You Are What You Write?

I opened my pantry over the weekend and almost died. Cans and boxes spilled over onto me. There isn't any room in the cupboards for more food at the moment. If you peek under the bed and in the cupboards in the laundry room, you will find water. And more water. And even more water.

What happened to me? Sure, I am a SoCal native. I was raised to be prepared. I've been living with the threat/promise of The Big One hitting us since I surfed out of my mother's womb those many years ago.  But lately I've been...more prepared.

I'm not a prepper. Prepper's would laugh at my paltry supplies. If something happens, I can feed us for right around a month if we're eating three meals a day. Actually, Preppers wouldn't laugh, they would worry for me.  If you've watched the show on NatGeo, you would know that they can feed a ton of people for YEARS.  I have to fight it every time I'm in the grocery store and see that beans or quinoa are one sale. That $1 for a can that can feed us for two days when combined with quinoa or pasta really calls out to me.

In my own defense, we are vegetarians (I'm actually vegan). We don't like tofu so beans are a big staple of our diet. As is quinoa. And anyone who has had to rinse their quinoa knows what a pain in the tush it is. Pre-washed quinoa flies off the shelf at my local store (probably because only one company does it) so I tend to stock up when it's on sale and the shelf is full. I came home with ten boxes just last week. To add to the five that I still had. Each box gives me 12 meals when combined with beans and things from the garden.

But I digress... How did I get this way?

I wrote a Dystopian.

It wasn't just my own writing that did this. When you write, you read. There are so many Dystopians out there so I devoured every one that I could get my hands on. The book series that I really blame for this, though, is The Last Survivors series by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Now, I know that an asteroid is not going to hit the moon and knock it closer to Earth (knock on wood), but the series rocked me. I read it in a weekend. Three books. One weekend. Forever changed. I blame the lack of sleep I received in reading that series as contributing.

The end of the world is with me a lot these days.  I wasn't one who bought into the Mayan calendar or 2012 being the end of the world (knock on wood).  I still don't.  But reading and writing this genre, it has seeped out of the pages and into my home just a bit. 

What about you - does your writing creep out of the pages with tendrils, lodging itself anywhere around your household?