Not Ashamed to be a Geek

What Do YOU Geek?

There’s been a lot of debate in certain circles about the exact definition of a geek. Often in the context of how it relates to being a “dork”, which is another story altogether. There are people who take great offense to being called a geek. 

Personally, I think we all need to be geekier. Because geeks are just people who get really, really excited about something, and they don’t really care what other people have to say about it.

I live in a small town. If you haven’t been to Perry, it’s pretty much the definition of what Mayberry would look like if Rite Aid took over the local pharmacy and the soda fountain was traded up for an espresso machine at the local bookstore. Instead of spending our entire lives fighting with traffic, we get to do amazing things like go to the Farmer’s Market. We have Read Around Perry events where kids run up and down the sidewalks looking for pages that have been cut out of books and proudly displayed in store windows.

And every year, we host the Perry Chalk Festival.

At this year's Chalk Festival, our local library hosted a booth for Geek TheLibrary. A huge sign out front asked, “What Do You Geek?” Passers by grabbed gold and silver pens and scribbled all over the sign, with answers ranging from Dr. Who to classic cars to snow cones. (My daughter volunteered that one.)

The sheer volume of people who stopped by to Geek was pretty awesome, but it was the variety of answers that really shocked me. It is AMAZING how many different things people were excited about, and they weren’t afraid to step up and show it!

That, my friends, is what it means to be a geek-and as writers, we should be geeks. We NEED to be geeks. Because as writers, we spend our ENTIRE LIVES saying hey, I have this idea, and it's pretty awesome. I don’t know if you think it’s awesome. I don’t know if I can explain it in a way that’s going to convince you that it’s awesome, but I’m by-golly going to put my pen to paper and try. Because I’m a geek, and this is what I geek, and I want to share it with you.

There’s no room for shame when you’re geeking out, and that’s pretty important if you're going to write. If what you’re saying embarrasses you, you’re going to pull your punches. You’re not going to put it all out there. At the end of the day, what you’re going to be left with is a bunch of half-formed ideas begging you to set aside your fear of what other people are going to think and just geek out and give them life!

Pull out that light saber, hop on your motorcycle and allons-y!

So tell me. What do you geek???  

Image from Stock Images/FreeDigitalPhotos.net