I like them hot

It's kind of funny that I love paranormal things as much as I do.  As a kid I was so scared of anything related to horror it wasn't funny.  When the Nightmare on Elmstreet commercials came on TV I used to have to change the channel or cover my ears and close my eyes.  I once threw away our HBO guide because it had a picture of Freddy Kruger in it and it freaked me out... but I didn't just throw it away, I put it on the bottom of our Granger bin under other trash in the garage as far away as possible. :)

Vampires, werewolves and any sort of monster freaked me out.  I remember watching An American Werewolf in London as a kid and it giving me nightmares.  Poltergeist scared me so bad I had to call my mom to pick me up in the middle of the night at a sleepover after watching the movie.  I was in love with Michael Jackson but his Thriller video scared the hell out of me.  I think I was in the second grade when it came out and I can remember my older brother purposely turning off all of the lights in the house and turning the tv up really loud whenever Thriller came on just so he could scare me.  Heck, even Ghostbusters freaked me out as a kid!

Somewhere along the line though I started getting into the paranormal.  The first movie I ever saw with my bestie Shawn was Interview with a Vampire.  She was a longtime vampire lover, and I was interested in it mostly because of Brad Pitt.  I liked the movie, some of it creeped me out, but it opened my eyes to vampires.  After seeing the movie I read the book and liked that too.  Shawn roped me into watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which even as a girl in her late teens I was afraid to watch) and I sort of fell in love. 

Growing up, things like monsters, vamps, and shifter’s were supposed to be scary but somewhere in the mid 90’s that changed and suddenly the paranormal stuff was presented in a whole different way.  Angel and Spike on Buffy were hot and funny not scary.  Oz was the sweetest and cutest little short guy who also happened to turn into a wolf once a month.  It was thanks to this shift in perspective that pulled me in.

Now I love vampires, shifters, fairies, and the occasional witch when presented in the right way.  I’m still not a fan of ghosts, in fact true ghost stories scare the fuck out of me.  But ghosts in books and movies are okay as long as they’re not ultra scary.  Even zombies are okay as long as there’s some humor with it like in Zombieland.

I can’t tell you how many times I watched this scene… rawr!

But to pick my favorites I’d have to say that I’m a shifter girl.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my vamps and they’re quite high on the list, but there’s something about a shifter that just tickles me.  Even if I’m not writing paranormal I’ve noticed that I tend to write the men in my fiction as men who are always warm just like shifters.  The idea of cozying up to a strong warm guy on a cold night just seems delicious to me.  It doesn’t hurt of course that shifter’s tend to be protective, great lovers, and just freaking sexy. 

In the Twilight series, I love Edward but I’m totally Team Jacob.  In the Anita Blake series I love the shifters SO more than the vamps (I think Jean Claude is a twit.  LOL).  I was a total Eric girl when it came to True Blood until Alcide showed up then it was back to the shifters I went (although in the books I’m still Team Eric mostly).  Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten series is one of my all time favorites because her shifters are so damn hot.  Ooh and the shifter kid in her YA series (can’t remember his name… sorry) was totally adorable as well.

I do have to say that I also love fairies too though.  I was totally hooked on Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series until they turned into plotless porn and were just a waste of money.  I’m a huge fan of Amy Brown’s art, and even Tinkerbell has a special place in my heart. 

So yeah, I've gone from a total wuss to a lover of paranormal who is just a wuss sometimes. :)