Stage 28: the story of the story, Part 3

Alternate Title: A Sue By Any Other Name Would Destruction Wreak

Flagrant narcissism was the answer, isn't it always? My main character would be an obsessive devotee of the Phantom, trying desperately to create the one "true" film version of the story that would essentially launch all the other tacked-together versions into the sun. Not bad. It was a starting point, but where to go from there?

I fidgeted through the rest of the bus ride, and when I finally got home, hardly said hi to my mother as I made a beeline (meaning I ran quickly but crookedly and unsteadily...pretty much my norm) for my computer.

That thing I said about no research? Okay, so it was a bit of a lie. But it wasn't much, really. I think I still held to my new "lazy" resolution quite nicely. I needed a catalyst though. So, armed with the Complete Phantom of the Opera and Google, I began to feel my way along Phantom's cinematic history. I didn't have to probe long before the perfect setting landed in my lap, and Telly began to take on more detail in my head, along with a cast of utter idiots. I was jitterbugging all over my room, except not really because it was the size of a horse's stall and the open floor space in it measured exactly one foot by three. So instead of jitterbugging, I sat on my bed and began to write.

I wrote two pens into Bic Heaven. Around seven o'clock in the morning, brain feeling like cotton, eyeballs on fire, and shivering like you do when you haven't slept a wink, Stage 28 was done. Rough to be sure, but done. I went for a much needed cup of tea, then came back and read the story.

I started to feel sick.

It started off well. It was funny, and clipped along well, then about a third of the way in, it became a mess. Not even a salvageable mess, just an absolute disaster. I suppose this shouldn't have been a surprise, given the circumstances, but for all of you who went to college or university and procrastinated like most students do, well...you get used to pulling off miracles. The panic doesn't hit until you've failed to pull off the standard miracle. Once the standard miracle has failed, then you're in the realm of the unknown. THEN you panic.

I panicked, and the first thing I did in my panic, was make another cup of tea. It was the same as the cup of tea I'd just drank, except my hand shook a lot more when lifting the cup. I re-read "Stage 28", and thought of what I should do with it, all the while, a nagging discomfort grew in my mind. There was something else wrong here, besides the story just being a pile of crap.

Wincing, I read the story again, tried to pinpoint what was bothering me, and couldn't do it. I forced myself to try again, this time doing the critical thinking and sniffing out of symbols and themes that I'd supposedly learned to do in four years of university. Then it hit me.

Dear God, sweet God, I had accidentally written a piece of homoerotic slash fanfiction.

Seriously...no seriously...was I an even bigger hack than I thought? Apparently so.

There's not much left to this sweeping, epic tale, then I'll actually start talking about current writing events, rather than a year old farce.