Happy Feet – the Joys of Research
Have I told you lately how much I love writing? I love all aspects of it (except maybe marketing but that’s for another post) from the research, to the actual writing, to the editing and putting it into a final form. I love the whole creative process, but I especially love research. If I let myself, I could spend all my time researching and never get around to writing!
What’s great about research for writing is that it can take so many forms, pretty much anything and everything can be fodder for a scene, a character, a plot twist. The book I am currently working on has some scenes in a nail salon. Now I’m not much for worrying about my nails, but my character likes to have her nails done. This necessitated a trip to a local nail salon. I made if even more fun by making it a ladies day out with my mother and sister-in-law. We started with lunch, than mani-pedis, followed by drinks at Grand River Brewery.
While working on my book, Land of Deep Waters, I spent a week in Guatemala, staying with a friend who lives there. My trip to visit my husband’s cousins in Belfast, Northern Ireland, helped me with the novel I wrote last summer, An Irish Slip Step. While visiting my daughter in New York, I took a day to visit the Alvin Ailey Dance Studio, walked along Time Square and toured Carnegie Hall, as research for An Irish Slip Step since one of my characters went to New York to audition for Alvin Ailey.
All part of research in preparation for writing! It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Is one trip to the nail salon really adequate? Maybe one of my characters should visit Hawaii? Meanwhile, my nails still look fabulous two weeks later!
The problem is that, eventually the research has to end and the writing begin . . . sigh . . .
Where has your research taken you? I’d love to hear from you.
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