You Know You Read Too Much PNR/UF (or watch too much Buffy) When…
I write paranormal romance. Even before I started writing it, I devoured the genre. My bookcases are filled with PNR and urban fantasy and I have watched more Buffy the Vampire Slayer than any sane person would be comfortable admitting to. Over the years I have come to believe that this has skewed my perception of the world a bit.
The first time I realized that I was reading entirely too many vampire books was when my friend Jamie went out of town and I agreed to stop by her house on my way home from work every night to feed her kitties. So here I am, walking up to a secluded cabin on top of a mountain in Middle-of-Nowhere, Georgia, my path lit only by the headlights of my car, and do you think I was worried about getting attacked by a man-eating bear or slaughtered by some redneck serial-killer rapist? Nope. What was going through my head was, “Geez, I wish I had a stake. Why the heck isn’t there anything wooden and pointy in this yard?”
The second time was a year or so later when I made a trip out to Seattle to visit Jamie after her move to the west coast. After having spent several enjoyable hours walking through Pike Place Market, we decided to take a few pictures of the sunset and then have dinner. In a stroke of “genius” that nowhere near reflected our combined IQs, we ducked out a back door, thinking that we’d get to the pier quicker by walking around the building instead of navigating the throngs of people that filled the market. As the door closed behind us it was like stepping into another world— gone were the shouting vendors and screaming children and suddenly Jamie and I found ourselves alone in a dark, eerily quiet cobblestone alley sandwiched between two tall buildings. After we’d passed the third shadowy doorway the folly of our grand plan suddenly struck me, but not in the way you might think. No, being mugged never entered my head. Instead, I stopped short, grabbed Jamie’s arm, and said, “Holy crap! We’re vampire food! We’re those stupid girls who take a shortcut through the dark alley and get eaten by vampires!” See, I’m telling you, way too much Buffy.
This whole topic came up during a recent discussion on my Facebook page when I was relating the story of how one night I’d nearly been eaten by a werewolf in my own front yard. Well, ok, it turned out not to be a werewolf after all. It was actually two baby deer happily cavorting in the tall grass of our front pasture. In my own defense, though, it was so dark I couldn’t see anything and upon hearing something thundering in my direction through the underbrush werewolf somehow seemed more reasonable to me than deer or coyote. Now, maybe this problem is just in my own warped brain, but maybe there are others like me out there.
So I’d love to open the discussion up for anyone who’s brave enough to join in with their own version of “You Know You Read Too Much PNR/UF (or watch too much Buffy) When…”
