Stabbing Perfection

Today I welcome guest blogger, Liv Rancourt. Liv is a writer of speculative fiction and romance. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two teenagers, two cats and one wayward puppy. Writing stories that have happy endings is a good way to balance her work in the neonatal intensive care unit, and she is thrilled to be publishing her first novella with Black Opal Books. Liv can be found on-line at her website, her blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter. 

 

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about vampires. There are several of them in my new novella, A Vampire’s Deadly Delight, and while I didn’t do much research before I wrote it, I’ve been reading up in order to write quasi-intelligent sounding blog posts. You’ll have to let me know how I do.

I came across an article by Ananya Mukherjea in the journal Studies in Popular Culture. She argues that the reason vampires are so persistently popular right now is that it takes a paranormal figure to balance all the roles that contemporary women are supposed to assume. Women are supposed to be strong and career-minded, when they’re not wearing slut shoes and flashing their ta-tas on the internet. We’re supposed to raise kids and gardens and keep the house Martha-Stewart-worthy. While working a full-time job. And getting pedicures. Real men can’t keep up. Only a vampire with many years on earth, old-fashioned values, strength, financial stability, and a streak of nasty sexy danger can turn us on.

The article is some twenty pages long, and after reading it I could only agree with her. I’ve sure as heck never fantasized about a reasonably handsome man whose job blows hot and cold and who never remembers to put the carton of milk back in the fridge. Real men are great for some things, but when I want to get away from it all, find me someone who’s pale and fanged, someone who drives a sleek black car and who doesn’t care if I forgot to put the clothes in the dryer.

So what did I do? I wrote a book where one of the main characters stabs vampires with her demon blade, ending their undead lives. It’s a Buffy meets Spiderman kind of thing. In hindsight, I can only wonder what I was thinking. Given the perspective of the article, my character’s primary function is to repeatedly kill the perfect man. Wow. That’s enough material for a whole lot of therapy sessions.

I’m going to put a positive spin on this and say it shows how much I value the Real Man in my life. Hugging someone with a pulse is the only way to go. If he would just put the silverware away correctly, so that all the salad forks go in the same little slot, he might be perfect, too. What, me, issues?

Thanks so much, Kris, for giving me this opportunity to post on your blog. I very much appreciate it.

Peace,

Liv