goldeye

Posted by admin | September 14, 2021

One of my favorite movie series is the James Bond films. While GoldenEye is one of my favorites in that series, I’m wanting to talk about a fish similarly named: goldeye. The problem I have with them is that they look too much like a carp. When I caught one a couple of weekends ago, that’s what I thought it was and threw it back without really thinking it through. Then a previous conversation I had with a friend came to mind. He mentioned these fish and that some people really like to eat them.

So, when I remembered that conversation, I started digging. Namely, I couldn’t remember the name goldeye at first, so I had to figure that out. By looking through freshwater fish images, I found the goldeye and then could actually get more information. I found that some people considered them a delicacy if they were smoked. I don’t smoke my fish, so this wasn’t going to happen for me anyway, but I should have known more about what I had before just carelessly tossing it.

The same sort of stuff happens with my writing. I’ll be running along, writing fast and furiously. Then I’ll get caught up on some trivial fact that I want to include in this passage. I’ll run headlong into research, leaving my writing for a moment. Sometimes I’m back within minutes with the knowledge I need to forge ahead and other times it takes hours. Usually, if it takes hours, it means I’m researching on some tangent rather than what I really need. Sometimes those tangents are useless, but occasionally…

So, I was in the middle of writing Flaming Curse. Like I’m halfway through the novel. I’ve already been writing for a year at this point. It then occurs to me that in a relatively new community in the old west, there might not be a sheriff’s department, yet. Thus, my sheriff might not be realistic to have. I went looking to see when the sheriff’s department was created in Davis County, Kansas (what is now Geary County). Not only did I find out that Davis County had a sheriff from the very beginning, but that Wild Bill Hickok was a City Marshal for Junction City. I then started researching Wild Bill Hickok to see exactly when he was City Marshal as I had only heard about him being in Hays and Abilene before this tidbit. I was able to construct a fairly good timeline of his activities in July of 1870 (when my book was set), so I used this in my book. Before this, I hadn’t thought to have actual people in my book, but this research screamed to be used and I didn’t want to toss it all. Hell, one fact spilled over into Death Curse, so I really didn’t waste much.

Research on the fly is something I enjoy, so the next time I catch a fish, I’ll do a better job of researching. In any case, things end up as the should for both my writing and my fishing!