NaNoWriMo Day 10: Hello, I’m a Researchaholic

It’s been 7 minutes since my last Google search...

Downloading all 800 large-scale segments of the Horwood Map was, it turns out, only the beginning. A piece of gateway research, leading me on to making Google and the Online Etymology Dictionary my primary forms of procrastination, online or off.

I can’t help myself! I keep a running file as I write, noting down anything and everything I might want to check later. What sort of trees grow in Greenwich Park. The first recorded date for “devil-may-care” (not nearly early enough). Where a tourist might buy a map in 1790s London. The annual date of Bartholomew Fair. How soon Goethe developed his views on geology. The first recorded date for “newfangled” (15th century! Yes!). The precise appearance of a fox’s tail. Where a late-18th-century gentleman might carry a letter on his person. When clocks acquired half-hour chimes.

And that’s just for starters.

I'm also addicted to the word count button.