The Reference Library

I have a sort of large reference library. Some are writing books, some deal with grammar and usage, others are subject related like Special Forces, mythology, magic, police work, etc. There are baby name books, books on careers, books on world building and costumes. I have foreign language dictionaries, books on coding websites, and promotion.

The picture in the blog only shows a small portion of my collection. These two shelves go across the width of my desk, and the only reason I'm not using the top shelf is because I'm too short to reach any books I'd put up there. And yeah, there's another bookcase behind me.

Before I moved out of Minnesota, I culled the collection. I donated writing books to my local Romance Writers of America chapter and I gave others to the Hennepin County library. My fiction collection also was pruned substantially. All told, I donated about 2900 books.

Yeah, I know. Can we all say obsessive book hoarder?

Leaving fiction out of the equation, I don't really need all these references. I know I don't because instead of opening up the books, I do online searches. Oh, I might open the name books when a character is being particularly difficult, but usually that can be taken care of online too.

The writing references? They're collecting dust. Grammar and usage? I always do online searches for answers. So why am I keeping all these books?

That's the question I'm struggling with at the moment. Some of them are old enough that they're probably out of date by now anyway. Things move fast in our current world. And yet I don't want to get rid of any of these books. :-( I can make a case for some of them. Like some of the magic books (I used to write paranormal romance and might again) have information in them that might be difficult to find online. But so many of them could go. Really.

And they won't be leaving my house. At least not yet.

How I Research a Story

Every book requires research of some kind or another and that includes paranormal. I'm going to talk a little bit about how I like to do research for my stories.

I'll start by saying that I've always had this eclectic interest in all kinds of things. As a teenager, I would get interested in a topic and check out every book the library had on it. I'd read them all and then go back to reading fiction until the next interest arose. A few topics I distinctly remember reading about as a kid: Mars, sharks, and the pyramids among other things.

My weirdness continued in college where there was a smorgasbord of classes to take and graduation required a distribution across a number of different areas. Plus, I was in journalism school (as an advertising copy major) and we only could take 45 credits inside the school. The rest were in other areas like political science, economics, etc. With this encouragement and my own innate curiosity, I graduated with 60 more credits than I needed and I did not have a second major or a minor. Um, yeah. Good thing I'm not going to college today.

After college, I continued my teenage habit of reading a ton on any topic that interested me, so I have this jack of all trades, master of none thing going pretty strongly. :-)

This all comes into play because before I'd even put down one word of Ravyn's Flight, I'd already done a lot of reading about Special Forces. Years before I wrote a word of The Power of Two, I'd read like a bazillion articles on nanotechnology because it interested me. The same with just about any paranormal phenomena you can mention.

In fact, I credit my idea for Power of Two to all the reading I did on nanotech. This is how the idea happened: I read the series bible and saw the four stories there were to choose from. I had no clue which one I wanted or what to write about, but my mind was turning things over. I was in the bathroom at work, looking out the window as I tried my hands and I heard this word in my head. Nanotechnology. I'm like, okay what about it? Nanoprobe in the brain. Hmm. The rest came tumbling in about how the hero has a nanoprobe in his brain too and so on.

My heroine came in as I was walking back to my desk and gave me her name, but it was the reading I'd done probably eight years earlier that set the stage for this book.

Sometimes, though, I have ideas that bring up topics I've never read about. Like in Edge of Dawn. I knew nothing about restoring classic cars. Not only that, I had no interest in them. Unfortunately, my hero, Logan, was into it big time. When this happens, I do some research in the phase I call Pre-Book. I want to get the heavy lifting done before I'm putting down words.

As I write, I'll look up the finer details that I inevitably need to know.

My research strategy:

1. Read and learn. If not every day than at least every week (just for fun)

And then the idea comes in

2. Research at a high level before sitting down to write without getting bogged down in minutia.
3. As I write, research the small details that the story needs

Not getting bogged down in minutia is a big one. I never know what kind of small details I'm going to need to know until I'm writing. This leaves only two choices for Pre-Book--either research down to a fine level on every subtopic within the topic or guess which subtopics you'll need and only research those.

The first wastes incredible time and is why there are some writers who've spent years studying without getting anything written. The second one is a waste of time, too, because inevitably the things I thought I'd need to know aren't what the book needed me to know and I ended up stopping to research anyway.

That said I subscribe to the iceberg theory of writing. Only 10% is visible in the book and the other 90% stays hidden beneath the surface. Just because I know something doesn't mean it has to go in the book. Same for what I know about my characters. But again, that's another post.

Hardcover versus eBook

One of my little quirks is that while I like reading my fiction on my iPad, I prefer reading nonfiction in paper. I'm not sure why this is, but every time I've bought a reference book for a project in electronic format, I've always wished I had the paper copy instead.

So there's this expensive book I'd been keeping an eye on for a while. It was over $35 in hardcover and the ebook version was $25. Right before Christmas I had a coupon that could only be used on paper books and I jumped on it, ordering this book which I'm sure will be great as a background reference for my current project.

Only when the thing arrived I'm like ugh! It was a hugely thick book. Hugely. Thick. I knew almost immediately that I would never read this thing in hardcover because it would hurt my arms/hands to hold it. I needed it electronically.

But paying $25 for an ebook? No matter how thick it is, that price point hurts and it's for a book I already own in paper. It wasn't an option to get the special Amazon deal or I would have been all over that.

Finally, I bit the bullet and paid the $25. I just hope that the reference turns out to be extremely helpful after I paid that much.

Research Challenges

Writers need to know some strange stuff and answers aren't always easy to find. Like my character who wants to work in a museum and takes a job in a country torn by civil war to get leg up on her dream job. I want to know what kind of educational background she'd have. I found someone who has the exact job she wants, but his educational background wasn't posted.

There's my hero who's a professional surfer. Try finding out an average day in the life of a pro surfer or how much money they make a year. I've been trying off and on for a while now and I've had no luck.

I had a million questions about the Los Angeles Police Department that I couldn't get answers to online. I emailed the LAPD public relations office asking for help and never heard back. I figured they had to be used to goofy questions from writers, but maybe they get too many of those.

The other problem I sometimes run into is when I need to search for information from another country and it's a country that doesn't speak English as an official language. Translating page by page to try to figure out if what I need is on that site is torturous.

I always seem to get characters interested in things I know nothing about: Restoring cars, glass art, surfing, archaeology, Polynesian dance, sport fishing... well the list goes on and on and makes things challenging for me. I keep reminding myself that it could be worse. At least these topics aren't as bad as some of the stuff other writers have been stuck researching.

Drum Making

To say I have an eclectic range of interests would be understating things. Sometimes even I'm surprised by what I get involved with--container shipping, anyone?

One of the things I did that I can't quite believe was that I signed up for a drum making workshop a number of years back.

I did have some attraction to the workshop otherwise I wouldn't have paid to do it, but I didn't think I would become entranced by the process. I did. The hours of the class flew by. I worked with the frame, I put the deer hide around it and fastened it in place with strips.

And it was fun! Oh, so much fun. I'm not a person who does crafts. I don't have the patience for it and the results are never quite good enough, but this drum turned out perfectly!

A friend of mine went to the workshop with me and she said I was intent on my drum. And I was. I would have loved to have taken the workshop over and over and over yet again. But I didn't; I only went once because what am I going to do with lots and lots of drums? Also, I had no desire to get into the business of selling drums, so it didn't make sense to go again.

I've decided my ability to get interested in unusual things is good. As a writer, I have characters and books that require me to research a wide variety of topics. Not all of them are scintillating, but if I can be held rapt by container ships, I know I can make it through almost any topic.

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.

Pinterest As a Research Tool

Pinterest might be the greatest research tool ever. At least for me. Yes, I do repin stuff from other people that has little potential writing research attached to it. Cute puppy or kitten pictures for example. But the vast majority of the pictures I save are things I might use.

I've received a great deal of visual information on any of my stories. I mostly hear words and maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll get a flash of some sort of image. That's about it, though. I'm constantly Googling for pictures of clothes, of places, of things and saving them to my hard drive for reference. Each book has it's own image file, which sometimes creates its own issues.

For example, I've had a number of stories take place in questionable areas of Los Angeles, but which file as the warehouse picture I want? Is it in my file for Through a Crimson Veil or is it in Blood Feud? On Pinterest, I have a board called "I Love LA" and now all my LA pictures are in one place.

It's even more awesome for saving pictures I might need some day, but don't know if or when I'll actually use them. Like all the images of men and women. Those are potentially heroes or heroines in future books. Of course, knowing the contrary h/h that I get stuck with, they won't look anything like someone I've already saved.

I have a board filled with clothes. Dressing my heroine has always been a challenge for me, especially the ones that have different taste than I do. I have boards filled with houses, places, and decorated rooms--kitchens, bathrooms, master bedrooms. I created a proposal in progress board so I can refer to the images I'm going to use in one place without having to search through the clothing board again and again to find my heroine's outfit.

Another great use for Pinterest is to save the images that get my mind humming. They're like creativity prods even if they don't make it into any story.

So when writer asks me if they should try Pinterest, my answer isn't only yes, but hell, yes! There are probably as many ways to use image pinning as there are writers.

If there are more typos in this post than usual, please forgive me. I picked up some bug and can't think straight yet.

Why Is That?

I've always enjoyed learning and have an insatiable curiosity. If something grabs my interest, I'll read up on it and I've done this for years. When I was in junior high, I remember checking out every book the library had on sharks and reading them. A few months later, it was Mars.

While I was unaware of it at the time, college encouraged this dabbling in subjects. The School of Journalism only allowed us 45 credits inside the program, the rest of our credits needed to come from a diverse swath of disciplines. This suited me fine. I'd go from Astronomy class, to Theater, to History, to Biology, to Far Eastern Art, to Oceanography, to... You get the idea. I was basically all over the campus.

It makes sense actually. I was an ad copy major, but there were also print and broadcast journalism as well as public relations inside the school. I believe the theory was we'd never know what we'd be required to work on. A journalist could cover a city hall one day and a flower show the next. A PR person never knew what industry their firm might represent and with advertising, the agency could work on very diverse accounts. If the student knew a little bit about a wide variety of topics, they'd at least have a background to draw from.

I might have taken this to extremes. Just slightly. When I graduated, I was 60 credits over the required number. I had 1 major and 0 minors. Um, yeah.

I've never stopped learning. I've continued to take assorted classes since then. Online, in community education, workshops, seminars and only some of them were directly writing related. I also continue to research anything that sounds interesting. If you've read The Power of Two you know nanotechnology played a huge role in that book. About five or so years before I wrote that story, I'd done a major study of nanotechnology. Not with any intention of using it, but because I found it fascinating.

All this leads me to this morning. I picked up a cold--I woke up Saturday sick--and this morning I wondered: Why do the sinuses clog up and make it so hard to breathe?

So I researched that. I don't think this is normal behavior, but I was curious.

For the record, the information I found said that the sinuses are lined with membranes that secrete mucus when they're irritated. The purpose is to keep bacteria and viruses from entering the respiratory tract. That made sense, but then my next question was: In that case, why does it take 3 days after getting sick for the sinuses to react? Wouldn't it make more sense to respond immediately rather than this delayed reaction?

I didn't have time to research that question.

Researching the World

I've mentioned in the past that I do bedtime stories to fall asleep. These used to be the Work In Progress (WIP) until it started causing insomnia. Whenever I came up with a good sentence that I wanted to use, I'd stress myself up trying to make sure I remembered it when I woke up in the morning. That's when I decided to switch to stories I knew I'd never write.

Only now I am going to write one of them as a short story.

It's not too weird because I'm used to getting information this way, but what I find interesting is the world building. Details have become set in my mind because of the years of running pieces of the story at night and now I have to find ways to make them work logically and realistically.

This isn't quite as easy as it seems. Oh, some of it is coming together. There's been a couple of vague ideas that research has nailed down perfectly. I think I might have happy dog danced when I discovered I could use those elements.

Other pieces of information are proving more elusive. Writers sometimes have weird questions and it's not always easy to find answers. That's where I'm at now, trying to hammer down a few more details.

Some of these pieces are things that will never come up in the story because the hero and heroine don't know them, but I need to know them to build the world.

And world building is critically important. I read a story recently where the author had me rolling my eyes as I read details of her world. I never want anyone to do that when they read my stories. Since this world is predicated on something that's never happened in the recorded history of mankind, it won't be easy to find everything I need to know. What I plan on doing is learning as much as I can and logically extrapolate from there.

Research Head Rushes

I've been mostly writing a synopsis for the last week, but I've also needed to do some research, not only for the story I'm working on now, but the one that's next up. I hope to transition by Feb 1 to the new project and need information to hang the story on.

The thing that's so awesome about research is it can bring in new threads to the story that I was unaware of before I found out more information. I had exciting things pop up on both projects and that is so cool!

On the Work In Progress (WIP), I found out information about what my heroine is doing for her job. I'd like to go into detail here, but won't because this isn't sold yet. It did, however, add an entirely new layer to the story. My heroine has a strained relationship with her parents. They had her life all plotted out for her, but she broke away from the script and they turn the screws to try to get her back on their track whenever they talk to her. What I discovered adds another conflict between Zo and her mom and dad. As if they didn't have enough already. Hehehe. (That's my evil author laugh.)

But layers of conflict are a good thing. Maybe the fact that Zo decided not to walk the path they wanted isn't strong enough in some readers' minds for the amount of strain that's there. Adding in this new area of conflict reinforces it and this is a deep philosophical difference, something both sides feel strongly about. On top of everything else, yeah, it should sustain the rift nicely.

While researching the WIP focuses on more specific information, researching for an upcoming project involves a more general type of study. This overview look is critical for setting the foundation of the book in my mind. Sometimes what I'm looking for in Pre-Book research will never show up in the story itself, but it's stuff that I need to know either as background or to world build.

I blogged last Thursday about the head rush I got as information about my heroine flowed in. I got a different kind of head rush that night when I began researching the story. This was critical for a big piece of the world building which mean it impacts everything--the characters, their backgrounds, the world around them, really just everything.

I kind of knew I wanted to do this, but from what I'd heard in the media, I didn't think my idea would be right. Thursday night I researched it and found out what I want to do will work perfectly. It was OMG PERFECT! All capital letters and exclamation marks. :-) The more I read, the more excited I got. It worked on every level for what I needed. No fudging, no exaggerating, no having to come up with a different plan to create the world I see around the characters. Woot!

The only drawback? Learning my idea would work gave me an adrenaline surge that kept me up too late Thursday night. Thank heavens for coffee!

Research. Sigh.

Normally, I don't mind research. I want to get everything right, and with the internet at my fingertips, I can usually put my hands on the information I need and verify it's correct. Image search makes it even better because I can see places I've never been and the ground view in maps gave me a chance to trace the route my hero and heroine drove. How cool is that?

But I've run into a research issue that's going to require I actually contact someone and ask my questions. It's not that I've never done this before. I bothered people at work incessantly with questions as the need has arisen and I have contacted other people via email with quick, one-off queries. This time, though, I'm going to need a little more than that.

My hero is on the LAPD and he's working at the new Police Administration Building. I can't find pictures of the interior, and believe me, I've spent hours scouring online. The best I could come up with was the lobby. My guess is this is a security measure, but it sure makes it tough to write a scene in the hallway of the building when I don't have a clue what that corridor looks like. Is it carpeted? Tiled? Are the walls white? Gray? Maroon? Are their posters hanging there? Are the walls blank?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I write paranormal and so my heroine does a few things normal people couldn't do. I'm guessing the LAPD PAB is a completely secured building--I don't know that for a fact, but without pictures and with people having to pass through a metal detector, I think it's a good supposition. So how would the hero be trained to react to the heroine wandering around this secured area?

My one consolation is that the LAPD has to be used to strange questions. Hey, they deal with scriptwriters. But I have to sit down and formulate the bazillion questions I have. This is not my favorite thing to do. I'd rather be writing.

* * *

Demon Kissed is up for preorder on Barnes & Noble now! And don't forget that you can find it on Amazon, too.

The Great Time Sink

The subheading for this could be How I End Up Behind Schedule. I've been working on a proposal for my agent on a paranormal idea and I promised I'd have it to her early next week. I knew where I was and knew how much more I had left to write. After that I'd need to revise, send it to my writing buddies for feedback, and revise again. Completely doable.

And then came the great time sink.

It started innocently enough. Friday night I received my Snow Leopard upgrade for my iMac. This is my desktop unit and it has my printer and scanner hooked up to it. It had taken some work, but I'd managed to set everything up so I could print from my laptop through the wireless network. This is foreshadowing. You might already be guessing where this story is headed.

Also on Friday night, I went looking for pictures of my heroine's house and I actually found it quickly. Sometimes I can spend hours and hours, days and days looking for the right place, but this one was like the second or third I checked out from the Realty site. Perfect! I even got to bed at a decent hour.

I slept in Saturday morning, had coffee, read email, and since I was still a little groggy, I thought I'd take 15 or 20 minutes and try to find a house plan for my heroine's townhome. I'd come across a lot of pictures that night before, but that didn't help me figure out the relationship between the rooms and I needed that. Since the place I'd found was up on so many sites, I figured one of them would have a layout of the rooms posted somewhere. A few minutes and I'd have my plans and be able to finish the first draft of the proposal chapters. Famous last words.

None of the Realty sites had plans for the townhouse, but I did find the name of the builder and the year that subdivision was erected. They surely must have the plans on their site, especially since it's a big, multi-state player in the home-building market.

But no. The project was completed and I couldn't find any archives of the older projects on their site. I checked other townhomes they were currently building in Florida, hoping they were using the same plans, but if they were, I didn't find it.

I'm on a mission now. I head to the Way Back Machine, AKA the web archives where sites are archived for historical purposes. I found the builder's site. I chose the right date in 2007 when the units were going up. The links worked in the Way Back Machine, but I hit problem one. The plans were in Flash and it wouldn't pull up in Firefox. Despair hit. Don't tell me the WBM doesn't transfer Flash inserts correctly. After a few attempts at reloading, it finally occurred to me to try IE. Bingo! I have my house plans.

Now another problem hits. I can't save the Flash images of the two floors. There's a print button, though, and I press it. Again and again. Nothing prints. I check the printer. Everything looks fine. I print from the iMac without a problem. Hmm. Back to the laptop. Still won't print.

I begin checking settings both on the iMac and on the laptop. It must be a problem with the networking, but everything looks normal. It had to be the upgrade to Snow Leopard that changed something, but I don't know what. After messing around with this for about an hour, I decide that's enough time. I'll fix it later and just print from the desktop. Safari and Firefox won't pull up the Flash file at the Way Back Machine and I don't have IE on the Mac. I enter Parallels where I run XP.

Finally, after reloading the printer drivers, I get a print out of the two floors of the townhouse--and then my scanner won't work. I surrendered then. Of course, by this time, the damage was done. It was after 2pm and I was frazzled from all those hours spent troubleshooting and trying to print.

Stuff like this happens to me all the time. You think by now I'd realize there's no such thing as a quick foray, that everything will snowball and lead to a time sink, but I don't learn. This put me a day behind on my mental schedule, and to get back on track, I had to work late every night this week. I managed to get my proposal chapters out to my writing buddies on the day I wanted to do that by, so I'm back on track. Goal now is to do another revision run over this weekend with their comments and have this to my agent on Tuesday. Just remind me to not do any fast research runs online.

Why Do They Do This To Me?

My characters always seem to spring stuff on me that I know nothing about. Take my latest story. My heroine in the proposal I'm working on told me she drives a convertible. Makes sense. She's originally from California and is living in Florida right now, so she can have one. The only convertible I can think of is the Sebring, and given the condition Chrysler is in, I figured maybe I should take a look at cars and see what else is out there. There weren't as many choices as I thought there would be.

There's a BMW, but she told me no, she doesn't drive a luxury car. That took care of the Lexus, too. I spotted a Mini Cooper convertible, but that wasn't her either. I kept looking. I found another car that was cool--a nice metallic blue and it had a shape that worked for her, but it was only being sold in Europe. There went another possibility. I had high hopes when I spotted the Nissan, but that had extremely limited distribution in the US. I ruled that one out, too. Finally, after forwarding through a few pages of search hits, there was a Ford Mustang convertible. That might work although she wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it. Or I might have to go with the Sebring after all. She liked that one.

I like learning new things, but this story is really pushing me into uncharted territory. Both the hero and heroine's jobs are going to require research and now I've got the heroine's car to add to that list, too. But when I think about complaining, I remember what other authors have mentioned that they need to research. Makes my topics look much better. :-) It would sure be easier, though, if I knew someone who had one of their jobs.

This happens in every book, though. Characters who do or know something that I don't and it feels like I'm constantly researching something. I enjoy learning new things--really, I do!--but sometimes I'd like to have topics that are easy to find information on and not have to figure out a way to discover what the dressing rooms at Walt Disney World look like. :-/ It never seems to be easy.

Here Be Dragons

Last night I became all excited when I saw that Animal Planet was doing a show about dragons. It was done in a pseudo-documentary style with Patrick Stewart narrating. Since the WIP (Work in Progress) involves dragons--in a way--I figured this was a prime research tool.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Yes, the show was interesting, but they didn't talk about dragon magic at all, treating them more like dinosaurs that could breathe fire and fly. And they compared dragons to crocodiles as far as their eggs and which sex the babies end up being born as. Um, okay, but not helpful for my purposes.

Still, the show was well done and the animation was good, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

Finding research material on dragon magic has not been easy and that was a surprise to me. I figured there'd be a ton of information available and there just isn't. Or if there is, I haven't found it. I'm looking for myth and lore of their magical powers, not what other fiction authors are doing, and the one time I asked on a loop, that was all the suggestions I received. Which totally shocked me--enough to blog about it at the time.

In the meantime, my search for dragon info continues.

Trivial Pursuit

I love collecting quotes like the ones I posted yesterday. It doesn't matter if it's from a philosopher or a bumper sticker slogan, if something about it catches my attention, I save it. Of course, a lot of my quotes have been emailed to myself and are buried deep within the thousands of notes on my laptop, but they're there. :-)

I collect trivial information the same way, but I think a lot of writers do this. I'll hear something or read something and think, wow, I have to remember that. The most bizarre topics can grab my interest--like the time I was flipping through channels and ended up watching an entire hour about container ships. I mean, how many people are going to find themselves riveted by this?

One of the guys at work called me Cliff Clavin after the Cheers character because, he said, I know everything. That was a nice ego boo, but far from true. The thing is that I know a little bit about a lot of things, but I know a lot about nothing. Chalk that up to eclectic interests, the U of MN's School of Journalism which wanted me to have credits all over the school for that major, and being a writer who researches incredibly small details. I've got all kinds of minute facts swimming around in my head. Just don't ask me what I did last week. ;-)

And one last totally off-topic thing. I stumbled across a fabulous review yesterday for Eternal Nights. The reviewer said, among other things that "Eternal Nights by Patti O’Shea is one of the best romance novels I’ve read in a very long time" and a bunch of other nice stuff. You can check out the entire review at Nights and Weekends.

Feeling Alive

At the Evil Day Job (EDJ) yesterday we were talking about these guys who leap from building to building. There's a name for it, which I've forgotten, and it's apparently a sport with training facilities and everything. Um, this is definitely one of those things that has me scratching my head because no matter how much athleticism is involved, some things just aren't sports. They're past times. There's a difference. :-)

We also talked about those squirrel jumper people who leap off like mountains and try to "fly" down as far as they can without opening their parachute. Again, this is considered a sport, and again, I don't think so. But that's not the point of this blog.

When I expressed my opinion, which was basically who in their right mind would do stuff like this, one of the engineers said something that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since then. I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but the gist of it was that when he does adrenaline-laden things that at least he's alive and not just living.

I wish I'd caught what he was saying a few seconds sooner because the conversation veered before I processed his words enough to get what he was saying. I'd love to question him on this for a couple of reasons. The first is that he was implying that people (like me) who don't do things like this aren't living. The second is that I'd love to know why he equates an adrenaline rush with being alive.

Cause you see, I totally disagree with him. You see, I can sit out on my deck and watch the birds fly around my backyard and I feel totally at peace and totally alive. No adrenaline involved, just enjoying what life has to offer.

I feel alive when I'm working on my stories, knowing in some corner of my mind that I'm offering my life's passion to the world. That people will read my stories and be entertained (hopefully) and transported into the world of my book and the lives of my characters.

Hell, I feel alive standing in my backyard and watering my flowers. :-) Last summer, I even had a hummingbird hovering next to me. And I feel alive when I see joy spread across someone else's face.

So his feeling that they only way to feel alive is to do something that causes an adrenaline rush is so opposite of everything I've experienced, that I totally don't understand it. That's why I'd like to question him and understand.

I've never, ever had any desire to jump out of airplanes, hang glide, para-sail or leap across rooftops in an urban environment. I've never wanted to jump off mountains or cliffs or scale mountains, then repel down them again. None of these things seem like fun to me in any way, shape or form. But more than that, I don't understand why he thinks doing something that gives him an adrenaline charge is the only way to feel alive. And I do want to understand. Maybe it's because I'm a writer and like to dissect people, but I'm hugely curious.

Part of the problem is that I'm polar opposites with this engineer. Everything he likes to do sounds like my idea of hell on Earth--or darn close to it, anyway. :-) And I'm sure he'd hate the things that I like to do. So since we're so different maybe I won't be able to ever understand why he feels the way he does. And I admit it, my own bias makes me believe that he's totally wrong about what feeling alive means. :-) That'll make it even tougher for me to get it. But I think it would be really interesting to write a character who thinks like this, so I'd like to try.

Research Bonanza

It was more research yesterday. I found the Actors Equity union website, and as luck would have it, they have their contracts posted in PDF files! Yea! So now I have a general idea what kind of money my heroine would earn as a dancer. That's a huge help because I was absolutely clueless and this will play a role in what kind of home she owns.

I didn't read the entire contract, but it was really interesting to see what kind of things it covered. Costumes, who cleans them, how often they're cleaned, who provides dance shoes, etc. One of the really surprising things for me was how little these performers make. I really thought that if they were good enough to be hired at that level that they'd be earning more. Wow.

But that's really good information to have. Now I know that my heroine isn't going to have a lot of extra money and that this probably isn't a job she's going to stay at forever. Of course, now I need to figure out what position a Polynesian dancer would aspire to hold.

More research to follow. :-)

Research and Recovery

Yesterday was the first day my knee felt almost normal since I torqued it last Saturday. It still went out a few times when I forgot to baby it, but I could mostly get around without pain. Huge improvement. So, of course, tomorrow I have to plant more than 100 bulbs in the garden. :-( Why do I have a feeling I'll be moaning and groaning again? It'll pay off next spring when the flowers bloom, I know that, but it's going to be tough to appreciate that when I'm hobbling again. Sigh.

I ordered a USB wireless thingy on Thursday. Yes, I'm sure that's the technical term. :-) I have a laptop without wireless capability, so I can plug it in, connect to my network, and update the thing. There were two offered on Woot yesterday (they were having a Woot-off), but both times it sold out before I could buy one, damn it. I checked eBay, but the fact that so many of the sellers were in Hong Kong made me a little uneasy. I decided to order from Best Buy instead and they had free shipping which always makes me happy. I loathe paying for shipping. :-)

A couple of DVDs that I ordered for research arrived, but I've been reading through copy edits (I'm on manuscript page 241 now) and haven't had the time to watch and pay attention to them. I have a few more on order. I also have a library book I need to read for research on another project. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to squeeze that in.

And last, but certainly not least, my dad patched the door seal today and there were no bugs on my foyer floor! Hurrah!

Research and the Writer

First, before I start my topic of the morning, I want to announce that I fixed my email settings and I can now send email again! Hurrah! It was a pain to figure out, but after checking out the help screen on my cable provider's website, all is well. Yes, yes, I know, but I have a motto: If all else fails, read the directions. All else failed.

Okay, now let me talk about research. I love being a writer. Not just because I love telling stories, but because I never know what I'm going to be learning next. Like for The Power of Two where I dealt with quantum brain nanotechnology. I had some basic information on nanotech because I'd found it interesting years earlier, but I had to really dig in deeper than I'd gone years previously.

When I worked on Through a Crimson Veil, I read up on demons--and found some scary stuff that I never want to find again. I've had to tread into this territory again with my Light Warriors series, only this time around, the demons are the bad guys, not the h/h. I've also been researching for Shona and Logan--gemstones, dragons, etc.

But I think my latest research takes the prize. For the last two weeks I've been reading about quantum mechanics, string theory and M theory. It's fascinating stuff, but if you'd asked me two years ago, heck, even one year ago, if I had any interest in reading on this topic, I would have said no way! I've barely scratched the surface, but I think I'm reaching a point where I need to home in on what I specifically need to know for the idea I'm tossing around.

I even research little facts, things I end up not even needing to know. For example, in In the Midnight Hour, my h/h fly to LA. I looked up the kind of aircraft NWA flies between MSP and LAX on the computer at work. I never used it. If you read the book, you'll see that there's absolutely no mention whether or not the plane is a wide body (2 aisles) or a narrow body (1 aisle). All I mention is how they had middle seats and couldn't sit together. I do this constantly, research little tiny facts that either don't get spelled out or don't really matter anyway. Shrug. I can't help it. I want my work to be "right" unless I choose to deviate.

To round back to my point, this is one of the reasons why I'm almost never bored. If I'm not listening to the people in my head, I'm reading up on a huge variety of topics. From pyramids to demons to nanotechnology to M theory. Wow. And who knows what it'll be next. How totally cool is this? Yes, I am a complete geek and I loved school. :-) I like the fact that I get to learn new things with every book. Even if quantum mechanics makes my head hurt.

Dragons and Speed

My parents came over for dinner last night, but they didn't stay long. There was more severe weather coming in and they wanted to get home before it hit. I think they just made it. :-) The severe weather is also why there's no movie review today. I wanted to keep an eye on weather alerts and wouldn't be able to do that without stopping the DVD. So I watched Speed on FX and flipped to local stations during the commercials to keep up on what was coming in. Despite the dire predictions, the storms weren't as bad as what hit at 3am Saturday morning. :-)

Speed is one of my favorite movies of all time. Not only is Keanu Reeves hot, but it's got action, adventure, and romance. My favorite combination! I never get tired of watching it.

While it was on, I also continued reading one of the dragon books I have. I found some great information as I researched that got me all excited. Maybe it'll spark a few more ideas. Today, BTW, is the day I get to work on the synopsis for the book for which I've been researching all these things. I joined my chapter's Book In a Week group to get me going on it, but I haven't been approved yet. Oh, well, I'm going to get started even if I don't state my goals on that loop. My goal for the week is to finish a detailed synopsis of the new WIP. I think I maybe have a title, too! I have to think about it for a while, though, and see if I still like it before I share here.

Another new flower this morning! Yea! This makes 5 now, although, unfortunately, the first one is fading away. I'm sure the storms we have didn't help it either since the winds were so strong, and so was the rain last night. I should take more pictures! I know you're all dying to see them. ;-) Just kidding. I might take more shots for me, but I won't bother to post them since they all look pretty much like the first flower pictures that I shared. Now, if the Sumatra Lily blooms, I'll post those shots here since it's a different plant.

Guess I better get moving since I'm working again today. Fingers crossed that it goes well.