Blog # 3 Lisa "Research, the next best thing to being there"

The last time I was in graduate school, no one had ever heard of Google. Students at KSU in 1991 converged on a large room in the Library annex full of dot matrix printers and tiny screened computers using Norton Textra, as Microsoft Word was not yet the standard. I was in a historical research class. Searching for primary sources was mandatory; finding them required microfiche and making black copies with white text. I spent my evenings at KSU library learning about Civil War nurses from diaries of soldiers and the nurses on the field. I hated all the work in that class, but I loved what I learned. I felt like I had stepped back in time and carry on a conversation with Emma Edna Edmundson or Mother Bickerdyke. I also know that Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton were not really the “rock stars” of Civil War nursing. Mostly, I learned from an ancient graduate history professor that good research using primary sources is the next best thing to being there. Mostly, I learned from an ancient graduate history professor that good research, using primary sources, is the next best thing to being there.

“I am not a fiction writer.” That is what I keep telling everyone. Almost 10 years ago I was thrust into a very difficult experience that forced me to leave a church I loved. I was unable to deal with the betrayal and started writing my first work of fiction. I constructed a story to explain what was happening. The main character was searching for answers. My attempt at fiction began as a Frank Peretti (Piercing the Darkness) attempt, now it just haunts me. Writing the first few chapters channeled my pain and brought healing. That was enough. I put it down, but it keeps bothering me. Ichabod is a story that must be told – even as fiction.

I know that learning research skills in that graduate class will be useful in finishing this story. My research of the Civil War nurses will be woven into the fabric of my fiction seamlessly – I am just not sure how to do that – not yet anyway.