Fascinating Research…

As I mentioned in the last blog I usually have Google open when I write. This can be a great help and also a major distraction. You see when I research something that I need to move a story along, I can lose hours delving into the flood of close but no cigar information that I come across.

I sometimes get the feeling the Internet might be sentient. I know, sounds ridiculous. I reckon it knows exactly what I’m after and returns just enough partially relevant information to keep me looking. Often I see something interesting and end up researching some completely unrelated however really interesting topic.

I guess I’ve begun to realise what might be interesting to me doesn’t always work with my characters or move the plot along in any helpful way. Harrumph, I’ve had to look at these few instances in terms of relevancy. I mean how cool are Bailey bridges? A portable bridge that is strong enough to drive tanks across. I’m no engineer but even I have to admit, that’s pretty cool!

When I was researching these I found out they are used extensively in China and did you know they can be extended longer than the usual maximum two hundred foot length with floating, yes you heard right floating pontoons. You can have this really long bridge with only fixed mounting points at either end. Oh yeah in World War II Bailey bridges were…. ahh you get the picture…

After sulking for a while, I usually remove the superfluous content by calling on the all powerful delete key.

Such is life…