My writing-widow wife is used to me leaping on cheap flights to nearby Europe to do research for my stories. I need to smell the plants, feel the stone walls, experience the culture of Mediterranean or German environments before writing about them. Love that part of writing as much as crafting the story. However, she said noooooo when she realized my latest short is based on a tandem parachute suicide pair. Of course one of them changes their mind on the way down. Wife knows I’ve not yet done a tandem jump and guessed I’d need to know the noise, wind, where toggles and handles are, and so on. The so on might be to see how much freefall and still survive for last few seconds… Luckily our son has done a tandem jump but it was heartening seeing my wife looking so concerned.
How far would you go for research?
I’ve been spending a lot of time on promoting this last week, in between writing more, editing and playing with grandkids. Wife’s birthday today too. Been using twitter but worried it might alienate if I push too much. I’ve used one liners such as: Set fire to your Kindle with my Hot Air. Details at http://geoffnelder.com/hotair.htm
Also promoting our How to win short story competitions, also out on Kindle or pdf with details at http://www.ideas4writers.co.uk/books/storycomps.php
This week the Helen Whittaker prize is confirmed with a start date on June 7th. I am the short fiction judge with Mandy Pannett as poetry judge. I can’t wait. Details are at http://www.helenwhittaker.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9848
Good luck if you are entering.
Tags: balloons, competitions, crime, Hot Air, Kindle
May 31, 2012 at 4:44 pm |
Haha, I’ve written two posts about my hands on research; one about thinking of getting arrested to see the inside of a police station and another where I visited a hospital to ask about their coma patients. Nice to know I’m not alone in my methods.
May 31, 2012 at 5:15 pm |
Good to meet you. I got into hot trouble in research on Mallorca for my Hot Air book, so I did see the inside of police stations and cars there! The police shook their heads eventually at the harmlessless of a long-distance writer.