I'm a very visual person. I'm that annoying girl who can remember the exact color of a dress someone wore to a wedding twenty years ago, or how long someone's hair was on such and such a day in high school. I see, and navigate through, the world in colors, shapes, hues. Considering I can't remember what I had for breakfast today ( did I have breakfast today??) this is a good trait for a writer to possess.
When I start to pen a new book I usually see the entire story in my head first, like a full length movie, and then I set about putting words to describe what I've seen. When I first started writing fiction ( 175 years ago!) I made Vision Boards. Armed with a blank poster board, I'd save all my fashion mags for a few months and then meticulously pick through them looking for the faces of my hero and heroine, the setting of the story, secondary characters, and anything else pertaining to the book I was about to write. It took forevah!! All the searching, choosing, cutting, pasting, taping, arranging, aligning. It got to be almost a second job at times!
Imagine how elated I was to discover PINTEREST
No longer do I need to troll through magazines and periodicals searching for the perfect visuals to capture my story's essence. Now, with a few clicks and a well worded search, I can plot a book in pictures in half the time - maybe even less. And having Pinterest on the computer is great because when I'm stuck trying to remember if my hero has blue eyes or steely grey, one or two clicks and I've got my answer in full living color. It's so much easier now to describe people, settings, objects, since I have innumerable choices to view.
For my new bridal series A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN, I originally did my standard vision board for all three books.
As you can probably tell from this picture, the poster board is a tri-fold, stands three feet tall, and has over 100 images on it. Imagine all the fun ( and I say that with heavy sarcasm attached) I had cutting and pasting all those images in a coherent manner for me to understand my story, one book at a time. There are 3 books planned with a 4th I may throw in for a holiday story.
Now, compare the above to my Pinterest boards for the same book series: O'DOWD, Cathleen & Mac, Izzy's Shower , Nanny Fee and Maureen's Aprons. I can't even begin to describe how much easier it's been to just refer to those boards whenever I need to remember an item, a heroine's outfit for the day, the color of a wedding palette.
Bliss. Pure and total bliss. Plus I'm saving a fortune on paper, poster board, tape, magazines, and time!
I can devote so much more time to actually getting the movie I saw play in my head written down on my laptop so it can be read by romance readers everywhere!
My darling daughter recently got engaged and has set up wedding boards on her private Pinterest account. Oh, how I wish I'd had this available to me 150 years ago when I wed!!! I spent the equivalent of a small country's gross national product on bridal magazines back then. I'm not kidding. Not even a smidge.
Book 1 in my MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN series, DEARLY BELOVED is out now and tells the story of 36 year old single-and-looking Wedding Planner, Colleen O'Dowd and Financier Slade Harrington. If you like opposites attract, oil and water characters, this book has your name on it! Click on my Pinterest boards again if you've read the book and you'll understand the meaning behind all the images I picked.
Remember : To be entered in Comment & Win, all you have to do is read the post of the day—or any post you may have missed. Then leave a comment with your email address written out. That means like Mary at yahoo dot com. (Don't leave your email as a "hot link" or web crawlers will harvest it and flood your Inbox.) The more comments you make; the greater your chance of winning. Grand Opening Rafflecopter Be sure and enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win a Kindle Fire and Ebook Gift Bundles.
And if you're looking for me, you can usually find me here: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// BookMe // Monkey me //Watch me
When I start to pen a new book I usually see the entire story in my head first, like a full length movie, and then I set about putting words to describe what I've seen. When I first started writing fiction ( 175 years ago!) I made Vision Boards. Armed with a blank poster board, I'd save all my fashion mags for a few months and then meticulously pick through them looking for the faces of my hero and heroine, the setting of the story, secondary characters, and anything else pertaining to the book I was about to write. It took forevah!! All the searching, choosing, cutting, pasting, taping, arranging, aligning. It got to be almost a second job at times!
Imagine how elated I was to discover PINTEREST
No longer do I need to troll through magazines and periodicals searching for the perfect visuals to capture my story's essence. Now, with a few clicks and a well worded search, I can plot a book in pictures in half the time - maybe even less. And having Pinterest on the computer is great because when I'm stuck trying to remember if my hero has blue eyes or steely grey, one or two clicks and I've got my answer in full living color. It's so much easier now to describe people, settings, objects, since I have innumerable choices to view.
For my new bridal series A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN, I originally did my standard vision board for all three books.
As you can probably tell from this picture, the poster board is a tri-fold, stands three feet tall, and has over 100 images on it. Imagine all the fun ( and I say that with heavy sarcasm attached) I had cutting and pasting all those images in a coherent manner for me to understand my story, one book at a time. There are 3 books planned with a 4th I may throw in for a holiday story.
Now, compare the above to my Pinterest boards for the same book series: O'DOWD, Cathleen & Mac, Izzy's Shower , Nanny Fee and Maureen's Aprons. I can't even begin to describe how much easier it's been to just refer to those boards whenever I need to remember an item, a heroine's outfit for the day, the color of a wedding palette.
Bliss. Pure and total bliss. Plus I'm saving a fortune on paper, poster board, tape, magazines, and time!
I can devote so much more time to actually getting the movie I saw play in my head written down on my laptop so it can be read by romance readers everywhere!
My darling daughter recently got engaged and has set up wedding boards on her private Pinterest account. Oh, how I wish I'd had this available to me 150 years ago when I wed!!! I spent the equivalent of a small country's gross national product on bridal magazines back then. I'm not kidding. Not even a smidge.
Book 1 in my MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN series, DEARLY BELOVED is out now and tells the story of 36 year old single-and-looking Wedding Planner, Colleen O'Dowd and Financier Slade Harrington. If you like opposites attract, oil and water characters, this book has your name on it! Click on my Pinterest boards again if you've read the book and you'll understand the meaning behind all the images I picked.
Remember : To be entered in Comment & Win, all you have to do is read the post of the day—or any post you may have missed. Then leave a comment with your email address written out. That means like Mary at yahoo dot com. (Don't leave your email as a "hot link" or web crawlers will harvest it and flood your Inbox.) The more comments you make; the greater your chance of winning. Grand Opening Rafflecopter Be sure and enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win a Kindle Fire and Ebook Gift Bundles.
And if you're looking for me, you can usually find me here: Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+Me// Triber// BookMe // Monkey me //Watch me
How cool that you can see your whole book before you write. And did you save all your cut and paste boards? Big congratulations on all the excitement in your life. You go, woman!
ReplyDeleteNora - I recently ( like just this weekend!) took all my old boards to the recycling center. I have to admit, a tear dropped down my cheek as I tossed them into the card-and boxboard tin. Let's hope Pinterest sticks around for a while and stays FREE! DOn't know what I'll do if it starts to be a subscriptions based site.
ReplyDeleteI do not have a mind that works visually. AT ALL! Maybe I’m the odd writer out, but for me...it’s all about words, not pictures. Pinterest is all kinds of hell for me. I never have pictures of my characters in my head. I have a collection of lessons they need to learn...character traits ... faults but never a picture.I have only recently charted out a series...but it’s all words. I’ll do it again for my next series but that’s all I can manage.
ReplyDeleteI’m impressed with the creativity of your boards and I can see why they would help...but I’m hopeless. Accepting our own process is a big help.
Bonnie - truth! We all create differently so doing what works for you is what you should - and must - do. For me, it's all about the visual first. Then the words. I think it might come from being an only, lonely child, and not speaking much to anyone when I was a kid. I was a huge people- watcher ( still am) and movie goer. The visuals did it for me then and still do.
DeleteHey Peggy,
ReplyDeleteI love Pinterest too!! Although when I get hit with a story idea, it's usually a character, idea, (or now with my trip) or setting that first smacks me in the face. But then I run to Pinterest and immediately choose images to help me remember what I want in the story. As I get closer to writing that story, I do more pinning and possibly change a few things but I love having the visual. (I actually import the character pics to my Scrivener so they are staring at me when I write).
I also have a hero and a heroine board that I throw random people onto so when that new story comes along, I can go shopping. Hopefully they are sitting waiting for me. If not, I plug in my needs and find more pics. So great to live in an age where we can do this all online so quickly!
Kari - this is why I am convinced we were separated at birth!!! Hee hee. I can't wait to see what boards you come up with from your trip. Altho, you don't need them because your pictures have all been fabulous!.
ReplyDeleteI don't have that visual creativity as a natural trait, I have to work at it. Isn't interesting how we all have our own process?
ReplyDeleteKAthleen - I know. I kinda feel that's what makes us all unique writers! We all view the world in different ways.
DeleteI love Pinterest, too! I could spend hours and hours on there. Since I'm very visual, I get inspiration for story ideas there as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm also bummed Pinterest wasn't around when we got married. It could've helped me save on tape and poster board. LMAO!
Great book trailer, Peggy!
Mrs. N
nnlight at nnlightsbookheaven dot com
MRs N. Oh How I wish I'd had Pinterest for my wedding and baby shower!!! Heck, high school graduation would have been easier to plan for my daughter too!
ReplyDeleteI used Pinterest to compile book covers that were (and were not) working for me. I referenced that board when hiring my cover artist! It was a great way to get the conversation started in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteSatin, I started a board of my favorite covers after you mentioned you do that. Now I need to do more browsing for characters, settings, pets, etc.!
Deletelauriepmendoza at gmail dot com
What a great idea, Satin! I'm going to try that for our next book.
DeleteSatin - that's perfect!
DeleteI love hearing the writers explain their process of writing a book. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletecrossnstitch2 at aol dot com
Karen - you're welcome!!! And thanks for dropping by today!
DeleteI have never used Pinterest. Not sure I would know how.
ReplyDeletemarypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
Mary - it's really not hard. Click on my link and then just type in something you want to see in the search, like FLOWERS or WEDDING FLOWERS. you'll be surprised how ridiculously easy it is not to mention fun!
DeleteThat's cool that you use Pinterest to plot out your books! I love Pinterest and get lost in it every time I open it. I introduced my daughter to it and she's just as addicted to it now!
ReplyDeleteMsRedK at aol dot com
Cindi - addicted is the right word! Sometimes I can lose time when I'm trolling through all the images> Hee hEE. Thanks for stopping by today.
DeletePeggy, totally LOVE your post. I see stories the same way--like movies playing in my head. Always been this way since I was a kid. I did storyboards when I first started writing, but I've simplified them over the years. Pinterest is too seductive. I get sucked in every time I visit a board. *LOL*
ReplyDeleteJoan, I swear we are sistahs from other mistahs!!!
DeleteJOan - me too! Sucked in and addicted are the perfect terms for what happens to me! But, it really has elevated my character descriptions by being able to "see" my people, setting, whatever, all the time.
ReplyDeleteI do have Pinterest but have no really used it much. Maybe I will take another look at it.
ReplyDeletedebby236 at hotmail dot com
Debby - put some time aside if you do. It's so easy to get sucked into the vortex!!! hee hee
ReplyDeleteYes! Pinterest boards for everything from WIPs I write to office space to ... well, all of it. Pinterest is my go to for vision. Love to see that other authors are like minded.
ReplyDelete