Stop it, Erik. I have homework.
So, it seems that every time I get depressed, my brain randomly turns to characters (and most importantly, incongruities in the timeline that need to be filled with fanfiction) of Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera.
I do not know why this happens.
I first became obsessed with the book when I was miserably depressed at 14, but I'm not sure if that explains why even now, at nearly 30, I will find myself staying up at nights wondering useless things. Things like: how does Leroux expect us to believe that the story takes place in 1875 or so, when there is NO WAY that any one person could have pulled off the trick of the lights flashing off and on again before the stage lights were electrified! I have been thoroughly convinced that the book has to take place about 1890-1895 because of some handy research that I let someone else do. Whatever. Also, who the hell is the shade in the felt hat? How old do you think La Sorelli is? What about La Carlotta? How did Erik end up with his mother's Louis-Philippe furniture? THAT one *really* gets me. Whatever, maybe he's just delusional. How is it that Erik died so quickly, but not as he pushed Christine away? Certainly not cardiac arrest, that would be too fast! Stroke? Tuberculosis (this is my current guess)?
WHATEVER, Shut UP brain!
Also at 14, I started writing some gawd-awful fanfiction. I wrote it for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Island, Mozart (yes. Mozart got his *own* fanfiction-- back off) and of course, Phantom of the Opera (which is the work I wrote the very very most on). Thankfully, most of it is lost because the computer it was all being written on was destroyed in a heat wave. Rest in peace, huge, ancient Macintosh Computer. May no one ever know your secrets.
Ever.
This was before my house was really internet capable. Kids, this was like back in 1998 or some shit. I didn't *know* there were groups for these things! I wrote most of my pieces to satisfy a certain unsettledness about the story for me and I wrote Mary Sues. But I was wholly self-aware that that's what they were, I was writing myself into the narrative *on purpose*, to cure something in me, to put it to rest. Phantom was the only one I wrote in 3rd person and the only one where I used an already (sort-of) existing character.
It was also the only piece that anyone asked for *more* of. I did not anticipate this. So, I jut sort of kept writing. The great news about Erik's life is that if you're sick of writing about the opera house you can say, "today I am writing traveling circus stories and about how frightfully obnoxious Erik's tent-mate Donnavan (spelled that way on purpose) is." Or if that becomes tedious, you could do some research and try to figure out what Erik was doing in Persia. You could pretty much make up that Erik went anywhere. Japan, Germany, Africa, outer space, the future, wherever. I wrote in a large number of my high school friends as circus performers, opera staff and traveling photographers.
I lost my steam once it came to my attention that someone else *already* wrote a *published* Phantom back story..... People seem to like Susan Kay's Phantom, but I am afraid to read it. Afraid it might taint or even take away what I have stored up in my own imagination.
However, most of that shit is still roving around in my head and it won't lie still. Even the stuff that I now know to be totally historically inaccurate or otherwise niosome comes back to bother me every couple of years or so in a frenzy. For example--I have one very seriously problematic character: Marie Giry (called Mame, later in life, I guess). She is the VERY FIRST character I ever wrote for this whole piece of mess, and now she's the most blaring problem. She messes up the timeline, the role she plays was accidentally stolen from the goddamned ALW musical, her motivations are confusing and she messes up the goddamned timeline.
But I wrote SO MUCH SHIT about her. I have so so so much plugged into her as a character that I can't just remove her even though it would make so much sense to.
Not that I'm actually DOING anything with this, mind you. Its just a THING that keeps me fussy when I get depressed.
Maybe Erik comes back to my mind when I am depressed because it is one project that I am certain to never finish. It's something I will always have room to work on.
Don't know.
Sure makes me wish I could draw.
Also I kind of wonder if some physical copies of that old stuff still exists somewhere. GOD HELP ME if it does....
I do not know why this happens.
I first became obsessed with the book when I was miserably depressed at 14, but I'm not sure if that explains why even now, at nearly 30, I will find myself staying up at nights wondering useless things. Things like: how does Leroux expect us to believe that the story takes place in 1875 or so, when there is NO WAY that any one person could have pulled off the trick of the lights flashing off and on again before the stage lights were electrified! I have been thoroughly convinced that the book has to take place about 1890-1895 because of some handy research that I let someone else do. Whatever. Also, who the hell is the shade in the felt hat? How old do you think La Sorelli is? What about La Carlotta? How did Erik end up with his mother's Louis-Philippe furniture? THAT one *really* gets me. Whatever, maybe he's just delusional. How is it that Erik died so quickly, but not as he pushed Christine away? Certainly not cardiac arrest, that would be too fast! Stroke? Tuberculosis (this is my current guess)?
WHATEVER, Shut UP brain!
Also at 14, I started writing some gawd-awful fanfiction. I wrote it for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Island, Mozart (yes. Mozart got his *own* fanfiction-- back off) and of course, Phantom of the Opera (which is the work I wrote the very very most on). Thankfully, most of it is lost because the computer it was all being written on was destroyed in a heat wave. Rest in peace, huge, ancient Macintosh Computer. May no one ever know your secrets.
Ever.
This was before my house was really internet capable. Kids, this was like back in 1998 or some shit. I didn't *know* there were groups for these things! I wrote most of my pieces to satisfy a certain unsettledness about the story for me and I wrote Mary Sues. But I was wholly self-aware that that's what they were, I was writing myself into the narrative *on purpose*, to cure something in me, to put it to rest. Phantom was the only one I wrote in 3rd person and the only one where I used an already (sort-of) existing character.
It was also the only piece that anyone asked for *more* of. I did not anticipate this. So, I jut sort of kept writing. The great news about Erik's life is that if you're sick of writing about the opera house you can say, "today I am writing traveling circus stories and about how frightfully obnoxious Erik's tent-mate Donnavan (spelled that way on purpose) is." Or if that becomes tedious, you could do some research and try to figure out what Erik was doing in Persia. You could pretty much make up that Erik went anywhere. Japan, Germany, Africa, outer space, the future, wherever. I wrote in a large number of my high school friends as circus performers, opera staff and traveling photographers.
I lost my steam once it came to my attention that someone else *already* wrote a *published* Phantom back story..... People seem to like Susan Kay's Phantom, but I am afraid to read it. Afraid it might taint or even take away what I have stored up in my own imagination.
However, most of that shit is still roving around in my head and it won't lie still. Even the stuff that I now know to be totally historically inaccurate or otherwise niosome comes back to bother me every couple of years or so in a frenzy. For example--I have one very seriously problematic character: Marie Giry (called Mame, later in life, I guess). She is the VERY FIRST character I ever wrote for this whole piece of mess, and now she's the most blaring problem. She messes up the timeline, the role she plays was accidentally stolen from the goddamned ALW musical, her motivations are confusing and she messes up the goddamned timeline.
But I wrote SO MUCH SHIT about her. I have so so so much plugged into her as a character that I can't just remove her even though it would make so much sense to.
Not that I'm actually DOING anything with this, mind you. Its just a THING that keeps me fussy when I get depressed.
Maybe Erik comes back to my mind when I am depressed because it is one project that I am certain to never finish. It's something I will always have room to work on.
Don't know.
Sure makes me wish I could draw.
Also I kind of wonder if some physical copies of that old stuff still exists somewhere. GOD HELP ME if it does....