The research challenge

One fiction writer’s adventures in research.

If you like getting a free book, enjoy doing a little research, and would like to help out this author, then I have an offer for you.

My offer:

Contact me through my website…kitcrumb.com and tell me about one of the three facts that I talked about in this blog and I’ll give you Free any one of my Audio books. Then continue reading my blogs and if you decide to fact check for me I’ll thank you with another of my books, Kindle or Audio FREE.

If you’ve been following my blogs you know that I research facts. You may have also noticed that each blog asks you to research a fact for me. When I sat down to write this blog I decided it was time for me assemble a research team.

Did you know?

Lizzie Borden, when a child (remember forty whacks) kept a coop of pigeons in the family barn. When a group of young boys started breaking into the barn to get to the pigeons her father’s solution was to chop the heads off all the birds. I wonder if she had forty pigeons?

At one time Egyptians ground mummies into a fine powder. This powder became known as a panacea for everything from nausea to paralysis. It was even added to paint to keep it from fading.

In Central America during the eighteenth century chocolate was believed to be a drink of the devil (they drank it? Hmm) anyone who imbibed was excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The evolution of research.

Back in the day (I’ll let you guess the date) I spent hours in the Library conducting research and bugging the hell out of the Librarians in the reference room. During the 1990s and much to the relief of the Librarians at my local branch the World Wide Web was born. Google incorporated in 1998. As anyone can tell you ask Google and you shall receive. But as any one can also tell you there is a lot of information floating out there in the ethers that is incorrect.

How do you separate the chaff from the wheat? I use three sources that are not aware of each other. With some of the very odd facts I’ve researched it can be difficult to find one source. In that case I look for video or stills shot by an explorer. Ugh. Now I have to beware of photoshop. People are a great resource. Who has a friend or relative that has seen a ghost? Almost everyone. Who has been in an Earthquake, seen a flash flood or watched a UFO? A lot of people that’s who. Of all those people who wants to share? Most. And that brings me to Face Book and the reason that I ask people to help me with my research. I can’t tell you how often I ask for a specific fact to be checked and get so much more than I asked for. And to those people I say Thank you.