Tuesday, December 22, 2015
A Month of Picture Book Ideas
This past November, I
participated in PiBoIdMo or Picture Book Idea Month. The goal of this 30 day
writing exercise was to come up with at least one idea per day that might turn
out to be the starting point for a new picture book manuscript. A snap, right? Think
again. If there were ideas cruising around in my brain, directing them to
Creativity Central was a whole other problem. Thank goodness for the tips and
tools offered by over 30 fellow authors and illustrators. Their blog posts, hosted by Tara Lazar—master organizer
of this event, were a golden GPS system. Brain throwing up at roadblock or
riddled with distracting potholes? Create
a list of characters, settings, problems, etc.; build word pairs; eavesdrop on
your own children or those at the playground or mall; use picture prompts;
write down words or phrases that you love the sound of; interview a character. These
creative detours, and several more, were invaluable in helping me find the 30
ideas (and more) needed to complete the PiBoIdMo challenge. No, they aren’t all
great ideas, but even if I manage to work only 2-3 of them into strong
manuscripts, that’s 2-3 stories on my roadmap to publication that I didn’t have
before.
For more information on PiBoIdMo
visit: http://taralazar.com/piboidmo/
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