Sitting on a bookshelf over my computer desk, for several years, has been a spiral notebook that I filled with quotes and notes from the books I was reading while writing the first three books of Waterspell. I bought the notebook in Mexico, where my late husband and I were living at the time, and where the original Waterspell trilogy was largely written. Our house on Lake Chapala, south of Guadalajara, made for the perfect writer’s den. I was insulated from my formerly too-busy life north of the border, and could devote myself full-time to the creative act of writing fiction, and to reading widely in support of my work.
Once the original trilogy got published, I seldom or never looked at the notebook that I’d filled with pertinent or inspiring notes and quotes. After getting on Instagram, however, I pulled the notebook off the shelf and, paging through it, discovered that I had created a wonderfully diverse archive of readily Instagram-able thoughts and sayings.
They have inspired me to feverish sessions at Canva, where I’ve upgraded to a Pro account to have access to ALL of the pretty pictures. I’m having a great time creating square-shaped graphics that feature quotes gleaned from my jam-packed notebook. On Instagram I’m alternating such quotes with excerpts from readers’ reviews of Waterspell, and the strategy seems to be working. I’m connecting with readers, reviewers, bloggers, and other authors much faster and more easily than I’ve ever managed to do on my largely useless Facebook author page.
Here’s a sample of the Author Quotes that I’ve taken from my old Mexican notebook and transformed on the Canva interface into post-worthy graphics:
And here are some of the graphics I’ve made to feature excerpts from readers’ reviews:
I am deeply grateful to the readers and bloggers who gave Waterspell such wonderful reviews upon the books’ original publication. I’m grateful to Canva for making it so easy and such fun to feature these review snippets as attractive graphics. I’m grateful to Bookstagram for giving me a place to post my Canva creations. Canva and I, and my books and Instagram, are jelling together quite well these days. Giving me hope that I may yet break through the static and bring my work to the attention of new readers, upon the publication of Waterspell Book 4, and to new listeners as well, when the long-in-progress audiobooks are finally released.
When books meet tech the right way, the results can be beautiful.
