Travels - of a sort, and wearing different hats
Last week was a complete bust as far as my Super Sekrit Project was concerned - I had just finished writing my political column about 11pm Tuesday night in time for Wednesday's deadline when a Washington Post breaking news alert came into my inbox that our senior senator here in CT, Chris Dodd, was going to announce his retirement the following day, basically transforming the political landscape completely. That meant a total rewrite of the column and lots of blogging on the site I'm a front pager for, CTLocalPoltics. Sometimes I find it really hard to switch back and forth between my political hat and my author hat. Do any of you have that problem?
Yesterday, I took a nice long walk in the crisp, chilly air with my writing assistant
to try to clear my head of the political barbs and get it back into WIP mode.
It worked, because I got back and started to write.
One of the things that is interesting - and frustrating - about being a writer is researching settings.
The first third of my upcoming novel, LIFE, AFTER, is set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, somewhere I've never been. One of the comments in my revision notes from my editors was that I needed to bring the setting to life. This was about the time that Governor Sanford of South Caroline was hiking the Applachian trail er no, doing research for his book visiting his mistress in Buenos Aires, and I was so jealous, not that he was having an illicit affair and ruining his political career and making a complete ass out of himself, but rather that he could afford to jump on a plan and toddle off for a week in Buenos Aires for "book research", when I really legitimately would have LOVED to do book research there.
Still, with the help of books and Google maps and images and reading local blogs, I hope I managed to achieve the goal. And someday...someday, I really want to go there to see for sure.
Right now, I'm working on some scenes that are set in Istanbul, Turkey. It looks like such a fascinating place and I just bought a travel guide to help me with my research. But I really want to GO there. But in the meantime I'll be visiting the Topkapi Palace and Troy in my imagination - through research.
Maybe next time I speak at career day I'll tell kids one of the pros of being an author is that you get to travel in your own mind. In these tough economic times that's a bonus.
Yesterday, I took a nice long walk in the crisp, chilly air with my writing assistant
to try to clear my head of the political barbs and get it back into WIP mode.
It worked, because I got back and started to write.
One of the things that is interesting - and frustrating - about being a writer is researching settings.
The first third of my upcoming novel, LIFE, AFTER, is set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, somewhere I've never been. One of the comments in my revision notes from my editors was that I needed to bring the setting to life. This was about the time that Governor Sanford of South Caroline was hiking the Applachian trail er no, doing research for his book visiting his mistress in Buenos Aires, and I was so jealous, not that he was having an illicit affair and ruining his political career and making a complete ass out of himself, but rather that he could afford to jump on a plan and toddle off for a week in Buenos Aires for "book research", when I really legitimately would have LOVED to do book research there.
Still, with the help of books and Google maps and images and reading local blogs, I hope I managed to achieve the goal. And someday...someday, I really want to go there to see for sure.
Right now, I'm working on some scenes that are set in Istanbul, Turkey. It looks like such a fascinating place and I just bought a travel guide to help me with my research. But I really want to GO there. But in the meantime I'll be visiting the Topkapi Palace and Troy in my imagination - through research.
Maybe next time I speak at career day I'll tell kids one of the pros of being an author is that you get to travel in your own mind. In these tough economic times that's a bonus.