I prefer nerd. By the original definition, the nerd was the person who was interested in things concidered socially taboo for their age, such as comics. Before the internet these things were hard to come by and people didn't talk about them.
This was the person who was also generally socially inept. The geek is actually a term from the days of the traveling freak show, a geek was someone who ate gross stuff or regurgitated objects for the audience. Since I have a morbid sense of humor, I kind of like gross and weird stuff, so I think nerd is more fitting.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.