I have this Dr. Seuss quote on the back of my business card, and it is the truth all people should live by, especially us authors. We have such a strange, exotic, mysterious, terrifying reason why we search for the subjects that we do. Double-checking your dates for the Invasion of Rome, and its aftermath. Finding the correct placement for a flying bullet, tokill or wound. The mission to track down the correct use of forging language unfamiliar to your own. To find out a woman created the first real cookbook, which included ingredient amounts and cooking temp and time. Yes, before that, a cookbook consisted of only the ingredients used. Gosh, I love to learn!
It amazes me when I stumble onto something unheard of, opening new doors of knowledge and understanding, within place people and things. Just as you find within the pages of your favourite books. I must add as well, how lucky we are to be in the digital age (for the most part) to have a revolving door of new information, new technology, and breakthroughs, all of which give us a limitless vista to create worlds yet to be created. Or quiet possibly out beyond the reaches of our understanding.
To gain insight into your passions, into the earth, and history, into the great wilderness and oceans, and into the things we can only dream up, and if we are lucky, put them eloquently to paper to share with others. Open more doors to ideas, thoughts and questions you may not have had before. It may be hard, but the best thing you can do for yourself is open up to the possibility of… everything.
It is another gateway into our creative path, something, new and different, even when the story has been told a thousand times before, your insight, your past, and your knowledge make the character, the landscape, the world, why limit yourself to only the window you see through. Research into stories, and lives, go digging for the lost tales, and myths of your favourite hidden place, and deep dive into the far-reaching spaces of endless information, but be warned, I too have fallen down the rabbit hole, more than once. I can sense my work in progress glaring at me.
Even when it comes to dates, moon phases and tides, everything can be found with the right tools, ’Google’ cough cough, and be sure to take the time to ensure these details are correct, you know the one reader out there will find out if it is or not, so don’t give them the satisfaction, especially when you can be precise. I have searched up calendars and dates most often, as most of my writing takes place in days gone by, and I like to keep my timeline as accurate as possible. Something I am very anal about, keep those pages tabbed, lol.
So, again do not limit yourself when we have access to the world in your hands and at our fingertips. Ask your questions, be thorough, calculate and recalculate, and be sure to stand tall when asked about your information, knowing you had taking the time to make sure it was accurate. For those of you writing fantasy and sci-fi, sure things may not apply as often, but never forget, fantasy has underlying rules and scientific jargon is a language all its own 😊 Don’t’ make um mad.
Yes, we live in a world where we don’t have to ask the one aunt would always had an answer, we don’t need to make a trip to a library to look up that stubborn question, we don’t have to guess. As with everything the benefits are numerous for us as writers, and just as daunting. Leaving more room for error and the ability to find those mistakes, but you gotta hand it to those dedicated angry fans, they still bring in a crowd. And that’s what revisions are for.
Keep learning, and keep growing! And always be kind.
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