PiBoIdMo

I took part in Tara Lazar's Picture Book Idea Month in November. The challenge was to come up with thirty picture book ideas in thirty days. Sure, I can come up with picture book ideas but many times... I ignore them. Hey, I'm busy. I have other books I'm writing. I don't have to write every idea down. (Yes, I have lots of excuses.)

But wait, writing as many ideas down as possible is a great idea! This month I took my notebook with me everywhere I went. Whenever and wherever an idea started to form, I wrote it down. I realized that I get a lot of ideas when I'm driving by myself in the car. These ideas usually get forgotten by the time I get home, but not this month. I stopped for every idea, got my notebook out, and wrote it down. (This is pretty easy for me since I live on a dirt road where I don't even have to pull over since there's nobody else around.)

So yeah, I came up with 32 picture book ideas. I'm sure most of them stink, but since I was just writing down snippets of story instead of trying to write an entire thing I didn't feel pressured. I was just in it for the ideas this month while I worked on my YA, and it was fun!



I also got another feature idea for my blog that I'll hopefully find the time to fit in in 2010, (as you may have noticed I've been neglecting this poor blog a bit lately. I've been putting all my spare time into my YA.) and two YA sequel idea outlines written up during all my idea pondering. I don't know that I'll ever need those, but it's nice to know that I can come up with some ideas to flesh out.

Picture Book Idea Month taught me that if I diligently keep a notebook with me at all times I can get more things written whether they be titles, ideas, pieces of conversation, names, or playlists for my characters. (Another added bonus of my PiBoIdMo dedication this year, my YA characters have playlists and I wrote down lots of conversation I came up with while in the car.)

So, HIP HIP HOORAY! for Tara Lazar and Picture Book Idea Month!