Well there's only really one advice that works because writing is such an intensely personal activity, that no writer, like a set of fingerprints, is exactly like another. Secondly, I try to examine personally every piece of technology or machinery which I know I'm going to describe to the reader. Thirdly, I make a point of going to every location that is going to show up in the book I am going to write. I therefore prepare, very slowly and very carefully until I have the whole story inside my head. We writers all work in different ways, but this is the way that works best for me.
Authors are a very funny breed.
For one thing, we tend not to even live in the same place, so we do not often meet like people in other careers. The one made by Fred Zinnemann was still, I think, the best, but then, Fred was a master movie maker. He made the incredible High Noon and the beautiful Man for All Seasons . One of my all time greats is The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Lawrence of Arabia. Another was Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.