the Ovenlight saga
About this Twilight Parody
Once upon a time, I went to see the first Twilight movie. It was “meh”. Then 2 of my friends, who were Twilight superfans, invited me to go see the Twilight parody movie “Vampires Suck”. It had a few funny parts, but it wasn't anything like the 'Princess Bride' kind of parody I expected it to be, there was a lot of crude stuff that I felt was just really unnecessary.
After the movie was over, I remember sitting there in my theater seat - super disappointed - when the thought came to me: “I could make a funnier movie than that was! And with no bad words or raunchy stuff, either!"
So for the next week, that was my passion. I cam up with the basic plot, based on my mom telling me when I was a kid that I ate so much pizza that it was going to run through my veins. That seemed to be a neat tie-in to the whole vampire thing, but I guess I just ran out of ideas after that.
I forgot about the entire thing and didn’t expect to think of it ever again. When I did think of it again, it was 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, and I was unemployed and trying to find something productive to do.
What I realized after a few months of considering how to bring my idea to life, is that nobody can read my mind - and if I was going to be serious about this, I needed to write a script/book. But that was a scary idea! Do I read fiction? Not much. Have I ever written fiction? No. Have I ever written dialogue? Nope.
But all I could do was try. Once I started writing, ideas started flooding my brain and cracking me up! Not only had I been watching a lot of funny TV shows like The Goldbergs, Brooklyn 9-9 and Studio C, I had also seen all of the Twilight Saga movies many times, which gave me much more material to work with than the first time.
I also found that writing from the perspective of this awkward, teenage girl brought back a lot of memories from my own awkward childhood and adolescence (many of such instances which are actually included as part of Ella's backstory) - and writing about them gave me a new perspective on them. Maybe instead of them just being embarrassing incidents with no purpose, maybe other people could identify with them and laugh about them!
For example, the part about being asked if I ride horses to school because I'm from Texas is 100% true. The rattlesnake incident: same. Being made fun of for not wearing jeans at school: also true. What happened when I ate those spicy breakfast burritos and then went to the mall: unfortunately true. What my high school did for Valentine's Day: same I also put stuff in "Baking Dough-Part 2" that's personal, such as what my ideal Valentine's Day would be and my theories about the zombie apocalypse. Using Ella's voice instead of my own gave me a kind of freedom that was very enjoyable and liberating, because I don't know where else I would have written about this stuff.
I started the writing process on January 1st 2021, and expected to have this entire parody written by that summer. What I didn’t expect was to be diagnosed with cancer in April of that year. I was only about half-way finished, so I decided that if I survived my surgery in June, that I would self-publish the first 10-ish chapters as part 1, and finish part 2 at a later date, like how ‘Breaking Dawn’ was split into 2 movies.
*As of 2026, I am going to try to finish part 2 this year and see about getting an agent and having my book traditionally published. If you would like to get updates about that timeline, you can sign up for my newsletter on my news page or follow me on social media.
I hope this will make you laugh as much as it did me! I truly believe that laughter is a gift from God, and honestly, if I can bring that gift of laughter to just one other Twilight fan who might be going through a dark or difficult time, WOW, what a blessing!!!!
(and yes, I think you do have to have seen all of the Twilight movies so you will get the jokes)
(If you want to read more about my cancer journey, I have a page here.) Thanks for reading!