Last November this blog hosted “Picture Book Idea Month,” a daily exercise for picture book writers. The object was to create one new picture book idea a day. (As an added benefit, it kept us from having NaNoWriMo envy.)
When I tried PiBoIdMo on my own the year prior, I came up with the concept for THE MONSTORE, which became my first book to be purchased. It’s set for release with Simon & Schuster in 2012. And, this week, my editor is meeting with the art director to talk about illustrators. Oh yeah, it’s a fun time.
Then this week I got word that Diana Murray won the 2010 SCBWI Barbara Karlin grant with one of her PiBoIdMo 2009 ideas! Wow! So I asked her to tell the story…take it away, Diana!
When Tara announced PiBoIdMo on the blueboards, I was thrilled. One idea per day was something I could handle time-wise and I was looking forward to an excuse to ramp up my picture book writing. It was more challenging than I expected, but the best part was, it helped me figure out my main problem: I’m a compulsive writer. As soon as I think of an idea, I run for my laptop and I can’t stop writing until I get the whole story out of me. I literally find myself waking in the middle of the night to jot things down. In other words, I’m completely nuts. In many ways, this can be a good thing. Motivation has never been an issue for me. But participating in Piboidmo forced me to delay my compulsion to write about anything that popped into my head, and for me, that ended up being more efficient.
I came up with most of my ideas during little “holes” in time throughout the day, like while pushing the stroller or putting my kids to sleep. Some of these ideas were pretty awful, like: “Tabby Moves to Dogtown” and “Mabel’s Amazing Hat,” about a do-everything hat with a remote control. Ha! That one still cracks me up. Some of the ideas were worth investigating and I kept getting tempted to drop everything and start writing. But I held back in the interest of coming up with at least one new idea each day. I knew that if I started writing, I wouldn’t be able to stop and move on to thinking of other ideas. I held off as long as I could.
Finally, on idea #23, I couldn’t take it anymore. The idea of a stubborn, messy witch who keeps losing things resonated with me (Gee, I wonder why?). It’s a very personal experience, of course. An idea that works for one person may not appeal to somebody else. But for me, it just clicked. For a few days, I thought about it and planned it out in my head. Actually, idea #23 had been brewing since idea #1 (to borrow a metaphor from my MC, Grimelda). That’s the good thing about ideas: even the bad ones can ultimately lead to something that inspires you. By the time I started writing, I was overflowing with creative juices and the whole manuscript just poured out.
So, long story short, I’m a PiBoIdMo loser! My compulsion got the best of me, and I didn’t get past idea #23. But the good news is, I won the 2010 SCBWI Barbara Karlin Grant and learned something in the process.
For the record, I announced my participation on the blueboards but not on Tara’s blog. Let’s just say I was a little new to the concept of blogs at the time. Luckily, I was able to read all the inspiring posts after the event.
Congraulations, Diana! I hope you’ll let us know when your manuscript gets purchased!
Do you have a PiBoIdMo success story to share?
13 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 6, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Susanne Drazic
Great success story! Thanks so much for sharing it.
Susanne Drazic
http://susannedrazic.blogspot.com/
July 6, 2010 at 10:38 pm
tammi sauer
Aw. I love me a good success story. 🙂
Congratulations, Diana!
July 8, 2010 at 9:42 am
Diana Murray
Thank you Susanne and Tammi!
And thanks again, Tara. 🙂
July 8, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Sheri Dillard
Great post, Diana! Congratulations!
Right now, I’m playing around with three of my PiBoIdMo ideas. Hopefully, one of them will grab my attention like Grimelda did for you! 🙂
Keep us posted — I’m sure you’ll have more good news to share soon!
July 9, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Diana Murray
Thanks so much, Sheri! 🙂
Good luck with those ideas! I’m going to go back to my list too.
Hmmm. Maybe I’ll even try Tabby Moves to Dogtown after all. LOL!
July 10, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Heather Ayris Burnell
Yay Diana! Congratulations on your success!
July 13, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Diana Murray
Thank you, Heather! 🙂
July 14, 2010 at 7:51 am
Catherine Johnson
Very inspiring well done Diana!
July 15, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Diana Murray
Thanks, Catherine! 😀
September 8, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Ryan Hipp
This is fantastic! This makes all the work Tara did worth everything! Congrats to Diana and a big tip of the hat to Tara!!!!
September 26, 2010 at 11:40 am
Diana Murray
Thanks, Ryan!! Yes, so glad Tara hosted the event. Big tip of the hat. In fact, she can just have my hat!
September 21, 2010 at 1:46 pm
bre
I am a 8th grade teacher in NC and came across your site while researching some information about writing techniques for my English class this year. I just wanted to thank you for the great information and articles about writing, and let you know about a site we are putting together to help teachers find trusted resources.
We would love it if you could write a few articles for us, but understand that you are probably busy. I have included a link to the site below in hopes that if you can’t write some resources for us that you can at least link to it, tweet it, or add it to your Facebook profile to help us spread trusted resources throughout the educational community.
http://www.thefreeresource.com
Thanks and keep the great resources coming 🙂
Bre Matthews
November 22, 2014 at 8:44 am
aliciaminor
Another great story to inspire us all. Thanks for sharing. I will be reading your books.