My new source for writing inspiration… Pinterest!

October 26, 2012 at 4:05 pm (Writing Inspiration)
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I’ve been busily collecting prompts for inspiration during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which will be starting November 1st.  Perhaps this won’t be a new idea for most out there, but I’ve recently discovered Pinterest as a source for those prompts.  Perhaps that’s because they reorganized it fairly recently and added the Quotes board, or perhaps I just didn’t notice that board before.  Either way, I’ve probably garnered enough prompts from it to keep me going for half the month.

For those who don’t know, Pinterest is an online bulletin board where the “Pins” are images, with a user written description below, that actually links to what the image is about.  People “pin” things to add to Pinterest and categorize them in their own boards so they are easy to find.  You can re-pin something someone else has pinned, or add your own.

The pinning process is very simple.  I added the pin link to my favorites and now when I see something on a web site that I want to pin, I simply click on favorites then click on the pin link and a box pops open which offers me a variety of images to use, from the page I’m on, and creates the link.  It works a little differently in other browsers, but equally simple.

My favorite categories are Animals, DIY & Crafts, Food & Drink, Gardening, Film Music & Books, Geek and Quotes.  The last three are the most useful to me for writing inspiration.  I’ve pinned quotes that made me think of characters, that illuminated character motivation or that inspired whole stories.

For example, I see a whole story in the quote, “The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained.”  Another pin showed a Christmas tree and written over it were the words, “when the tree is the only light in the room.”  Seeing and reading that created so strong a memory feeling in me that I thought it would be a great image to start a story with.  Where would it lead?

You can join Pinterest using your Facebook or Twitter accounts but you can also simply join using your email address now.  I highly recommend it for a variety of uses but be careful, it is just a bit addictive.  Enjoy!

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Sources of Inspiration

June 24, 2012 at 6:36 pm (Uncategorized)
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 People have commented to me that they can’t imagine where I come up with the ideas to write stories.  I tell them that it’s really not a problem, the ideas are everywhere!  I think it’s just about how you look at the world.  I recently saw a graphic that (Gale/Gail/Gayle?) from A Beautiful Mess Inside had created which said, “Legend has it that when you can’t sleep it is because you are awake in someone else’s dream.”  My brain instantly started spinning.  Do they mean that the other person dreaming about you is keeping you awake or that you’re actually a figment of someone else’s dream?  This… this should be a story.  

I see ideas like this all day long, in newspaper stories, in everyday life and online.  I recently found a few web sites that I find inspiring, either because they rang true and touched me, or because they made me laugh and life is too damn depressing.  (According to Martha Beck we should be getting 30 LPD, or laughs per day.  Are you?)

 The first web site I found through Pinterest is about a stay at home Dad with a two year old who writes on Post-it notes then photographs them to write blog entries.  Several of them made me laugh and I could relate to others.  You can check him out at http://messagewithabottle.tumblr.com/

 The second web site I found was because of the graphic quote above –  http://abeautifulmessinside.com/  I haven’t fully explored her web site but just the things that she turns into images are inspiring.

The last blog I found was from The Bloggess, because of her recent book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.   She grew up in the little town of Wall, Texas with a taxidermist who had a crazy sense of humor for a father.  She was the only goth chick at an agricultural high school.  I was laughing through the whole book but there were poignant moments too.  It made me look up her blog and I was interested and touched by what I saw there as well.  I highly recommend it.  http://thebloggess.com/

It’s the little things that shift your perspective and make you consider life in a new light. Sometimes I look down at my hands and see the age spots and think of how time is flying by, and sometimes I look down and see my engagement ring next to my wedding band and feel like I’m wearing a tiny crown.

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