So, being that I have this blog set up to my liking, I've spent some extra time poking through it, and I ended up looking at oooold, old af entries from 2012, and I noticed that I was angsting a lot about how He's There (tentative title) was something I needed to finish before I had moved too far beyond the chapter in life that the characters are in. Something about making sure the narrative voice was believable? Or, wanting to be able to throw myself into entirely new projects that better reflected what I was going through?

First of all, I get what Past Jenny was thinking, but I also don't agree with her anymore, and it brings me no angst at all that I'm in my 30's, writing for teenagers in this story. It has an entire draft that I crafted while I was young, so the ins and outs of high school, and the ridiculous way that highschoolers argue and joke around has been captured. 

Here's the thing, though: it explores a girl's relationship with The Phantom of the Opera, as a text, as an entire entity that has gripped hold of me for more than half my life. And that relationship has changed. My perspective on this story only continues to grow, and I only continue to appreciate it more and more as I age. I've gone from wanting something akin to a 'harmless' stalker, to knowing outright that the Phantom character in this work, King Mischief, is a perfect example of men you should just stay away from at all costs. The tale is cautionary: to me, it first relates to young women who are obsessed with Phantom, and then very compassionately points out that they must be very careful what they take from it and use to construct their idea of real-life romance. 

How to construct one's idea of real-life romance? I'm not sure I knew until a couple of years ago: where to start, that is. So, actually, being stuck on the second draft of this story, at 32 years old, doesn't bother me. It's a chance to keep revisiting and examining what I grew up idealizing, so that I can write a story meant for people who are not teenagers, but know those intense feelings, and wide-eyed curiosity, and impractical yearning, that came with their first romance, especially if it was a dysfunctional one. Then also sprinkle in Phantom. 

I'm not coming back to it quite yet, but when I do, I'll be ready, and shameless.