Grant year, week one: writing and researching

Well, yesterday was my first official 'grant day' and, wow, what a difference a day makes.

I knocked over 3,000 words and got a lot of researching done, plus a little bit of planning.

You can keep track of my online research via my delicious links, with the skindeep'>http://www.delicious.com/garykemble/skindeep">skindeep tag.

I made a lot of decisions about one of the key characters. I've now got a much stronger grip on who he was and what he was doing to land himself in the predicament he ended up in.

I put out feelers for further, more hands-on research.

The rain scotched my original plan for yesterday, which was to head over to Paddington and take some photos, then head into State Library for some research, then maybe over to West End to talk to some real-life tattooists.

I want to take photos because I find that even though you can make stuff up, sometimes you miss the little details, and it's those details that make locations so real. Also, visiting the places you write about can spark ideas that you never would of thought of, sitting at your desk.

The State Library research is primarily for stuff I can't get online -- books and old newspapers. Because my book has an element of investigative journalism, I want to see how Phil Dickie unravelled his stories about corruption in the Bjelke-Petersen government.

And the visit to West End Tattoo. Well, that's kinda obvious. Tattooing is a major part of the story, and yet I've no experience with it, other than what I've seen on TV.

So, even though I got none of that done, it was still a very productive day. I've got close to 7,000 words down, which puts me on track to have a first draft done by the end of June.

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