As an undergraduate I studied history and classical civilizations. I focused on roman culture and the World Wars. I did not like researching particularly. Although It was something I found myself doing frequently. Of course as a voracious reader I would often find myself wandering down strange rabbit holes. Even the indexes of books could be dangerous for me. I did well on papers, but it was something that I never thought would become part of my career as a writer. For one I was still leaning towards fiction back then, and I never thought of research as something a writer did, outside of non-fiction of course.

When I signed up for Stephen O’Connors class at Sarah Lawrence on Creative Writing and Research I did not expect to learn anything particularly new. I had a short story on the brain, about a family that found one of Bundy’s victims while hiking on Thanksgiving (partially true), and I thought that Stephen O’Connors class would help motivate me to complete it. I never did. Stephen O’Connor taught a wonderful class, I learned so much about research. Not research in terms of reading, but in terms of doing, of getting out there, experiencing. But even more so I learned about how to let that research effect my writing. The research and I had a relationship, a balance, so that when it led me away from the hikers that I could find out little about and to the victims, I knew to follow. Stephen O’Connor taught me that. He also taught me how to edit, to keep things sparse.

One of the most important things about researching and writing is to not let the research overwhelm. Many times it is tempting to keep researching. To research far more then you could ever use. To focus on little facts or details till you say them in your sleep. This does not help you write. What you have to do is have clear goals, clear areas of interest. The other issue that can arise while researching is the discovery of something that is related tangentially to your subject, that is very interesting, but actually distracts from the over all point, or story that your telling. You have to wise, and exclude these facts. Include only what is vital, or what helps the overall story you are telling. Try focusing on what you want to do, not what you don’t want to do.