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Thursday, January 24, 2013

Education Never Stops

On Tuesday I talked about learning Spanish and it made me think of learning in general. One of my very favorite parts of being a writer is having the opportunity to learn something different with every book. There are things my heroes and heroines do or know that I don't know anything about.

Like my hero and heroine who speak fluent Spanish. :-)

I complain about some of the things I need to research--some of my h/h are into some stuff that doesn't interest me at all--but in the end, I'm always glad I learned it.

Among the things I need to research for ideas I have have percolating now are: geology, South America, surfing, also professional surfing, Hawaii, Post Concussion Syndrome, archaeology, reverse engineering of technology, espionage, computer viruses, and jungle survival. Just to name a few. Some of these topics are in the same story, BTW. It isn't one topic per book.

I'll confess to having zero interest in surfing, but that hasn't stopped me from pinning a bunch of surfing pictures on Pinterest.

If you remember Tuesday's post, I mentioned that I pick up my characters' interests. Believe me, that hugely helps me research the things I'm not personally interested in. It's a blessing...until I start buying things because of this interest. Still, it's better than having to research a topic I find really dry (geology, engineering) with nothing to alleviate the pain.