Research Part One: Scouting Locations

It's the weekend....which means time to work on my own little projects as opposed to the job-related ones.

I've been fortunate enough to have done a lot of traveling in my life. When I lived in Europe, I spent a lot of time on planes heading anywhere from South Africa and Dubai to Uruguay and Iceland. It was a crazy time in my life.

And I HATE to fly. But sometimes you suck it up for the opportunity.

What I never realized back then is that all those experiences would be useful to me above and beyond the consulting I was doing at the time.

As planned at the moment, the first three books of the Symon Bryson series will take place primarily in the Boston area. As the dangers and conflicts slowly ramp up, the locations will expand on par with the action.

There are a ton of religions and mythologies out there I want the play with as a part of the arcana chronicles.

Now, like any modern writer (or 'wannabe' writer in my case) Wikipedia (and the Internet in general) is a veritable cornucopia for research material. But eResearch has credibility issues sometimes. A twelve year old posting a Wikipedia entry on particle physics, for example, should probably be fact-checked.

Anyway, I like to do online research backed up by 'pounding the pavement' research. Especially when it comes to locales.

There are too many nuances---smells, culture, foods, etc.-- that need to be experienced to be written about properly.

And I love research.

So I have a few scenes in books two and three that will take place in certain areas of Boston. My partner Tina and I will spend the weekend playing in local neighborhoods, eateries and little corners of the city I want to use later. She's a true sport.

And it's spooky-gloomy outside with misty rain. Peeeeerfect.

Sometimes, I just love my life.

EDIT at 18:30 A few shots that might come in handy: