Diving Down Google Rabbit Holes

What to do when you can’t research on site because of a Pandemic and you have a book to finish?

While there is a lot of information online concerning Upper Michigan history, a lot of little details are only found in local archives and museums. So . . .

Jump down one Google Hole after another, follow links, try different key words. But have self-discipline—it’s so easy to get off on a tangent of interesting stuff that is not what I was looking for. Find emails and phone numbers on some sites. Contact them. Wait. Contact them again. Wait. Try working on a different chapter. Find something for that, work on it. Try those other contacts again. Finally get through. Interview on the phone. Send questions by email. Use my writing group “list serve” and find someone who has a book I need that I can’t get from the local library because everything is closed. Read the book my friend and fellow writer loaned me and sent by mail. Finish that chapter. Wait some more.

Finally things begin to open. Call, email, call, email, make one-on-one appointments set up to get information not found through Google. Slowly but surely, it came together. Even that photo I wanted to take from the Canadian side of the St. Mary’s River and Canadian Customs said no way could I drive across International Bridge, even for thirty minutes, but my historian contact on the American side has a friend on the Canadian side he can email who might take that photo and send it . . . mission accomplished, finally.

Such it was all spring, summer and fall as I completed the first draft of Superior Tapestry. Now I’m in the revision process, which is easy to do from home. Stay tuned; I am still on track for release in the spring of 2021.