Visual Inspiration via Pinterest, or, Help! Somebody Confiscate My Computer!

I hear complaints that Pinterest is addicting.  Over the weekend I investigated these claims for myself.  I got sucked in too.  Can I just say, as someone old enough to remember researching through gargantuan multi-volumed encyclopedias at the library, I love the internet!  The wealth of information, images, music, and videos . . . and therefore unlimited potential for distraction.  A veritable time warp.  A happy addiction.  Now back to those thirteen loads of laundry waiting to be folded.  *Ooh, look! A funny cat picture?  I must re-pin it!*

Wilhelm Montegue’s celebrity lookalike: James Penfold

Pinterest board: Visual inspiration, Song for Sophia.  I suppose every author uses visuals for inspiration.  It’s exciting to find a picture and think, “Yes! That’s it!”  This Pinterest board shows how I see my story, featuring Catherine-Zeta Jones and Monica Bellucci as celebrity lookalikes for Anne-Sophia Duncombe, and Jude Law and James Penfold as Wilhelm Montegue doppelgängers.  (That’s James Penfold here, looking splendidly surly.)  Read more about “Song for Sophia” here.  Also find a sneak peek at Chapter 1 and teaser excerpts.

Lady Lilith by Rossetti

Pinterest board: Pre-Raphaelite Art

My current WIP (work in progress) features an artist heroine whose ideas are shocking (for 1872).  In researching Romantic-era art, I owe much inspiration to Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Rossetti, Waterhouse, Leighton, Dicksee, Millais, and some modern artists adopting the style.  I love the vivid colors, the intensely emotional and fantastical themes, and of course the inhumanly beautiful people.  Here are the pieces that compel me; it seems each begs to have its story told.  Like Pinterest, Pre-Raphaelite art can be addicting!