About Me

My name is Julie. I am Scottish (Och aye the noo!) and a soprano singer. I also play the violin, but only at a sort of better-than-average stardard. As any of my friends will tell you, I am completely and utterly obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera. No two ways about it. But hey, I'd rather be a geek than be boring.

My dream is to one day sing on stage, in musical theatre and opera, and/or star as Christine Daae in some king of Phantom adaptation. That would be really cool.

I started this account so that I will have people other than my long-suffering friends to annoy with my Phantom-ravings, or with me constantly emailing them asking them to read a story I've written.

A little bit about me: I was first introduced to POTO three years ago when the 2004 movie was shown on TV. As a lover of all things musical, I watched it, and for months thought that nothing could better it, and that Gerard Butler was the greatest thing ever. Don't worry, I soon discovered the novel by Gaston Leroux and was set straight. I still love the musical, but nowhere near as much as the book, or the 1925 movie. LND fills me with HORROR. I could rant about it all day (and have) but I must move on. I'm sure you all have better things to do than listen to the rantings and ravings of a Scottish teenager.

A little bit about my writing style: I generally stick with the original novel, unless the story is specifically about one of the adaptations. I like Susan Kay's novel, but she doesn't stick to Leroux's novel nearer the end (the grasshopper and the scorpion, for example) so I don't take what it says as the definite This is what happened kind of thing. It's more guidelines. So I'll use her ideas, but they're not set in stone. For example, I'll sometimes use her names (Madeleine, Charles, etc.), or Erik's drug addiction: in other words, anything that Leroux didn't specify and that seems likely to have happened. My stories will always be E/C, never with Christine ending up with Raoul. I love fanfics based on the novel, but I also love modern-day stories.

"The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux (obviously)
"The Hunger Games", "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins (a trilogy that deserves to be much, much better known)
"The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith (a brilliant Scottish author, whose books are such a wonderful pick-me-up. Give them a try!)
"Under the Dome", "Misery" and "The Green Mile" by Stephen King (I've not read many of his other books yet, but I will get around to them)
"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (if you haven't read it yet, it's one of the greatest books ever written. Honestly.)

I do like the Twilight saga, and they are very good books, but there's too much of a hype about them. I don't know about anywhere else, but here in the UK, the teenage section of bookshops are filled with vampire fiction, and practically nothing else, and frankly, I'm getting sick of it all. I emailed HarperCollins about getting Leroux's novel published, a new edition aimed at teenagers. They got back to me saying they would consider it.

My favourite movies:
"The Phantom of the Opera" (1925, 1943, 2004) I haven't seen any other adaptations other than the whole Charles Dance thing, but that's a TV show.
"Death Note" and "Death Note 2" (amazingly good Japanese movies)
"The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption" (These are two films which are as good as the book, truly must-see)
"The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (how I cried at the end)
"Toy Story" (I'm still a little kid at heart!)
"Final Destination" (But I still love classic horror films!)

Again, the Twilight saga's pretty good, but nothing special.

My favourite musicals:
"The Phantom of the Opera" (ALW) I've still not seen Ken Hill's version.
"Spamalot" (spam, spam, spam, spam...We are the knights who say Ni, and we demand that you bring us a shwubbery)
"Sweeney Todd" (I need to see it live)
"The Rocky Horror Show" (Em, yeah, I know it's wrong, but it's still pretty good)
"The King & I" (The first musical I ever saw, and one of the best musicals ever)

That's my top 5, but there's loads more I love.

My favourite songs and artists:
Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. Brilliant music.
La Roux (She's quite well known in the UK. With a name like that, it's a shame she's got nothing to do with Gaston Leroux)
"Weird Al" Yankovic (check out some of his songs!)
Gorillaz (Some of their songs are pretty good, "Dare", "Feel Good Inc." et cetera)
The Killers ("Human", "Somebody Told Me")
Belle & Sebastian (A Scottish band, some great songs, "Beautiful", "Expectations", "Piazza, New York Catcher")