“What’s a Pinaholic?” you might ask…unless you already know about Pinterest, a site where users can “pin” and save images and other media to themed “pinboards.”

Some of my pinboards are themed: Books I Love; Quotes; The Writing Life; Health; Dream Home; Recipes to Try; Work in Progress; and My Book Covers (along with thirty-one others). The wonderful thing about this site is that the possibilities are endless. You can easily set up a board for anything you’d like to gather. Let’s say you’re interested in beekeeping, you can set up a board for that and pin photos, articles and videos about beekeeping.

The idea is that this is a place to easily pin, categorize, organize, share and discover interesting information. The good people of Pinetrest have even developed a  “Pin It” button that you can add to your computer toolbar or header so that when you stumble across something you can push the “Pin It” button and with a couple more clicks you’ve added the item that captured your fancy.

I’d like to believe that Pinterest has helped me cut down on my compulsion to shop online. Instead of “buying,” I add an item to one of my boards. Later, if I absolutely have to have it, I can easily find it and make the purchase.

It’s also great for creative inspiration. I used to make collages of my works in progress so that I could capture the theme and feel of my books. I’d include photos of people who looked like my characters, photos of their houses, their communities – anything that captured the essence of the book. Now, with Pinterest, I just click the “Pin It” button and add photos to my “Work in Progress board.” I used to have to download, print, size and paste these photos to a piece of poster board. Pinterest is a very handy time saver in that regard.

Although, I mus caution you that it’s so much fun that sometimes it’s easy to get absorbed in pinning just one more image… before you know it, hours have gone by. The other day, I found a little ditty that said, “Quit Piddling and Write Your Book!”  I pinned it on my board called “The Writing Life.”

Is anyone in the JQ community on Pinterest? If so, let me know and I’ll follow you. If you’d like to check out my boards, you can find me at http://pinterest.com/nancyrthompson/

On another note, my book FORTUNE’S UNEXPECTED GROOM has been on BookScan’s Top 100 list for the past four weeks! In celebration, I’ll give away a free copy to someone who leaves a comment today about interesting themes for Pinterest  boards.