With something like three major writing projects, a twice weekly blog, and a speech to give in Louisiana next month, I find myself in front of my computer screen a lot of the time this winter. When I’m not writing, I use the time to research such things as why was the dam at Possum Kingdom Lake named the Morris Sheppard Dam? I think about Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls; does it have a connection with Morris Sheppard? Both of them are vital to a biography of U. S. Senator Morris Sheppard I am writing.
Thank goodness for the internet. With old newspapers and archives easy to find online, and access to military and senatorial items, researching is much easier today than during the last century. But I still read, think, and question information I’ve found on a particular challenge. Sometimes it’s almost 6:00 PM when I leave my office and go downstairs to finish dinner that I started at noon.
My husband, on the other hand never leaves for his office after 7:00 AM and drags back in about 7:00 or 7:30. We are definitely dedicated to work we love. He likes to watch television before bedtime while I’m reading a murder mystery or cleaning out filing cabinets. So, this week he called me to come see what was on Netflix.
And I am so glad he did. He stumbled onto Agatha and the Truth of Murder. I loved it! Agatha Christie disappeared for a brief time in 1926. The television program was a playwright’s take of the event without comments from the Christie estate. What I was so excited about was watching Christie handwriting her novels. It must have taken so much time and effort to write a small newspaper column, to say nothing of a whole novel.
The film reminded me of another film we watched recently. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society also involved a writer, this time on one of the Channel Islands between France and Great Britain before Americans entered World War II. The writer came for a holiday or looking for someone; I really don’t remember. But she wrote about life on a German occupied island. Food was so scarce, hence the title Potato Peel Pie. Finally, she was released, went to London where she handwrote her story. Again, I saw the neat stacks of papers, tied with string before being placed in a box for the publisher.
I am amazed and in awe of those writers. But I prefer sitting in front of a computer where I can look up a fact or photo I need as I work. However, I do keep a dictionary, a Thesaurus, and a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, just to be sure I’m correct.