Down The Rabbit Hole

In most cases writing a novel will require some sort of research. When I started writing my first Regency set romance, I had some notes for historical accuracy but would find I needed more detail or clarification or something would come up I hadn't thought of when I did my bare bones plotting. I would hop onto the internet, google what I was looking for and end up clicking from one website to another to another only to realize my designated writing time had come and gone and I was now reading information that had nothing to do with what I had originally set out to look up.

It's easy to get distracted by all the interesting information linked from one place to another regardless of what you're researching. I'm working on a contemporary set romance and decided I needed more information regarding orbital fractures. Three hours later, I probably have more information that I'll ever use or need and saw some pretty gruesome pictures depicting the injury.

Since I seem to be easily led from one source of information to another, I've learned to do research separately from my writing time. Now if I decide I need more information on something, I put a note right in my manuscript stating something like "research the Washington National Cathedral services" and highlight it in yellow so it stands out and continue on writing. I also jot what I need to look up in a notebook. On the weekend, I'll pull out my notebook and research all the things I've listed that week. Sometimes I'll go back and add the information into my manuscript when I sit down to write during the following week and sometimes I don't add in the information until I'm working on edits or revisions.

This is the process that works best for me otherwise I'm like Dug from the Disney movie UP, easily distracted from the plan at hand and yelling squirrel every few minutes. 😁