Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--G is for Geek

I speak geek, and I write words for nerds.

Many see these two words--geek and nerd--as interchangeable, but I don't. I see them as similar terms for two different parts of the same thing.

Gilbert Garfinkle from Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer Book 1) is the ultimate teenage geek and nerd, and that to me makes him the ultimate hero.

For me, being a geek is all about the heart. It's about passion. It's about what you love and how much you love it. A geek geeks out about stuff that other people don't, not to that degree. That's how passionate we geeks are. If you love something to the point where others find it excessive, you're a geek--like me.

Being a nerd, on the other hand, is all about the head. It's about knowing about something to the point where others find it excessive. I'm a book and writing nerd. I study these things with a passion others might find excessive. When it comes to most things, though, I'm more of a geek than a nerd. I wish I knew more about the things I geek over, but my memory just isn't that good. I can always find someone who knows way more about these topics than I do.  

For example, I'm a Whovian, which means I adore Doctor Who. I have several Doctor Who t-shirts and several pieces of Doctor Who jewelry. I even have Van Gogh "Starry Night" socks because of one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes. But I'm not a Doctor Who nerd, because I would almost certainly fail any serious Doctor Who quiz. I know all the basics, of course. I can tell my Daleks from my Cybermen, and I know you must not blink when you see a Weeping Angel.  But go beyond that, and I get my episodes and monsters and Doctors and companions mixed up.

I'm a general all-round geek. I geek out over all kinds of things, from books and comic books to movies and TV shows to scientific discoveries and new tech. But when it comes to books and writing, I'm also a nerd because of my passionate need to know as much as I can about this one particular topic.

It takes a curious mind to be a nerd, and not everyone has that.

But I believe everybody can and should be a geek. We should all find something that we are excessively passionate about. Something that makes us beyond excited. Something that makes us geek out in the most exquisitely, embarrassingly geeky way. Something that makes us squee for joy.

Whichever label you use, I'm glad to be a geek or a nerd.  Life is so much better when you care this much about something.

So what makes you geek out? Let me know in the comments below.  

Want to geek out with me? The best way is to follow me on Twitter at https://Twitter.com/SheviStories.

How a Writer's Mind Works

I’ve noticed a contradiction.

On the one hand, I believe that everyone has a story worth telling. I don’t care who you are, there’s a story only you can share with the world, and the world will always be missing something if you don’t tell it. You might not know what that story is or how to tell it, but that story is there.

On the other hand, I’ve come to realize that writers are different. We don’t think the same way that other people do. John Green was on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson recently, and they talked about it. (In case you don’t know, John is a bestselling writer of funny, sad, geeky, wonderful novels for teens, like The Fault in Our Stars, and Craig has written a novel, as well as an honest, funny, and moving memoir.) John pointed out that writers are always seeing the possibilities in everything, and we choose to write the possibilities that make particularly good stories. That’s very true. I know I’ve always been that way, and it makes me weird. I don’t see the world the way most people do. I don’t take anything for granted. I’m always seeing possibilities, always asking, “What if?”

So how can I believe that everyone should tell his or her story, when I also believe that there’s something about the way writers think that make us different? Not special, just . . . different?

Maybe it’s our job to show our readers the possibilities.

Maybe we need to plant questions in our readers minds that stay with our readers after the book is closed. Maybe we need to plant these questions to help our readers see the world in new ways. 

And maybe in doing so, we can hope that they too will start to see the possibilities in everything, including in themselves and the stories only they can tell.