It's finally happened. After reactions to other social media that could only be deemed lackluster, I've finally found the one. The time suck. The one I could spend ALL DAY with and still not be bored. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pinterest.
My dear friend, the talented author Marilyn Brant, introduced me and of course, was waiting to "friend/follow" me so I wouldn't feel like the new kid that has to sit by herself at lunch on the first day of school. Initially, I was skeptical because I'm a Facebook dilettante at best and while I enjoy Twitter in spurts, I'm not addicted. In other words, social media savvy isn't natural to me. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to communicate with my friends and family from around the world in a matter of minutes, seconds really, but I'm not overly concerned with it.
But there is a more revealing aspect to Pinterest for me or rather, about me. As a writer, I don't necessarily consider myself a plotter. I'm probably a mixture of a plotter and a pantser, heavy on the pants. But with Pinterest, I've found a resource that will replace my shoebox full of inspiration and clean up my browser's bookmarks considerably. I can pin music, pictures of locations, clothing and fashion, flowers, inspirations for settings, people that physically remind me of my characters, food that I have them eat, objects that might be important to the plot, etc.--all contained in a single board and without worry that I haven't given credit where it's due. I do generally work from a rough outline, but this is much more organization than I've ever created. I've already started boards for my two books (one complete, the other still a work-in-progress) and I'm considering creating one for the story that I'm outlining.
It's not just the writing aspect that has me intrigued with Pinterest. No, I can create boards of the music I like, movies and TV shows that interest me, books that I can't live without, recipes that I make or want to try, places that I hope to visit, and on and on and on. All without clogging up anyone else's timeline and I can share or not. Follow or not. "Like" something or not. Repin something or not. You get the picture. Well, maybe you don't so dash over to my board at Pinterest and take a look around.
You might like it and want to create a board of your own. Let me know if you'd like an invite.
4 comments:
I'm a member, but I have yet to really play around in there. I think part of me is seeing how much of a total time suck it could be and is resisting. Good luck with your pinning!
Pamela!
I'm finding the time suck factor to be minimized because once I filled up my boards then I could let go and get back to whatever I needed to do. It IS tempting to search photos on the web all day to add them to different boards and I admit to being addicted to the foodie pictures, lol.
But I really like that I can just pin a picture of something that's inspiring and that I want to remember later when I'm writing. I'll have to go find you and add you to the folks that I'm following.
Happy pinning to you too!
Pamala, your Pinterest boards are beautiful!!! I'm so glad you're enjoying creating the collections of images on your page. I *loved* your Book 1 and 2 boards and your Mardi Gras board -- so cool (and, btw, Happy Fat Tuesday to you, my friend :). And thank you for including some of my novels on your page, too. xox
I have to agree with you about this being a different kind of social media -- for me, it's the one I like best of all because it's creative rather than chatty. What you said about the "revealing" aspect of it resonated for me, too. A picture is worth about 50 Facebook updates and at least 200 tweets, I think :). And I really like how I can work on it for one day and then leave it alone for however many days I want and then come back to it when I'm ready and play some more...
Marilyn,
You're exactly right about Pinterest--it IS creative rather than chatty and that's a good thing. I'm glad you like my boards because yours were the inspiration. I'm still adding books to the 'love to/totally worth reading' board and ALL of your books are included in that category for me.
Thanks again for exposing me to Pinterest. And Happy Belated Fat Tuesday to you too. Now on to Ash Wednesday and Lent, right?
*smooch*
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