How far would you go?
I’ve never thought of myself as an adventurous person and the idea of living in a tent, eating unknown animal parts and travelling huge distances off the map are all terrifying to me, which is why being accused of being ‘research rabid’ has come as a bit of a surprise.
The comment came from a fellow writer who suggested I was insanely committed to researching my fiction. I agree that having fifty-seven photographs of bath chairs might seem excessive in the ordinary run of things, but I am working on a novel set in a convalescent home after the Great War and bath chairs feature heavily.
It’s true that in editing a short story about walnut tagietelle I made the dish four nights in a row, but walnut pasta is not exactly a hardship either, in my opinion, and I was the only person in the house – I didn’t make anybody else eat it so regularly.
And I admit that I do have a tendency to wander around sniffing bottles of frankincense oil (Christmas or high church mass or Byzantium), or jasmine (summer evenings or fragrant heroines) or pine (Scottish highlands) when I’m trying to evoke a scene, but that’s only a minor eccentricity, isn’t it?
But yes, I may be going too far. For the novel I’m currently working on, I’m trying to gain access to a river that has been running through an underground culvert since 1887 and I’ve just been told that I may indeed be allowed to visit it. The thing is, I’m terrified of deep water, enclosed spaces and the dark. I may not have thought this through properly ….
NaNo word count – 44511
6 Comments
Tribeless
22nd November 2006One word, Kay: crocodiles.
cheers Mark
Kay Sexton
22nd November 2006Ouch!
But I hope not, not in the south of England, surely ….
You’re kidding me, right?
Tribeless
22nd November 2006Of course I am. The UK is far more likely to have an animal smuggling industry from the USA than from Australia, so it’s probably just alligators down there.
kathrynoh
22nd November 2006Research sounds fun, except when it involves stuff like that. Scary.
P. A. Moed
23rd November 2006Bring a friend and make sure you take a flashlight! But seriously, I do the same thing you do vis-a-vis researching. How else can you make the writing authentic and believable?
Alabaster Crippens
11th December 2006Facing fears will be good research in itself…who cares if you’re not writing about that yet…maybe you will one day?
Maybe not.
Anyway, I think this tunnel diving sounds like great fun…and I’m glad you talked about smelling stuff….I love smelling stuff….and I never thought of that.
That’s it…I’m going to get more ‘hands on’ with my research.
Cheers Kay