Research

For someone who is writing a fanfic just for my own personal enjoyment, I sure am doing an awful lot of research.  I guess I'm just a wee bit OCD when it comes to getting details correct.  That's probably not such a bad thing.  At least my story will seem realistic.

I was writing some dialogue for two characters and I had one character sarcastically tell another character that they should try reading the book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People.'  Then I realized that I have never read that book myself so maybe I should read it so that I could better understand what that character was talking about.

Well, thanks to the internet and the fact that that book is pretty old, I found it in a PDF format and promptly saved a copy.  Fortunately for me, the book is only a couple hundred pages and it didn't take me very long to get through it.  As I was reading though, I came to the realization that most of the techniques that are suggested in the book are things that I have adopted over the last several years.  How cool is that?  I have definitely become way less assholish.  I shudder to think how I used to be in my late teens through late twenties.  Unfortunately for me, I don't get out much or have much interaction with many people any more.  Basically, the book can be summed up in the Golden Rule:  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The other thing that I was researching was classical guitar music, especially the flamenco genre.  And not that I didn't already know it, but Charo is a kick-ass classical guitar player.  I'm going to have to buy one of her CDs.  She's just that good.  I'm very particular about the style in which the musician plays.  I don't care for heavy plucking and a herky-jerky style.  I like a smooth and precise style.  Another guitarist who I think is totally brilliant and very under-rated in my opinion is Robby Krieger of The Doors.  I absolutely love the way he plays the Asturias and Malaguena inspired pieces in the song Spanish Caravan.  It is beautiful.  I could listen to him play classical and flamenco all day long.

And one odd thing.  There is a new member at a certain fan site who posted the other day something that if I didn't know better, I'd think that this person lifted a scene from my fanfic.  This person came to the realization that one character had been completely played by another character.  My scene was that it was the realization of a character that another character had been completely played by a third character.  Only in my estimation, I took it a bit farther in that, yes, character one had indeed been played by character two, but with the collaboration of a third character.  Character three did this to gain a certain thing, but was ultimately played by character two, who then had character one all to his/herself to really manipulated the hell out of. A very sick and diabolical thing it was, too.  Sorry, I can't spell it out any more than that or else it will be spoilers galore.  I think that I will be proven correct by the end of Season 2.  I'm hoping that the two characters who were played come to the realization themselves and enact their revenge.  That would be totally sweet.