The Research Phase

It may be a writer's thing.

But I have this quirk,
Where I'll get into little 'research phases' because I ended up having a question that I didn't know the answer to, or I noticed a topic and wanted to learn a little bit more about it, and so I go to our handy dandy google to get my answers.

Most of the time this sort of research comes about in relation to writing ideas.
Where I have a concept in mind, but I need to mesh out details or timing of things or the possibility of a thing actually being possible.

In most cases this usually involves animals.
-As a lot of story ideas of mine involve shape shifting.
Where I want to know coloration, diet, habitat, life span, noises they make, how strong their sense are, etc.

Which was the case in this.
As I had an idea involving Koi.
And wanted the Koi involved to have a specific coloration, and I wasn't sure if they could actually have that color.
So I went to google to find out.
-They do.
And ended up reading up on more information on them.
Like the fact that longest living Koi was 225 years old.
Or that Koi are actually carp and will revert to carp coloration within a few generations of being released back into the wild.
Or that Koi are actually considered a pest in some countries -which I found surprising. O.o

In any case.
I found the information I wanted.
And left it at that.
Until work the next day.
When I had a coworker, who happened to be looking at the Koi we sell in the store.
And was like "They get 36 inches?! That's huge!" and later followed it up with. "How long do these guys live?"
To which I was able to tell them that usually around 50 years is the average, but the longest living one ended up living 225 years.

lol.
Of course they questioned how I knew this knowledge.
And I responded with "I looked it up last night."

lol. Which after the conversation was over, I began to wonder what my coworker thought of that statement.
After all, I hadn't mentioned that I looked up the Koi last night for a story idea concept.
Just that I'd happened to do so last night.

I halfway think they probably thought. "Wow....you're really dedicated to your job if you looked it up."
or. "Wow....you need to get out more if you're looking up information on the animals at work when you're not at work."

heh.
Which is true. I have done that before....looked up information for work...but work is also a great source for story ideas too lol. So it's a combination of both.
Even though in this regard, the Koi fish were pure story idea. lol. It just happened to come in handy for work later on. ;)

In any case.
Yay for me knowing random bits of information that I can bring out into regular conversation at work. ;) lol.

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi