A Peek at My Secret Pinterest Board

We were discussing writing prompts during the #writersroad chat Monday on Twitter and some people mentioned that they sometimes get inspiration from Pinterest.

Love Pinterest! If you haven't delved into the relatively new secret boards, I encourage you to give them a try. I create one for my manuscript and collect little clippings of inspiration as I come across them. Below is a quick glimpse at my secret board for my current work in progress:

So above we have clothing that my main character wears, an actress that would be a good fit to play her in a film adaptation, food one character prepares (sweet potato burgers with roasted garlic cream and avocado -- um, yum!) and music one character recommends to another in chapter 15. Then we have this:

As you can see, this board includes a variety of donuts. There is a scene in my novel where one of my characters springs for donuts for the whole gang. And when I say donuts, I actually mean fonuts from this joint in LA. Doesn't that maple bacon one look delish?

I digress... Anyway, have you ever used Pinterest for writing inspiration? Do you have a super secret board? Since I showed you mine, will you show me yours? Gross! Pretend I didn't ask.

If you want to follow me on Pinterest, you can do so here.

Peepsqueak II is available!

I meant to post this earlier, but my mom's second book, Peepsqueak Wants a Friend!, is in stores! It makes a great children's gift (hint, hint).

If you're interested in the original Peepsqueak!, here's the trailer:

Best of all, they're making these!!!

 

If you can't resist this face, you can follow him on Facebook.

 

Want a copy of the book? Buy one at Barnes & Noble, Amazon—or better yet—support your local bookstore and have them order it if it's not in stock!



Battling overused words

We all have our pet words. Words we either can't help using, or words we don't even notice we're using over...and over...and over again. My worst offenders are usually "just" and "somehow," to name a couple. To find my overused words, I pasted the first chapter of my MS into Wordle:

And voilà! This is a great visual way to find overused words in your writing. From this exercise, I figured out that I was using the word "like" way too often. Also, "just" (which I should have known!) I made some changes. After making some wording adjustments, my new word map looked like this:

I might make a couple more adjustments. Apparently, Mr. Shepherd is an important character in this scene, but I might be overusing his name a tad...

Want to try it? Visit Wordle!

Revision trick experiment

I do all of my editing online, but it seems like everyone I know was telling me to go old school. The collective advice seemed to be "print out your MS in a different font and size and suddenly you'll see everything in a whole new light."

I was skeptical (plus, going paperless is cool), but I decided to give it a try. And the results were...


Drum roll please...



Suspense!



Keep scrolling...



Almost there!



MAGIC. Wow, it actually worked. Suddenly everything sounded wrong. The parts that seemed fine before were gushing blood. I'm calling this experiment a success.

Have you ever tried this method? What did you think?

Getting your bookshelf porn fix

Do images of row upon row of books get you hot and bothered? Ok, so a blurry picture of my personal bookshelf might not do it for you...BUT you may want to checkout:

BOOKSHELF PORN, THE BLOG
(addicting, no?)

Also,

MY BOOKSHELF PORN PINTEREST BOARD (because I'm obsessed with scouting out these images)

And if you're ready to trick-out your own bookshelf, I encourage you to read over:

CENTSATIONAL GIRL'S TIPS ON BOOKSHELF STYLING

Yes, I have an e-reader, but that doesn't mean I don't like to buy books too. "Real" books will never go out of style; they're too pretty.

Thoughts on San Fran

Image from my last visit to the city in 2005.

So I'm heading on a jet plane to San Francisco tomorrow. The last time I was there was in 2005.

Since then, I've written three novels, given birth to the best person on earth, celebrated my tenth wedding anniversary, bought a house and turned 30. The first time I went there in 2002, I was a newlywed.

I wish I was heading there under different circumstances, but I can't help thinking about what I might accomplish before I go back again. It's starting to be my marker city, meaning I can mark the milestones of my life around my visits there.

P.S. I'm secretly hoping I run into Lizzie Bennet! Ha!

New revision toolkit

Revision sucks. Yes, I know some of you like it. You think that's where the magic happens. Ya da ya da ya da. But some people like being pregnant. Some people like egg nog. And running laps.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people. I really really wish I was. I have three novels completed that need revisions. So anyway, in an effort to make this as painless as possible, I made a revision toolkit! It's my go-to box of things for when revisions get...uncomfortable and I need to comfort myself.

So far, I've included:

1) Chocolate (obvious choice, but a staple nonetheless). I chose this Oaxaca bar by Vosges with guajillo & pasilla chilles, courtesy of Santa.

2) An orange Sicilian candle (because I'm Italian and I might need some aromatherapy)

3) Ultra soft socks

4) Music! I chose Ingrid Michaelson's Human Again CD. Plus, I created a revision playlist on Spotify.

5) The Elements of Style Illustrated (because grammar is more fun with pretty pictures)

And finally...

6) A knitted gnome for good luck!

Now I'm prepared so I have no more excuses. I better just suck it up now.

Ok, here I go...

Yup. I'm going to start revising now.

La la la la.

This blog post is really over, isn't it?

What would you put in your revision toolkit? Or are you one of those lucky ones who loves revisions?