ALWAYS ask questions

by Rick Blechta

This weekend I was in the middle of a chapter and came to a roadblock, or maybe it’s better to put it that I came to a point where the scene could take one direction or another. The conundrum I faced was this: if I took path A, I would need to acquire a good bit of very specific knowledge. Path B wouldn’t require anything I didn’t already know. It also seemed to me in thinking on this that path A might be more interesting in the end and certainly be less “ordinary.” Question was: did I want to spend the time going out and getting this information? I wasn’t even sure if any of this stuff would make it into the final version at that point.

Here’s the real rub: I could have had all that information around five years ago. A friend is involved in that business (computer surveillance) at a very high end. I could tell you exactly what the business involved, but then I’d have to kill you. Suffice it to say my friend works for a government organization.

We were just having a good bull session and I asked a question. “Well, I guess I could tell you about this in a general way. Wanna know?” For some reason I don’t understand — since I’m a very curious person by nature — I told my friend no. That was okay. And our discussion moved on to other topics.

Now I needed that information, or something very close to it, and I didn’t have it. At the time I was speaking with my friend it didn’t seem very important to know and there were other things I wanted to discuss. I can no longer remember what those items were. The path our conversation might have taken was the one that was now critical to my writing. Had I but said, “Yes. Tell me all about it,” I would be done with that scene and maybe have something really good.

I took path B in the end, not wanting to be slowed down by research. I’ve lost touch with my friend and it might take some time to get in touch again. We hadn’t spoken since that night.

Had I but known! When information falls into your lap — or looks as if it might — follow your nose. Who knows when it might become valuable?