Monday, August 14, 2017

No Sign Posts When Doing Historical Research






My piece of advice for those who are thinking of taking the plunge of #writing #historical #nonfiction or #historical #fiction - if you don't like digging through mounds of #data or spending your time in #museums or #photographic #archives, then you're barking up the wrong tree. Maybe carpentry is a better career path. You still get to build something.

But, if the above activities really intrigue you, if the prospect of visiting your local #historical #society the next day wakes you up in the middle of the night, or if you would rather stay up all hours of the night perusing through the pages and pages of data you copied or downloaded or photographed, then you're on the right track.

Beware! There are no #signposts to guide you in your research endeavors. The #journey will be a long and winding #trail. There will be moments when you will jump through #history a decade or even a century at a time and then find yourself back again. You will become an expert #puzzler, as you try to piece all the different data bits together into a cohesive finished product. You will accumulate #notebooks by the dozens, and #computer files by the thousands, and in a very short amount of time. But, if you stay #truetoself and your #project, you will, no doubt, wind up with a #story or #article that will make your target #readers glad you expended the effort.


No comments:

Post a Comment