Pinterest Love.

I love my Pinterest boards. I use them for brainstorming on my books and for general inspiration. Here are a few of my boards and their pins.

Live Like Celeste
My friend Babs and I came up with this board one day when we decided we wished we could be Celeste Barros from Vamping It Up and Keeping It Up. Celeste is brave, bold, and super-stylish. Here are a few outfits we thought she would wear.

This is what she wears in Keeping It Up to meet her new lover.

Some Alexander McQueen.

Keeping It Up
Who doesn't love doing research? And who doesn't love doing research on a location for sexy good times?  This is the library at Vilnius University in Lithuania. 
 

Where I imagined Holly and Linc getting it on.

Curse of the Spider Woman 
I'll be honest. I based Jordan Tasos, the hunky ex-lover of my main character Rachel Havelock on Jeremy Renner. 

Can you blame me?

And this is Rachel.

 

Self-Care for the Writer:

Authors tend to treat their bodies as something that carries their head around. We are then surprised when our body revolts with nerve pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, headaches, dry eyes - really, do I need to go on with the number of things that can hurt?

I've written articles on ergonomics (here in particular). This collection of links goes beyond basic good ergo and into the realm of feeling pleasure in your body.

There are an incredible number of suggestions on the web. Here are some of the best.

1. From Raleigh Psychology, here is the most basic List of Pleasant Activities. These ideas are great place to start with doing really cool things.

2. Stanford has a really nice list of small things and ways to score them. This worksheet is more for a clinician's use, but I found the commentary really interesting! It sounds a bit academic, naturally. It is from Stanford, not a place known for their kicky and quirky writing.

3. It's super easy to think of Self-Care as being something to support our productivity. As Admiral Ackbar says, "It's a trap!" Self-Care is a worthy thing in itself.

My personal happiness did not seem like a grand priority. However, now I know that emotional well-being is fundamental to health and stability in general.

Check out this link from www.TheBodyIsNotAnApology.com And don't you love that blog title!?

4. If you are an activist, check out these Self Care Tips from Everyday Feminism!