Writing’s a funny thing.
Sometimes I can do it anywhere; whatever’s happening, whoever’s watching. Other times I have to work hard to get in the mood; privacy, glass of wine, bit of fantasy – you know the drill. That’s when I’ll browse Spotify and open up my Pinterest boards.
My Spotify requirements are quite specific and I will album-hop until I find exactly the right music. Often a film or tv soundtrack provides a pleasantly ubiquitous background but on other occasions I need something more particular; Parisian cafe, maybe, or sleazy jazz or stirring martial.
My Pinterest boards are much less orderly. I have four writing boards (all private): Places, Characters, Happenings and Mood. Each one is a jumble of images “pinned” from virtual and real-life sources including hundreds of iPhone snaps of book and magazine illustrations, paintings, views and objects. In the last 24 hours I have added an Impressionist painting from Twitter and my own photos of the Palm House in Kew 
Gardens, a London street and the front cover of a 1908 contraceptive catalogue.
Using the Pinterest mobile app I can see something that stirs my imagination or captures a thought and link it to one of my four boards direct from my phone; to my mind, the perfect synergy between art and technology.
