Your Research, Doing

I probably am not the most qualified person for this post.

Well, actually, I'm very qualified for this topic of writing either. A seventeen year old girl, write for a whole month about how to write and aspects of writing?! Who isn't even published? Yeah, right, what could she know?

Maybe some of my opinions are "wrong" when it comes to writing. I definitely don't have the most experience on the block. But I have been writing ever since I could. I've found things out through trial and error and the advice of other writers. This all is what works for me, what I've found to be true.

So here is a little more me and my writing experience.

I have never actually had to do research for a book.  Hence my unqualification. Which wasn't a word until now. Congrats, you saw first here, folks!

I probably should have for one of my novels (about a spy), but that never happened. Probably why that novel is now sitting somewhere in hard-drive space. Another one I should have done took place in LA, where I certainly have never been. That MS is keeping the other one company, equally as covered with virtual dust.

What I'm getting at is that not doing your research can cost you your novel.

I am famous for "Oh, I'll just keep going and I can fix it later" when something isn't working out. I'll plow right through the problems and patch up the holes later. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it isn't. When it comes to research, it isn't.

Correction: I haven't had to research until a couple of weeks ago.

My WIP requires a lot of research because it has to do quite a bit with a lawyer, and I'm really unfamiliar with court and law stuff (see, I don't even know the correct terms). Research kind of scares me, to be honest. I would much rather work on my fairy tale where I just have to make everything up. Oh well, it's just something that's got to be done.

When I research, the first place I go to is Pinterest. There's some awesome infographics there and I can save it all in one place. Then onto other areas of the Internet. I haven't really used any books, just because I've found everything I've been looking for online.

I record the information in my binder for the current WIP. I'm a sucker for handwriting out my outlines and research, but I do sometimes save the websites to go back to later. When I remember to =)

How do you do research?