I popped back into Pinterest early this week and started making boards again. "Pinterest--haven't been on there in a while. Does it still exist?" I thought lethargically. But I poked back in, reactivated my account, and started pinning lots of funny pics and inspirational quotes. Then I searched vintage fashion for a Bellevere House board and found lots of great ideas.

I knew vintage was a popular search, but my sister (who OWNED Pinterest at that time) specialized in girls with bombshell hair and bright lipstick. So I thought that was all there was to the vintage thing. This week I discovered lots of great dresses from the circa 1930s era--some on models, some on dressmaker's dummies. I saved lots and lots of them in many great colors. I visualize Bellevere as having lots of variety in the colors the women wear for each scene (men are harder to get creative about, but maybe something specific in the argyle pattern of a vest, etc.)

Now I actually have dresses to look at, concepts were just popping out at me. Faye wears a lot of gray, black, and blouse-with-skirt combinations. In one scene she wears a pale blue with pink flowers on it, for no reason. Helene often wears an outfit in just one scene, sometimes very striking colors--like dark maroon with a white collar when she plays piano, or a gold shirt and dark brown skirt at the beach. BeBe wears a lot of pale pink, little sweaters, and coral. I found a long dark blue flamboyant evening dress for Myrtle when she's discovered to have been cheating with Horace, and a medium green with embroidery for Aunt Betty when she talks about whether green is more a color for men or women. (Her son wears lots of green ties, which is odd, and which might throw her off!)

So much fun. I'll narrow down pics soon and put some on the blog.

And there will be more updates.

This month saw a lot of activity on the website, with participation in a promotion at the first of the year drawing a lot of visitors. They continued throughout the month, however, which I was pleased about. I sent out A Year with the Harrisons to get some reviews as well--it's been almost a year since it was published, but with so many other things to do I'm just now getting the ball rolling on this book. I reopened Goodreads, continued to develop my FB presence (those fan pages can be a hassle, but they are worth it), and got on BookBub. I also have a little Goodreads button on my blog sidebar now, which will link to all the books I've read over the past 2 years. I started putting up book reviews before I got back to the author account.

The books on the website have A Year with the Harrisons in a runaway lead. Ryan and Essie, Bellevere House, and Victoria: A Tale of Spain are all tied a little bit back of Harrisons. Facets of Fantasy is trailing a bit and Consuela is lagging far behind. Stats fluctuate quite a bit, though, and Ryan and Essie, which was once one of the lowest on page views, has climbed steadily over the last few months. It's clear though that A Year with the Harrisons is getting a lot of attention right now, which is perfect since it was the most recently published book. It was released during a very quiet time when I didn't have a lot of social activity, so it's taken a while to start up.

And there will be more updates.

In the last couple of weeks I got on BookBub and reopened my Goodreads author account. Since the Goodreads profile hasn’t been active in 3 years and the BookBub one just got started, I don’t have a lot of views there yet, but you can drop by and follow me if either of these are sites where you are active.

I still have a number of followers on Goodreads from before, but after such a long hiatus, they stopped listening to my posts although my blog still syndicates into the profile. Nonetheless, I decided to return so I could keep my books in order because new books are automatically added to Goodreads and I want to keep track of them. Not sure yet whether BookBub offers anything for me, but I also wanted to keep my books in order there.

You can follow me on Book Bub here and on Goodreads here. Everything on BB looks fine. My books on Goodreads are a mess because I can’t change the book covers, many of which are outdated, or some of the book’s information. However, I did make a shelf for “authorsbooks”  and here’s the link to it so you can quickly add them to your Want to Read list. Ryan and Essie isn’t on the list yet, but all the others on my website are.

And there will be more updates.