On Research (and Libraries)

I'm a week into my cleaning and research projects, and I'm excited to announce that I have an acceptable place to write while I'm at home, a weekly schedule that includes daily and weekly tasks I've been bad about neglecting lately, a stack of books from my library awaiting perusal, and a TBR (To Be Read) list that is growing daily.

I love books. I love real, physical books most of all but there are advantages to ebooks as well. Mostly, I'm finding, one of the advantages is availability. It feels strange to say this, with my dust-collecting Master's degree being less than ten years old, but I come from an old-school library background. Maybe transitional is a better word. We did online classes and electronic databases but the physical collection, number of volumes as well as useful content, was still a matter of pride. Shelf space was as issue. My experience was also limited to academic libraries. So I was somewhat surprised during my trip to the local public library to discover that they have weeded out a large portion of their physical collection. There are still books available, but many of them have been dispersed among various branches. Luckily for me they have a terrific hold system which allows me to place holds on items, even from home, even for books held in my "home" branch's collection, and pick them up in the holds area the next day. As a former library assistant in Interlibrary Loan who delighted in rejecting patron requests because they were available in our physical collection (I'm a much nicer person now), I admit I find this system perfectly suited to my needs, and I take full advantage of it. Hey if they want to let clerks comb the shelves for potentially misshelved or missing items and save me the trouble of doing that myself, I say go for it. And then of course there's the whole world of internet and electronic resources. In this modern age, I can do all the research I need from home, or if that is too loud and crazy, my neighborhood Starbucks.

All that to say, I'm content to work with what I have. I'm the kind of person who does what it takes to get the job done, whatever that means to me, and not really the kind of person who goes far above and beyond what is necessary to ferret out every minuscule factual and anecdotal detail about a place, a time, or a group of people in order to move forward on my project. If I can get a good general picture of who people were, what they called themselves, how and where they lived, what they valued and how they spoke and what ate and wore and what kind of pets they had, I'm good with that. A benefit of fiction-oriented research is I can also use fiction to inform my world. What other authors have written about people and places is, after all, part of the body of literature on the topic. So I get to read textbooks, articles, children's books, encyclopedias, and yes, even novels and wikipedia, in my hunt for information. And all along the way, my mind is churning as I imagine new characters and how they will fit into this world, finding flashes of inspiration for their journey through it. It's so fun that I occasionally stop and wonder at the fact that I'm actually getting paid for this. This is literally a dream come true for me. Somebody remind me of that a few months from ago when I'm agonizing over a plot that's not moving properly and characters that just won't behave the way I thought they would. Deal?

On A New Project

Once again, I've let my blog lapse for nearly a year, not because I didn't have anything to say (I always do), but because I didn't necessarily feel that this was the time or place to say it. Now that I have some interesting new happenings in my writer life, I'm renewing my blogging efforts. I'm hoping to give my blog/website a fresh new look later this year, but for now, welcome back to Allie On Life. I've missed this. Have you?

So, what are these new writerly happenings? Here's what I can tell you: Earlier this year the CEO of Lineage Media and Solutions hired me and a couple other authors to write some novels to tie in with some of the company's creative projects. Last week, we met for two days at the office in beautiful Bellevue, WA to connect and collaborate and discover the world these novels are set in, as well as the plots and characters of our books, and how they all tie together in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. To say that it was fun would be an understatement. I'm hoping I played it cool and professional, like hanging out with other authors is something I totally do and I totally know what I'm talking about and all that, but basically I was geeking out for two days straight and IT WAS AWESOME!!

And now I'm going to write an actual book that other people are actually going to read. Again, playing it cool while totally doing the inner geek out thing. This is gonna be so fun. And crazy. And hard. And you, dear reader, whether you be real or imaginary (because imaginary friends are people too) are invited along for the ride.

The book I'm writing is basically a historical fantasy written from a Christian worldview. At least that's how I'm choosing to describe it. I'm keeping the title and premise secret because it's just so awesome that the world isn't ready for it quite yet. Is that sarcasm? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you'll never know...

Because this is a historical novel, I'm starting out with historical research. Oh. Yes. I'm trying not to get too carried away because there is a book to write, sooner rather than later but hey have I ever mentioned I have a BA in History and an MLS in Library and Information Science? Well, I do. And yes it's been awhile since I've had a chance to do some historical research so yes I'm excited about the chance to do it. And yes there are people in the world who enjoy research. We're called nerds, people. There are a lot more of us out there than you'd think. Why do you think The Big Bang Theory is such a popular show? It's because everyone either knows a nerd or is a nerd. But I digress...

Along with the fun stuff about writing, like hanging out and talking about writerly things with other writers, and historical research, and plotting, and actually writing, there's some boring housekeeping kinds of stuff. Some of it is quite literally housekeeping. I need to create a space in my house where I can be a writer, since at the moment I'm a little bit too broke to rent a table (buy a latte) at Starbucks three or four times a week. I also need to make myself a schedule since the one or two hours a week that I've spent writing lately will not be enough to write a real actual novel in time for my real actual deadline. So this week I'll probably use most of my writing time for things like that, and setting up my notebook, and starting things like a basic outline and a list of questions that I'm hoping my research will answer. I'll check in here periodically to give an update on how things are going. You are cordially invited to tag along via this blog. I'm hoping it'll be a fun ride.