Pinterest and the Tech Savvy Writer

Unfamiliar with Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social bookmarking site where users collect and share photos or images of their favorite events, interests, and hobbies. One of the fastest growing social media networks online, Pinterest is the third largest social networking site, behind only Facebook and Twitter.

What can Pinterest for you as a writer? Pinterest is the virtual "bulletin board". A bulletin board where readers gain a glimpse into you, the writer. In photos of your book covers, links to your blog/podcasts, or post your calendar of upcoming events,your readers get to know you. You can also save images to  a board. 

These images could include pictures of a place in the world where you have set previous novel(s) as well as your most recent novel, or works-in-progress.

You may also have private boards, for your eyes only. On these boards you can post inspiration for your work-in-progress. And pictures of items: clothes, scenery, houses, etc. –– that relate to your book. Refer to this board when you have an attack of writer's block, need inspiration, have lost your way along the slippery path to 'the end'.

Tech challenge?  Here's how you get started:

• Register@ Pinterest.com. You will need a Facebook or Twitter account. (The site will import your friends from these social networks.)
• Receive an invitation to join by clicking the red button on Pinterest.com.
• Decide on a topic for each of your boards.
• Give it a name that is both descriptive and intriguing.
• Pictures for your boards can come from your personal collection, those found on the Internet, or those from someone else's board this is called a "re-pin". This 're-pin'links back to the person you borrowed the picture from. This sharing is what turns Pinterest into a social site, taking it to a higher level than that of online scrapbooking.

You can now link your pinned images to your Facebook page, fan page, website, blog, Twitter, publishers page, whatever social media sites you currently have.

Just as you would friend-users on Facebook, find people's boards to follow. Mention your Pinterest Board on a regular basis, once again linking it to other network sites.

Remember Pinterest does not host conversations. Visual images are the only connection. Make certain you updated your boards on a regular basis. This can be once a week or twice a month – – whatever fits into your schedule.

Pinterest is like any other social networking site. It involves a certain amount of effort and time to start up, commitment to keeping it up, and willingness to promote your latest release.

Looking for a Pinterest board to follow?

Follow me: novelsbyconniev

www.pinterest.com/novelsbyconniev/

Happy Pinning!

Connie

Candid shot from my iPhone: Bono at dinner after the OC preformance.  You know what will happen after a day spent at Disneyland! 

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Right Brain vs Left Brain

I was reading an article about how the right brain performs certain functions, and the left brain specialized in other tasks. No, I haven't been living beneath a rock. I'm aware that this is common knowledge, and an accepted scientific fact. The right brain controls the left side of the body, and the left brain regulates the right side.

What about our ears?

Are they exactly the same?

Or do they hear things differently?

Scientists had long assumed that our ears were the same and that decoding sound took place entirely in the brain, with signals relayed in the appropriate side. According to Marilyn von Savant, we now know that auditory processing starts in the ear. For example, the right ear is geared more toward speech, and the left ear is attuned more to music. (Children with right-ear hearing impairment have more trouble in school than those with left-ear loss.) So if you are listening to music with a single earphone, you might want to put it in your left ear. But for learning a language, or listening to an audio book, it might help to keep the earphone in your right ear.