Confessions of a Fangirl

[Note from Frolic: We’e so excited to have author Liv Morris guest posting on the site today! She’s sharing her love for all things Twilight and single dads! Take it away, Liv!]

The day I became fangirl seemed completely normal. I drank my standard two cups of coffee, kissed my husband goodbye when he left for work, then tidied up our home. In the afternoon, my daughter came bouncing into the kitchen waving a DVD in her hand. She wanted me to watch a movie about vampires with her. 

My knee jerk reaction was hell no! I’d read Salem’s Lot in middle school and had sworn off vampires for the rest of eternity. My daughter promised it was a beautiful story about forbidden love, not blood and guts. Begrudgingly, I sat down on our leather sectional wondering what I was going to cook for dinner. Who knew my family would be eating take-out for the next few years. 

When a chiseled jawed vampire named Edward Cullen appeared on the screen, an odd sensation hit me. I held my breath as he walked into a school cafeteria with the swagger of a Wild West sheriff. His brooding eyes and incredibly sexy hair made my heart flutter. It was in that moment I fell down the Twilight rabbit hole and would never be the same again.

As soon as the movie ended, I ran to my computer, searching “Twilight” and “Edward Cullen.” I discovered the movie was based off a young adult series of books and drove like a speed racer to the nearest bookstore.  I blew through the entire series in five days. 

After I finished the last book, I wasn’t ready to let go of Edward Cullen and his love story with Bella. Feeling restless and out of sorts, I desperately looked online for something to quench the weird craving I had for more. Through a tangled search, I found an online writing community where authors wrote stories about the characters in the Twilight world. Bells and whistles were ringing. I’d hit the jackpot.

For the next two months, I sat on the couch, hunched over my laptop, reading story after story. My family walked around me, unnoticed, wondering what happened to their sane wife and mother. When I told my friends about reading all these “other” Twilight stories, some that didn’t have Edward Cullen as vampire, they shook their heads and patted me on the arm, quickly changing the subject. No one in my real life understood me.  

Then I stumbled upon chat groups where similarly obsessed fans discussed their love for Edward and all things Twilight. Once I found my “people,” I turned from being a fangirl to actually fangirling by meeting fellow Twilight lovers in person. I was thrilled they didn’t think my wild-eyed obsession was insane or a silly passing phase I’d get over. 

Many of my close Twilight friends published their fan-fiction stories as romance novels, several making the New York Times bestsellers list. The Twilight fan-fiction world produced everything from hot hockey players to brooding rock stars to CEO with a red room of pain. It was an incubator of creativity laced with hot sex—something missing from the original series. 

My wildest fangirling moment happened in 2012 when I camped out overnight at San Diego’s legendary Comic Con. A group of us who met in a chat room wanted to see the Twilight cast in person. We bought beach blowup mattresses to sleep on the ground, forming in a line with hundreds of other fans waiting for the event. 

A reporter stopped me as I walked around Camp Twilight and asked if I’d answer a few questions on camera. Caught up in the excitement, I agreed, signing a release letter giving them permission to use my interview later for a broadcast of some kind. They asked me to explain why I was drawn to a teenage love story. I rambled on for several minutes, sounding like a love-struck teenager myself. 

Months later, a friend messaged me saying she just saw me on Target’s special edition DVD for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. The producers had added my interview at Comic Con to the saga’s final documentary at the end. I still can’t believe there’s something permanently documenting my Twilight obsession. Though, I wished I would have reapplied my lipstick before doing the interview. I looked washed out and pale—fitting for Cullen. 

The fire I had for Twilight turned into a smoldering ember, often rekindled when I re-watch the Twilight movies and relive all the fun times I had with my fellow fangirls. I’ll be forever grateful to my daughter for asking me to watch the Twilight movie. If she hadn’t, I would have never met friends who inspired me to step into the indie author world. 

Now, I’m writing my own romance novels about chiseled-jawed heroes and the women they love, and I wouldn’t take back single second of my journey that brought me to publishing eleven books, with my newest one, Daddy Issues, releasing on November 20th, and landing on the USA Today bestseller list.

To celebrate, I’m sharing some of my favorite single dad books.