Barbara Cartland once said that she read twenty books for background research for every one she wrote. I've certainly come close, not only writing about somewhere I haven't actually been, but even when I'm writing about somewhere I've been more than once.
These days it's all so much easier.
I needed to get a feel for them, what they carry and so I Google aircraft of all shapes and sizes. I have to create a fictional range of aircraft so I need to check out my ideas against what models are already in production. Cats of all sizes are very popular, I discovered. I need to know how fast they fly and some information on how many hours you have to fly to maintain your licence. Actually I didn't need that last one in the end but a lovely man from a flying school took the time to explain it all to me.
I needed a villa by the sea, a very special beach, a hot spring and it's all but a click away.
I'm writing a paragraph and I need to work out when my heroine's baby is due. I Google a "due date calculator", check the size of the embryo and Bob, as they say, is your uncle. Not mine, actually. I had a James, a Charlie, a Harold, a Victor and an Albert. No Robert.
Life, as they say, is never dull!
