Shelter-In-Place Got Your Writing Stuck?
There’s a free tool that can help (and it’s Pin-tastic)
A friend (who also happens to be a writer) mourned to me recently that her writing had dried up. “Bone dry, no juices flowing,” she said, explaining that she was finding it harder than normal to squeeze water from her rock of creativity. She just couldn’t seem to get anything going. The well had run dry, as they say.
“What have you done in the past when this has happened?,” I asked, thinking she’d respond with “Oh, I go for a walk”, “watch another episode of Unsolved Mysteries”, or “crawl into my blanket fort and cry on the cat.” You know, the list of things writers usually say when these things happen. Instead, she said that with the quarantine in place she missed having the option to get up and go on an adventure. She missed traveling to some far-off place where she’d encounter new people, new foods, new sights. She just wanted to see and do new things.
Looking through social media though, I see she’s not alone. My feed is crawling with writers looking for motivation and inspiration! Which means that if you’re finding that you too are in this same sort of rut, you’re not alone. Many writers just like you are feeling the dulling ache of spending so many days just stuck inside.
Mark Twain said, “Write what you know,” but a lot of writers write about things they’ve seen or heard. Snippets of overheard conversations spark whole strands of dialogue, a painting in a museum brings back dusty memories eager to be used in a short story. But what’s a writer to do when the simple pleasure of walking out the door is gone? When the option for adventure has been reined in, enter my old friend and yours, Pinterest.
Here’s 5 ways Pinterest can get those proverbial juices flowing:
1. Travel to distant locales without leaving your fortress of solitude.
I’d love to use some of my summer going to France but honestly, getting on a plane right now sounds like a nightmare. That said, I recently “discovered” the Medici Fountain in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris via Pinterest. Simultaneously creepy and enchanting, the fountain becomes the locale for two young lovers starting an affair.
Boom. Yeah, just like that.
Picture of a lighthouse comes into your feed? Great! Write a story about how the lighthouse came to be haunted by a whaler’s widow. She can be seen every night up at the top of the lighthouse looking out at the far edges of the sea, longing for the return of her husband. Dunno. Just saying, give it a shot.
2. Explore new homes.
Sick of the same four walls you’ve been looking at since March? We all are honey. But a little Pinterest search can be your key to other buildings. It’s like having an invisibility cloak! A dark wood-paneled office becomes a story about a brilliant but mad writer who scribbles down his rantings day and night. No? Too close to home?
Okay, how about a lush garden as inspiration for a story about a florist who, now an old woman, reminisces about her wild Lindy Hopping days back in 1930’s Harlem.
3. Epicurean seduction abounds!
That charcuterie platter? The one that has your mouth watering? Let it become a story about a lonely Upper East Side-er who longs for the days she can entertain again.
That bowl of gazpacho? Turn it into a story about a Spanish chef struggling through a divorce. Or maybe you like to write romance. Fantastic! The Spanish divorcee is in a hot and steamy will-they-won’t-they with the tomato vendor. Spoiler alert: they will!
4. Create characters around fashion pins.
Let’s say you have an idea for a story that takes place in the summer. A quick search for “women street fashion summer” turns that 20-something fashionista sipping an iced latte as she wears her breezy floral wrap-dress and Stan Smith’s into the main character for your summertime beach read.
Writing a period-piece? Find flapper dresses and cloche hats, Victorian waistcoats and girdles, 1950s housewife dresses, really the sky’s the limit when it comes to finding costumes, fashion, and hair ideas on Pinterest. Soon your character’s physical descriptions and attributes will be strengthened with the details you see come across your feed.
5. Find writing prompts.
Lastly, if you’re struggling to even think of what kind of story to put together, try searching for writers’ tools. You can find infographics for 30-day writing challenges, word lists, and prompts like “So, what are you in for?” and “That was the day I learned that monsters have nightmares too.”
Lots of writing coaches, editors, and even other writers are using Pinterest to post quotes from their work, excerpts from longer pieces, poems, and other interesting artifacts about writing.
Once you’ve found pins that look interesting and inspiring, save them to a board. Create a board for exotic locales, one for style pics, etc. You can even have several different boards for all your writing styles or characters. If your writing covers multiple genres, you could have a board for your YA novel and a Literary Fiction board for that character-driven drama you’ve been avoiding. Like quotes? Go nuts making a quote board. Really, do it, it’s okay!
The pandemic has many of us stuck indoors but that doesn’t mean we can’t see new things, imagine new places, and people. We don’t know when sheltering-in-place will end, but we can use this time to reconnect with some old tools and platforms we haven’t considered in a while. Inspiration can be found simply by opening another tab on your browser!
