Perfectly Pinterest: One Year Later by Cerella Sechrist

Regular followers of this blog may recall my post from over a year ago where I confessed my mild (cough, cough) addiction to Pinterest.

I'd like to tell you things have improved, that I've learned to resist temptation and curtail my daily visits to the image-filled feed.

Alas, I am weak.

And yet, as my sister never fails to remind me, I'm also the queen of justifying myself.

After all, Pinterest is a fairly harmless addiction. I'm not spending any money (although, with the release of purchasing through pins, this could become an issue!), and all these images serve to inspire in so many ways -

- I've cataloged hundreds of health and food recipes on hidden boards to assist with meal planning and exercise.

- I'm piling up loads of research links and imagery for the historical and YA novels I've been working on in addition to my Harlequin Heartwarming Findlay Roads series.

- In years past, I would weigh down my computer's hard drive with images for my books, but now, I keep them all in the Pinterest-universe - no more bulky organization on an overloaded hard drive!

- I love to organize, and arranging my pins by category grants me a strange sense of satisfaction.

- It's really fun to promote a book's release through a Pinterest board by featuring images of an author's dream cast, setting, recipes, and just general pictures that relate to the story.

- And finally, I'm not alone in my love of Pinterest. Some time ago, Heartwarming reader, Laurie I., was emailing me about last year's Pinterest post (thanks, Laurie!) and her shared love of the site. It's a great way to connect with people of similar interests and of all the social media venues, it's my favorite.

Tweet: You can learn a lot about a person by the images they pin. - @CerellaSechrist #PinterestAddiction #Harlequin http://bit.ly/1Rm9FtA

You can also indulge in a lot of heartwarming inspiration via our Harlequin Heartwarming Pinterest page. I curate the account, and we have boards that not only relate to our stories (such as Anna Stewart's Butterfly Harbor board, Kate James's K-9 Trilogy and my own Findlay Roads series), our awards, giveaways, reviews, settings from our collective books, our gorgeous covers, as well as loads of general Heartwarming boards displaying quotes, wedding planning, couple imagery and more.

Though writers deal in words every day, I've found we're also a pretty visual group of people. We love to imagine our stories coming to life, and for me at least, Pinterest is one way to give a "face" to my novels.

That's my story.

And I'm pinning, er, sticking to it.

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To follow the Harlequin Heartwarming boards on Pinterest, click here.

You can also find and follow Cerella on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/CerellaSechrist

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CERELLA SECHRIST lives in York, Pennsylvania with two precocious pugs, Darcy and Charlotte, named after Jane Austen literary characters. Inspired by her childhood love of stories, she was ten years old when she decided she wanted to become an author. These days, Cerella divides her time between working in the office of her family’s construction business and as a barista to support her reading habit and coffee addiction. She’s been known to post too many pug photos on both Instagram and Pinterest. You can see for yourself by finding her online at www.cerellasechrist.com. Harper’s Wish, Book #1 in her Findlay Roads series, is her third novel with Harlequin Heartwarming.