Finding Inspiration in a Mood Board

Recently I spotted several authors posting mood boards or aesthetics for their books. The images were inspiring and evocative, and I knew right away I wanted to try my hand at making one. This post by Madeleine Bartson was a great jumping off point and has lots of terrific information and resources.

I’ve always loved cutting beautiful pictures out of magazines and pasting them together in a collage. Digital collaging is in many ways just as fun, as the options for photos are seemingly unlimited, and you don’t end up with glue on your fingers! I found plenty of free images online (I used Canva to make mine) and even added a photo of my own (the cheerful nasturtium in the upper right). “Hometown” is a sweet contemporary romance set in Central PA in the summertime. It features fireflies and strawberries, Ferris wheels and mossy creeks, and when I look at this collage…I can almost taste the blueberry pie. Many mood boards focus on a color scheme. Through the process of creating this board, I realized the colors of my book are nasturtium yellow, strawberry red, grass green and summer sky blue. Now that I have the mood board bug, I’m looking forward to making boards for each of my characters and even the setting of my novel. A mood board for “Heartsong Hills,” book two in the Hearts of the Ridge Series will be coming soon!

While assembling and arranging this particular group of images, I was surprised by how happy they made me. Once I got all the images in just the right places with just the right framing and filters, a little spark of joy lit in my heart. And though the romance is sometimes rocky, and my heroine faces bumps on her road to happily ever after, ultimately “Hometown” is a cheerful, summertime romp. And after the challenges of a difficult year, aren’t we all just longing to bite into a sugar sweet strawberry or touch the sky atop a Ferris wheel? I know I am.

So whether you are designing a room or writing a screenplay, planning your first family gathering in a year or putting together the perfect remote kids birthday party, might I suggest making a mood board for inspiration. You never know what you might discover!