13 Going on 30

Yeah, there was that movie. I didn't see it but I'm pretty sure I own it. Or my daughter does. Or I own it but my daughter has possession of it.

The girl in the movie is thirteen, as the title suggests, but she wants to be thirty and so she makes a wish and becomes Jennifer Anigarner or something like that. So, we're talking the mind of a little girl but she's old. Well, not old. Thirty is still a good deal younger than me but I digress. Like I said, I haven't seen this movie but she probably hooks up with an old guy. It is a romcom. Did anybody think it was strange that this womgirl was doing grownup stuff with a guy? I don't remember any outrage. Come to think of it, Tom Hanks did the same thing in Big, didn't he.

The reason I bring this up is that my book Dream Ender has a guy who is actually somewhere in his 80s or 90s, but his body looks like it's fourteen. This character ends up having a relationship with a girl in her 20s. I was counseled by one or two people that readers wouldn't accept that. I think I'm actually going to agree and change the kid's age to seventeen, but I'm fighting it a little bit.

I like to complicate things for the characters in my stories. A hero should really have to fight for a happy ending. And then not get it completely.

Fourteen-year-old hooking up with a beautiful twenty something really kind of called to me. I suppose making the kid seventeen won't change that much.