I have been organizing my space and catching up on stuff, in preparation for having an appropriate writing space for tomorrow night! (This was really not procrastination. I actually had things that had to be taken care of this evening.)

Realism vs. canon compliance. I try to mesh the two, as much as I can. If not, I suppose I go for what makes a better story. A good portion of the time, I don't know the realism stuff, so I stick with canon. Research can only get you so far, it can't help you if you haven't been to an actual location, or know a language, etc.