Pages

Monday, July 1, 2013

In the Name of Research

Oh, hello July.  Fancy meeting you here.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  I am supposed to re-visit my June goals and make some new ones.  But the truth is, I just don't feel like it right now.  One of my goals for the year was to have a little more gratitude about things in general--and what better way to appreciate the lazy days of summer (where I have more freedom-of-time than usual!!!) than to NOT stick to my schedule? (I pronounced schedule as "shedule", as one does.)

Anyway, instead I thought I'd share a few things I have done in the name of writing research. They weren't all on the same book, and some were a few years ago, but here they are, in no particular order:


Met with a guy and his falcon to see how the whole falconry thing works

Attended a joust

Climbed to the top of Blarney castle to kiss the stone

Timed how long it would take to write a sentence ten thousand times using a quill (I didn’t not actually write the sentence ten thousand times, just a few, then extrapolated)

Sampled various types of spiced cider

Visited a heavily seal-populated cove

Watched a couple of episodes of Ancient Aliens (they have the SAME scientist guys every time, but their hair looks different—like they are trying to trick you into thinking there are more scientists who subscribe to the ancient aliens theory.  There are three.)

Watched a documentary on Area 51…but I can’t tell you about it because…well…

Watched the Curiosity film clips from Mars

Doodled a picture of a Viking dragon boat

Visited the Air and Space Museum

Visited the Star Wars exhibit at the Discovery Cube


Spent hours perusing the illuminated manuscripts at the Getty


Just to name a few.  So how about it?  What strange things have you done in the name of research?

hrh

2 comments:

Jessica Lawson said...

Wow! You've done some fabulous things in the name of research! There's a Renaissance Festival down the road from us that sets up each summer and we haven't gone since I had kids. I've got serious turkey leg and jousting fever. Can't think of anything interesting at the moment, but I have a historic MG novel idea that I can't write until I visit York to research the Minster Gates, etc. Just waiting for the $$ for that trip to mysteriously arrive in the mail...could happen any day, right?

PS, love the "schedule" pronunciation~ ha!

Julia said...

Wow! You've done a lot in the name of research! I think my most extreme moment was checking out a fashion encyclopedia... It pretty much was the best thing ever and the hardest to carry around school. :-)