Thursday, December 17, 2009

Just Call It Research

Tip of the Day: Books make an awesome gift! And if you sign up at Borders.com or BarnesandNoble.com they'll start e-mailing you coupons every week. Or, check out Amazon where they always have a discount and you can get free shipping if you spend over $25. Or, visit your local indie and see what deals they've got going on.

I don't know about you but with the holidays zooming up on me (Yikes, is Christmas really next week?!) I can't concentrate on writing at all. Which then makes me feel kinda guilty and we can't have that. Thus, I'm telling myself everything is research:

Like Christmas shopping. It's so hard trying to find that perfect gift. And if you think you know just the right thing what would you do to get it? Would you do this?













To get this?



















Some did! And maybe that type of person will be a future character in a book.

Then of course there is the cheesy Christmas movies on fa la la la lifetime and Hallmark etc. I looooooove these movies. They are a holiday must. And they always only get the top notch actors like Roseanne Barr's ex husband and that guy married to Tori Spelling and starring on her reality show.














And I have to say it was good to see Dawson again. Oh, how I've missed him.


















Ahem, back to research. These types of movies provide a clear and easy example of plot structure. They're all pretty typical (really, I dare you not to know where the movie is going in the first two minutes) but enjoyable.

And the cookie making. Ohhhh, the cookie making. Let's see, that could be a practice in thinking up colorful adjectives. Like, delicious, delectable, scrumptious, tasty, yummy, succulent, delightful...












That is, until after the holidays when you're at the gym cursing out the evil little sugar balls of death.

Finally, the family get togethers. Families provide an abundance of crazy characters that you can pick interesting traits from. But like Deena has mentioned before, make sure you change them enough that your family doesn't get wise. Or you could have a situation like I had on my hands this past Thanksgiving when everyone cornered me at the table and accused me of putting various people in the book. :-) That's when you keep repeating, it's fiction people! It's fiction!














Happy Holidays!

Kristina, Miss Delighted to Debut

4 comments:

Kate Fall said...

Don't forget the Christmas music! There has to be some research in there somehow ... right?

DeenaML said...

I think I'm happy I don't know what a Zhu Zhu Pet is.... :)

Lisa Schroeder said...

I was in Toys R Us and they had a table with the zhu zhu pets, which they had just put out. I felt like maybe I should buy one just because they are such a hot commodity. But that seemed silly. Now I'm thinking I should have - I heard there are special hours at Walmart on Monday for people to get one, with a specific line to wait in and everything. Craziness!

Kristina Springer said...

One of my friends said she paid $42 online for a $14 one just because she couldn't find it in any stores. I saw the commercial again today and I get that they run around or whatever but aren't there a lot of toys that do that type of thing now? I'm not getting why it's so hot.