Research

This is loooong overdue. I kind of hit a wall in early December with all of the holiday activities, and despite promising myself to post a blog, it just kept being put off. I know other writers go through this, and it was complicated by a lot of critiquing and working in fits and starts on my second book.

Which brings me to the point of the blog. I need to do research for my books. They are set in Maine, a state which I visited quite a bit when I was growing up, boating along the coast with my family and occasionally going on trips with my Dad when he was heading up the Marine Division at the Boston office of Aetna Life and Casualty. I had decided long before I started the first book that the stories would be set on the Maine coast. My husband and I have taken trips – during the summer – to gather in the environment and background for both books. But this second one is set in February, and although I remember vividly my winters in Plymouth, MA, that was many years ago. I really need to experience what the winter is like in Maine.

Several friends have suggested that I wait, and certainly with the Canada Clippers that are sweeping down every few days and leaving Maine in a deep freeze, with or without snow, their cautions are reasonable. But I was a scientist for more than four decades, and the urge to do research is still there.

So off to Maine we will go – to visit Presque Isle and the MicMak Cultural Center, circle the area of Crystal Bog, and take a ferry trip from Bass Harbor to Swan’s Island. And perhaps a few visits to independent bookstores, to see if they would display my first book.

Not more than four days. Really. Unless it snows.

Do you do research for your books? And please note my daughter felt that my blog site needed to be modernized. Comments on this new format would be welcome!