it in an unemotional state.
Keeper of Belle's Gold magic, sand dollar, cloaks, purple FTL outfit, spell scroll, library key, copy of Romeo and Juliet, and cry-muffling pillow, Rumple's doll, overcoat, and strength, and The Timeline. My spreadsheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6r8CySCCWd9R0RUNm4xR3RhMEU/view?usp=sharing