Thursday, September 21, 2006

Mind of a Writer

Writers, I think, need to have general knowledge, or rather know where to look for the answers (it's called "research") because they write about life, and there's simply too much knowledge about life for one person to know everything about. Perhaps it's why some people call us crazy (now me, they simply call me a stalker, but that's because I'm not talented at writing).

Take for example the AOL search leak more than a month ago. Someone was searching the Internet "how to kill your wife". Most people would assume it's a murderer. I'm thinking it might be a doctor (or would-be doctor) figuring out how to operate in an autopsy. Or better yet, a writer figuring out how to make his/her next story believable. Because as a writer, short of committing the actual deed (not recommendable, and in my case, I have to look for a wife first, something which is probably harder to do than killing someone), how else will you know how to commmit a believable murder?

Of course when I think about it, a writer's Internet habits (if they do research on the net) will peg them as deviants of society, people to be pitied and avoided. Right now I'm thinking of a story that involves a foreigner purchasing a mail-order bride from the Philippines, only to discover she's a manananggal. I can just imagine my parents shocked to find out why I'm googling "mail-order brides" on the 'net. I don't have to use everything that I've researched, but you never know what gem of information you might find.

Well, it's either that or someone is really trying to murder his wife (and I'm trying to find a mail-order bride, because heartbreak would be less painful that way). What kind of a sick mind do you have?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've googled effects of arsenic poison and cyanide before, and also where to get different kinds of prohibited drugs when one lives in Sacramento, all in the name of writing fanfiction. I'm quite sure you've also seen me discuss various ways of committing murders using mundane, everyday, non-threatening objects like spoons, wall clocks, and nail shavings, on LJ before... it's disturbed some of my fanfic readers because I tended to write gross, lurid death scenes bordering on purple. Haha. But we (wannabe) writers are all nutcases anyhow.