I just read this blog post by Patricia Wrede on research and imagination and thought I'd share. This is something I've been thinking about for awhile, since I often wonder if I'm over-reaching myself. It sometimes seems outrageous to be writing what I'm writing, about a culture that not only isn't mine, but was mistreated by mine. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. Not long ago, a friend whose culture it is (sort of, though you could argue nobody quite knows precisely what culture that is, as the city which inspired my story disintegrated almost 900 years ago and everybody argues over where the descendants went and where the ancestors came from); anyway, this friend warned me that bad things happen to people who over-reach themselves when dealing with such stuff. She casually threw out an ominous warning or two about skin-walkers and other ghostly wreakers of vengeance. And about strange, coincidental accidents. To those who like to send such curs...