Pinterest for writers- how to make it work for you

Pinterest For WritersI’m about two-thirds of the way through the current re-write for Wish You Were Here. All going well it will be done next weekend and off to Nicola at ebookedit for copy editing at the end of the month. Yes, we’re nearly there.

As I’ve mentioned before, this story is about movement, and it covers a lot of physical territory- some places that I’ve seen and taken inspiration from, and some I haven’t been fortunate enough to visit myself.

That’s where pinterest comes in handy. Pinterest? Get off the internet and keep writing, I hear you say. The thing is, it’s not all about procrastinating…truly…

I’m yet to fully explore pinterest as a method for growing my list or my readership (although this post will be my go-to when I do…) but I do use it as a pinboard or ideas board as idea triggers for when I write. It helps to fill the gaps, to add the layers.

I pin pictures of locations, houses, outfits, pubs, foods, tracks…you name it. Essentially I pin anything that my protagonist might do, the places that she might go, things that she might see, and looks that she might wear. It helps me picture places that I’ve never been- or didn’t take enough notice of when I was there. For those places I have visited, the pins show me what they might look like in other seasons.

In the early days of Wish You Were Here , I also pinned pictures of celebrities that I thought could be inspirations for Max and Richie- so that I’d start with a picture in my head of how they looked, the way they smiled. As I got to know them better, I took those pins down- partly because I didn’t want to feel tied to these images, but also because I didn’t want anyone else to have a pre-conceived notion of who Max and Richie are.

Without giving too much away, here’s the link to my board for Wish You Were Here…make of it what you will. The bluebells in the main pic in this post represent a major scene in the story.

Over the next few weeks I’ll create another board- inspiration for my cover art…naturally I’ll share that with you too…

As for the actual locations I’ve used? I’ll tell you about those sometime soon…