Different Perspectives

No, I'm not going to be talking about point of view.

I'm going to talk about how the research I do affects me. Because it does. Sometimes there's the obvious -- learning more about a specific time period leads me to think about how what happened then is similar to what's happening now. For instance, when Gutenberg came up with the printing press, a lot of learned folks were not happy. Because producing a book became so much faster and especially so much cheaper, why, then anybody can write...anything! They can say and mass produce whatever "nonsense" they want! It'll be the downfall of civilization!

Sound familiar? It did to me, too.

The hero of THE VISCOUNT'S KISS, "Buggy" Bromwell, is a naturalist who loves spiders. Keep your horses and your hounds, and give him a spider in a web to stare at and he's a happy camper. And now guess who doesn't just glance at a spider or brush it away, but who gives them a long, lingering gaze whenever she encounters one, like the specimen rapeling down the front door the other night? Yep, c'est moi.

It also means I get to visit websites I never would have otherwise, like this one and that one. It means I find and buy obscure publications like SPIDERS, MEN AND SCORPIONS .

Recently a New York Times bestselling author of historical romances came to speak at our chapter and she mentioned her research assistant more than once. Even if I could afford it and believe me, there are times I would love somebody else to find out things like the names of the various parts of a mill for THE UNWILLING BRIDE (I spent a whole morning on that one), to do away with research would be robbing myself of one of the parts of my job I really enjoy.

After all, it's one of the main reasons I write historical romance and not...something else.