Oh, Research…How I’ve Missed You

I like to do research for my stories. Well, I did like to. But then I went to graduate school. And spent a solid year doing research for my Master’s thesis on working class literature and politics.  (Yes, those of you with Ph.D’s, go on and laugh. A solid year. Baby stuff. I know.)

Anyway, I spent the next year and a half or so writing lots of flash fiction and poetry, because my brain, frankly, just wasn’t up to the level of concentration a longer story would take me to write. A more in-depth project just wasn’t in the cards. And research? Please. I couldn’t look at a library without gleefully picturing the poltergeist I’d send in to throw books at the cell-phone-abusing undergrads and mentally-challenged reference librarians. Actually, I still kind of feel that way–libraries have changed since the long-ago days of my undergrad years, before cell phones and iPods and kids who’ve grown up ignorant of libraries until they get to college and have no idea how to behave in one. Sigh.

But suddenly, last fall, I began working on a real project. An ambitious project. A project that would require some real, in-depth research. And so I began to collect the books, to haunt the stacks (sans poltergeist), to find the online reference sites.

You know what? I’m loving research again. Diving in is fun, and it’s relieving to know that my thesis didn’t kill my appetite for research for good. I’ve been spending my Sundays curled up on the couch with my cats, some coffee, and my online Motif Index of Folk Literature–and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Dear god. Does this mean I’m getting old? Or just that my project is eating my brain? Either way, I hope the feeling lasts.