The things I do for art!
My job may have gotten a whole lot busier lately, but I’m continuing to refine my outline for Book 2 when I can – and I’m looking forward to my next research trip. Well, sort of looking forward to it – I’ll be visiting Cape Cod in the dead of winter.
While there, I hope to speak with numerous hotel employees, a realtor, a teenager, a fisherman, a bakery worker, a fire chief, and other locals. (Can you guess the plot of my next book? Hope not!)
Full disclosure: I have family on Cape Cod – and with any luck, they’ll be able to help me gain introductions to the many people I want to interview. I’ll be staying at a ritzy hotel (in the off-season, thank God, so it’ll be slightly more affordable) – not because I need to bask in luxury, but because my main character will be working at a similar property, and I need to make notes of details that I couldn’t get during a fly-by visit.
Interviewing a realtor shouldn’t be a problem. Same thing with the fire chief, the bakery employee, the teenager (more full disclosure: she’s my niece, and she’s actually in her early twenties), and the locals. I’m pretty talkative with strangers, as anyone who knows me will tell you!
What’s got me worried is the fisherman – if I can even score the interview. I’d like to tour a working fishing boat. Since I practically get seasick looking at pictures of the ocean, that will be a real test of my writerly commitment.
It would be so much more enjoyable to do my research on a beach somewhere, drinking Mai-Tais. Why didn’t I choose to set Book 2 in Tahiti??
