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N.L. LeBlanc

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[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']So I’m N.L., psychology student, I live with my mom (who is awesome), have a great bunch of friends and a cat (yay). I’m 18, and really, the only other thing that’s important for you to know is that I love writing. Which is why I’m here.

I’m a published poet, but I think it’s safe to say I much prefer writing novels and consider myself primarily a novelist. Over the past seven years, I’ve been writing novels off and on. I wrote my first novella at eleven, my first novel at thirteen. After that, I worked on several novel ideas that were all doomed to fail, each for different reasons, before finally settling on my current novel. You know how you go on a few bad dates, get into a few bad relationships, and then all of a sudden a few years down the line you’re in a good relationship, and soon enough you’re married quietly in a house in the suburbs with a green lawn and two dogs? Yeah. It’s kind of like that.

It happened exactly like this. After I gave up work on the last of my failed novels because it was a murder mystery and I had no ending, I guess I got a little depressed and went through writer’s block for about five months. I was also working in a small bookstore at this time (I now work in a big one). One night while I was working, about a year and three months ago, this haggard-looking woman came up to me with her husband and asked, in the most brutish tone, “Do you have any books on borderline personality disorder?” And I just looked at her for a few seconds, because at this time, I had no idea what that was and frantically asked myself if she was speaking Martian. Then I pulled it together and looked it up on the computer. Of course, being the mother of all tiny stores, we didn’t have anything, so I had to send her to the large bookstore across the street where I now work. Now may be a good time to mention I’ve always had a huge interest in abnormal psychology. So when I got home, I looked up this “borderline personality disorder” on Wikipedia. I read about it. And the rest is history.

My novel is a fat, double-spaced psychological drama kept in various duo-tangs and with the topic of my protagonist, who is diagnosed with BPD. The book covers fifteen years of his life. Its size is like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’m ashamed of how obese it is. And I’m only a third of the way done! God. Hopefully editing will help it lose a little weight. And by a little I mean like... an inch.

You may think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. Seriously. I can show you a picture of the brick stacked up next to my leg.

My novel is my life. I didn’t want it to end up like its predecessors, so I spent literally a month planning the whole thing in advance. As a result, I now have a 200-page binder of information on it (I do have a social life. I promise. :p). This is the first novel I’ve planned even somewhat extensively (read: at all), and I’m so glad I did. I’ve been working on it a little over a year and a month now.

As well as my novel being my life, or probably even more so, my character is my baby. I created my character about five months before I started working on this story idea, because he was supposed to be in two other stories before it, which never got off the ground. Who knew that giving him a severe mental illness would end up being the perfect fit, and would make him into a person that seems as real to me as the people I see every day? I love him dearly, even though at this moment he’s a whiny, bitter (almost) thirteen-year-old emo person who hates everyone, self-injures, bribes his father for money, happens to be an arrogant academic genius, and who will shortly become a bisexual nymphomaniac who constantly agonizes over the fact that his unrequited love interest does not love him. Oh, and of course, the world revolves around him. And don’t you ever forget it. *rolls eyes* But I say all this with all the love in the world. :p

I’m ashamed of how long this introduction has become.

But yeah, that’s basically me in a nutshell. It’s all you really need to know to start getting to know me. I look forward to talking with all of you!

See you on the forums! [/FONT]
 

Ugawa

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Welcome to AW

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CACTUSWENDY

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Welcome to AW. Hope you enjoy your stay with us.

How do you like your popcorn?
 

Aileen Harkwood

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Welcome, N.L.! No need to apologize for the length of your intro. You're a writer, right? :)
 

regdog

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N.L. LeBlanc

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Thanks guys! c: I'm glad to have finally found what looks like a good writing forum. Also, storylady, I love the little moving Tinkerbell on your sig! :p Yes, I am way too easily amused. But I admit it, so that's okay.
 

Aristocrazy

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fascinating. welcome, jealous of your work ethic~!

Did a bit of research and have to say I'll be borrowing the BPD for a minor char now :p
 

N.L. LeBlanc

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Aw, shucks. c:

And yay, that's awesome! I'm glad I inspired another author to insert BPD in their story. :p It can be difficult to pull off, certainly, but it does add some extra spiff to the story (to put it lightly). I'm curious to see what you're going to do with it, now! Is yours a novel too?
 

Aristocrazy

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Graphic Novel actually. The world is reasonably built and I'm just focusing on learning to draw before I plunge into writing.

Basically the character was a relationship dependent girl with unstable self-worth and a tendency to view things that dealt with her in black and white. She's set as a minor character who changes her love interest between two major characters each arc (of which there are five) until finally getting a considerable role in the fifth arc.

So definitely she had a few undertones of BPD in her but I think by amping up the symptoms into serious BPD I should hopefully be left with a much more powerful and poignant character.

I'll probably go with
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
8. Inappropriate anger
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions and severe dissociative symptoms
 
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N.L. LeBlanc

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Thanks again to everyone for the welcomes! :D

Aristocrazy: Aw, yay, a graphic novel! <3 I have a little bit of a soft spot for graphic novels, being the only one who cares for and maintains their section at work. Hopefully someday soon I'll be sorting yours into alphabetical order with all the others, huh? :D What type is it? Is it a regular GN, like Marvel, or is it more of a manga-style one?

Also, your character sounds like she pretty much always had a mild-to-moderate BP, haha! How awesome is that? Same thing happened to my protagonist. When I was reading about it and thought of the story idea, I thought it sort of sounded like him from the get-go. It certainly fit incredibly well with the personality he already had, anyway.

I see you're staying away from (I think #5, I don't have the list handy) "suicidal thoughts and self-harming behavior". That's probably a good idea. Especially if she's minor, it would probably be a colossal waste of your time to have her whine about "Oh God, life is UNBEARABLE" all the time like my character (and half of his therapy group). Also, as an ending note, good luck with "severe dissociative symptoms". Creepiest thing ever. I've written what, like three episodes of dissociation? You just never get used to it. It's pretty darn hard to write actually.
 

Jos

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Welcome from another newbie!

It's awesome that you work in a bookstore, I'm jealous. I LOVE the smell of new books! Also, re. graphic novels - I'm SO addicted to Buffy Season 8. I'm gonna dig in to Firefly next, I think...it's high time, `cause my DVDs are wearing out. LOL.
 

N.L. LeBlanc

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Yeah, a lot of the GNs I work with seem extremely interesting. What I enjoy about graphic novels (especially literary ones and manga) is that they often deal with controversial stuff that books usually don't, which makes them intriguing. They're also insanely nice to look at. It's just too bad they mostly always cost an arm and a leg to buy! I used to read quite a bit of manga when I was younger, actually, but now I pretty much exclusively read reference books (because the ongoing psychology, etc. research for my novel is not going to do itself) and a bit of fiction.

Thanks for the welcome! And yeah, I definitely lucked out with the bookstore. It's pretty much the best job ever for me. Or at least it will be until I get a significant psychiatric education.