I've been spending a lot of time reading up on and researching a variety of subjects for my sooper-sekrit project that's due early this summer. Many of them are very, very, very boring technical books and manuals. I've come to the stunning conclusion that about 99% of what I've read will be completely useless when it comes time to start writing. Unfortunately, that's kind of the way it goes with research. So, what will be the most useful? The email correspondence between myself and an individual who had first-hand experience with the setting of my project. So there you go.

However, I can't say wading through all that technical writing was wasted time. If I hadn't done it, I'd be worried that I should have done it, that there was some spectacular bit of information out there that I'd never know about because I was too damn lazy to do the work to find it (0r to find out that it doesn't exist, as the case may be). And, as I slogged my way through equations and charts and paragraphs full of blah-dee-blah-dee-blah, I realized that most of my original ideas were quite ridiculous, even by the generous standards of genre writing. This led me to some better ideas, which has started to lead me to different areas of research, and: the faint beginnings of some interesting characters and a plot! FINALLY.

I can hardly wait to start researching mining operations and steam engine technology for my steampunk novellas. Woo. Freakin'. Hoo.

Labels: research