Growing up in southern Indiana, the story of the towns of French Lick and West Baden merging high schools in 1957 was well known to W. Timothy Wright who was in the first grade at the time. The two towns had been fierce rivals but the basketball teams came together for an unbelievable, unexpected, and historic season. Wright didn't consider writing about this compelling story until a chance meeting with the team's coach, Rex Wells. Wright expressed interest in writing a book and Wells provided him with a box of scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, pictures, and journals that tracked every basketball game from that legendary season. Wright reviewed all the materials as research and interviewed all living team members or their spouses. The biggest challenge was relying on the memories of 75 - 78 year-olds, Wright says. He ultimately combined all of this research and feedback, along with his own experiences from growing up in the area, to write The Valley Boys.
Hi, I too agree that research is key but its extremely expensive. I am researching the writing of a book on the specification for a Holodeck. I am designing my own simulation software and am getting things together. I have been pushing my skills in software design so much for functionality for the simulator that finally I have reached crital mass and am sitting down to debugging small glitches but some are quiet hard to fix but the glitches take time to fix but I'm getting there. The book will take a further 2-4 years to publishing. It is my first book and I am trying to put things in place to make it as professional as possible.