In my day job, I do research quite frequently to communicate new IT products and methods to my customers. I try to get all my facts together before I even attempt to create any documentation. Doing the research first prevents my creative flow from being interrupted while I’m writing. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of an inspirational moment and having to stop to gather more information.
We don’t always feel we have the time to do research or, maybe, we haven’t learned how to schedule it apart from our dedicated writing time. I’ve come up with a way of separating them that has been very helpful to me.
I do my research at the end of the day when my creativity is low, when my brain is only firing on that last cylinder. One, it keeps me moving forward on my WIP. Two, the research may actually spark that waning cylinder and jolt my creativity back to full throttle. Three, I’ll be ready to shift back into writing gear the next day when my creativity revs up again.
