Thursday, August 25, 2011

Use Pinterest for Handy WIP Research

Are you on Pinterest? If not, you should be.

I've been using it for a few months now, but I'm just now getting the hang of it. Or maybe I'm just now getting addicted. Whichever.

I pin recipes I want to try to virtual bulletin boards, home decorating ideas to save for later, even parenting craft ideas for one of the websites I manage, PluggedInParents.com.

But I found an even more addicting way to use it: WIP Research!

I use Scrivener to piece together my novels and like that I can save inspirational photos on the bulletin board in the program. But Pinterest is much more fun and browsing-friendly. I set up a "board" for my new WIP and started adding photos of things that inspires me. Photos of people/celebrities who remind me of my characters, clothing styles, places/landmarks, anything. Everything.

Here are a few of the photos I pinned to my WIP Research Board this morning. I'll keep adding as I work my way through finishing this draft, then probably start a different board for the next book.



I highly recommend it! If you join, come find me. (http://pinterest.com/mgbuehrlen/) Let's "repin" together.

:)



Saturday, August 20, 2011

August Giveaways From YABC!

Don't miss these awesome book giveaways from my book review site, YABooksCentral.com! Here's what we have up for grabs this month:

Enter to win one of 3 The Day Before prize packs from Lisa Schroeder!

Amber’s life is spinning out of control. All she wants is to turn up the volume on her iPod until all of the demands of family and friends fade away. So she sneaks off to the beach to spend a day by herself.

Then Amber meets Cade. Their attraction is instant, and Amber can tell he’s also looking for an escape. Together they decide to share a perfect day: no pasts, no fears, no regrets.

The more time that Amber spends with Cade, the more she’s drawn to him. And the more she’s troubled by his darkness. Because Cade’s not just living in the now—he’s living each moment like it’s his last.

Three lucky winners will receive a copy of The Day Before, along with some awesome SWAG! (Bookmarks, buttons, and a special bag of jelly beans.) 

Click here to go to the contest entry form.



Enter to win one of 3 copies of Bargains and Betrayals by Shannon Delany!

Locked away at Pecan Place, Jessie finds her situation to be even more dangerous than she feared. While she struggles to maintain her sanity and discover answers about the group that seems less and less like any legitimate government agency, Pietr fights to keep their relationship alive. But very aware that his mother’s time is running out, Pietr makes a deal he doesn’t dare tell Jessie about. Because the deal Pietr’s made could mean the death of far more than his tenuous relationship with the girl he loves.

Click here to go to the contest entry form.




Enter to win one of 5 copies of Every Minute on Earth by Steve Murrie and Matthew Murrie!

Discover all of the amazing things that can happen around the world in just one day!

You already know all of the amazing things that can happen in just one minute on Earth, so think of what could happen in a whole day! Your taste bud cells are replaced at a rate of 50,000 a day. Almost 40,000 trees are cut down every day just to make paper bags. And a mayfly lives its entire life in a single day. This book is full of fun facts about space, technology, pop culture, food, animals, sports, the human body, and more!

Click here to go to the contest entry form.



Enter to win one of 5 copies of Diary of a Part-Time Ghost by Vered Ehsani!
(Winners will be able to choose between a print copy or an ebook.)

In the first book of the 'Ghosts & Shadows' series, fifteen-year old Ash wants nothing more than to be a normal kid and avoid trouble. And then his birthday gift transforms him into a ghost and zaps him back in time to the beginning of the American Revolution.

If he thought that was bad, it's about to get a whole lot worse. Armed only with an ancient history book and the quirky advice of an annoying mentor, Ash must rescue his ancestor from one danger after another, including an implacable enemy who controls the very shadows. What starts out as a brief experiment in time travel rapidly changes into a race for his very survival, and Ash is running out of time. Despite his efforts to stay out of trouble, Ash finds plenty of it as he must decide what his role will be in the shifting balance of forces.

As he moves through one shadow- plagued adventure after another, Ash gradually discovers that true power lives in the most unexpected place: himself. Humorous and action-packed, Diary of a Part-Time Ghost will hold readers in its grip from the first sentence to the last.

Click here to go to the contest entry form.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Oh, the Places You Will Go! (Otherwise known as: Why Writers Spend So Much Time Online)


Most fiction writer's have blush-worthy and/or FBI-investigation-worthy online search histories.

Last year my palms got sweaty--and I glanced over my shoulder so many times I pulled a muscle--when I scoured Google for "the best locations for growing marijuana in Michigan." I was on my iPhone at a shoe store, giggling to myself.

Not that giggling to myself in public is a strange occurrence...

So yesterday I rattled off all the things I've researched while writing my current novel to my husband. It was quite the eclectic list, so I thought I'd share.


A few recent research topics:

The Chicago Outfit 

newspaper prices in 1927

the price of a Model T

1920s fashion

how to jailbreak an iPhone

how to bypass a door locked with an electronic strike

the symptoms and treatment of schizophrenia

when was the Buckingham fountain built?

The Jazz Singer

T. S. Eliot

Jesse James

the first Ferris wheel

the colony of Roanoke

the colony of Jamestown

modern high schools and curriculum in and around Annapolis, MD

farmland in Virginia

The Spanish Armada

custom electronic mods

Bessie Smith

Gershwin

speakeasies and Prohibition

commuting times between D.C., Baltimore, and Annapolis

The Wild West

stagecoach robberies

women's suffrage 

The Great Depression

glass insulators

"upsycling"

The Roaring Twenties

recipe for applesauce cake (I was hungry)

Dante's Inferno

Robert Burns

Martin Luther King Jr.

robotics competitions

lost paintings during WWII

1963 Corvette Sting Ray

bobtail cats

Hollywood starlets

Polish neighborhoods in Chicago

how to buy an island

Johns Hopkins

childhood cancers

paradoxes

the theory of relativity

the history of the 'L'

water temperatures of Chesapeake Bay

brick Colonial architecture

sycamore trees

Baltimore Ravens and Orioles

attention seeking behavior disorders

do kids still take auto shop?



So there you have it, a peek into a writer's search engine history. Just in case you wondered why we spend so much time online...

If you're a writer, what's the strangest thing you've ever researched? Leave a comment in the doobly-doo below. 



Related Posts with Thumbnails