Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Hippo Secrets and Crocodiles

Okay, so my newest kids story is COMPLETELY hush hush secret.  But let me tell you this--research has never been more fun!

I was never into research in school and especially not college.  Everything I was looking into was boring and the topics were chosen by the teacher.  Oh, I am leaving out that WAY back then, there was no internet or google to glean information from at the tip of my fingers. I actually had to go the the library, for gosh sake. From there, books had to be hunted down from a computer catalogue and then found by myself or a helpful librarian. It could take an hour to find the necessary books for just one subject and then only get a paragraph worth of information.

And my sons complain that our internet is too slow!  If they only knew.

Now when I desperately need to know the difference between a crocodile and an alligator, it is within a moment's lightening speed. Even funny images about how a croc eats babies with its mouth opened with a 'C' shape and an alligator with an 'A' shape.

Research life in this era is so grand.

Even doing freelance article writing is fun. For every one I write, I just google the subject, and there is a plethora of stuff already written about it. All I have to do is a bit of reading, put together what I've learned, and then spit it out onto a new Word Document.  People actually pay me to do this!

The things I've learned, too--stuff that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about during bar conversations.

Back to my new hush-hush book.  Okay, the stuff I am learning has nothing to do with non-fiction newsworthy stuff. It's for a kids chapter book. But oh is it funny! I'm looking at images of creative stuff other people have done and boy are people crazy.  I want friends like this who would do the kind of silly stuff I am downloading pictures of.

This is making me scream with a desire to tell you what I am writing about.  But, as I swore a blood oath with friend CJ, I am not at liberty to tell. I will just have to hold in this hippo sized secret until the book is ready--hopefully in the Fall. It had better be, I don't know if I can wait any longer than that!

Heather Leigh

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