Nerd Alert

I put up wallpaper today. Kind of. It's paper and it's on the wall, but it's not for the purpose of beautifying my home. In fact, I had to take down 3 nice pictures to put up the paper. It's kind of a long story, but here's the short version: I am a major nerd.

Read on if you are not surprised by that and would like more details.

In the fall of 2003, my friend announced at bookgroup that she would not be attending the next meeting because she would be participating in NaNoWriMo and trying to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It sounded fun, but I put it in the "not for me right now" pile and let it go. But it didn't let me go. On November 10, I registered and then went on to win. (That means I wrote more than 50,000 words.) Also, although there are gaps that I need to fill in, I finished the novel in the sense that I got to the end of the story. Kind of.

It has a great ending, but one that begs for a sequel. So...since 2003, I've written big chunks of 4 more novels in this series, plus 2 short stories, plus a few pages of 2 more stories (or maybe they'll turn out to be novels too), and I have ideas that I want to explore in at least 7 more stories or books.

A couple years ago I was involved in a writing group. Several people in this group have since had stories or novels published. I had a great time and enjoyed being with them, but I couldn't really get excited about preparing my novel for publication. I decided that I didn't want to take the fun out of writing. It fed my soul, and I needed that, not the grueling and stressful acts of editing, rewriting, and revising. Granted, it may that I'm just too lazy to do the hard part of the writing process. But the point is, I decided to just keep exploring this world and these characters. I mentioned at one meeting that maybe I'm not writing several novels. Maybe I'm doing the world building for one major epic that would make James Michener's best look like a little book. Today, I'm pretty sure it's not just one book. I'm also pretty sure that I'm still exploring and trying to figure out the answers. There are questions that arise in the 2nd book, that every subsequent book or story has been trying to answer. I've found a few answers, but the characters are still revealing their world to me. And more questions arise with each new story.

My writing is not autobiographical, but my characters deal with situations and issues that I am dealing with at the time. In the first book, Holly struggles with pain, frustration and depression that are closely linked to her work and her gifts. I wrote that at a very difficult point in my life. If I had an awful day, I would come home, sit at the computer, and give Holly something even worse to deal with. Writing about her struggles helped me cope with my own. I found peace when she did. My roommate commented on how happy I was because of the writing.

This crazy bunch of stories about this world and these people keep calling to me. Some years I've written other novels for nano, but these people won't let me go. I can't go more than a year or so without at least rereading and jotting down notes for where I want to go in the future.

That's what the "wallpaper" is for. I have notes saved on my phone; I have a notebook with spidergraphs and lists; and of course, I have the stories themselves. But I need to be able to see it all at once--to put all these people and events on a time line, to draw line connecting people and describing relationships. And the best notes on a computer will not do that. (and I hate flipping back and forth between a million different pages) To be honest, I don't think the hall wall is big enough, but I need to rearrange the bedroom and move furniture in order to use the big wall there. Since I still haven't finished the closet cleaning project yet, I'm going to wait on the rearranging. The hall will give me a place for a first draft and I can always copy or enlarge later.

I guess it's better than giant posters of the blueprints for the Enterprise (which I think are totally cool, but I would never decorate with them), but I think a wall of story notes definitely earns me nerdom.

-- Posted from my iPhone