Using Pinterest for Writing

Welcome, my peeps, and have a seat. Today we are going to talk about a fun topic:

Pinterest!

By clicking on this post, you have no idea what mania you have unleashed. I am an absolute Pinterest beast. For the next who-knows-how-many words, you are in my Pinterest-obsessed, writing-consumed clutches. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

(Seriously, though, don't leave. This will be a good post.)

If you are obsessed with Pinterest like me, you will be delighted to learn that there are many ways to use Pinterest for writing!!! It is therefore a useful tool to your writing and you don't have to feel guilty about spending hours and hours on Pinterest pinning pictures of your characters!!!!! YESSSSSS.

Furthermore, there are ways that Pinterest can be used for every step of the writing process! How great is that?

Using Pinterest for Ideas

This is what Pinterest was invented for!(ideas in general, not writing ideas, but y'know)

If you're looking for something to write a novel about, Pinterest is a treasure trove of writing ideas! Type in anything you want: 'writing ideas' 'writing prompts' even just the genre title, like 'fantasy' (hint for ya: 'fantasy' is my favorite thing to put into Pinterest because it brings up so many pretty pictures!)

There are whole boards full of writing ideas, writing prompts, etc.

I guarantee that in sifting through all these, you will find something to write about. Trust me.


Using Pinterest for Prewriting

This is my favorite part!! This is why I love Pinterest!!!

I have so many Pinterest boards about my various writing projects that it's ridiculous.

lol

And what's more, I have a writing board with almost a thousand pins on it. It's bad, I know.

But prewriting is where the great wonders of Pinterest are put to the best use. Figure out what you want to put on your board: quotes, dialogue prompts(I always have a mountainload of these), pictures of landscapes, houses, rooms, characters, animals, whatever you want! Then use the Pinterest search to find the pictures you want. If you're going for a specific historical or geographical setting, you can even pin pages of information you want to hang on to, or reference charts for other research.

The advantage to Pinterest is that if you find a picture that's almost right but not quite, you can click on the picture and scroll down to the similar pins below it. That's normally where you'll find the perfect pin.  And if you don't have enough pins for your liking or you're not sure what to add to your board next, there's a handy new button on all the boards called 'More Ideas'. If the last five things you've pinned were all boats, they'll probably be all boats, but there are normally some gems in that area of the board.

Funny thing about the 'More Ideas' button though is that they also suggest new searches to find what you're looking to pin, and when it comes to the novel boards, Pinterest just doesn't understand.

Korean fashion? Teenager posts? Pinterest, you clearly don't understand
the emotional weight of this Pinterest board. smh

Using Pinterest for the First Draft

There are a couple of ways you can use Pinterest to complete your first draft.

• Getting unstuck. Use dialogue prompts or other word prompts to get the creative juices flowing again.
• Continuing to grow your Pinterest board. If you come up with a new setting or character, use Pinterest to figure out what look you're going for, or just add to your collection because you want to!
• Procrastination. Pinterest is a deadly weapon of procrastination.

Using Pinterest for Editing

There's always some good editing advice on Pinterest. Helpful author quotes, ways to procrastinate(again), and if you're looking for specific editing posts, search Pinterest. All the good stuff will be there, and I personally think it's easier to sort through the results on Pinterest than in a Google search.

And!!!! before you go, let me ask you something. Do you want this blog to have a Pinterest account to go with it? It could be fun, but I'm not sure yet how I would properly use it, especially since all my writing boards would probably have to be transferred over to the blog account. Alternatively, I could just link the Pinterest boards that go with my writing stuff straight to here, but again, I'm really not sure. Some opinions on the subject would be very welcome.

Do you use Pinterest for your writing? Have any additional tips? Let me know in the comments, and I will make sure to reply!

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