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!”
So for the next few weeks, that was my passion. Now, living in west Texas, this was going to be a problem, since there weren’t many trees - and Twilight was filmed in the Pacific northwest. So, I focused on indoor scenes and props. I knew some people who worked at a Baskin Robbins ice cream store, so that’s where I got the idea of Tedwin and his family working there, and why his hands were so cold all the time.
For Ella’s character, I needed something the opposite of ice cream. I remembered that I had either a hat or shirt from when I worked at Papa John’s Pizza, so she was going to work in a pizza place. I also remembered that when I was a kid, my mom told me I ate so much pizza that it was going to run through my veins! I thought that was a pretty cool tie-in to the whole vampire thing…and then I ran out of ideas.
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 70% finished, so I decided that if I survived my surgery in June, that I would 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.
I published part 1 in June of 2021 a few weeks after I had surgery, but then I found out I had to start cancer treatments soon after that, so I was not able to give my book a proper debut and do much as far as publicity or promotional things and interviews. Chemo, radiation and the physical and emotional side effects of all of that took quite a toll.
There were days where I felt I was just barely hanging on by a thread. In addition to my faith in God, of course, making Twilight memes and writing chapters in my head were some of the things that helped me have small things to look forward and laugh about, and finishing part 2 was something tangible I could hang on to and think about during my treatments and the days where I felt awful.
After a year and a half of mental and physical recovery, I finally felt like I could start writing again. I added in a few more funny bits to part 1 and decided to re-release it in November of 2023 (but this time NOT having cancer !) And not just as an e-book, but also as a paperback!
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!