Reliving the 70s
I set my second book in 1978, because of its subject matter. Aside from the blizzard of 1978 that swept New England I don't have many memories of that year. I was three years old.
So I find myself challenged in creating the world in which my characters live. My reporter uses a typewriter, not a word processor or computer. My family's phone is a rotary phone attached to their kitchen wall, not some handheld device. This is easy stuff. Trickier is the details: what things looked like: avocado as a popular fridge choice, say, or how real people dressed (not just kitchy trendy stuff we shudder at) and spoke.
I intend to look through photographs and scan some magazines, though finding copies of 1970s magazines is harder now that libraries microfiche or electronically archive them. I want to see the paper, look at the ads, try to immerse myself in what somebody saw when they looked at the latest Life magazine.
I admit, however, to resisting listening to the music of the 70s. I remember how the Bee Gees sound.