In writing as in life, preparation is necessary.
Do you prepare for trips? When do you begin purchasing
airline tickets, making a hotel reservation, and signing up for activities? Do
you research upcoming weather so you’ll know what clothes you will need? And in
this always connected age…do you make a note to bring those chargers?
What else can you not leave home without when you travel? I
hope it’s a good book!
Writers also value preparation to help bolster and foster our creativity.
I’m working on two collections of short stories now—one set in
Newfoundland, Canada, and the other in Vermont, U.S.A.. My research binders are
full of how horses weighing a ton or more carried empty ore carts at the height
of Bell Island’s iron mining days, what visiting Norsemen were up to in AD
1000, what First People's lives were like, how Vermont faced its own witch hunts
and vampire epidemics. Fiction, especially historical fiction, demands good research,
and plenty of it before, during and after (fact checking!) the many drafts of
my stories are completed. Then there is book promotion, a never-ending pursuit of finding loyal readers.
As the philosopher Seneca has observed: "Luck is what
happens when preparation meets opportunity." And my preparation research
often leads to interesting plot twists or an authentic line of dialogue. Lucky
me!
How about you? How do you plan in your journeys—in travel
and life?
