Author Blog Challenge - Day 8

Describe the research process for your book. Did you interview people? Travel? How prominent a role did the Internet play? If you didn’t do new research, how did you learn what you needed to know to write your book?

My main character is a seamstress who initially made clothes only for herself and close family, but as the story progresses she finds a niche as a wedding dress designer. For this character I interviewed a few fashion designers and asked them for details about wedding dresses (fabrics, special tips, yardage, etc.); once my initial draft was done I sent the passages that had to do with fashion design to one of the interviewees. She gave me great comments that improved the scenes I wrote. I choose the character's name after browsing TV fashion shows online and reading famous names out loud to get a sort of feel for the rhythm of a 'fashion name'.

There's a bridal shop in the story, and for the location I drove around several neighborhoods in San Diego until I saw the perfect location for it. The information about opening the bridal shop came from a combination of my own personal experience from opening a business many years ago and from a friend that had just opened her own bridal shop in Tijuana, Mexico.

One of the sexy hunks is a photographer, so I asked a photographer friend for some inside information and lingo to make it real. Another of the sexy hunks came from Ireland, and he is very closely based on an ex-boyfriend (we're still super-friends) because he asked to be immortalized in my story. I got dialogue help from him....How would you respond to this? How would you say that?

Another one of my characters is an over-the-hill model (in her early 30's) turned entrepreneur. For her, I planned to wikipedia the lives of several super-models who've crossed the line from the runway into the business world.

You know what....I miss my story, the more I write about it, the more I want to get back writing it!