Writers and Walls

    I'm not a sharer. I never have been. Don't get me wrong; I highly enjoy talking about myself, but not if that includes telling people everything. I build walls. I'm not ashamed of my walls; I built them for a reason.
    I do share some things. I share the safe stuff. I share the stuff that sounds personal but really isn't, the stuff that might touch your heart, but won't freeze my vocal cords on the way out. And every time I think I'm ready to tell someone one of the dangerous things, my voice fades away and I end up saying something else like "never mind."
    It's easier to put up walls, to surround the pain, and the fear, and the damage with stone and steel. Telling people terrifies me. Telling people makes it real, or real all over again. Telling people gives them the opportunity to downplay my suffering, or look at me like I'm a seven-foot-tall, mohawked pigeon riding a unicycle (and you are welcome for that mental image), so I have devised a way of getting it out of my head and into the world safely: I hide the wriggly, and scratchy, and scary stuff in the dialogue of my characters and in the plot lines of my stories. I know, it's not really sharing, but at least I'm putting it out there...where no one will be able to discern which aches are mine and which aches are fiction.
    All writers do this. I don't have any quotes to back that up. I don't need them. All writers do it, or all writers worth their salt do it. If a writer doesn't pour the painful pieces of her/his soul into her/his work, she/he clearly doesn't understand the gravity and intimacy of a story.

    That's the power of literature: We pick up a book, and we hold in our hands the heart of another human being, sometimes a human being who left this world centuries ago. Literature is the direct connection of one soul to another. How beautiful is that? How miraculous!
    This is the burden writers carry upon our poor shoulders. This is why writing terrifies me. I adore it, but, let's be real, it's petrifying. Through my words, through the words I have haltingly, obsessively, and lovingly tied together I am giving faceless people, who have never met me, and possibly will never meet me entry into who I am. I am giving them a sledgehammer to knock down my walls.
    When you pick up a book, if the writer has sewn her/his own soul into the pages, you'll know. You can feel it. It's a sixth sense situation. And if that is the case, if you can feel the pulsing of a heart in your hands, your hands which are so useful for crushing and grinding and wounding but which are equally good for building and comforting, try not to be too harsh. Try not to be too judge-y. Consider yourself privileged; they broke down their walls for you. They let you into their twisty brokenness in the hopes that it would help to heal yours.

Shelley Duvall, You Did This To Me.

    I was doomed to be a geek from the beginning. It wasn't a choice; it was fate. I blame Shelley Duvall. 

Here she is as Rapunzel with magical Rapunzel tears.

    See, Shelley Duvall had this wonderful television show called "Faerie Tale Theatre." She and her merry band of thespians - which, by the by, included the likes of Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum, Eric Idle, Mick Jagger... - performed, you guessed it, fairy tales. They were wonderful, and I loved them from the start. I wanted to be in my own fairy tale as a result. 

Jeff Goldblum as the big, bad wolf. You are welcome.

    I didn't necessarily want to be the princess, although, let's be honest, being the pretty girl the hot guy couldn't get out of his head wasn't an altogether unappealing idea. I wanted to be much more than the princess. I wanted to be the princess/dragon slayer/magical being, who also happened to be hilariously funny with dazzling senses of fashion, irony, and right and wrong. Also, I wanted good hair, because I'm not demanding at all. 
   Being a geek and a girl was hard. I could read nearly perfect stories like The Chronicles of Narnia, which did, at least in this example, have clever and good female protagonists, but even then, the girls weren't usually the brave warrior characters. They were generally quite sweet and soft-spoken with long, flaxen waves and the grace of a prima ballerina. I wasn't...really...any of those things... 
    I'm loud, and random, and sort of fierce and intense. I tend to injure myself because I'm too harsh with everyday objects like can openers and pencils. I'm also blunt, sarcastic, and a enjoy a healthy dose of dark humor. I didn't read comic books, because I'm a fantasy geek. I also happen to have what I deem an "aversion" to heroines in skimpy clothing. (Not that they're bad, but do we really need to see a girl's cleavage to buy her as a butt-kicker?) Long story short, I was almost wholly without role models in nerd culture.
    Where are the stories for girls? When am I gonna get a chance to be the hero?
    It is with these questions in mind that I set out to write my own stories, and that is exactly what I am attempting to do. 
    I'm a writer. I'm a nerd. I'm a feminist. And, because it will be pertinent in the future and is the most important part of who I am, I'm a follower of Christ. I'm also wildly opinionated and tend to ramble. If you are interested in any of these points, stick around. I might say something worth reading. Maybe not, but there's always hope.