On My Brain: Characters

 I wanted to start something new for me. I felt that May was the month to start it, looking into my crazy brain and what I think about as a writer with ADD, Dyslexia, and a full-time job.

Early this morning, I rolled over. My brain yelled out that I needed to write an in-depth explanation of how I got to my characters and character building.

Okay, weird, but sure.

 I woke up thinking about this Monday morning. I do that frequently, and I guess I should listen to my brain more often instead of putting it off for another day because I'll forget.

 In short, each character I construct has a piece of me either hidden or blatantly prevalent as I write. One of my favorite characters came about a few weekends ago, and it's a homage to my past. To the girl who wasn't yet wounded, who fell head over heels in love with reading, notebooks, and pens.

  

I'm writing a new Rom-Com set in New York City, and I'm crafting the story around what I had wanted for my future at that point in time. My high school years meant a lot to me; they were formative in shaping who I was becoming, who I am now. Before moving from Las Vegas to Pensacola, FL, throwing everything I knew into a whirlwind of uncertainty, I fell in love with reading. My mother took us to the thrift store, and I stocked up on books that summer before we left. I had gotten books from the school library or the one down the street from my father's house. Still, there was something about Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts, and my all-time favorite, Sandra Brown, making me yearn for reading. 

 They had romance, mystery, drama aplenty, and they kept me sucked in and glued to those pages. I didn't meet a book that I didn't love; I read them all.

Diana Palmer, Johanna Lyndsey, etc.

 This was a fresh start for me, and I was excited. I had notebooks for days, stored just about everywhere, pens, gel and regular, high lighters, colored pencils; everything, everywhere. I would write on paper stories, ideas, quotes, doodles, whatever came to mind in my free time.

 So, when I thought up, All Things Considered, I was watching A Nice Girl Like You starring Lucy Hale, and I fell in love with my young self all over again. As I watched this sexually frustrated woman play out on screen, watched as she did things outside of her norm, I realized I was similar.

 I had lost track of her over the years, finding/losing myself, forgetting about who I was when I was happiest, when I had promised. I let many people dictate my worth over the years, and it got me down. 

 I lived in a victim mindset for so long, wondering why I was constantly being pushed down. I realized it was because I wasn't sticking up for myself as an adult. I couldn't save myself as a kid, but my old ass could now. I had no excuses now.

 Neltilda "Nel" "Nelly" Hanson was created on a Saturday afternoon in my head; she was bright, vivid, and alive. She was me when I had hope.

And I was fucking ecstatic about her.

 I lost track of that beautiful, free-spirited girl, the one with hopes and dreams, who had a drive I envy to this day. She could power through ten books in a week, work part-time, pass high school, and not blink an eye. Not that I don't know, have hope, but I had dreams before the crushing world of being a Millennial became a reality; I got stuck in it, this survival mode.

 Nelly is social enough with the girls in high school that had similar wants and hobbies. She wants to be a writer just like the women who wrote her favorites; she wanted to be someone girls like she looked up to and wanted to be. She wanted to inspire the next generation of creatives.

 Nelly is me, circa 2003. I took this path because 2003-2007 me was gorgeous in every way; she was real. I stayed a virgin until I was 19; even today, I have people telling me about their most personal secrets upon first meeting. When I was in my Journalism class, I wanted to run an advice column, definitely in Cosmopolitan, or become a psychologist because, for four years, I was the go-to. The only time I mentioned to anyone, what we talked about confidentially, was when a friend told me she attempted to kill herself. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if she did. I'm glad she didn't because even though we don't talk anymore, she has a beautiful family and is married to the love of her life. I'm proud of her for sticking around even when things got tough.

 I wasn't okay with the thought of sitting. Still, I wanted a life of adventure. I wanted to travel, gain experiences, learn all the languages, read all the books, troll every garden, coffee shop, and rooftop in every city. But, as time went on, wars started, life changed, and my home life shifted. The abuse became something that wore me down, and I started working harder than ever, collecting houseware instead of books and planning to move as soon as humanly possible. In six years, my brain shifted from what I wanted to survival mode. I lost a lot of that young innocents. Still, I wanted to bring that back up with Nelly, my struggles as a young woman who held on to herself over the years, hoping for something better down the line. 

 I chose to skip the formative years of my personal life; I started fresh where I wanted to back then if things had been a little easier. What if my parents divorced instead of sticking it out? Would it have been better? Would I have stuck with journalism? Would I be in new York? What if I didn't marry the first guy I moved in with? What if, what if, WHAT IF?

 I don't hold much to thinking about the past because everything I went threw brought me here, where I'm at now, to my beautiful life. But I love dreaming about it. I've always had an active imagination, so story tales fit me a lot better than someone who lives many different lives or thinks about the depressive possibilities while residing in the Burbs. I love handcrafting a character to fit what I think would have happened. I'm a creature of struggle, so Nelly has her fair share. 

 There's beauty in the struggle, and I want to show that. It's the little things, the little moments, the being stuck in your head, the daydreams, the breakdowns. It's the happy moments, the sad ones, the happy tears, and everything in between. I want you to find the humor in the mundane, just like I do, and I try to craft it into beautiful pieces for your enjoyment.

 If Colleen Hoover's writing taught me anything this past year, it is that it's okay to write about real things, about struggle, about what you know. So, in All Things Considered, I'm choosing to write about my first loves: Teenage me, Writing, Romance, and New York City.

 It fits because I'm starting a new chapter in my life this year, and damnit, I'm excited again. I'm finding myself again after losing her there for a while, but with a lot more know-how and life experience, I'm a better writer for it.

 Now to just work on my grammar and editing skills! (Yikes.)

 Here's to finding your passion again after years of second-guessing yourself. Here's to finding yourself and making YOU the main character in your life story.

 You deserve it, girl.