Internet research

I've been working hard yesterday and today on Chapter 5 like I had planned. I've had some noisy distractions because of work on the house, but I've made do. A couple more hours should get me through the work I anticipated on this chapter, but we'll see. I don't know if today is possible, and I'm planning to write off tomorrow as a loss because of some errands.

I get a kick out of how internet research must change the work of novel writing. As I drafted, I stayed away from the internet, but while I'm doing the rewrites on my computer, whenever I'm wondering anything about a detail in my book, it's a quick check on Wikipedia, and I usually end up learning a lot of other fun stuff that I'm tempted to weave in like a show off.

I often turn to the web for questions of style and spelling. (A handy tool not everyone knows about is in google if you search with "define: your word" it will return results with formal definitions of that word.) Today I wanted to check on the proper format for a famous department store that may or may not have periods and spaces in how they use their name. I found it easily, but then I thought, that's how they do it now, but maybe it wasn't the same in the period the book is set in. So I searched a little deeper and found a catalogue from that era and ended up flipping through the pictures, including of the ladies underwear and swimsuits of course, just like my pre-teen character would have done.

So I'm getting the format right, I'm immersing myself in period details and I'm putting myself into the pervy imaginative life of my character. It took seconds to get there, and I could have spent all day if I didn't have real re-write work to get back to.

Alright, back to it.