Addressing My Feelings on Phantom Janitor

Back some time ago, I came out with a book called the Phantom Janitor. It was published by the lovely crew that was at Thurston Howl Publications long before I became an editor there.

I have mentioned my debut work before on this blog, and my old one. I was young when I wrote it and was inspired by the Hillary Duff movie, “A Cinderella Story.” It was a mashup of so many things. Theatre kids, a male Cinderella type, a repressed teenager’s idea of good storytelling, lots of nerdy references, and quite a few errors.

I used to hate it. It’s kind of sad to think about now. I absolutely loved writing it and making the characters, so much so that I think about ways to improve the story all the time. But at the time, I was more concerned with all of the issues that the story had. How was Cain a student and a coach? Did people realize Razor was gay, or that Rowley wasn’t cisgendered? The whole exposing Ernesto plot at the end was reaaaally fuckin weird. And these are just things I wondered after the fact.

The way I felt about the book really ended up hurting more than I expected. But it wasn’t really a warranted reaction. I was a teenager when I wrote it, and I didn’t know how the fuck to write a book. I just did it and sent it away. I never thought about taking the time to make sure everything was perfect. I was just so very excited to have a new book.

Of course, I wasn’t because after it came out, I read it. I got in my own head and started questioning so many things. I read reviews from friends and immediately started to feel so so SO not proud of all that work I put in. Anxiety fucking sucks. And I was so angry at myself for not doing better.

BUT AGAIN. I WAS A TEEN.

Any problems with the manuscript, even if they were my fault, were unavoidable. Everyone makes mistakes. This was almost a first draft that I had sent to the lovely people at THP. I didn’t realize the importance of working through the revisions before going through everything.

The reason I don’t hate it anymore, is because I am not the same author I was eight years ago. I am different. I have had more time and experience, and I had to learn to go through my stories a few times before sending them to places. And I had wonderful people who were there and telling me that I had nothing to be ashamed of.

I started thinking about the wonderful things about the book. I said this earlier, but this batch of characters was one of my favorites to work with. They amongst my favorite characters that I have created. The settings and the story were also fun to work with. So fun, that I have started using some of them in other projects. And the ideas I had back then were good, they just need a bit more fleshing out.

Speaking of fleshing out the details of the novel, I have been slowly rewriting the story of Phantom Janitor. Mostly this is for my own purposes, though I would be so happy to publish it when it is finished. But it’s mostly to see if I can quell those still lingering feelings of self-bashing that I sometimes have.

Plus, I mentioned this before in previous posts, I didn’t get to write everything I wanted to write in the book. There are so many things I would love to add and change about the story.

As of when I am writing this, which is actually the day this post will be going up, I am on chapter five. I feel really good about this rewrite, and I am excited to show you more.

However, the story won’t be the same. Not exactly. Despite my thoughts on the novel and all of the errors, Phantom Janitor as it is today is a fun read. I am sad it took me so long to realize it all. Both versions of the story will still be canon, it’s just one will be a bit more polished. It’ll be like an AU. A well-rounded(ish) AU. This new version will have more deep scenes, different outcomes to situations, and there’s actually a coach this time. Poor Cain can get a break from all that responsibility!

If anyone is interested in seeing the first rewritten chapter, interact! I am posting links to this on (almost, because fuck twitter) all my socials! If there’s enough of a desire to see it, I would happily post it here.

If anyone is interested in reading the original, you can find a link to the Amazon page on my Works Published page. I am so very sorry, but I do not have a link to the publisher right now, as the company I published with is being integrated into another company. But I would still suggest checking the story out. It’s not perfect, but I made it and it’s about time I start acting like I am proud of it. Because I am. Proud of it, I mean.

It took me a while, but I am proud.