What goe on in the mind of a writer?

I don't think my mind is normal. I'm constantly devising new ways to kill people. Different ways to have people meet. I take ordinary, everyday stories my friends and family tell me and I try to twist it into different shapes to see if I can include it in one of my stories. Or I file it away to bring out when I think it fits. So don't tell me a story about yourself if you don't want it included in my book.

Questions swirl through my brain and I spend a lot of time on Google trying to find the answers. If you were to look in my recent history on my computer you'd think a madman was on it. Nope. Just me. Doing my job.

So I thought I'd share some of the Google questions I asked this week, just to prove I'm not normal:

What does it feel like when you think you're being watched? I wanted physical reactions here but I learned there isn't such a phenomenom of knowing you're being watched. Its something that doesn't really happen. Well that was a bummer. But since most people think there is such a thing I went with it.

What types of bird live in France? I wanted my heroine to hear birds, but I didn't know what types live in France. These are the little things that lend credibility to your writing. Thank goodness for Google. I don't know what writers did back in the day when they had to actually search for their research materials. BTW, I used a Woodpecker. It wasn't what I was originally going for but the sound of a Woodpecker pecking on a tree fit perfectly with the scene.

Are there squirrels in France? Do you detect a theme here? My heroine is in France and she's in nature. Yes, there are squirrels in France, but what I learned that was very interesting was that there aren't that many gray squirrels in France. They mostly have red squirrels.

What does Mountain Heather smell like? I know heather grows in France because I researched that several months ago, but I wanted to know what it smelled like. Interestingly enough, this was a hard question to answer. I had to search for some time to find it. Mountain Heather smells like a bouquet of flowers with tones of amber.

What emotions does a soldier feel during battle? I hate writing fight scenes and I needed to get into my heroes head (he used to be a soldier and was calling on his past experience). This again was another hard one. I never really did learn the answer to it. But I have a very good imagination and I could imagine what a soldier would feel. In the end I didn't really need this information anyway. That's the funny thing about research. Sometimes you can spend hours trying to find one tiny thing and in the end you don't need it.

What does it mean when you see red when you're angry? Another question I never really got an answer about. And another bit of research I ended up not needing in the end.

What does it feel like to be strangled? Believe it or not, I got a lot of hits on this one. Your vision starts to dim, your limbs become heavy and stop struggling and eventually everything goes black. It doesn't hurt all that much either. Very interesting and something I used in my scene.

All of those questions just for one scene. Isn't it amazing?

What's the craziest thing you've asked Google and did you get an answer?