Research Days and Rabbit Holes

The work that slows the writing—and strengthens the story

Some writing days look like pages. Others look like maps.

In this season of drafting The Matriarch’s Legacy, I’ve learned (again) that momentum doesn’t always mean word count. Sometimes momentum is a folded transit map on the table, a string of station names underlined twice, or a headline that makes your stomach drop—even though you already know how history turns out.

Research is where the story learns how to stand.

Maps, names, and the truth of “how people got there”

One of the most grounding things I can do for the manuscript is track movement—not just where my characters live, but how they travel to work, how they visit family, how they shuttle between the city and the outer reaches of Philadelphia’s world.

That’s where transportation becomes more than background. It becomes motive.

Finding old maps and the proper names of routes helps me build places that feel authentic—places that existed then and still exist now, even if they’ve changed. I want a reader to feel that a character could step off a platform and be standing in a real neighborhood. I want the distance between home and work to mean something.

Studying the P&W Line—connecting Philadelphia with its western outer reaches—has been part of that. It doesn’t just tell me where someone can go; it tells me why. It explains how jobs and opportunity pooled in the city, and how people flowed in and out each day—working, returning, repeating. When I understand those connections, I understand the shape of a life.

And when a life makes sense, a scene stops feeling written and starts feeling lived.

Headlines that ended a war—and the silence that didn’t

Another rabbit hole I’ve fallen into (willingly) is newspaper front pages: the thunder of V-E Day, followed later by the finality of V-J Day.

Those headlines are more than historical markers. They’re emotional weather.

The return of many.

The absence of others.

The loud relief on the street.

And inside homes—the quieter tallying: Who is still out there? Who is coming back? Who will never return?

That contrast matters to me. The public declaration of it’s over versus the private reality that the war didn’t tidy after itself. It left spaces behind. I want the manuscript to honor that truth without preaching it—simply by letting the details speak.

Community texture: neighbors, work, and the Jewish presence

As I research neighborhoods and workplaces, another layer has stayed with me: the lived reality of Jewish families building businesses, partnerships, and ordinary life within the community—while carrying the vulnerability of being noticed at the wrong time, by the wrong people, under the wrong kind of scrutiny.

These aren’t side notes to the story. They’re part of the air the characters breathe—what is spoken, what is held back, what must be navigated carefully even in a city that prides itself on grit and freedom. When I slow down enough to understand that texture, scenes gain depth without needing extra explanation.

There are moments in the research when I have to step back—not because the details are unclear, but because they are painfully clear. Reading beyond the headlines means encountering what those words attempt to contain: the atrocities, the families erased, the ones who did not return, and the many who returned altered beyond recognition. Some days, the silence in the records is louder than anything printed.

This, too, is part of the work—to read with reverence. To pause when the weight becomes too much. To remember that these were not abstractions, but lives lived alongside ordinary things—jobs, meals, music, gardens—often right up until the moment everything changed.

Once I’m satisfied with a stretch of research—when the maps align, the headlines settle, and the emotional weight has been acknowledged—it isn’t unusual for me to look up from the screen and wonder: How did I end up here?

The answer is rarely linear. One source leads to another. A name opens a door. A place asks to be understood more fully. And before I realize it, I’ve stepped into a world that wasn’t part of the original plan—but has everything to do with the story finding its footing.

Longwood Gardens: my favorite rabbit hole

That question often leads me—almost without fail—to Longwood Gardens.

Those who know me won’t be surprised.

If I disappear for an afternoon (or two), chances are I’ve slipped into the world of Longwood—its history, its design, its seasonal rhythms, the way beauty is planned and tended over time. I love it not just as a place, but as a metaphor: the patience of cultivation, the discipline beneath the beauty, the long view.

It’s the kind of research that doesn’t always show up as a fact on the page, but it changes the feel of the story. It teaches my writing how to linger with purpose.

When the process slows, it’s not always a problem

This is the point in the draft where things slow down for me—and I’ve learned not to panic when it happens.

Slowing down often means I’m fine-tuning. Adjusting. Pausing long enough to absorb the correct mix of details that solidify the storyline. It’s not procrastination. It’s steeping.

It’s where the manuscript stops being just a timeline and starts becoming a world.

My writing rhythm: what “consistent” looks like for me

People ask about output, and I always want to answer honestly: it’s different for everyone.

For me, a good rough estimate is about 2,000 words a day, on average. That’s my personal goal—five days a week, about four hours a day, as uninterrupted as I can make it, split between writing and the kind of research that keeps the writing honest.

Some days I hit that number. Some days I don’t. But consistency is the point. Momentum comes from returning.

The other half of making a book

Here’s the part I didn’t fully understand until I lived it:

The actual writing—drafting scenes, building chapters, shaping language—may be only half of creating a manuscript and releasing a book into the world.

The other half is everything else:

• showing up with consistency

• marketing thoughtfully (not noisily)

• building trust with readers over time

• answering messages and engaging directly

• meeting people face-to-face at book festivals and events

• doing the unglamorous work that helps a book find its way

Those delightful writer’s-retreat moments in films can be charming, but they glorify one sliver of the process. Real writing life is steadier than that—less aesthetic, more faithful. More like tending a garden than chasing a lightning bolt.

And I can say it plainly: I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I sometimes wish I had discovered this joy years earlier. But perhaps there would not have been as much to share. The stories, like the people who lived them, needed time.

And so the work continues—measured, attentive, unfinished in the best possible way. Like the women and families at its center, The Matriarch’s Legacy is learning how to hold what came before while making room for what follows. And I trust the timing.

For such a time as this (Esther 4:14).