One of my favorite things about writing: Learning!

Question 68 – What are some of the most unusual things you’ve researched for your writing?

Oh I’ve researched LOTS of stuff.  The most interesting to me was eye enucleation, but some recent ones include properties of silk armor, pre-modern heating and cooling, farming techniques, volcanic hazards, photosynthesizing sea-slugs, bee vision, unusual riding animals, fungus crafts, scar mobility exercises, eyeliner tattoos, and alpine survival.  All relevant to the story/world, even the sea-slugs!

More recently than this post, I’ve done a bunch of research on mountain climbing, altitude sickness and the Khumbu region (where Mt. Everest is), since I have some characters currently in an analogous situation.  I’ve learned some new terms like col and couloir to describe mountain structure, and the related images and maps are really interesting.  Always been distantly interested in mountaineering (I would never do it but the stories are absorbing) and other wilderness/disaster survival topics, so a lot of my research is about that — making sure my characters, astray in the wilderness, don’t have too easy (or too hard) a time of it, depending on their skill levels.

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