You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Research. I've been posting recently about the up market kind - what I did on my holidays - but research can take all kinds of forms and be for all kinds of reasons. I just did a quick inventory of some of the things I've done recently that could be classed as research, if you use the loose definition of 'finding out'.
The total comes to four classes and a catalogue for fruit trees! A mix of planning and serendipity! You never know where useful information will come from.
The classes are a mixed bunch.
There is my regular gardens course, with the Lifelong Learning Department of the University, which is mainstream for the WIP. I am creating a garden for the book and am having soooo much fun working on the back story. Will it all get into the book? Possibly not, but I think that knowing it is there will add depth to the writing. And yes. It is FUN!
I also did a lecture on divination. I have a character who is into this kind of thing and it was a good opportunity to find out the sort of tools she might use - observing natural phenomena, like bird movements and the sky. For things like that I think it is important to make sure that details are correct and plausible.
Another one-off on-line course was craft - a webinair from the Crime Writers' Association on science and crime - very useful on the forensics that a writer might need and other practical stuff, - like the fact that poisons are not usually instantaneous in effect and that someone hit in any part of the body by a bullet probably won't be running around chasing bad guys a few minutes later, even with an artistic sling.
The second craft class is this week - and in person workshop on characters which is being held by one of the writing groups I belong to. We don't do it often, but it is good sometimes to get together and consider the nuts and bolts of putting words on a page. I'm looking forward to it.
And that fruit catalogue? I seem to have got on to the mailing list of a specialist fruit nursery. I'm unlikely to be planting any trees in the near future, although I have not given up on the idea of a tree in a pot, and I have managed to germinate an orange pip which might one day amount to something. My mother grew one that flowered, although I don't think it fruited - but Mum could have planted her walking stick and it would have rooted. Anyway the catalogue has given me ideas for all sorts of unusual fruit - medlars, sloes, crab apples - that can be made into jams and jellies which fits into the ethos of the community I am also creating - and there is a bit of hedge witchery going on there. I'm enjoying that too, although I know I have to be careful, or it will be taking over the book.
That's always the thing - research that gets into the book is almost always only the tip of the iceberg.
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