Why do we call it research?
The fortified city of Valletta in Malta.
by Christine Kling
You know what I mean? It seems as though the word research means to search all over again.
So here I am on Day 4 in Malta where I have come to do research for the third book in my new series. We arrived at noon on Tuesday after 3 flights and 17 hours of travel time. We were picked up at the airport by our first host Ben who manages the apartment I had rented via Airbnb, the online rental source for rooms in people’s houses and individual homes and apartments. I like to let my explorations guide my travels, so we arrived for what will be a 2 month stay in Europe with reservations only for the first 2 nights. The apartment was in a 500+ year old building in the gorgeous, fortified capital city, Valletta. The day was beautiful and sunny and the temperature was in the 70’s but inside those thick sandstone walls of that ancient building it was freezing! Once we were settled, we took off walking and exploring the city, taking photos and marveling at the incredible walls and vistas around the city.
Anyway, back to my question. So here it is Day 4 of this research trip and I’m discovering everything here in Malta for the first time. I’ve never been here before and I’ve not read as much as I would like beforehand. I’m not RE-doing anything. So I decided to look up the word ‘research’ and see what I could discover.
On the site Oxforddictionaries.com, they define research thus: “The systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.”
Yes, that is what I’m up to. I’m here to investigate the Knights of Malta, also known as The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. This is the world’s oldest surviving order of chivalry and as our new Airbnb host, Alex, told us when we checked into our our room in his little B and B in Gzira-Sliema yesterday afternoon, “The knights were very naughty.” 
Yesterday we visited the Grand Master’s Palace (the supreme head of the Knights of Malta) in Valletta and we spent a ton of time in the armory checking out all the cool armor, crossbows, swords, canons and muskets. I’d never seen anything like it!
So I went back to the Oxford dictionary site and I looked at the origin of the word. They wrote:
Origin: late 16th century: from obsolete French recerche (noun), recercher (verb), from Old French re- (expressing intensive force) + cerchier ‘to search’
So, just when we think we understand a word, we’re proven wrong. The ‘re’ in research isn’t saying to do something again. In French it means to do something with intensive force. I like that. That is how I do my research. I like to dive in and explore and let serendipity guide my adventures and hence the storyline of the novel I’m plotting. It doesn’t matter if I’m having a bread, cheese and wine picnic at the water’s edge or shuffling through a museum, it’s all research.
Here’s an example of how that works. It turns out that Alex is a wonderful host and a fascinating man. We are going to spend 5 days here in his home where he rents out two rooms. He also teaches hotel management at the local university and he calls his home his “baby hotel.” This morning we were eating the fabulous breakfast he had put out for us with Muesli, milk, a cup of fresh cut fruit, bread and jam, cakes and coffee when Alex stopped by the breakfast room to ask us how we slept. He started regaling us stories about the history of Malta and Gozo in his beautifully accented English, and when he said that the island of Gozo was where the Knights (who were supposed to be celibate) sent the girls they got pregnant, my brain got fired up and I think I am going to write about just such a young woman. A character was created in my mind by the serendipity of choosing Alex’s Bed and Breakfast place on Airbnb.
Today on the agenda of my search of intensive force is the Shipwreck Museum of St. Paul and the Archeological Museum. Who knows what character is likely to appear before this day is done.
Fair winds!
Christine
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