The Fun Way to Research

Best Kid Line of the Day:

When I was rolled up with strep throat this weekend, I pretty much just curled up on the couch and didn't move as much as I could help it. And I cretainly wasn't in the mood to read bedtime stories to the three-year-old.

So when I had to put her to sleep, and she started begging, the ol' "Mommy, doesn't feel well. She's sick. Her throat hurts. She can't read tonight," just didn't fly with her.  So, I said, "Why don't YOU read tonight?"

Her answer: "I can't. I don't have my glasses."

Hmm. Since I usually take my glasses off to read, I'm guessing she learned that line from Grandma.

Now, onto the topic of the day...

I'm am so psyched about my newest story.  I am now 80,000 words into it, and I had thought--and kind of hoped--it would be over by 80K, but nope, it's still going strong. 

One thing I worried about was trying to make my character authentic though. She's just beginning college and is a very modern girl. She walks the walk, and talks the talk.  And me, I'm still stuck back in the 90's when cowabunga was new (shout out: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. woot, woot!), so I was worried I was going to make her sound like an old fogy (is that how that's spelled?  hmm).

Anyway, I was kind of stressing about that, and kept looking things up in the online urban dictionary to make sure I was getting phrases right when I said to myself, I'm going to have to hang around a group of eithteen to twenty-year-olds and just listen to them talk. 

And then it happened.

For Lydia's birthday, we had to visit Grandma's house for a birthday supper, and Grandpa put the Disney channel on for her to watch this teenie-bopper show. 

Pow, suddenly there were a group of teens in front of me talking in the most up-to-date teen lingo out there!  So, I found some scrap paper in my purse and started talking notes.  Oh, yes I did.

Another thing I wanted to get right in this story was music, with some of today's hits being mentioned.  Have any of you played SongPop on Facebook (or off any SongPop app really?) yet? They have lots of today's current songs there.  So, tada!  I got help for that little problem by playing SongPop (seriously, if you do play, feel free to challenge me, I love playing!!!).

Usually, when people talk about how much research they do for their stories, I just cringe because when it comes to researching something, my best friend is usually Wikipedia. But now I can say, I watched Disney and played SongPop to research my latest novel!

Some night my hubby's going to come home from work to find me at the kitchen table with all the junk food spread out in front of me. "I'm researching," I can say. "I need to aptly describe the flavor of Nacho Cheese Chips!" 

I know. It's a hard life, but someone's got to live it.