Research Whilst Dry Heaving

The other day I picked up a book called "Tracking Wounded Deer" at a rummage sale. It was cheap and I had a bag to fill, so in it went, on a whim. It wasn't because of any interest in hunting on my part, or any personal intentions of tracking a wounded deer. I thought that it might contain information of use to an author who frequently places her characters in brutal, violent worlds.

And then I read it, oh how I read it. Before breakfast, of course, after awakening with a slight stomachache after dining on some rather dodgy free samples the night before. Gnarly pictures and all. It was a very special kind of horrible, but I found that I couldn't put it down.

Here's what I've learned so far:

- Blood from a belly wound tends to be darker in color and filled with intestinal matter.

- Blood from a lung wound is pink in color and can foam up around the mouth and nose.

- A blood trail may be covered up by snow, but can be revealed again by stepping on it.

- A deer's paunch is lined with fatty tissue that can plug a gunshot wound with great efficiency.

Disgusting? Yes. But useful? Certainly. Amidst all the dry-heaving, what it did was open up a series of possibilities that I'd never even considered before and gave me the ability to lend greater credence to parts of my writing.

Has anyone else found bizarre but useful sources of research before?

Oh, so many times! Last summer I was working on a theater play with a serial killer for a main character. I still have the medical journals I purchased for the affair. I learned a lot of interesting facts about diseases and ways that physical evidence could be disposed of.

Also, reading about insect behavior is one way to design monsters for a fantasy tale. I've read many manuals on subjects such as ant colonies, spider mating rituals, praying mantis social behavior, and bee hive mentalities to name a few.

Regional cookbooks are an interesting sort of thing to read when writing a book (present day or even historical) about a nation or group of people that you do not know. Food and the way it is prepared tells you much about a particular society or culture.

At least, that is some that I've experienced personally.