Me, I’m lazy as anything.  I don’t like to research.  But as a self-respecting author, I’m not going to let a manuscript that’s reflective of me go out into the world with fallacies the size of the Grand Canyon because I just couldn’t be bothered.  No author that gives a damn about their work would.  My methods of researching, though, vary from story to story.

For Diamond Crier, that’s mostly internal research and making sure my world’s consistent.  Considering I don’t edit along my writing way, that’ll happen when I start the revision process.  I do need to do some geographical research and see if the land I have mapped out will actually work but mostly it’s research within my own little world.  Nothing prior to writing it.

Earth Shatterer, while that story idea was brewing for a while, I didn’t plan it out because I didn’t really know what I was going to have in it until I wrote it.  It’s set in an area of California I’m familiar with so I’m done with that part.  Then varying creatures of Fey decided to pop in while I was writing it.  Again, since I much prefer to punch out the story first and foremost, I’m not going to dive into fairy lore until I start my revisions.  I know very little about Fey simply because I was never that interested until now.  I know what I want my Fey to do but I need to make sure I’m doing the distortions properly.  On top of that I have internal research to do as well, what with the Other Side and all.

With Coney Island Psychic I started reading books on Coney Island prior to my starting writing it.  I’m still reading Coney books and I’ll probably be reading Coney books while I write it (once I start it up again) and when I’m editing it.  I’m trying to capture a particular feel and the history of Coney can play a huge role not only in that but the stories themselves so I need to know what’s going on.  Considering I’m only a few hours away by train, I ddi visit the area, took pictures and experienced Coney (and its surrounding neighborhoods) first hand.  That helped immensely.  I think this work is unique in that I’ve been pretty constantly researching for the story.  I haven’t done that with any of the others.

Well, maybe Under the Boardwalk but definitely not to that extent.  I want to make sure I get the dynamics of a sleep away camp right before I even start writing so I’ve been researching that a little.  This is another story that’s set in my familiar area of California so I got the area down.  This is the only one of the four that doesn’t have anything beyond a short summary about it written and it’s also the only one with a burgeoning soundtrack.  I like the feel of those beach songs of the 50s and 60s, all light and airy as a mask but what’s going on underneath is far from it.  I’ve started collecting songs in my Project Playlist account.  This is another one that’ll have a bunch of Fey and ghouls and such in it and considering I’ll be doing research on that soon, I’ll be able to carry the information over and pick up the pieces with the rest of it.

I research because I give a damn about my work.  I want it to be the best it can be and accurately represent me as a writer.  I don’t want to be known as lazy or uncaring about the words I put on the page.  I am human, I do make mistakes and I’m sure my works will have them (it’s inevitable) but I can do what I need to do to minimize their presence.  And I know there are plenty of writers out there that feel the same way I do.

I know it kind of gives me a twitch to know that a writer like Meyer wears her lazy factor on her sleeve like a badge of honor and instead of remedying that fatal flaw, she lives it up and (I’m assuming) believes that “it’s just fiction,” she’s above such serf work as research (or just learning how to write) and can continue writing as she pleases because she has the sales numbers that “prove” how good of a writer she is.  No one can tell the cash cow that she needs to work on her craft because there are those that need her to continue to be that cash cow.  It makes me wonder how long they expect that bubble to last.

And let me just reiterate, for any Twifan that may read this, even though I am a writer striving to do just what Meyer has done (I should say Rowling just because the quality is much, much better but for arguement’s sake) in terms of selling her work, I would never trade places with her.  Ever.  I would never want to be the author whose work people thought was so bad they just had to read it for themselves (this would be many people I know, in one degree or another).  It would make my soul die to know that I were making millions off of something I knew was  (and was nearly universally editorially regarded as) crap.

The thing is, the girl I work for has the heaviest work load in the department so I had to do something so I wouldn’t get buried. It’s a situation like this where my organizational skills work against me because I want to stay organized and on top of everything all the time and it’s quite literally impossible in this job, there’s just so much. So reforming my work habits are going to have to come into play at some point.

Anyway, I’m normally up at 6. This week I was up at 5. No more. I can do 5:30 (which is really 5:45, thanks snooze) but barely. I’m normally home around 5:30. Most days it was about quarter after 6 (less traffic later in the evening, less travel time). That equaled me wanting to go to sleep at 8:30, 9 o’clock. My regular writing time is between 8 and 11 Monday through Thursday nights. As you’ve probably figured out, not much writing got done.

I got a little bit, but no where near what I should be doing. “Well why don’t you make it up this weekend?” you’re probably asking. As I said above, I’m a creature of habit therefore I don’t write the real stuff on the weekends. It’s break time for me. Then I work on website stuff, graphics for my little shop, fanfiction, fun stuff. The brain needs a break from it all, it really does. So there I have another very hard habit to break but not one I necessarily want or need to at the moment). I wrote probably 1,000 words this week. That’s terrible since last month I was averaging 1,000 words a day by my schedule. Unless I can crank some more out than what I normally do, July’s numbers are going to suffer.

On top of all of that, the other woman I work for it going on vacation the last week of July. Thankfully her work load is about 1/2 of what I covered this week. Much less stressful. Well, relatively speaking. Her premiums are higher but fewer accounts, is what I guess I would say.

So, I only wrote 3 days this week. I relaxed last night and watched So You Think You Can Dance? To me, the only redeeming reality show. I just love watching them dance and I love to dance so it makes me happy to watch it. Back to regularly scheduled programming next week, thank god, and a chick named Gorvish. Consider her the dorm mom in my WIP.