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| Taylor Bennett |
Inspiration.
It’s a word that sends
shivers up and down the spine of every writer.
Inspiration—if you have
it, you’re on the right track. If you don’t have it—if you spend your days
chasing feather-light images and reaching to grasp half-formed ideas—writing
can be a struggle.
So what do you do when
your well of ideas runs dry? When you’ve tried everything you can think of but
your creativity is still MIA?
Stop stressing and get on Pinterest.
Just because you can use
Pinterest to market your book, doesn’t mean that there aren’t other uses for it
as well. The second I get a seed for an idea, I hop on Pinterest. With the
simple click of a search button, I have hundreds of thousands of images—of ideas—at
my fingertips.
I search for images that fit the “feel” of my idea.
Sometimes I’m not exactly
sure what that feel is, and that’s one of the things that Pinterest helps me
discover. I start with pictures of my setting and characters. As I search for
images, I take note of the color scheme—am I drawn to dark, moody shots or
light, airy pics? Maybe it’s a bit of both at the beginning but, as I continue
to refine my search, browsing images of important objects (jewelry, a
special key, a treasured photo album, etc.) there tends to be a type of photo
that dominates my board.
Before I look at my board
as a whole, I make sure I have at least one picture for each of these items:
·
* Main Character
* Supporting Characters
* Main Character’s House
* Other Important Locations
* Overall Setting (Oregon,
Hawaii, France, etc.)
* Animals
* Important Objects
* Characters’ Cars
* Quotes
* Aesthetic Pictures (maybe
you know you want to have a scene
that takes place under the stars—find a few pictures taken of the starry
midnight sky, or maybe your character takes a train ride—find a shot taken from
the window of a train)
At first, add as many
aesthetic pictures and quotes as you’d like—who knows what will jump-start your
creativity? As you search for pictures, let your mind wander. Ask questions about
the people/objects in the photos. If you don’t have an answer for every
question right away, don’t worry about it. Just focus on telling a story with
your Pins.
Stick with your board and
keep asking questions until you have a solid idea for a synopsis, then start
plotting. Take those ideas and emotions you gathered together on your board and
weave them into a synopsis.
Once you’ve taken time to
plot out your book and finally start Chapter One, you’ll be amazed by how easy
it is to describe your story world. If you need to know something about what a
particular character looks like/what they see out of their bedroom window/how
long the chain of their necklace is, chances are, it’s already saved to your
Pinterest board.
You can check out the
inspiration board for my debut novel, Porch
Swing Girl, here.
~~~~~
Porch Swing Girl releases May 1st, but you can pre-order the e-book now.
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| Porch Swing Girl by Taylor Bennett |
What if friendship
cost you everything?
Stranded
in Hawaii after the death of her mother, sixteen-year-old Olive Galloway is
desperate to escape. She has to get back to Boston before her dad loses all
common sense
and sells the family house. But plane tickets cost money—something Olive gravely lacks.
With
the help of Brander, the fussy youth group worship leader, and Jazz, a
mysterious girl with a passion for all things Hawaiian, Olive lands a summer
job at the Shave Ice Shack and launches a scheme to buy a plane ticket home
before the end of the summer.
But
when Jazz reveals a painful secret, Olive’s plans are challenged. Jazz needs
money. A lot of it. Olive and Brander are determined to help their friend but,
when their fund-raising efforts are thwarted, Olive is caught in the middle. To
help Jazz means giving up her ticket home. And time is running out.
~~~~~
Homeschooled
since kindergarten, Taylor Bennett is
the seventeen-year-old author of Porch
Swing Girl, which will be released by Mountain Brook Ink on May 1st.
When she’s not reading or writing, Taylor can be found playing her violin or
taking walks in the beautiful Oregon countryside. She loves to connect with
readers via her author website, as well as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (her
favorite!), Pinterest, and Goodreads.
Links:
Website:
http://taylor--bennett.com/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/writer__taylor
Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/Taylor__Bennett/
Order on
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CVIZOR