Stephenie Meyer Confessed Her Husband ‘Thought I’d Gone Crazy’ When She Was Writing ‘Twilight’
Whether you’re a Twihard or not, you’ve likely heard of the Twilight Saga books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella, Breaking Dawn, and Midnight Sun or at least caught wind of the five movies that were inspired by them. The books, written by Stephenie Meyer, are international bestsellers and have given her global acclaim as well as a tremendous amount of personal wealth. In fact, the books are so successful, it’s hard to believe that Meyer wasn’t intending to write a novel when she wrote the first book.
The idea for the first Twilight book actually arose from Meyer’s subconscious. The author was actually asleep when she pictured a boy and a girl in a field having a fairly bizarre conversation. The boy (who would become brooding vampire, Edward Cullen) was explaining to the girl (Bella Swan) that as much as he loved her, he still had a very strong desire to kill her.
Stephenie Meyer got the idea for ‘Twilight’ from a dream
While Meyer could’ve easily ignored the dream once she returned to full consciousness, she was spellbound by the imagined conversation. Hoping to quell her own curiosity, she began fervently imagining how the rest of the conversation might play out. All too soon, she was thinking about what events could’ve possibly led up to that conversation and thus the first Twilight book began taking shape.
But even though as Meyer filled page after page of her prose, she didn’t realize she was writing a book. In fact, she initially had no plans to show her writing to others, she simply wanted to remember it for her own personal reasons. “The dream was just something I was so interested in, and it was so different from what my every day was at the time,” CNN reported that the Twilight author shared with Oprah.com. “I just wanted to remember it so badly. That’s why I started writing it down — not because I thought this would be a great story for a novel.”
The author revealed that her husband was puzzled by her changed behavior
Once Meyer began writing, it seemed that the dam had broken. A former stay-at-home mom, all of a sudden her thoughts were consumed with writing and thinking about vampires. Even her husband noticed a stark change in her behavior, especially since she chose to keep the contents of Twilight to herself.
“My husband thought I’d gone crazy,” Meyer shared about how her husband reacted when she began penning what would eventually become Twilight. “I’d barely spoken to him because I had all these things going on in my head, and I wasn’t telling him about this weird vampire obsession because I knew he’d freak out and think I’d lost my mind.”
Meyer didn’t start seeing ‘Twilight’ as a book until it was finished
Meyer continued on to add that she never expected to share the story with her husband, let alone millions of people. To Meyer, the idea that anyone else would want to read what would become Twilight seemed entirely egotistical at the time. It wasn’t until she finished writing that she realized that she had a book on her hands.
“It seems kind of presumptuous to me [to believe] anyone else would want to read the things that are in my head,” the Twilight author stated candidly. “I didn’t think of it [as a book]. I did the dream. And then I wanted to see what would happen with them. It was just me spending time with this fantasy world, and then when it was finished it was like, ‘This is long enough to be a book!'”
The ‘Twilight’ Saga books are still popular today
We’re sure that millions of people are pleased that Meyer ultimately made the decision to share Twilight with the world. Considering the books are still well and loved 15 years later, it would appear that plenty of people are interested in what the author has in her head.
