Chaotic research

Hi there!

You wanna know what I've been doing lately? Research, excessively ridiculous amounts of research. So, in the hopes of keeping a lighter post, and not overtaxing my time, I thought I would talk about some of the stranger twists in my research lately, as a reminder that research isn't always easy, but it's always an interesting adventure.

First up, chickens. In my original plans for my book, I figured my MC would keep chickens, so I researched chickens, logical right? After choosing a proper breed of chicken, I turned to researching keeping chickens. All in all, I think I spent more than TEN HOURS watching educational chicken videos... and then I decided to drop the chickens from the book. Yeah, that wasn't great, but I still learned a lot of information that would also apply to the other animals, so it wasn't all wasted time. 

Sheep next. I knew from the start that sheep would feature pretty heavily in my work, so they were a very safe place to go next. Again, I chose carefully chose a breed that would fit my purposes, and again I focused on video research. Taking what I'd learned from the chickens, (watch the animals and their keeping conditions, to make sure your source really takes proper care of their animals.) I was able to cut down on the number of videos I watched, but all in all, I probably did more than eight hours of research, (I even did five solid hours of research in one day.)

Then I moved to goats. I'm not actually finished with my goat research yet, but after choosing the proper breed, and pulling up all my videos, I can tell you that when I am finished, I will have watched over fourteen hours of research on goats. Phew! And the frightening thing? I still have two more kinds of animals, and another two separate subjects to research, not to mention all the time I've spent on non-video research.

I imagine you may be wondering why I'm bothering with all this research, considering I could easily do minimal research and get along fine. The truth is that most of what I've learned will never directly enter my books, but having all this knowledge will help influence my work, and hopefully, make everything as realistic as I can reasonably hope. I doubt I'll ever know how it truly feels to be a farmer, but this will bring me closer to that goal, and I hope it'll show.  

Have a great day, and keep writing!