By Jenna Byrnes
Research can be so tedious. Long hours spent on the computer, checking and double checking facts.
But I
digress... which I do easily, when I'm researching online. It doesn't
take much at all for me to wind up looking at pictures when I'm supposed
to be checking facts. Not just those pictures. Lighthouses, inns, prisons, small towns, names -- I love looking through lists of names!
I
think back to the olden days when a person had to go to the public
library to look something up. I used to digress there, too, wandering up
and down the aisles looking for titles that piqued my interest. I
stumbled upon Go Ask Alice at the library, and I must have read it a
dozen times or more. What that has to do with this post, I have no idea.
My mind associates it with the library, I guess. I continue to digress,
and yes, I like that word.
Before we had the library, most of my
research was done in the set of encyclopedias my parents bought--or
should I say, started to buy. The version in my house ended when JFK was
president, so I had to guess about anything that happened after
1962-ish. The books were better than nothing, and I remember thinking my
family was lucky to even have them.
The internet has made
'research' more accessible to the masses. Of course, you have to know
what to believe (If it's on Wiki, it must be true?) And you have to know
where to look. Occasionally when I get a little too technical with my
keywords, I open up a whole 'nother world of stuff I might never have
known existed. Sometimes, I use that back button on the browser and
scoot right out of there. But sometimes, like a train wreck, I just have
to look. Before I know it, my writing time is over, and not a lot has
been accomplished.
Bottom line, research is not my favorite pastime. I do what I have to do, but try not to get mired down in the muck.
*sigh*
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~ Jenna Byrnes, Page Scorching Erotic Romance
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