Hard at Work

How great is it to research a new novel? I can spend my time armchair traveling, web surfing or reading and call it work.

Taking a cyber vacation to the setting of my work-in-progress isn’t really wasting time on the Internet. Web cams remind me that the skies over Mackinac Island are often overcast, and even in summer, visitors wear sweatshirts. Travel blogs point out that the bus ride from Avalon to Two Harbors is slow, dusty and bumpy, and if my characters had any cash, they’d travel a different way.

I get to search the web for new knowledge, like how to play darts (you don’t try for a bull’s eye every time) or how to crack a safe (if possible, steal the whole safe and move it to a secure location).

I love a good nonfiction book, especially about a subject I’m unfamiliar with. I expected intrigue and clandestine adventures from Femme Fatale, a biography of Mata Hari, but I ended up feeling sorry for her. From reading More Money Than God, a book about the stock market, I learned about selling short and leverage buyouts, and that it takes a lot of guts to operate a hedge fund.

Off to work I go.