I’m sitting here wondering what I’d do without Google.

I finished the rough draft of my manuscript (due December 1st) last week. (Hooray!)

The polishing of my rough drafts consist of three rounds. In the first round I have to go back and fill in the spots in the ms I left a little sketchy because more research was needed.

There were, ahem, quite a few sketchy spots.

This book is set in Massachusetts. I grew up in the area I write about, but the older I get, the more I forget. While there last weekend I was able to do some hands-on research, which helped a lot.

But then there were the things I didn’t know anything about—or needed just a little more information— and I turned to the Internet fill in the blanks.

In no particular order, here are some of my searches online this week:

*If Massachusetts has the death penalty. (It doesn’t.)

*Description of Maine Coon cats.

*MBTA commuter rail destinations and schedules.

*An antique clock type/description on Sotheby’s auction house site.

*Pictures of Cohasset Harbor.

*Recent murders in Wompatuck State Park.

*New England architecture.

*Recipes for gourmet BLTs.

*When spring training 2008 starts.

*The full rhyme that starts with Lynn, Lynn, city of sin…

*Boston protest marches in the 70s.

And this is a small fraction of the searching I’ve done. Can you see why I wait until I’m done to fill in these kinds of blanks? It. Takes. Forever.

I’m happy to say that round one of revisions is done, and I’m on to round two—printing and line editing with a red pen. After that comes round three (transferring line edits to the computer and a final read through), then off the manuscript goes to my agent.

Whew. And thank goodness for Google. I can’t imagine the hours I’d need to spend at the library or the cold calls I’d need to make…

~heather