Day 4: Searching for Research

Research is my favourite part of not writing a book. I can take an idea to the computer with me and spend hours following link upon link until finally I reach the decision to write an entirely different sort of book. I digress. A lot.
If I do manage to stay on topic then I enjoy exhuming articles essays and images;collecting mass amounts of information that I thoroughly intend to read.
Better still is printing the articles. Watching page after delicious page climb out from the inside of my printer. Each piece of paper goes in white and fresh, naive and young. Each paper then comes my way, instantly educated and carrying with it reams of intelligence.
I love finding just the right binder or folder to house my piecework. The colour usually reflects my hope for the book. If I am particularly passionate about the topic I might choose a red folder. If my writing is particularly emotional then I am likely to choose green or blue. I once chose a folder that had a picture of a canoe on the front because I was writing a fairly decent piece of Canadiana. A lot of thought goes into this process.
I then have to find an appropriate place to file my work. If it is a current project I keep it close by me. My bedside table has stacks of books and papers. Some of them have to do with my writing!
My desk has two large drawers that hold my works-not-in-progress. It also has a drawer full of my favourite pens.
Unfortunately these drawers have somehow filled with mouse droppings. I wonder what that says about my writing?













I think I am going to have to research that.
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http://www.duke.edu/web/isis/gessler/topics/island.htm
"Island of Research"   fromTHE SCIENCE GAME by Neil Agnew and Dandra Pyke. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1969).