Sent an email today to Mort Castle, my Historical Fiction Research/Writing teacher, and also Story In Graphic Form teacher, to get the contact information of a grad student who was in one of his classes last semester. This student had done a lot of research on hobos and hobo towns in preperation for a novel he was doing as his grad-student project.

One of the parts of the Jack story follows his exploit with the (currently) named hobo King, Cole (an obvious reference to Old King Cole from the mother goose rhyme). Chances are that his name is going to change before the end of this due to some plot reworkings that I am thinking about right now.

I decided that the scope that I was shooting for with looking at world mythology is a little too grand, and just downright overwhelming. So in light of my skills, and this being my first novel that I plan on writing rewriting and submitting I've decided to limit myself to American folk lore, and legends, including native american, and the colonial american on down. I have found a wealth of information with which to touch on. Everything from Pecos Bill to the Roswell Aliens can easily be fit in this grand Jack tale. And so the research begins.

Firstly I found this great journal, "The Journal of American Folklore," which has over a century's worth of publications, essays and critical analyses that I can draw on, so for the next few weeks I am going to bury myself in that and any other information and try to carve out a bit more of this world view, which in turn I think will help to better define the story that I want to tell.

I need to look up whatever I can find on Hobo's, on the Route 66 Roadtrips, and any other American odysseys that I can find. I need to look up information on Folk Heroes, maybe some child protective service laws (but that seems a little less important in light of the fact that this is supposed to have a gritty fairy tale like feel). I want to sit down and read Stephen King's "On Writing, which I think is sitting on my shelf at home, so I'll be able to pick it up in a week or so, when I go home to visit my dad.

I'm going to keep a pretty rigid bibliography of what I've done, for future writing, or for any other writers who want this. So on Sunday of each week I'll post a new blog with links, or sources, or whatever, laced with comments about what I've found.