With the first draft of my contracted novella complete, I need to step away from it for a few days. That way, when I come back to edit, my eyes and senses are fresher to the storyline.
So what is keeping me busy in the mean time? Well, besides catching up on household chores and errands I got way behind on while in deep writing mode to finish the novella, I’m researching. I have a three book idea I plan to write a proposal on, but each book requires a great deal of research. Some theories about the times of history I have in mind have been proven, some not. Not all of history is concrete. There are often gaps and unknowns, and lots of just plain educated guesses.
Fortunately for me, I love history and fact and theory (especially Chaos theory – where anything can happen). I’m a social psychologist by degree and work in research. I love the thought process of deciphering what could or could not be possible, given the resources and knowledge available at the time.
So today, with somewhat of a break in all the snow and icy roads, I finally made it to the library for the first of my research runs. I have garnered a wide variety of books in each of the historical times I want to set these stories. I will use this first pass of research books to narrow down my general ideas to more specific times in each historical setting. From there I will know the specific facts or theories that I need to chase down in order to tease out the settings to make them as authentic as possible.
Only when I’m satisfied that I can re-create that historical setting in my mind with my characters, will I be done with the research and ready to write. Not that all of my research will be complete. Inevitably, my characters will throw a monkey wrench into the story and give me something else to seek out for authenticity, but by then, I will be well immersed into the plot and still be able to carry on writing.
