Everything Is Research

My husband will tease me sometimes about wasting time when I should be working. What he doesn't know is that everything I do ends up helping me with my job. Even that game of spider solitaire that helps me clear my head from Project A to move on to Project B.

Or like yesterday. Frustrated over a search for sources, I decided to take a break and read CNN.com. Because lately I've been working on a lot of energy and green-related articles, a news item about clean power caught my attention. As I read it, I found it was in line with this article I'm working on -- cool! I wasn't wasting time any more. This was research! But even better, hidden deep in the article was a quote by a man who was touching on the exact thing I needed to know for my article.

A little copy and past into the Google search bar, and in a minute, I had his contact info. An hour later, I had an interview scheduled for this afternoon.

An article I'm working on now, coupled with the CNN article and another article I did last week, have given me an idea for a whole different article.

Heck, even writing this blog today has given me an idea to pitch to some of the writing magazines. Everything really is research for a writer.

P.S. The talk went okay. People showed up. I rambled a bit, even though I had notes. But the questions went on for a half hour. People were really interested -- but they also asked a lot of questions about general freelancing, as well. This was a crowd who want to be serious about writing but aren't sure how. I hope I was able to help them a little.