Monday, September 24, 2007

Weekend Re-Cap

Great, great weekend. Saturday I took a very long nap, which I credit with helping me feel mucho better with this cold on Sunday. I lounged around in bed all day, worked on my novel, and watched Her Alibi. Remember that old movie with Tom Selleck where he's the mystery novelist looking for a story idea? Great flick.

Sunday my stepson, who is the quarterback for his football team, ran in for two touchdowns. It was awesome. This is the first game they've won this season, and they really whomped the other team. Lots of fun to watch.

And of course, Sunday night I spent sitting in front of the television, something I rarely do, but this time I made an exception - and will likely do so the rest of the week. Ken Burns' The War started last night and it promises to live up to its expectations. It's a no-holds-barred look at World War II, and there were times where I flinched from the barbarity that we human beings have inflicted upon one another.

It's officialy fall, but the temperatures aren't quite reflecting it yet. We're still hovering in the high 80's and low 90's, but I'm hoping that changes soon.

For my lunch break today, I plan on working on the plot of the novel. Lots of little issues I need to work out before I officially start writing. And then there's the research. Here's what I'm running up against, and it's a mixed blessing. Piemonte, the region in Northern Italy where my novel is set, is not as famous or as much of a tourist attraction as Rome or Tuscany. Thus, it has remained largely untouched as far as tourist traps go. Unfortunately, this also makes it much more difficult to research. For example, I'm looking for information about the hazelnut harvest as it will figure heavily into my novel. But do you think I can find much info on this other than academic articles? There isn't much, that's for sure. But therein lies the challenge.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:29 AM

    I don't know if I suggested it before, but look for blogs written in that region. I bet the writers would be happy to answer your questions.

    Also, About.com has some good regional forums -- you could post questions there.

    You could also contact the Italian Tourist Board and tell them that you're doing research, and ask them to put you in touch with a hazelnut producer.

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  2. Devon - great idea. I've looked for some blogs and found a few, but I didn't think about contacting the Tourist Board. Will have to do that.

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  3. Sounds like a great weekend! I remember Her Alibi. My mom loved that movie. She's a big Tom Selleck fan. She nearly had a coronary when she ran into him a few weeks ago when he was in town filming a movie. She became incoherent. My sister nearly died of embarrassment when all my mother could manage was yelling "TOM SELLECK!!!" As if the poor man had forgotten his name...

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  4. Whoa - good luck with that harvest. Sounds totally intriguing.

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  5. I love research! It's my favorite part of writing - I'm sure that is weird. When I was doing research on a little town in Japan that gets barely any tourists, I searched and found a few blogs by ex-pats as well as natives who were living in that town and had posted all this great information. I got in touch with them and WHAM, they filled me in with all the information I could have needed. And because I got it from more than 2 sources, I got it verified! It was great!

    Good luck to you!

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  6. We've been watching THE WAR too--astonishing, whew.

    On that Piemonte hazelnut harvest: if you can't find much, likely very few readers will ever know to what degree you've creatively represented it. Sometimes it's enough to know some key elements and deduce the rest. As long as it reads true, we readers will accept it wholeheartedly.

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