Shakespeare on Pinterest

If you're engaged by Pinterest, as I am, you know that there are a lot of topics that seem to engaged Pinners.  They really, really, really like baby elephants. They really like puppies and kitties )who doesn't?) and they like pretty pictures of beautiful places and luscious photos of yummy food. But they also are interesting in Shakespeare's plays. One of my most popular boards is my Shakespeare board, and I'm hooked up to half a dozen others. There are lots of Shakespeare quotes pinned up on various boards. It's all about the words, but on Pinterest, it's about the pictures too.

A Picture Launches a Series!

Photographed by NejroN

I spend a lot of time looking at images. I'm a fan of Pinterest (which was a total surprise to me) and I also like to browse the stock photo banks like Dreamstime and Big Stock. Because I've got a couple of books coming out soon and they need covers, I activated a month's subscription over at Big Stock and have been happily downloading images for the past week. And that's how I cam across this image. It's one of maybe a dozen using the same models in a variety of poses and (in the woman's case) vintage dresses.
I took one look at those photos and I saw a series about stylish vampire lovers (Think The Thin Man meets The Hunger). His name is Theo. Hers is Miranda. Or maybe she is Thea and he is James. Perhaps she was Russian in a former life,.
Perhaps he was a Robber Baron.
They've been together ... a long time.
I could find out their real names, but that would feel like I was stalking them. To me they are Miranda/Thea and James/Theo and they have inspired me to write a new series of books.  Thank you!

Pinterest and Me

I'm kind of a late comer to Pinterest. I signed up for it when it launched but never really played around with it until a few weeks ago when I found myself with time on my hands and no real inclination to do any work. The next thing I knew, I had more than 30 boards (divided into topics as diverse as "Machine Dreams" and "All Things Arthurian") and I had more than 1200 images pinned. So I guess you could say I'm hooked. In case you are too, you can see my boards here.

I am finding it really relaxing to look at what other people have collected on their boards and the content they're curating. There are a lot of people "into" mermaids and dinosaurs and women wearing red dresses.  (I'm following a couple of boards where the pinners post gorgeous images every day.) A lot of these images inspire stories. A lot of the images inspire connection.

I love social media. I never expected to be this engaged.

Catmoji a delivery system for cat cuteness

I do not, as a general rule, email cute cat pictures and adorable pet videos. (I made an exception for the Siamese cat "singing" the theme from Game of Thrones and I think the "Engineer's Guide to Cats" is hilarious). But one of the things I do every day is check in with Cat of the Day and I have been known to pin some of those pictures on my board at Pinterest, along with the noir book covers and the photos of haunted places. A friend of mine sent me the link to catmoji, which is basically a site for all the cat pictures everyone has and wants to share. Forget cute babies and fuzzy puppies, they go straight for the cat cuteness. If you like looking at cute cat pictures, check catmoji out.

Second photograph of the day--flamingo mother and child

So, yes, I am someone who writes stories in which animals die and yet, I am a sucker for cute animal pictures.  (That's why we have Pinterest.) I don't usually tweet or email or post cute animal pictures because if everyone did that, there'd be no room for news about Kim Kardashian.
This beautiful picture grabbed my attention though. I saw it on FB and had to share.
Maybe I'm a sap.
Maybe I just like pink birds.