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by Jodi Moore
It’s okay to write a 2,000+ word picture book.
*braces self for screams of disbelief, coffee cups dropped, any chance of securing another book deal/agent/critique opening vanish, my own editors paling in shock, possible angry mobs at my doorstep and Tara questioning why-oh-why did she ever ask me to guest blog for PiBoIdMo?*
Now, hold up. I didn’t say it would be publishable. I just said it’s OKAY to write one. In fact, sometimes it may be necessary.
As picture book writers, we are challenged to deliver big ideas in as few words as possible. We are expected to fully develop our story, our characters, our plotline; captivate our audience; fashion a fabulous first sentence and create a satisfying end.
All while leaving room—and extending faith—for the illustrations.
It’s no easy task. So I ask…why would you limit yourself in the beginning with a word count?
Perhaps it may help to look at this in a different way. Let’s say I want to build a perfect sandcastle. If I only look at a finished product, say, one of my husband’s illustrious creations, and size up the amount of sand comprising the castle itself, I may decide I only need a few large buckets of sand to complete the task.
But that’s not what he starts with. Larry begins with an entire sandy beach. Using a large shovel, he piles on tons of sand. He sifts through bucket after bucket of the grainy particles. He packs it high as a mountain, scraping up more sand than he could possibly need.
That proud hill is his main idea. It’s the structure. The mass from which he will carve out his masterpiece. It’s his 2000+ words.
And then, he sculpts. He edits. He revises until he can see the more subtle nuances of the castle. Sometimes, a wall will cave or a doorway will be in the wrong place. But that’s okay, because he still has plenty of sand left. He can add. He can rebuild. My husband hasn’t limited himself to a few buckets of sand.
Why should you?
From your comments and posts on both this forum and Facebook, I know that you’re all busy creating your own pile of ideas. Embrace them…and write what’s in your heart. Use every word that’s necessary and a few that – you may find out later – are not. Restricting your words too early on may constrict your idea, choking the very life out of it. Let it breathe; let it swell. Let those words FLOW.
There will be plenty of time to revise—and reshape!—later.
Writing picture books can be a DAY at the beach. Shed those limitations and dig in!
Jodi Moore is the author of WHEN A DRAGON MOVES IN (May 2011, Flashlight Press) and the soon-to-be-published GOOD NEWS NELSON (Story Pie Press). She writes both picture books and young adult novels, hoping to challenge, nourish and inspire her readers by opening up brand new worlds and encouraging unique ways of thinking. You can visit her at www.writerjodimoore.com.
by For PiBoIdMo, I’m giving you a very special gift.
Your very own Inspiration Fairy!
This Fairy will grant new ideas and make your kidlit dreams come true!
All you have to do is the following:
- click on her for the full size image
- cut
- color
- attach her somewhere close to your work space.
Next, (and this is the only way to make fairy magic happen:) You have to believe.
And in order to believe, you have to work. You have to write or draw something as often as you can. And never give up! (for more than a few minutes or days at least)
The things you create can be things that are wonderful, horrible, short, long, happy, funny, sad and even things that will probably be better off in the recycling bin.
But, you have to do it.
You have to work for it.
And you have to believe.
I speak from experience. It took five years to get my first book published. It was the first book I wrote and the first publisher I sent it to. But, it took five years for the planets to align, my skills to improve and to get the yes. During these years, I hoped, despaired, submitted and almost quit a million times.
I give you this fairy to remind you that the kidlit adventure is dangerous, slow and might even bring you to tears occasionally.
But, hang in there, keep at it, work it and most of all, believe.
Courtney Pippin-Mathur is an illustrator and writer. Her first picture book as a writer and illustrator, MAYA WAS GRUMPY, is coming out Fall of 2012 with Flashlight Press. She juggles paint, paper, keyboard and three kids. She wouldn’t wouldn’t have it any other way.
Courtney is giving away an original watercolor painting of the Inspiration Fairy to a lucky commenter. A winner will be selected one week from today! Good luck!
by I was so heartened to read Carol Hampton Rasco’s opening blog post on PiBoIdMo because she made two comments that really resonate with me. Well, she said one, and then she quoted a savvy but jaded six-year-old.
First, she noted that the top picture-book choice of teachers, reading specialists, and Reading is Fundamental volunteers is NONFICTION. That buoyed me because that’s what I write. In fact, my agent, Erin Murphy, has two of my nonfiction picture books under submission right now. The six-year-old, however, quickly brought me down to earth. As he peered at a terrific looking book, he said, “it doesn’t look like a true fact book, they’re usually boring.” That’s good news for the book he was enjoying but “aargh” for the others.
We can all cite other terrific NF PBs. Some of my favorites include MIND YOUR MANNERS, ALICE ROOSEVELT! by Leslie Kimmelman; 14 COWS FOR AMERICA by Carmen Agra Deedy, which is available in both English and Spanish (which is perfect, since Rasco also said that bilingual books rank among the top-three most-wanted); and YOURS FOR JUSTICE, IDA B. WELLS by Philip Dray. Citing counter-examples to the six-year-old’s complaint, however, is beside the point. It’s his experience and his impression that count. So, what can we, as NfPiBoWr (that’s nonfiction picture-book writers) do to alter his conclusion that “true fact” books are boring?
Language and illustrations, of course, contribute hugely to enlivening books that happen to be accurate. Rasco also commented that what adults want for the children they read and give books to are books that are “eye and mind catching.” Great illustrations catch the eye; lilting, lively, lyrical text captures the mind. Neither of these is quite sufficient, however, if the topic—and we are dealing with ideas during PiBoIdMo here—is lackluster.
As a nonfiction writer, my ideas come from a number of places—the news, teacher-friends who lament the lack of good books about X, expert-friends who share fascinating stories about their research, and sheer curiosity. But, the biggest source of my ideas is Carus.
Who?
Carus is the family of magazines that is sometimes abbreviated to “COBBLESTONE.” These include, for various age groups, not only this magazine about American History but also DIG on archeology, APPLESEEDS and FACES on culture, CALLIOPE on history, ODYSSEY on science, and others. It’s not that I steal ideas from other writers; I steal ideas from myself. Here’s what I mean.
Most of these magazines are theme-based, and a couple of times a year, I check their Writer’s Guides to see what intrigues me. What I see now in ASK, a science magazine for six- to nine-year-olds, for instance, are calls for proposals for nonfiction articles on dreams and dreaming, “all the fish in the sea” on a census of fish, spelunking, and animal sounds. Don’t these sound like great grist for topics?!
While ASK targets the perfect age group for picture-book readers, magazines for older readers inspire ideas, too. For instance, FACES is soliciting articles on “Ghosts and the Spirit World” and COBBLESTONE on the 1963 “March on Washington.” There are many other fine nonfiction magazines as well—RANGER RICK and KNOW, for example. All of these can suggest possible picture book topics.
What’s critical for me, though, is not the general theme but what I just said. They suggest possible topics. Or, actually, the big ideas lead me down multiple paths to them. The themes themselves are often too broad for a picture book. But they can spark an idea for a specific article that might then transmogrify into an idea for a picture book.
For instance, when COBBLESTONE sought articles for an issue on Mark Twain, I consulted a friend who is a Twain expert. She suggested an idea for an article that became the basis for one of the picture books that is under submission. Similarly, in response to an issue of COBBLESTONE on the “Freedom Rides,” I wrote an article on music in the civil rights period. My research for this article revealed to me more than I had known about children’s involvement in civil rights—and that led to my other PB under submission. (In fact, I wrote and sold a whole middle-grade nonfiction book, WE’VE GOT A JOB: THE 1963 BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN’S MARCH, that was inspired by that article. But, that’s the topic for another blog!)
So, my recommendations for PiBoIdMo are to:
- Check out great kids’ magazines.
- Use their suggestions as springboards for your own. And
- Inspire and be inspired by bored six-year-olds!
Cynthia Levinson has sold two dozen articles and stories on a wide range of topics to some of the best children’s magazines. Her debut middle-grade book, WE’VE GOT A JOB: THE 1963 BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN’S MARCH (Peachtree Publishers), will be published in February 2012.
Who can believe the month of November is half over already? Hopefully you’ve already got 15 ideas (or more) in your PiBoIdMo journal. And if you don’t, no worries! There’s plenty of time left to catch up and complete the 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge.
This is a place to check-in and let your fellow picture book writers know how you’re doing! What has been the most inspiring message for you during the guest posts?
You might be wondering how I’m doing. Well, I’m always a little behind with my own challenge…
Enough about me. What about you?
by I have to be honest with you.
I think the word “idea” is a little grand.
And by grand, I mean daunting.
An idea is a huge thing, right?
It requires freshness and originality, it encompasses possibility, it is—not to get all god-like here, but—the beginning of everything!
Meanwhile, we’re always being told, “There are no new ideas!”
Poet Audre Lord said, “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” And there are all those books and lectures that tell us there are only about seven plots available on the whole entire planet. And you guys. There is even a web site called “no new ideas” and it is just a blank page!
So. Phew. That’s out of the way.
No new ideas.
We can’t find what isn’t there.
But, this puts us PiBoIdMo folks in a bit of bind, doesn’t it?
What are we supposed to do for the rest of the month?
Well, personally, I think we should try for something smaller.
Not a whole new idea everyday—just a new perspective.
(And, guess what? The Greek origin of the word idea is idein, which means “to see”! Which means I’ve got support from ancient sages here, so let’s go with it.)
What if all we need is a new way of looking at things?
And what if that way is a child-like way?
A child, said author Olive Schreiner, “sees everything, looks straight at it, examines it, without any preconceived idea.”
Have you ever noticed what kids want to do when they’re riding a down escalator? They want to run up it!
Kids don’t look at things as if they’re static or rule-based or already defined. Surprise and experimentation are everyday affairs. Freshness and originality and possibility—all those things I found so daunting above? Ha. Child’s play.
And children, you’ll remember, are our audience.
So, what if we look straight at life today and examine it?
What if we let our preconceptions slip away and see things as children see things?
What if we imagine that socks are pockets (A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes) or that the whole wide world could fit in a book (All the World) or that a worm and a bird could be best friends (Noodle & Lou)?
What if look around, each of us, at the animals in our houses and yards, the food on our tables, the books on our bedside tables, and we just plain see them in a new way? That’s all I’m going to do today, and you should join me. We’ll leave the grand and daunting to someone else…
(And now for the party favors!)
These really great photos that are all about accessing a child’s perspective.
And then this fine bit of musing by artist Austin Kleon:
(Scroll and read all the way through it. It’s worth it. Especially that very last section. I think he might’ve stuck it in just for picture book authors, don’t you?)
Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of the highly-acclaimed, Caldecott-honored picture book ALL THE WORLD, illustrated by Marla Frazee, as well as NOODLE & LOU, illustrated by Arthur Howard, and A SOCK IS A POCKET FOR YOUR TOES, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Forthcoming books include THINK BIG, illustrated by Vanessa Newton; HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUNNY, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin; and others. Liz is an assistant professor of creative writing at Austin Community College and the mother of two daughters. To learn more, visit her web site at LizGartonScanlon.com.
Liz is giving away a signed copy of the award-winning ALL THE WORLD! Leave a comment to enter and a winner will be randomly selected one week from today.
by Creatively, I’m very slow.
I like to be delicate with my ideas and usually spend three years developing a picture book.
Because of this, I have to look for ideas that hit my proverbial sweet spot and keep me enthused for the long haul.
For the picture book that I’m working on now, titled THE TRICYCLE MOUSE, my initial idea was to combine two of my favorite things: vehicles and animals.
Thus the characters in the book are hybridized animal-vehicles.
I started working on this over a year and a half ago, it still has a long way to go, but my excitement for the project has only grown.
Julian Hector is generously giving away an original signed painting he made exlcusively for PiBoIdMo, with characters from his picture book THE GENTLEMAN BUG! It’s unbelievably adorable! Lucky you!
Leave a comment to enter and a winner will be randomly chosen one week from today.
Julian Hector is one of the youngest author/illustrators working in children’s publishing today. Five years ago, he was plucked out of college by an editor at Disney-Hyperion, and he’s been writing and illustrating children’s book ever since. His most recent book is MONDAY IS ONE DAY, written by Arthur A. Levine, and you can visit his website here: www.Julianhector.com.
After my first picture book Poppy’s Pants was published, I received a call from my dad. He said, “I’ve discovered after years of writing that coming up with new ideas can get hard, so I’m going to help you out.”
I was anxious to receive this bit of collegial wisdom from my dad. Even though I am more than 40 years old, I relish a grown-up conversation, from one artist to another with my Dad. He said, “Here’s my idea, Poppy’s Car.” Imagine stepping outside of your air conditioned South Carolina home to drive your Buick LeSabre into town. Being a writer, you only need to use your car to run the occasional errand. It has been weeks since the last time you started the car up and an unusual amount of debris has collected between the windshield wipers. You turn the wipers on to clear the debris when to your surprise, an angry bird squawks at you. There, between your windshield wipers sits a bird’s nest complete with four eggs. This truly happened. Dad had no choice but to relinquish control of his car until the baby birds learned to fly. I worked on a story inspired by this phone conversation for a while. It remains one of many stories filed away in my Apple computer. At some point, it became too difficult to resolve and so it waits. Perhaps it will resurface some day.
I’ve found that ideas can be easy to come by, but not always easy to turn into a working story. Once you start looking for them, you’ll find them in casual conversation, observations and sometimes they will appear while day dreaming. When an idea presents itself, I test it out by writing or sketching, If my brain becomes crowded with potential then that new idea just might work. A good solid idea should be roomy enough to house many more ideas. Ideas that are connected to the core of the original. Have you noticed that ideas tend to come with their own tiny spark to get you started? Coming up with 30 ideas in 30 days has the nice side benefit of giving the participant a little thrill each day, like a spoonful of mental fuel. Ideas are far better than the most delicious latte to get a person going. Although, I like to combine the two. Usually, that little thrill you get from a new idea is enough to label it as a “good” one, worthy of developing into a good picture book. But, the only way to find out if it will make a good picture book is by working through it.
I have a theory about good ideas. I think they need time, maybe even years to form. They start as shy notions that need time to swim around in the muddy soil of your unconscious before planting some roots. When those ideas surface, it’s like meeting an exciting stranger you swear you’ve met before. I hope to enjoy meeting someone new each day this month.
Melissa Conroy, Pat Conroy’s second daughter, never intended to follow in the family business, instead choosing a career as an artist and creator of the Wooberry Dolls, huggable hand-crafted dolls bearing her childhood nickname of Woo. It was a chance meeting with Blue Apple Books publisher Harriet Ziefert that began her new career as an author. Melissa Conroy’s latest book, Grandma is an Author, was released this week!
by Tammi Sauer
Most of my pbs begin with character.
Occasionally, however, I go in a different direction and start with setting.
Some of the settings I have used in my books include the following:
- Cowboy Camp
- Barnyard
- Monster Academy
- Pond
- Prehistoric Times
- Royal Kingdom
- Zoo
- Concert Tour
- Oklahoma
- Sea
As much as I loved setting books in these places, I know I should come up with something fresh for the next manuscript. This calls for some brainstorming. I push myself to come up with at least ten new setting possibilities.
Examples:
- Outer Space
- Rodeo
- Petting Zoo
- Parade
- School Science Fair
- Family Reunion
- Fish Tank
- Library
- Road Trip
- County Fair
Once I have a list, I take each place into consideration. Then I ask myself the big question:
What can go wrong here?
If I come up with an answer that is irresistible, I know I am well on my way to developing that next manuscript.
Your turn:
Consider the settings I’ve already listed. Brainstorm a list of ten additional settings. Then ask yourself, “What can go wrong here?” for each one.
Extra credit:
Go to the library or bookstore and grab a stack of picture books. Jot down each book’s primary setting. Who knows? Maybe one of those settings is the perfect fit for your next manuscript.
Tammi Sauer has sold 12 picture books to a number of major publishing houses: Bloomsbury, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Simon & Schuster, and Sterling. One of her latest books, Mostly Monsterly, illustrated by Scott Magoon, was named a Scholastic Parent & Child Best Book of 2010 and won the 2011 Oklahoma Book Award and the 2011 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award. To learn more about Tammi and her books, please visit her online at www.tammisauer.com.
Tammi’s next book, Me Want Pet!—illustrated by Bob Shea—hits shelves March 2012. OOGA! Leave a comment for a chance to win a first edition signed copy when it’s released!
by Elisa Kleven
I find inspiration in all sorts of ways. Sometimes an image inspires me : the brush-like tail of a lion at the Oakland zoo sparked the idea for THE LION AND THE LITTLE RED BIRD; the sight of a picket fence reflected in a wet sidewalk gave me the idea for THE PUDDLE PAIL.
Sometimes an experience gives birth to a story idea: my daughter’s reaction to her domineering, sloppy new brother inspired my book A MONSTER IN THE HOUSE; the comforting act of making bread on a gloomy winter day gave me the idea for SUN BREAD.
And sometimes stories well up mysteriously, from undercurrents in my life and amorphous but powerful feelings. After I finished THE PAPER PRINCESS, for example, I realized it summed up my feelings about being both a book creator—working away lovingly and privately on detailed pieces of paper (my illustrations and stories) that I later send out into the world to “finish themselves” (that is, be read and reacted to), as well as earlier, raw feelings about having lost my own “creator”, my mother, when I was still a child, and how I went out into the world feeling like it was up to me to complete myself.
The inspiration for my newest book, THE FRIENDSHIP WISH, falls into this last (amorphous, powerful feelings) category. One of the sources of its inspiration is a quote from Caliban, the monster in THE TEMPEST, who describes a dream about “riches ready to drop upon him, ” and how upon waking, he “cried to dream again.” I love that description of the feeling of loss one feels when one awakens from a beautiful dream—and Farley, the lonely dog in my story, experiences the same intense sensation of longing and loss when he awakens from his dream of a friendly, guitar-playing, pancake-making angel. But other themes in my life welled up into this story as well: I have always been fascinated by angels, and frequently “meet” them in dreams and in art, as Farley does. I also feel that, like the characters in the book, we need to be each others’ angels, because, who knows if any other angels really exist.
And speaking of angels, I have to add that the book was originally called JOEY’S ANGEL. My publisher wanted to avoid the word “angel” in the title, so I tried on many different titles (e.g.FRIENDS FOR FARLEY; WHAT PUP DREAMED UP) before the publisher settled on THE FRIENDSHIP WISH. At first I had trouble saying the title, because it wasn’t “mine”, but I’m getting to like the whispery, “sshhhh-y” sound of it.
Elisa Kleven has always loved to create imaginary worlds. Throughout her childhood Elisa made miniature people and animals using paper, paint, clay, scraps of cloth, yarn, nutshells , even dried apples. She would lose herself for hours making up stories about these characters, and building intricate settings around them.
Elisa’s childhood passions have now become her career, as she is still creating miniature worlds inside of her picture books. As she did in childhood, Elisa uses paint, collage, and imagination to create characters settings, and stories.
Elisa is the author and/or illustrator of over 30 children’s picture books, among them WELCOME HOME, MOUSE, THE PAPER PRINCESS, THE APPLE DOLL, THE LION AND THE LITTLE RED BIRD, SUN BREAD, A CAROUSEL TALE, THE PUDDLE PAIL, DE COLORES, by Jose-Luis Orozco, ABUELA AND ISLA, by Arthur Dorros, and THE WEAVER, by Thacher Hurd. Elisa lives near San Francisco with her husband, daughter, son, dogs and cats. To learn more about Elisa and her books, please visit her web site: www.elisakleven.com.
Elisa is generously giving away two signed pieces of her work—her San Francisco limited edition giclee print, as well as a print from ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME, by Julia Durango. Please leave a comment to enter and two winners will be randomly chosen one week from today!
Shhhh.
Now what did you hear when you read that word? Whose voice was it? Was it your mom’s voice? Was it your grandmother’s voice? Was it your own voice hushing your children? So much of our world operates in onomatopoeic sounds: the chirping of the morning birds, the beeping of the garbage truck, the roaring of a car engine, the screeching of the school bus as it comes to a stop…
As a professional storyteller, I actually become better at telling my stories by listening. It is through this simple auditory observation that I find inspiration for my tales. As a picture book author, I become better at writing by thinking of my story in terms of sound. How will this tale reverberate when it is read out loud?
The sound of a baby’s “Wah! Wah!” became a turning point in a recent story I revised. The sing-songy refrains that I have become known for in my books work better when they are released from the page through the read-aloud. In Denise Fleming’s picture book, In the Tall Tall Grass, you hear, “Crunch, munch. Caterpillars lunch.” The sounds become actions. The actions become story.
Watch little boys as they play with trucks and cars. They zoom and they vroom. Listen to preschoolers and kindergarteners make sound effects. Go the playground and take note. You’ll hear the clap clap clap of the girls’ hand games and the thump thump thump of a boys’ basketball game. Even the swingset makes a whooshing sound as the swings take flight.
Today, listen to the noise around you. Write down the sounds, even making them up if there is no known word for what you hear. The kerchink kerchink kerchink of the dryer could lead to a new picture book idea (but don’t you hate it when your family leaves stuff in their pockets?! LOL).
Even if you like to write in the quiet, today is the day to make some noise. Perhaps you will hum, echo, thud, crash, jingle, swish, or clatter your way into a new story.
Listen up. What do you hear?
Dianne is generously giving away a signed copy of Blue Frog: The Legend of Chocolate to a lucky commenter. A winner will be randomly selected one week from today!
Dianne de Las Casas is an award-winning author of 18 books, a professonal storyteller, and founder of the international literacy initiative, Picture Book Month. She tours worldwide presenting revved-up author visit/storytelling programs, lively educator/librarian training, fun workshops, and inspiring artist residencies. Her children’s books include The Cajun Cornbread Boy, Madame Poulet & Monsieur Roach, Mama’s Bayou, The Gigantic Sweet Potato, There’s a Dragon in the Library, The House That Witchy Built, and Blue Frog: The Legend of Chocolate. She is a founding member of November’s Picture Book Month. Visit her at www.storyconnection.net and follow all the storytelling fun on Twitter @storyconnection.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 