I am a perfectionist and overachiever. Because of that, my love for academic research
sometimes rivals that of Twilight Sparkle.
Herein is an example that resulted in a happy outcome while I was
writing Vast Brewing Company a D&D
supplement for Polyhedron Magazine. I
spent two days reading a lengthy book on brewing in the medieval period. I then wrote one paragraph on using specialty
brewed beer as tonic medicine. However, I
had never seen beer healing tonic in any prior D&D adventure or supplement. Thus, it was a wise investment of my time to
add this little-known trivia to archived, D&D campaign ideas.
To overcome my weakness on spending too much of my time
researching any one project, I currently ask my editors what my desired world
count is before I write my manuscript. I
then write that amount of words, plus ten percent more. I then send my completed manuscript to my
editors for their evaluation. These
extra words give my editors some leeway to craft the final form of my
manuscript, while giving them a sufficient number of words for their
publication.
A thought for your consideration: “Stay strong, as the future is bright.”
Note: A friend
of mine told me that I sometimes have “research euphoria”, when my research
into a topic gives me an emotional high.
