The joy of Pinterest, and the pitfalls!
Whenever I’ve gotten stuck in the past few days regarding the WIP, I have flown to my Pinterest page where I have selected certain faces to help “cast” or represent the characters in the novel. This has been great fun.
So much fun.
Probably too much fun.
I have a ten-minute sandglass timer that I regularly blow through whilst I am Pinteresting. (Is that a word? Let’s make that a word.)
However, I can say that the garments, the settings, and the faces I have chosen all help me delve just a little bit deeper into the novel, which makes the scenes clearer in my mind as I try to write them. Which, regardless of how many times I’ve blown through that timer, has added productivity to the point that I am now ahead of schedule.
So my little experiment this year has been a success so far.
I admit that I have never cast faces for my novels before. I have, in retrospect, seen an actor on the screen and gone — Oh, that’s totally Nelek! (Tom Hiddleston, if anyone’s wondering.)
But that was long after the novel was finished. And it made me love the movie Thor so terribly much I re-watched it a dozen times. I’ll re-watch it again this summer whilst my son and I do a Marvel Extravaganza too, because we’re nerds like that.
In any case, having the faces has been remarkably helpful for the rough draft. I will likely refine the character in the next draft, divert from their chosen faces just a little to make them their own people, but having the “place marker” helps me visualize their reactions on the page.
If you’re interested, you can visit that Pinterest page here.
If you’re not, it’s no skin off my nose. The page is for creative brainstorming anyway. It’s just one of those weird “peek behind the curtain” things.
And with that, I’m off to write some more! To those of you Nano-ing this month, happy writing! To those of you just writing your regular schedule, happy writing!
To everyone else, have a lovely day!
AJMaguire 