Things Writing Taught Me by Kait Carson

 

Writing is more than a profession. It’s an adventure. If the National Security Agency ever comes looking at my Google history, I’m in deep trouble. Most writers will say the same. Recent searches: Insulin overdose speed and effects; non-user Fentanyl toxicity vectors; how to make a noose; how to hang a person; pipe bomb construction; how to distill and disguise oleander poison. You get my drift—it’s not stuff you’d want your mother to see. In fact, lately, I open an incognito page to search for ways for my characters to commit fictional mayhem. It seems safer, but I think it might be a fool’s paradise.

What happens to all of that hard won knowledge? Some of it ends up in my books. Mostly it makes me good at Jeopardy and other trivia games. Twice in the past months, it made me a lifesaver. Not a bad return for those hours down the rabbit hole, and if the NSA shows up, I can point to my successes.

Those who follow this blog know I’m a cat mom. I have four: two live upstairs and two downstairs in my office. One of the downstairs cats has serious allergies and often requires eye drops. He also has a lousy personality, but that’s another blog. The eyedrops sit on my desk out of the way behind a lamp. They’ve been in this location since we moved into the house. Last month, I reported to work and found a small puddle oozing from the neck of the eyedrops bottle. The little buggers had gotten the cap off and used the bottle as a chew toy.

Eyedrops are poisonous. I dove into triage mode and called my vet, who had no idea that eyedrops were toxic. Fortunately, I had a file of information on my computer ready to send—I’d used eyedrops in one of my books. We were on the way when my vet called to tell us she’d cleared the decks for an emergency admission. The cat survived after aggressive treatment that did nothing for his personality. Ingrate. Research made a difference.

Last weekend, I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard a pop. At first, I thought we’d had a power outage, but the electronics all shone bright. I shrugged it off. We live in a rural area, and birds occasionally hit the windows, squirrels drop nuts, and then there are those four cats making odd noises. A few hours later, my husband came in and asked me if I had taken the gauge from the propane tank that powers our gas stove. Trust me on this, folks. I love gas cooking. Dealing with the propane tank is outside of my wheelhouse. I asked him when he last saw his mind, since clearly, he’d lost it. Then I remembered the pop.

When I attended the Writer’s Police Academy, I’d signed on for the bullet trajectory class. Professional trajectory calculations use implements like surveyor’s tools. My problem was simpler. I knew my starting point. I needed to figure out where the gauge landed. Sure enough, using basic geometry and enough trajectory knowledge to be dangerous, I deduced the gauge landed beneath our deck. I crawled under, discovered the gauge, and retrieved it. We’d been concerned that the tank would leak without the device. Turns out we were in no danger. The dial is magnetic—who knew? Now to research my way into discovering why the thing blew off and flew for eight feet.

Readers and writers, have you used research, or something you’ve read in a novel, to solve real-life problems? How did it turn out?