Research and Writing Blocks

I've been struggling with a bit of Camilla lately. When I write the first draft, if I come across a part that I'm not sure exactly how to deal with it, I skip it and leave myself a note about what I wanted to happen.

The problem with that is simple. Eventually, I need to go back and fill in the blank. CC's been full of them.

First was Jed's injury. I think I finally have that one figured out.

Now it's how to work with Camilla's Critters (the place, not the book about the place). Can I make it a licensed shelter in a matter of two weeks or can it simply be an offsite "storage unit" of the original shelter? What are the legalities to opening a shelter? What hoops does Camilla have to jump through? What, why, when, how...????

I hate research.

It's one reason I will NEVER write a historical novel.

And, how did people ever research before the internet? I can't begin to imagine how much more difficult it used to be. It still isn't easy, but ... geez...

In any case, this whole non-profit thing is holding me up. Yesterday I opened, stared at unproductively, then closed my word document of Camilla. Several times.

I. Must. Get. Past. This. Point.

Ugh.

On a completely different tangent...

I was watching about five minutes of some movie on Lifetime the other night -- hubby was channel flipping, so I was lucky (or maybe not) to get that much time.

Making a really stupid long story short, the end of the scene I watched involved this man getting shot. The woman ran to his side and produced a bit of cloth to staunch the bleeding. She pressed it down for about half a second, picked it up, looked at the gushing wound, pressed, lifted, looked, repeated this action about five times and then cried out in anguish, "I can't get it to stop!"

Well, duh. Pressure on the wound might help, stupid woman.

And this was just the end of a laudry list of really ridiculous things that happened in just a few minutes. (We won't go into the female cop going outside to check out a noise "Probably just a cat" -- yeah, not the vicious killer that's after the woman -- takes only her flashlight and leaves the front door wide open. Puh-leez).

If I wrote this kind of stuff in my book, I'd never be published. How on earth did this get made into a movie? With actors I recognized??

It was the first time I was ever happy hubby channel flipped.