Bringing Vampy Back
Okay, not really. Vampires are on the outs again right? I can't keep up with popular culture and what 'the hep kids' are into these days. Heck, I can barely keep up with this blog!
But I got to thinking about vampires again recently. I would say that is partially due to the fact that I am coming to the end of my second supernatural fantasy series (that is, if I haven't fried my computer, but that's another story for another time) and more than a lot to do with my own ways of dealing with aging.
Not that I'm terribly old, but let's face it, whenever the badass female vampire is described, whether she's just turned or thousands of years old, she has the face and body of a fitness obsessed co-ed. Ageist and sexist! I'm only half joking and I'm well aware that my own beloved Lucy was a healthy and attractive twenty-something. But Lucy wasn't the only badass female vamp from my debut vampire series. There was also Dara.
True confession time: Dara is my Mary Sue. Maybe not so much in the traditional sense. She's not the star, but she's pretty badass in her own right and I deliberately gave her an origin story that begins not with a fresh faced teen, but a world wary thirty-something with health and stress issues. In many ways, she is representative of me and the way I took control of my own life and health (and snagged the dream guy) in my mid-thirties. Surprise, kids! Your twenties suck more than your thirties!
But here's the funny thing about that. Looking back, I have to laugh that I had considered my mid-thirties to be 'old' at all. I wasn't old. Heck, I was barely a grown up. The only difference between my twenties and thirties was better credit. The only difference between my thirties and forties is...
Well, so far, not a whole lot except that I seem to have less patience for things like the news, but I suspect that has more to do with an impending election year than my age. In fact, in many ways, I'm quite better off now than I was in my twenties, which got me thinking. If I were to become a vampire, I'd be cool with being a middle aged vampire.
Yes, I am the type of dork face who contemplates what I would need to do to prepare for becoming a vampire. You'll not be surprised to learn that most authors are dork faces. It's practically a requirement.
Assuming I would be freeze-framed at the moment in my life when I turned, I'd likely want to become a vampire early in the day, not right after waking up, but early enough that I haven't yet begun to pack on water weight from my morning ritual of fifty cups of coffee. Oh, and if I've got to give up coffee for a lifetime of Folger's AB blend (Rich, bold, and full-bodied, but low plasma for better digestion!), forget it. I'm moving on to werewolves or some other timeless immortal lifestyle. Mamma needs her coffee.
Provided my diet is not blood and blood alone, I'd need to have my hair done on this,the morning of my vampiring. I'm not going to spend the next several centuries looking like a frizz head. I'll go all out and pay for the master stylist to give me a nice, classic 'do that will keep me looking sinister, yet intriguing through the ages.
As for the rest, well, I'm not fitness obsessed and there are more than a few squishy places, but I'm okay with that. There are less squishy places now than there were in my roaring twenties, so I'm glad no one turned me into a vampire back then. Imagine that! A pack a day smoker vampire with a crippling venti mocha addiction who gets winded after two flights of stairs! Not the kind of vampire anyone wants to read about.
But a few squishy places now, eh, that I'm okay with. Even better, they aren't going away and they aren't going to grow now that I'm a vampire, so none of that annoying clothes shopping business where I have to worry that the jeans I get might be too tight or too loose in a month depending on if I hit the gym or hit the pizza buffet. Yes, I also need to be able to have pizza in my vampire diet. Would it be weird if I stayed a vegetarian?
Okay, so maybe I've thought a little too hard on the subject. And maybe I'm a little sad that as a middle aged women I have to justify my existence and accept that I am part of the marginalized in mainstream entertainment. But while society might want to keep the young 'uns in the spotlight, I can at least comfort myself in knowing that I would be one bad ass middle aged vampire.
But I got to thinking about vampires again recently. I would say that is partially due to the fact that I am coming to the end of my second supernatural fantasy series (that is, if I haven't fried my computer, but that's another story for another time) and more than a lot to do with my own ways of dealing with aging.
Not that I'm terribly old, but let's face it, whenever the badass female vampire is described, whether she's just turned or thousands of years old, she has the face and body of a fitness obsessed co-ed. Ageist and sexist! I'm only half joking and I'm well aware that my own beloved Lucy was a healthy and attractive twenty-something. But Lucy wasn't the only badass female vamp from my debut vampire series. There was also Dara.
True confession time: Dara is my Mary Sue. Maybe not so much in the traditional sense. She's not the star, but she's pretty badass in her own right and I deliberately gave her an origin story that begins not with a fresh faced teen, but a world wary thirty-something with health and stress issues. In many ways, she is representative of me and the way I took control of my own life and health (and snagged the dream guy) in my mid-thirties. Surprise, kids! Your twenties suck more than your thirties!
But here's the funny thing about that. Looking back, I have to laugh that I had considered my mid-thirties to be 'old' at all. I wasn't old. Heck, I was barely a grown up. The only difference between my twenties and thirties was better credit. The only difference between my thirties and forties is...
Well, so far, not a whole lot except that I seem to have less patience for things like the news, but I suspect that has more to do with an impending election year than my age. In fact, in many ways, I'm quite better off now than I was in my twenties, which got me thinking. If I were to become a vampire, I'd be cool with being a middle aged vampire.
Yes, I am the type of dork face who contemplates what I would need to do to prepare for becoming a vampire. You'll not be surprised to learn that most authors are dork faces. It's practically a requirement.
Assuming I would be freeze-framed at the moment in my life when I turned, I'd likely want to become a vampire early in the day, not right after waking up, but early enough that I haven't yet begun to pack on water weight from my morning ritual of fifty cups of coffee. Oh, and if I've got to give up coffee for a lifetime of Folger's AB blend (Rich, bold, and full-bodied, but low plasma for better digestion!), forget it. I'm moving on to werewolves or some other timeless immortal lifestyle. Mamma needs her coffee.
Provided my diet is not blood and blood alone, I'd need to have my hair done on this,the morning of my vampiring. I'm not going to spend the next several centuries looking like a frizz head. I'll go all out and pay for the master stylist to give me a nice, classic 'do that will keep me looking sinister, yet intriguing through the ages.
As for the rest, well, I'm not fitness obsessed and there are more than a few squishy places, but I'm okay with that. There are less squishy places now than there were in my roaring twenties, so I'm glad no one turned me into a vampire back then. Imagine that! A pack a day smoker vampire with a crippling venti mocha addiction who gets winded after two flights of stairs! Not the kind of vampire anyone wants to read about.
But a few squishy places now, eh, that I'm okay with. Even better, they aren't going away and they aren't going to grow now that I'm a vampire, so none of that annoying clothes shopping business where I have to worry that the jeans I get might be too tight or too loose in a month depending on if I hit the gym or hit the pizza buffet. Yes, I also need to be able to have pizza in my vampire diet. Would it be weird if I stayed a vegetarian?
Okay, so maybe I've thought a little too hard on the subject. And maybe I'm a little sad that as a middle aged women I have to justify my existence and accept that I am part of the marginalized in mainstream entertainment. But while society might want to keep the young 'uns in the spotlight, I can at least comfort myself in knowing that I would be one bad ass middle aged vampire.
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