Coming in for a Landing

Thought for the day: The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot. [Michael Altshuler]

[image courtesy of morguefile]

Watch out! This ol' gal is fixing to land...

Yeah, I know how trite it is to say that time flies, and no writer wants to be accused of being trite, right? But what can I say? Time really DOES... um... you know. I was just starting to settle all nice and cozy into my month-long break from blogging and... poof!... it's over.

So here we are at the beginning of a brand new month, which means it's also time for another IWSG post.

Happy May, everybody! For those of you who participated in April's A-Z challenge, I hope it was both an enjoyable and a successful one for you. For all the rest of you, I hope it was a terrific month for you, too.

[image courtesy of perfectlytimedphotos]

All is well here. I'm nearly finished with the first draft of my WIP and am enjoying what I like to call the jet-assist period. If you think about it, writing a book is a lot like making a long solo flight to the destination of our dreams. When we start out, enthusiasm and excitement about the wondrous place we're going provide plenty of impetus, but as the journey continues to go on and on and on, the seemingly endless flight becomes more of a slog, and all we want to do is land already. When that initial jet-assist poops out, we're left huffing, puffing, and flapping our wings like crazy just to keep from crashing. Then the end's finally in sight, and we're miraculously infused with a second wind, and the original jet-assist excitement is back again in all its glory. We're almost there! Ain't it grand?

Another thing that's grand is this Insecure Writer's Support Group. The brain child of Alex Cavanaugh, this group provides support, solace, and yes... jet-support impetus... to all writers of all kinds. If you'd like to join, or are interested in following links to other participants for this month's post, please go HERE

Now then. Let's move on to this month's question: What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story?

Weirdest? Coolest? I dunno. I don't think anything's too weird, and research is all cool. However, for the book I'm nearly finished, I did a bunch of research on homemade explosives... how to make them, where to get the ingredients, and all of that good stuff. Really interesting. (My dear oh-so-helpful Smarticus informed me that if someone from NSA comes knocking at our door, he'll promptly direct them to my office.) I'm not sure if perusing posts written by anarchists qualifies as weird or cool, but some of the research I did for Book Two of my trilogy definitely pegged the cool-o-meter for me. I wanted to find out if Maryland had a reform school for girls in the late '50s and early '60s. Not only did I find such a place... and in the perfect location for the purposes of my story... but I found a Yahoo group comprised of women who were IN that reform school during those years! Talk about a treasure trove of information. GOLD MINE! I don't know if all writers enjoy the research side of things as much as I do, but to me, the research is a joy in itself, and ya know, I'm just about convinced that the Internet can answer just about ANY question. (Whether or not the answer is correct may be a different story... ) What's the neatest treasure trove of information YOU ever discovered?

It's good to be back, y'all. Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.