I've always looked upon research as an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity. But the other side of the coin is one must not be so caught up in it that one never gets the book written.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.
I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.
The thing about research is that there's no end. You constantly have this fear that an expert who knows more than you will call you out on some detail in your book.
Most scholarly books we read for the information or insight they contain. But some we return to simply for the pleasure of the author's company.
I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research in a shorter time.
I think a lot of readers are looking for a book they can talk about.
I like to believe, as a writer, that anybody who isn't a reader yet has just not found the right book.
When I began, I thought that the way one should work was to do all the research and then write the book.
I try not to recommend too many books, frankly, because I think there's a certain synchronicity that happens when people discover books.
I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.