Needing to juice up "Snaked:"

1.) the description of the earthquake on the ocean (technically, an earthquake wouldn't be noticed, but I'm ginning it up by having the boat DIRECTLY over the earthquake.) Found a great description by a scuba diver who was in the water over one, which I can use for inspiration. "clouds of roiling white sands rising."

2.) the attack by the Mama Snake on the boat. For this I looked up stories of whales attacking boats. Again, it's the telling details, "boat shook like a leaf" stuff that really gets my imagination going.

3.) the attack of the Mama Snake on humans. I tried looking up snake attacks, but found that shark attacks were so much more useful for blood and gore. (Spielberg nailed it.) Hey, that's what it is, that's why people will probably buy "Snaked." To hopefully scare themselves.

Every time I do this kind research, I'm reminded how valuable it is. My imagination only goes so far without direct experience. Much like location descriptions are so much more evocative if I have a real life example to write from. Driving all the way to the Strawberry Mountains for the a few pages worth of descriptions in "Deadfall Ridge" was worth it.

I've been working on researching for my next book, "Takeover" and reading about the Bundy ranch standoff and the Malheur occupation make for lots of real color, as well as a better sense of the politics of it.

But unlike some writers, I don't really enjoy the research. I'm much rather dive into the story. Up to now, I've done research after writing the story, looking for ways to punch it up. With "Takeover" I'm hoping to incorporate some of that research in advance.

Itching to just write, but need to do the work. I will give myself for credit for this--in the end, I do what needs to be done. Heh.