Pins, pinning and Pinterest…

I’ve been pinning for 12 months-ish. I had thought that it might just be a fad for me, perhaps even a fad for the world at large.

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But not so.

The participation levels are huge, my own involvement at least every second or third evening when I’m busy, every evening if I’m not.

It reminds me of my embroidery. Something to pick up – becoming absorbed in colour, texture and subject matter. Even better when I type a subject into the search bar and click on ‘boards’ and then watch my screen load with pinboard after pinboard filled with images … a whole evening’s viewing. And some, like gardening (Tree and Leaf) and embroidery (Threads) are a gardener’s and stitcher’s delight. Like looking at the shelves in a chocolate shop.

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But that’s me in my other life.

As a reader, I love looking at boards on books, bookrooms, libraries, bookshops, binding, childrens’ books, miniature books, classics, book illustration – so many things! In searching for bibliophile-styled boards I’ve found books that I must read and I also like searching out my favourite authors to see if they’ve created inspirational boards, boards that give another dimension to their writing and their subject matter. It’s like discovering diamonds when you find they have. For me, it’s as good as talking with the writer at a Signing!

And so here I am – me the writer. What does Pinterest do for me as a teller of tales?

My first two novels were published well before the advent of Pinterest, so their boards are slowly building as I find things that may relate to the novels. But with my third fantasy, A Thousand Glass Flowers, it became a mammoth pictorial source, total inspiration during the writing of the novel. Likewise with The Shifu Cloth. Both boards became filled with exotica redolent of those provinces within my world of Eirie.

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Whilst writing the historical fiction, Gisborne: Book of Pawns, I found so much medieval information that I was not only able to create a board for the book, but also boards on different aspects of medieval life. In addition I created a board of spare images, potentially useful as general inspiration and which I dubbed Hoarding Hist. Fict. Now there’s a new board called Gisborne: Book of Knights as that manuscript begins to take shape.

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But whether I’m a reader, writer, embroiderer, gardener, or someone interested in Hermes scarves and the ocean (I’m a strange hodge-podge person), Pinterest is something I can truly get lost in. No, it’s probably not quite as social as Facebook and the blog but it’s fun, absorbing and instructive – couldn’t ask for more really!