Research can take you in all kinds of strange directions. For example, today, in pursuit of reworking the beginning of The Servant and the Thief, I googled the following:

• The spelling of the word mourning. Yes, there is a difference between a morning dress, and a dress worn for mourning. Huh.
• The spelling of the creature “goomba.” I figured, we need a few more cultural references in there to appeal to the kiddies. Ben plays with a DS, so why not mention goombas? However…
• Google showed me a very strange image of a goomba, which apparently came from a film in the 90′s about Super Mario Bros., so I had to look that up as well. What…a…disaster. How did this film ever get made? Stick to video games, Mario Bros.
• Another image that popped up showed an actress that played Daisy. She looked familiar, so…quick search. Samantha Mathis. IMDB pulled up her films, but nothing looked familiar. Finally, found Little Women, where she plays the “grown up” version of the little sister, Amy. Don’t know how I recognized her from that, but there you go.
• And finally, the word “hinky.” Did I know what it meant? Did I really want to use it in the story? I finally decided not to, just because it didn’t really capture the thought I was having.

So, there you have it. Not really a top ten list, but merely the latest in many rabbit holes I’ve dived into willing. More to come…