Thursday, March 12, 2009

Research?

I’m a collector of all kinds of research. I save articles from magazines and newspapers, as well as books I think might be of use. I even print stories from the Internet.

What I’m not is organized. I tend to toss my research materials in folders of similar kinds of stuff, but when I look for a specific article it takes me forever to find it.

When I’m looking for ideas, though... they’re there! I have quite a collection of information on all kinds of areas that might be useful for stories. Lots of stuff about animals, for example, particularly dogs. Things on lawyers and the law. Things about crimes, criminals and real crime scene investigations. And now that I’m also working on a thriller idea, I’m amassing stuff on the aspects of that story that I intend to focus on.

How about you--do you save things you think will be of interest later, whether to any writing you’re doing or something else you intend to do in the future?


--Linda

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

But of course! If you examine my office you will note a filing cabinet, several bookshelves, and some very large hard drives.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely! I even labeled a folder "Things I Don't Know What To Do With." Story ideas can be found anywhere, and you never know when you'll need one.

Linda O. Johnston said...

Hard drives are an excellent idea, Ellen--and so are their backups! And Sheila, I love that label!
--Linda

Anonymous said...

I've got boxes of info (mostly history stuff) I started collecting back in high school! Boxes from jobs and volunteer work with info (almost all nature/animal/dog-related, with some historical/cemetery stuff) I could use in so many things. Bookcases and more boxes of books and magazines that I don't have bookcases for. My house is so full of paper....oh, it doesn't even bear thinking about!

Betty Hechtman said...

Linda, your filling system sounds like mine. What amazes me is that even with the disorder, I seem to know where everything is.

Linda O. Johnston said...

Oh, Kate, I empathize and identify. Every once in a while I try to clear stuff out, and then I sit down and start reading it...
And, Betty, I'm glad to say that I at least have an idea, most of the time, where to look for things.
--Linda