You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2018.
Another drum roll…
Before I announce the daily prizes from Storystorm, I must thank Urania Smith for doing the random selection for me. Urania is my mentee from We Need Diverse Books, which we will be talking about soon….but let me tell you, she is a talent on the rise. Watch out for her!
And so here we go…
Day 1: Kirsten Ealand
Day 2: Patricia Alcaro
Day 3: Jen Arena
Day 4: Judy VanSlyke
Day 5: Frances Tosdevin
Day 6: Wendy Myersart
Day 7: Pat Miller
Day 8: Ryan Roberts
Day 9: Andrea Mack
Day 10: Maryshorgan (Sherry Peace)
Day 11: Tracey Brown
Day 12: Rhonda Whitaker
Day 13: Deb Smith
Day 14: Jennifer Broedel
Day 15: Writersideup
Day 16: Lynne Marie
Day 17: Anna Levin
Day 18: Natasha Garnett
Day 19: Karen Larson
Day 20: Andrew Lefebvre
Day 21: Beth Stilborn
Day 22: Bgonsar
Day 23: Lu Fiskin-Ross
Day 24: Kassy Kepol
Day 25: Kathy Cornell Berman
Day 26: Vasilia Graboski
Day 27: Mary Worley
Day 28: KASteed
Day 29: Lucy Straugler
Day 31: Stephen S. Martin
Post-Storystorm
Adam Lehrhaupt: Susan Schade
Nancy Churnin: Debbie Meyer
I will be emailing you all in the next few days to arrange your prizes.
And so, that’s it. It’s over????
No, silly, it’s never over! It’s time to WRITE!
Good luck and happy creating!
Drum roll please…
The following Storystormers have been randomly selected from the pool of ~800 who registered for the event AND completed the 30-idea challenge!
Each winner has been paired with a picture book literary agent who will provide feedback on FIVE IDEAS that have been fleshed out into pitches.
So winners, go through your idea lists and pick the five ideas that move you, that sing to you. (Like Adele.)
Yes, HELLO IDEAS!
Write up each idea as a pitch, around a paragraph apiece. Write about the crux of the story, the hook, how you might envision it panning out. If you aren’t exactly sure, then say so. But give as much information as you can about the idea so the agent can give you feedback on the idea’s viability in today’s picture book marketplace. This will give you an IDEA of which IDEAS you should pursue as manuscripts.
I will give you three days to work on your idea descriptions, then I will email you on February 10 to introduce you to your agent. I have asked the agents to respond to your ideas by the end of the month, but some asked for a little longer due to pending commitments. So please give them time to review and reply appropriately.
And so, here we go…the GRAND PRIZE WINNERS ARE:
Julia Ugarte (Holly McGhee)
Donna Taylor (Ammi-Joan Paquette)
Bronte Colbert (Tricia Lawrence)
Mary Jane Muir (Rachel Orr)
Johnell DeWitt (Stephen Fraser)
Tiffany Dickinson (Erin Casey)
Cassie Bentley (Kelly Sonnack)
Amanda Davis (Jennifer March Soloway)
Tanya Parrott (Tracy Marchini)
Lauren Soloy (Liza Royce Literary Agency)
Congratulations, everyone! Go celebrate!
Remember there are still prizes to come–all those daily goodies you saw throughout January. So stay tuned!
This is my idea jar. I keep all my story ideas in it.
You know the ones.
The same ideas we spend all of Storystorm coming up with.
Our brilliant, wonderful, genius ideas.
The ideas we will turn into fantastic manuscripts. Manuscripts that will, some day, become beautiful books.
So yes. This is my idea jar.
When I need a jumpstart, I reach inside and pull out one of my ideas. Then, it’s time to play.
You need to play with your ideas. You know that, right? If you don’t, they get rowdy. When ideas get rowdy…oh, my! The trouble they can cause…
Anyway, now I get to play with my idea. I can do all kinds of things with it:
- Draw it.
- Talk it out.
- Sculpt it.
- Fancy needle point thing it.
- I can even write it.
Well, I’d probably write it over any of those other ones, but that doesn’t mean you have to. You can play with your ideas however you want. The important thing is that you USE them.
Every. Single. One.
They might not all turn into that beautiful book, but we can learn from them all:
- What made this idea work?
- Why did this one fail?
- Can I revise it so that it’s better?
- Is there a different approach that I haven’t considered?
So, take out those ideas. Play with them. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. If you do, learn from them.
Take what you learn and turn it into successes.
And then…
Reach back into that idea jar and do it again.
As a special treat, in honor of my newest book, I’m giving away my #1 thing to help you write picture books that will sell absolutely FREE, along with 35 tips and tricks to help you do it. Just stop over to writepicturebooksthatsell.com.
Adam Lehrhaupt is an award-winning children’s author and writing coach.
He has written 14 picture books, including his newest, IDEA JAR (S&S, available TODAY) illustrated by Deb Pilutti.
Don’t turn out the lights, the Storystorm party is not over!
Yes, now that your notepads and brains are bubbling like cauldrons with ideas, the question Tara has asked me to answer in this post-Storystorm post is WHAT NEXT? In the 11 months between the end of Storystorm 2018 and the start of Storystorm 2019, what should you do with your ideas? How do you know which ones to work on first and which, if any, you may want to toss?
This is an answer you can make with your heart or your head. My advice? Use both.
What does it mean to choose from the heart? There are some ideas that just grab you and won’t let you go until you put them on paper. I keep long, growing lists of ideas, but I circle and focus on the ones that haunt me. I prioritize according to the ideas that demand a chance at life.
THE WILLIAM HOY STORY, HOW A DEAF BASEBALL PLAYER CHANGED THE GAME sprang from a promise I made to a Deaf man, Steve Sandy, to tell the story of this Deaf hero. It was my first book and I had no idea at first how to tell the story.
At the same time, my head knew there was a classic hero’s journey here to tell if I could just break down the steps. With the help of online classes and fearless critique partners, my head was able to figure out how to turn this idea into a story about a boy who grows into a man with a goal that he achieves by learning his challenge—his deafness—is actually his gift.
Three of my other books, while driven by my heart, made equal sense to my head. CHARLIE TAKES HIS SHOT, HOW CHARLIE SIFFORD BROKE THE COLOR BARRIER IN GOLF; IRVING BERLIN, THE IMMIGRANT BOY WHO MADE AMERICA SING (coming out in June) and THE QUEEN AND THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE (coming out in September) also required a lot of writing and revising, but ultimately fit into a hero’s journey with a clear beginning, middle and end.
But MANJHI MOVES A MOUNTAIN ran the risk of being heart over head. It defied the classic structure with the story of a young man, not a boy, whose challenge is to find an easier way to navigate across a 300-foot mountain so people in his village can get access to schools and doctors. But I loved this idea and couldn’t let go until I found the way to tell his true story. It was a deeply rewarding experience as I slowly stumbled and felt my way to a narrative with a folk tale feel.
Ultimately, all ideas require you to put your head to work, as you have to solve the problem of creating page-turning suspense that leads to a satisfying conclusion in a story of roughly 800 words or less, preferably one that kids will want to read again and again. While some ideas contain a clear journey, others will prove elusive. Some you may want to toss or postpone. But you may not necessarily want to abandon them. Whether you let them guide you into a story should be a question of how much you love them.
We often talk about books as our babies. Like human or fur babies, they’re living, breathing pieces of you – funny, passionate, silly, kind, wise, a mix of some or all of these qualities or others that you never anticipated. So as we approach Valentine’s Day, sort through your ideas for the ones you love most passionately and give them everything you’ve got. Then when they grow up and move to bookstores far away, they’ll still feel close, beating in rhythm with your heart.
Nancy Churnin is the theater critic for The Dallas Morning News and the author of six picture books: THE WILLIAM HOY STORY, HOW A DEAF BASEBALL PLAYER CHANGED THE GAME (Albert Whitman); MANJHI MOVES A MOUNTAIN (Creston Books); CHARLIE TAKES HIS SHOT, HOW CHARLIE SIFFORD BROKE THE COLOR LINE IN GOLF (Albert Whitman) and the forthcoming IRVING BERLIN, THE IMMIGRANT BOY WHO MADE AMERICA SING (Creston Books, Spring 2018); THE QUEEN AND THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE (Albert Whitman, Fall 2018) and MARTIN & ANNE (Creston Books, 2019). Free Teachers Guides and projects for kids are available for all her books. You can learn more at nancychurnin.com, join her on Facebook at Nancy Churnin Children’s Books and find her on Twitter @nchurnin.
Nancy is giving away a copy of her most recent book, CHARLIE TAKES HIS SHOT: HOW CHARLIE SIFFORD BROKE THE COLOR BARRIER IN GOLF.
Leave ONE COMMENT on this blog post to enter. You are eligible to win if you are a registered Storystorm participant and you have commented once below. Prizes will be given away at the conclusion of the event.
Good luck!
HOORAY, YOU MADE IT!
It may have been a little bit crazy, but here you are.
If you have 30 ideas, you can qualify for one of our AMAZING Storysttorm prizes (the daily giveaways and the Grand Prizes) just by taking the following pledge. Put your right hand on a picture book and repeat after me:
I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed
the Storystorm 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into picture book manuscripts.
Now I’m not saying all 30 ideas have to be good. Some may just be titles, some may be character quirks. Some may be problems and some may create problems when you sit down to write. Some may be high-concept and some barely a concept. But…they’re yours, all yours! Give them a big, fat, juicy smacker! SMOOCH!
You have until February 4th at 11:59:59PM EST to sign the pledge by leaving a comment on this post. PLEASE COMMENT ONLY ONCE.
The name or email you left on the registration post and the name or email you leave on this winner’s pledge SHOULD MATCH. If you want to check the registration post, it is here.
Again, please COMMENT ONLY ONCE. If you made a mistake, contact me instead of leaving a second comment.
Remember, this is an honor system pledge. You don’t have to send in your ideas to prove you’ve got 30 of them. If you say so, I’ll believe you! Honestly, it’s that simple. (Wouldn’t it be nice if real life were that straightforward.)
If your name appears on both the registration post AND this winner’s pledge, you’ll be entered into the drawings for the daily giveaways and the Grand Prizes: feedback on your best 5 ideas from a literary agent.
So what should you do now? Start fleshing out your best ideas! Write them as elevator pitches. Get ready because YOU might be a CHOSEN ONE.
The daily giveaway prizes include picture books, manuscript critiques, art prints—all the stuff you saw during the month. All winners will be randomly selected by Random.org and announced next week.
So, sign away and pick up your winner’s badge to proudly display anywhere you choose:
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE EARNED IT, STORYSTORMER!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 