My Pinterest Addiction Saves the Day! Again.

There's this little website a few people have heard of....Kidding! It's PINTEREST! My crazy enthusiasm is in direct correlation to my obsession with this site. A friend of mine sent me an invitation to join Pinterest a while back when the site was just getting off the ground. I registered, then left it alone, unsure what to do with such a strange animal.

Then, while on twitter (where I live and breath and haunt) I saw an agent posting links to recipes. I don't cook, but they were pretty pictures - from Pinterest. Then, one of my favorite authors shared pins of funny things that inspired or encouraged her. It got my attention. I wandered back to my account and looked at my very pitiful and mostly empty boards, then left again, but within a few months everywhere I turned was another post, update or tweet about the site and I took the hint. There was something about Pinterest that attracted everyone. I was missing it. So, I gave it another try. (I HATE missing out on things).

I logged in, took a deep breath and started a new board. I gave it a lame title and I searched for things that went with the manuscript I was working on at the time. Four hours later....<-- see what happened there? I had a nice arrangement of things that inspired me and my story. As the days went by, if I struggled with the plot, I looked at the board. I used all the visual clues I saved up to deepen my internal picture of the island where my story takes place. I read the little funnies I thought my characters might say, and I found a renewed vigor in my voice. Now, I'm not completely crediting Pinterest with my success, I mean, I had a little something to do with it...I hope, but that fateful board led me to the completion of my very first cozy mystery novel. That same cozy mystery landed me a gig with Carina Press! Not too bad for a site I didn't know what to do with for months.

As it turns out, I'm a visual person too. Who knew? For years, I've thought of myself as limited to words and imagination. Using a new site to match visuals with my ideas opened doors for me and taught me things about how I think and what I believe and how badly I need new clothes! I now have dozens of pin boards (You can see my Pinterest here) and I've created one for each of the books I started working on. I'd love to share the board for my upcoming cozy, Murder by the Seaside. If your curious about the board that kept me going, that was the one. That's where it all began AND as an added bonus, when the publisher contacted me looking for the tone and feeling of my book - they were putting together a cover. (A COVER!!) I used words as well as possible to answer their questions, and then I pointed them to Pinterest! Hey, my board says things with pictures that I can't always capture in words - at least not without rambling, which I do, as you see :)

If you're on Pinterest, look me up! I love finding new pinning pals to follow :)