Where I Do It

Where do I do it? The usual places – the bedroom, the family room, the coffee shop – anywhere I have internet access. Confused? Oh – you thought I was writing about that. No, not that – research. Got you again, didn’t I? All in good fun.

It has happened that my new novel requires a lot of research. Things like real estate zoning laws and amnesia. I know, I know – don’t ask. I didn’t realize the two had anything in common either. At least not until I wrote about them. I’m a big user of ABCs (AnyBody’s Computers) and I’ve gotten tired of dragging my Favorites list around on my thumb drive and putting it on each ABC that I plug it into. Especially since the polite thing to do is to delete the list when I’m done. Then last week, I wrote a post with a link to Wikipedia. The lightbulb went on in my head. I can just post about my favorite online reference sources. That way, I always have my favorites online and can share them as well. Win-win.

What are my most used references? Along with everyone else, I use Wikipedia. The articles are really quite informative. Even though I feel compelled to verify each one I use, they are a great starting point. Another favorite of mine is the Free Online Dictionary and Thesaurus; which also has tabs for medical and legal dictionaries, idioms, acronyms, it’s own encyclopedia and also Wikipedia. One stop word shopping.

For technical information, I have a monthly subscription to the O’Reilly Safari Books online library. It’s a technical book lover’s dream – like being in your favorite candy store. It doesn’t have every publisher, but it does have a goodly number. Of course, O’Reilly books are included. Even though the site requires a monthly subscription, it is far below the yearly budget I’ve previously had to set aside for individual technical books – that by their very nature are soon outdated (technology changes very quickly). The best part is that I have access to far more books than I would have been able to get if I were still buying them individually. There is a universe of titles covering everything from selections of the For Dummies series, through a myriad of programming, social media, personal improvement and internet titles, to severely geeky tomes like The Handbook of Finance.

Just recently, I’ve found a site that’s like Safari Books – but for all subjects. Questia.com. Y’all who are pros at online research probably know about it already. For me it was a revelation – complete with the choir singing in the background. 🙂 It is also a subscription site, and I think well worth it. An extremely large collection of books and scholarly journals – all online. For most items I’ve researched, Questia has all the information I need. When I do have to go the library, it’s now for second, or more often third level references.

I hope you find these links as useful as I do. Do you have reference sites that you would like to share? Leave them in comments if you do. This post will always be the only one in the References category. Enjoy!

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Update: The links in this post are shortened for informational purposes. The only affiliate link is the one for Questia.

Update (11/24/2010): Adding two reference links:

• Resources page at Restless Writers. Thanks Beckie!
• Alan Rinzler’s blog at Red Room.

Update (12/16/2010): James Scott Bell’s blog. Check out his Writer’s Page!

Update(05/24/2011): These are favorite references I’ve been using for a while:

• K. M. Weiland’s blog, Wordplay
• Roz Morris’s blog, Nail Your Novel
• Victoria Mixon’s blog, | A. Victoria Mixon, Editor
• Writer’s Knowledge Base from Elizabeth Craig and Mike Fleming
• David Baboulene’s blog, The Science of Story