I had to do some research over the weekend.

This is problematic.

The problem being that I love – I mean absolutely love – to read up on ancient cultures and civilizations. I’ve always said if I hadn’t studied theatre I could have easily become a cultural anthropologist. People fascinate me. Their daily lives, what mattered to them, how they interacted with each other and the world as it was at that time – all so very fascinating.

And when you’re pulling up WIkipedia pages and perusing university webpages and visiting online museums…oh, it’s so easy to fall down that rabbit hole and emerge bleary-eyed a few hours later, wondering where your evening has gone and realizing you only got a few of the items checked off your writer “to do” list.

So here’s what I do – I have a folder in my bookmarks just for interesting tidbits. I’ve had stories come out of research I was doing for other projects, so it’s a good thing to keep track of. If I’m researching a particular topic and I find myself getting sidetracked, I bookmark the page to that folder and I force myself to move on.

Then when I’m sitting there later wondering what the hell I’m going to write about now, I click into that folder and climb down into that rabbit hole, and find something new to wonder over.

It takes discipline, believe me it does. But it’s helped keep my writing on track, and it’s given me a trail of breadcrumbs to follow when I need them.