Trivial Pursuits

I love it. I kick A$$ at it. It’s fun. I can’t find a single soul to play with anymore. Bummer.

You know why? Because my head is so full of useless junk it is not funny. Random facts take root in my brain and they are stuck there for life. My head is a roach motel for trivia.

In a writer’s chat over at Romance Divas we were talking about oral sex. One woman mentioned, sadly, her husband has a flap of skin that secures his tongue and only an operation will fix it.

FRENECTOMY! That is what it is called I popped in. Everyone was like WTH???

Another useless bit of trivia.

Same thing happened tonight when I mentioned dragees(Cake decorating item).

Useless trivia.

Did you know that vanilla is part of the orchid family? I did.

How about that fact that poultry workers often get a skin irritation they call Chicken Itch?

A Hershey bar wrapper is NOT brown and silver. It is deep maroon and silver.

Stupid useless facts.

Or are they? Hmmmm

I love having all sorts of weird, off the wall information to throw into my stories. And I love finding new information to add.

Like I have a brief scene in my new WIP that involves a speeder in a traffic stop. Since I have never been stopped, I asked a police officer friend to walk me through one. He went above and beyond the request. Now I have not only the information I was looking for but a whole slew of new trivia. I even got to play with his handcuffs, ASP and radio. (Cops have cool stuff)

Research doesn’t have to be tedious and boring with nothing but dusty old boring books to go over. I carry a notebook and anytime I learn something interesting, I write it down. There is no organization to it. But it is there. I have read it and reread it multiple times. And keep adding to it.

I have entire sections of that notebook filled with jargon, dress, castle layouts and other junk for the medieval time period. I bought a book on holy days and their practices during the 1100’s. Fascinating stuff. It sits on my shelf right next to The Life and Times of a Revolutionary Hunter.

Recipes for bear and elk? No problem. True stories behind American folk legends? Got it covered. The proper way to drape and wear a roman toga or stola verses a greek chiton? I know it.

Do you know the feathered end of an arrow is called the fletching?

Teddy Roosevelt, not JFK, was the youngest president of the USA. He was 42 to JFK’s 43.

Because I write fiction does not mean I make EVERYTHING up. I do not. Facts are facts and you can’t change them. By having the information to make a situation believable, then you have enriched your story. If you want to have your heroine making a cake, you better know what goes into a cake mix. Same thing for driving a sports car.

I can not drive a stick shift. I just can’t. So when I wrote about my hero’s truck, I had to stop, find my hubby and ask him to explain. Ergo, we spent 25 minutes in his truck, in the driveway doing nothing but gathering informations. There is one line about it in my story. One. BUT THE LINE IS RIGHT!!!

Research is what you make of it. I make mine fun.

And I could still whoop your butt in Trivial Pursuit.