In search of research

I’m easing myself slowly into the rewrites for Consorts of Heaven. As well as adding background and character detail, tightening up the narrative and sorting a couple of plot issues pointed out by my crit group, I need to do some more in-depth research, the sort requiring actual books.

Unfortunately, the subjects I’m interested in are a bit obscure for Hampshire. There is a total of one book in the whole county on the history of mathematics, and that’s a reference-only copy at another library; ten minutes on the phone and they grudgingly agreed to send it over and allow me to consult it at (but not remove it from) my local library. I had more luck with books on hypnosis; there were about a dozen of them registered to the library service, though for some reason over half of them were missing, presumed stolen (I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere). I’ve picked a likely looking title and ordered it. Ideally I’d like to get hypnotised myself, as I suspect it’s something you need to experience to describe well, but hypnotists are nearly as rare as books of maths history down my neck of the woods.

In other news, I’ve been asked to write an article for Publishers’ News, which, my publicist tells me, is a bit of a coup. I’ve also done my first interview for a magazine, which was a great bit of writing avoidance.

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