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by Thank you Tara, for inviting me to participate in PiBoldMo.
Picture book ideas…I never seem to have a problem coming up with ideas for picture books. The problem is finding a home for even some of them, in an ever-contracting marketplace. I don’t really expect to find a place for everything I write. I have folders upon folders stuffed with picture book concepts in varying forms of completion, from a title only, to a brief outline, to complete texts, to fully sketched out dummies.
When it comes to developing a concept, I always go with my heart instead of my head. By that I mean, I rarely try and calculate what the marketplace is looking for at the moment, I just begin by developing a concept for a book that I would love to illustrate and love to read if I were a child.
My mind is flooded with ideas for stories. However, I know not all of them are worthy of further consideration. Real creativity comes from keeping an open mind. Perhaps I should, but I never say “Oh no, they won’t like that.” After the first spark of inspiration, I write down in a brief outline of my new story concept. Sometimes, that’s as far as that idea ever gets. Other times the story just flows out in a rough first draft, beginning, middle and end in thirty-two pages. More often than not, the first concept is like a seed that gets planted and slowly grows. I use this metaphor in my school author visits and lectures to aspiring professionals when I’m asked, ”Where do get your ideas?”
Disappointment is part of the publishing game. I’m fortunate to have written thirty published picture books, but for every one that makes it to the bookstore, there are more than a few others imprisoned in those reject folders forever. I try and analyze my rejection letters for clues to my proposal’s shortcomings. I listen carefully to the advice, but in the end I still believe most of them would have made good books. I never take one editor’s rejection as the final word. A number of my books were published after being previously rejected. Editors and publishers are guided by their own experience. If they were all-knowing, every one of their books would be a best seller. In today’s world of publishing, a committee made up of the publisher, sales people, editors, art directors and even interns manages the proposal acceptance process. This “don’t rock the boat” climate makes an offbeat, more creative concept, harder to sell; it’s easier to publish sequels than a new idea. Yes, I’m guilty as charged.
Back to where my ideas come from. They come from anywhere and everywhere. I try not to have a severe critical filter initially, but a good idea will reoccur to me until I feel compelled to write it down.
I have two new picture books coming out next year: TUGBOAT from Holiday House and WHERE’S MY HOMEWORK? from Scholastic. The idea for TUGBOAT struck me like a thunderbolt while I was driving north along Manhattan’s FDR drive. It was late in the afternoon and a tugboat was chugging south. I felt like I could reach out of the car touch the bright red vessel as it sailed south, bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun. I realized how much I had loved tugboats since the days of my childhood growing up in Manhattan and Staten Island. The story became a reality-based book about all the different jobs a tugboat can do around New York Harbor. It should fit the “Core Curriculum”, but best of all, the pictures are illustrations that I loved creating.
The other new book came about in a different way. Two years ago I was invited by two local colleges (Marist and Mount Saint Mary) to teach graphic design. I enjoy teaching, but not every student is as dedicated as I was in art school. I give pretty easy homework assignments, but there are always a number of students who contrive inventive reasons why they were unable to complete their given tasks. I started mentally filing their lame excuses in the “The Dog Ate My Homework” draw. The title continued to rattle around in my head until I came up with a story where the dog really does eat a little boy’s homework. The pressure builds because he has to leave for school. He begins to speculate in a series of outlandish fantasies about what really happened to his homework. He never suspects the dog that is present in every illustration, until the very end, when he discovers his beloved pet gobbling up the last bit of his homework. There’s more to the story, but when I had a coherent beginning, middle and end plot in a sketch dummy, I sent it off to my editor at Scholastic. He loved it, but suggested we think of a new title “The Dog Ate My Homework” gives away the surprise ending. He was right, of course, so I came up with “Where’s My Homework?”
A bizarre postscript to this story: my students are supposed to archive their assignments on flash-drives. At the mid-term, one student handed me a dysfunctional flash drive covered in dog teeth marks, explaining that her work on the drive was lost, because the dog ate her homework (I’m paraphrasing).
After so many picture books, a new challenge has inspired me. I am currently writing my first YA novel. I’m about three quarters done and happily enjoying the process.
Open your mind to inspiration and it will come.
Award-winning author and illustrator Michael Garland has been out on the New York Times Best Seller list four times.
Michael Garland’s greatest success has been for writing and illustrating children’s picture books. Garland’s Miss Smith’s Incredible Storybook recently won the California and Delaware State Reading Awards. He is currently working on his thirtieth book as author and illustrator.
Michael Garland has illustrated for celebrity authors like James Patterson and Gloria Estefan. His illustrations for Patterson’s SantaKid were the inspiration for Sak’s Fifth’s Avenue’s Christmas holiday window display in New York City. Garland’s Christmas Magic has become a season classic and is currently being developed for a for a TV special.
His work has won many honors and is frequently included in the Society of Illustrators and the Original Art of Children’s book show as well annuals from Print, Graphis and Communications Arts magazines. Recently, Michael Garland was included on the list of the top one hundred Irish Americans by Irish American Magazine.
Michael Garland is frequently asked to speak at schools, literary conferences and festivals across the country.
Visit him at GarlandPictureBooks.com.
Michael is generously giving away signed copies of his MISS SMITH books.
These prizes will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for these prizes if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by Ryan Sias
Tara asked me to talk about inspiration for the writer/illustrator.
As a writer/illustrator I need double inspiration. One inspiration for a great story and another inspiration for an exciting art style. I’m going to give you my tips for finding inspiration.
The number one trick for both is “LOOK.”
You need to look and observe everything, art, books, TV, movies, nature and family. Inspirational ideas are everywhere.
My favorite places to LOOK for writing ideas are:
1. Kids
They are full of original ideas, just hang out with a kid for a few hours and you’ll have like 20 story ideas. A few nights ago it was Halloween, and I saw millions of stories in the costumes. Each costume had a story, plus then the costumed character runs into other costumed characters for more stories.
2. Kids again!
They come up with the craziest ideas. Sit down and create a story with a child. It will be crazy, but the trick is to mold their ideas into things that are logical.
3. Go to the library or book store, sit down and read 20-30 books.
If you don’t have ideas at the end of that then you should look for another career. My trick for that is to take a character you invent and put them in the story you read. How would it be different? That will generate ideas instantly.
My favorite places to LOOK for art ideas:
1. Galleries/museums.
Fine art is about pushing boundaries of medium and ideas. Which is different than illustration, where it’s about legibility. So I go to galleries and LOOK at their ideas then try to add some of those qualities to my work.
2. Book store or library.
Just like my writing tip, sit down and go through 20-30 books, then take the visual ideas you like and put it into your art.
3. Internet.
Image searches or illustration web sited are FULL of ideas.
You can find inspiration anywhere—you just have to LOOK!
BONUS: Need more places to look? Sign up for my weekly creative projects email. It’s called Sias Studios (see Tara’s post about it here) and every week I email a free PDF that includes drawing lessons, writing prompts, and doodle pages. Use it as a springboard and have tons of new ideas!
Have fun!
Ryan has been making kids laugh and learn for over two decades. A 20-year animation, film and television veteran, he has directed videos for Barney and Chuck E. Cheese and his storyboarding credits include “Robots”, “Bowling for Columbine”, “Pinky Dinky Doo”, “Maya & Miguel” and “Sesame Street.”
As a successful children’s book creator and cartoonist, Ryan wrote and illustrated the picture book Zoe and Robot—Let’s Pretend and a board book focused on healthy eating habits for kids entitled Are You Eating Something Red?. His comics have appeared in Nickelodeon magazine and Mad magazine.
He is currently working on more books, developing animation projects and trying to figure out the perfect pancake recipe.
Ryan is giving away an original ZOE and ROBOT drawing!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by Katie Davis
Katie Davis has written and/or illustrated 10 books for children, and two marketing guides for writers.Katie’s a “writerpreneur,” a writer in business helping other writers. She does this through her newsletter, products, and #1 podcast, Brain Burps About Books.
After winning the School Library Journal Trailee Award, Katie launched Video Idiot Boot Camp: For People Who Think Videos Are Hard To Create. She’s passionate about the power of video to connect writers to their communities.
Katie has been honored to speak everywhere from a maximum security prison, to schools around the world, to keynotes at conferences and fundraising galas.
Learn more about Katie at KatieDavis.com.
by Greg Pizzoli
Last year I was super busy illustrating a book with a pretty quick turnaround. I think I got the offer in September, and the book was due January 1. So after sketches were approved and everything, I had a little less than three months to do the final artwork for a forty page book (plus covers). It was doable, but just. I wasn’t going have time for anything else. No screenprinting. No writing. Nothing.
Except . . . I had this opportunity. There was an offset printing class with an opening at the university where I teach part-time, and my department head offered me a chance to audit the class and make a book. The whole idea of the class is that you spend half a semester designing a single-sheet book to be printed on an offset press. The second half of the semester you make films, mix inks, and (under the guidance of the Master Printer) assist in printing the book.
I love offset printing and I love making books. I had worked on this press before so the learning curve wasn’t too bad. And the opportunity to make something on my own was just too appealing to pass up. So I signed up for the course and got to work on a project that had been brewing in my sketchbooks for a few years. It was pretty weird, and kind of dark, and I felt certain no publisher would ever be interested in it, so I decided to make a zine. Just an exercise in putting text and images together, simply made for the sake of making it.
Several times I almost dropped the class because of my other commitments. I was too busy to make the art for the zine the way I normally would, and I was nervous about it looking terrible when we went to print. My teacher encouraged me to stick with the class, but to simplify the art so I could produce it faster. She reminded me that I was making this just for me, not for anyone else. The idea that I wasn’t making this zine for publication freed me up considerably, and working on it was really refreshing—it was influenced much more by my design and comics interests, and it just felt different than my other work.
I printed the zine and mailed some out to some people I had worked with or hoped to work with someday. Not pitching the idea—but really just saying—“I love making this stuff! Here’s this weird thing I know you’d never publish that I made!”—excited to share it, but no expectations.
You might guess where this is going—within a month of sending it out, I had a two-book deal with Viking Children’s Books—both dream projects for me. I’ve been researching, writing, and drawing, and a greatly expanded version of that little pamphlet-stitch zine will be an actual picture book in stores next winter! It’s totally different than anything else I have done—and that’s exactly what made it so appealing to my new publisher.
So, looking back on that time last year I guess two things are apparent:
1) Sometimes limitations (meaning your time, or maybe the number of colors/words/pages you can use) will force you to be creative in unexpected ways and 2) Doing the work that you feel driven to do (as opposed to guessing what publishers will want) can produce work you might not expect—and even if you think no one could ever publish it—you might be wrong.
Good luck this month!
Greg Pizzoli is an author, illustrator and screen printer from Philadelphia.
His first picture book, The Watermelon Seed, was published by Disney*Hyperion Books in 2013 and Publisher’s Weekly called it “an expert debut” in their starred review. Greg has more books in the works with Disney*Hyperion, Viking, Candlewick, and FSG.
Greg’s work has been featured in Communication Arts, 3×3 Illustration Annuals and he’s won two Portfolio Honor Awards from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
After college, Greg spent two years as a full-time volunteer in AmeriCORPS from 2005-2006. In 2009, he received his MFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he now teaches.
He recently gave up drinking (as much) coffee.
His screenprinted works have been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Spain and The Netherlands. His hand-printed artist books are in various collections throughout the country, including The Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
See more of his work at GregPizzoli.com and GregPizzoli.blogspot.com. Follow him @GregPizzoli on Twitter.
Greg will send a random commenter a pair of hand screenprinted blank cards!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by It’s Picture Book Idea Month, and I’m going to give you a math lesson.
Who remembers high school math? A long time ago, we may have learned about combinations of variables. As we go through PiBoIdMo, we need to explore different combinations to discern the optimal result.
Now, you’re thinking, well, no kidding. How does that help me?
Aren’t you lucky? I’m going to tell you.
- Step One: Finding the Variables
If you are like me, you try to come up with picture book ideas as complete entities: a character with a specific problem/resolution. But just like in your manuscript drafts, your first idea isn’t necessarily your best idea, and it definitely doesn’t need to be your last idea. If you allow yourself the freedom to separate your idea into it’s entities, you might end up with something better.
Think of it this way: if you come up with 30 characters over the next month (let’s call this variable C) with 30 definite story outcomes (this variable will be O), all you have is 30 ideas to work with. On the other hand, if you have 30 characters, each of whom has 30 story outcomes, you have many more possible ideas to develop. Mathematically, the total number of combinations is represented by this formula:
Number of combinations = C x O
In this case, you end up with 30 x 30 = 900 story ideas at the end of PiBoIdMo. That’s accomplishing a lot, isn’t it?
Basically, separating your ideas into building blocks—into variables—allows you to have useful partial ideas. How many times have you realized that there really needs to be a book about a certain topic? Or come up with an adorable character for whom you can’t think up a story?
Write these down. Add them to your C and O lists. Every once in a while, look over the lists and see if there is a combination you see that resonates with you that was different than what you originally imagined. Allowing these partial ideas to have value takes a lot of pressure off you as a writer and creator. It is very hard to have a good idea every day! But just because something isn’t the perfect idea doesn’t mean you can’t make it work for you.
- Step Two: Expanding the Combinations
A good book has a main character and a primary plot. Many books, however, have secondary characters. Some books have secondary plots.
What if some of your PiBoIdMo ideas don’t work as stories because you came up with a secondary character or a plot?
Some books even have a pair of main characters (mash-up, anyone?) What if one of your character ideas would be four times as strong if you combine it with another character?
If you combine even more variables, you make your work go even further:
Number of story ideas with 2 characters = C x (C-1) x O = 30 x 29 x 30 = 26,100 ideas!
(and a secondary plot on top of this…you get the idea…)
Again, allowing yourself to have incomplete ideas gives you the freedom to pursue many more possibilities.
Obviously, some of the combinations that come out of this process are not going to work. So you really won’t have tens of thousands of ideas to sort through. But hopefully, you’ve picked up on the fact that I’m trying to encourage you to look at your work over this month in a different way.
Whenever you can have a complete story idea, that’s fabulous. Run with it. But don’t get frustrated if inspiration comes in drips and drops instead of a flowing stream. It’s all going to be valuable in the end.
- Step Three: The Idea Wheels
I want to leave you with something fun. I’ve asked you to take your building block story variables and consider them in various combinations. You could create a spreadsheet and be very orderly about it, but what I really want you do to is have fun with it and let the random ideas percolate through your brains. So I’m inviting you to create your own Idea Wheels.
There’s a great site called WheelDecide.com, where you can create your own wheels of fortune, if you will. You can create one wheel for your character ideas and another for your story outcomes. Then, spin away until the wheels hit upon something that really works for you. It’s visual and fun, and if nothing else, there’s a winner every time!
You are all just beginning your PiBoIdMo journey, and it will be a long month ahead. But I hope you stick with it—I bet you’ll come out on the other side with valuable starting points for writing. Good luck!
BONUS!
Last week, this blog hosted a double cover reveal for two of my upcoming picture books. In honor of the reveals, I held a book cover caption contest. It was not easy to pick the winner because there were so many captions that were great! But after careful consideration, on the basis that this caption works so well for BOTH covers, here is the winner:
“Is this as awkward for you as it is for me?”
Everyone, please put your hands together for Dawn Young! Dawn wins her choice of a signed copy of ORANGUTANGLED or SNORING BEAUTY! Yay!
And one more bonus…
BONUS: If you’d like more PiBoIdMo tips, pop over to my blog at NerdyChicksRule.com for a great post about knowing what your character wants.
Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen is an award-winning children’s book author whose books include Chicks Run Wild, Pirate Princess, Hampire!, and Quackenstein Hatches a Family. She visits schools around the country to talk about the craft of writing to children of all ages. “Every book is an autobiography” is a favorite saying of hers, and a big part of her message is that everyone, grownup or child, has a story that is interesting and compelling—if you can find the right words to tell it. Sudipta lives outside Philadelphia with her children and an imaginary pony named Penny. You can learn more about her and her books on her website www.sudipta.com or at her blog www.NerdyChicksRule.com.
by Tammi Sauer
For me, the absolute hardest part about the picture book creating process is coming up with a good idea. A wow idea. An irresistible-to-editors idea.
One approach that has worked for me is to brainstorm a list of potential titles before I even know a single word of a manuscript. I keep in mind that I don’t want a book of mine to have just any title. I always try to have a title that pops. Why? The title is a writer’s first chance to make a good impression and hook a possible agent/editor/reader.
Two of my books started with a title.
One day, while waiting for my daughter to find a book at the library, I sat down on a bench. Next to me was a book on etiquette. I flipped through the book and came across the words “princess in training.” My first thought? That would make a great idea for a picture book….and…
…In fall 2012, PRINCESS IN TRAINING, illustrated by Joe Berger, made its debut.
Another day, I was playing around with words that rhymed with names. As I brainstormed, the words “Quiet Wyatt” popped into my head. QUIET WYATT recently sold to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt BFYR.
My latest manuscript is the result of a title that grabbed hold and said, “You must drop everything and write this.” So I did. A good title can be very pushy. And intoxicating.
If you want to come up with a title as a starting point, consider using these strategies:
- Showcase a Main Character
examples: Vampirina Ballerina; Fancy Nancy; Scaredy Squirrel
- Focus on the Setting
examples: Cowboy Camp; In the Small, Small Pond; The Library
- Create a Sense of Suspense
examples: The Monster at the End of This Book; Do Not Open This Book
- Utilize Fun Language Play
examples: Chicks and Salsa; Hush, Little Dragon; Llama, Llama Misses Mama
Side Note: I happen to be wildly jealous of the upcoming books There Was an Old Dragon by Penny Klostermann and Tyrannosaurus Wrecks by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen simply because I am gah-gah over those titles. Why didn’t I think of those titles?! Why?? WHY????
Your Homework Should You Choose To Accept It: Brainstorm at least five titles. That’s it. No need to know the nitty-gritty of what is to follow. Just jot down those titles and maybe, just maybe, a story will sneak up on you.
Extra Credit (because I am a true blue nerd who loves extra credit opportunities): Go to the bookstore and jot down the titles of the books you see. Perhaps one of those titles will be the perfect trigger to help you come up with your next big idea.
Tammi Sauer has sold 16 picture books to major publishing houses. Four of those books got their start through PiBoIdMo. In addition to winning awards, Tammi’s books have gone on to do great things. Cowboy Camp was developed into a musical in Katy, Texas. Mostly Monsterly was selected for the 2012 Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories program. And Chicken Dance was released in French which makes her feel extra fancy. There’s more fun stuff at TammiSauer.com.
Sink your teeth into this prize pack that features Tammi’s latest release: one personalized copy of NUGGET & FANG, one super shiny poster with a teacher’s guide on the back, and two Nugget tattoos that look fabulous on any bicep (or fin).
Nugget & Fang is a 2009 PiBoIdMo Success Story!
And…Tammi’s also offering a picture book critique to another lucky winner!
This prize pack and critique will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for these prizes if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by I am very honored that Tara asked me to do a post for Pre-PiBoIdMo. I am the founder of Picture Book Month and it starts tomorrow, November 1. The website, PictureBookMonth.com, features essays from thought leaders in the children’s literature community. Each day in November, a new essay is posted. This year’s Picture Book Month Champions are: David Adler, Dianna Aston, Rick Anderson, Larry Dane Brimner, Julie Danielson, Carmen Agra Deedy, Tomie dePaola, Emma Walton Hamilton, Rebecca Emberly, Sue Fliess, Zarah Gagatiga, Candace Fleming, Lee Harper, Jannie Ho, Steve Jenkins, Daniel Kirk, Jesse Klausmeier, Mercer Mayer, Bobbi Miller, Wendell Minor, Hazel G. Mitchell, Jerry Pinkney, Robert Quackenbush, April Pulley Sayre, Rob Scotton, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Michael Shoulders, Wendi Silvano, Heidi Stemple, and Rosemary Wells. Please join the celebration!
This post appears the day before PiBoIdMo starts, reminding me of end papers in a book. When most people open a picture book, they rush straight to the story, not realizing that there is so much more that might be happening just before the story begins…
I’ve always been in love with end papers. So many authors and illustrators make such clever use of them! The first thing I do when I get a new picture book is examine the end papers. For me, well-crafted end papers denote a love and attention to detail by the author, the illustrator, and the publisher. It’s a part of the book that is lost in digital translation. End papers can demonstrate how expertly a print picture book is crafted, from beginning to end. They can be bold and fun or subtle and quiet.
Dan Santat (a 2013 Picture Book Month Champion) makes such smart use of the end papers in CARNIVORES, written by Aaron Reynolds (a 2014 Picture Book Month Champion). The book is a funny story about the perils of being at the top of the food chain. Without giving away much, the brilliant end papers begin and end the story with humor.
My very first picture book, THE CAJUN CORNBREAD BOY, which debuted in 2009, had plain white end papers. It was my first picture book and I didn’t want to ask my publisher for too much. I now have twelve picture books and eleven of them have illustrated end papers. I advocated for end papers in my picture books even though I was not the illustrator. The end papers in a book are valuable real estate. They can help begin and end the story.
In my book, THERE’S A DRAGON IN THE LIBRARY, illustrated by Marita Gentry, the second set of end papers actually closes the story. Max is a little boy who discovers a dragon in the library. (Spoiler alert!) In the end, the dragon ends up eating all of the books and the library too. Max tames the dragon, teaches the dragon book care, and the dragon ends up building a brand new library. I live in New Orleans and Katrina was our “dragon.” We had to rebuild many libraries here and this end paper was symbolic and meaningful to me.
My picture book, THE LITTLE “READ” HEN, illustrated by Holly Stone-Barker, has end papers that illustrate important points in the story. The tale, a remix of “The Little Red Hen” teaches kids all the steps of writing: brainstorm, research, outline, draft, edit, and proof. Holly found a fun way to highlight those steps in the end papers on the Little “Read” Hen’s eggs.
The end papers in Oh, No! written by Candace Fleming (2013 Picture Book Month Champion) and illustrated by Eric Rohmann are so ingenious, I can’t stand it! The jacket flap actually merges into the end papers, creating a seamless illustration. WOW!
If you are the author and have an idea for the end papers for your story, don’t be afraid to convey them to your publisher or illustrator. Fully illustrated end papers can add such a depth to a picture book and can provide even more real estate for the author and illustrator to tell the story or highlight important elements in a story. Here are some great examples of end papers in recent picture books in no particular order:
- RETURN OF THE LIBRARY DRAGON by Carmen Agra Deedy and illustrated by Michael P. White
- THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE by William Joyce
- SPOON by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Scott Magoon
- CRAFTY CHLOE by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Heather Ross
- WUMBERS by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld
- MR. TIGER GOES WILD by Peter Brown
So the next time you open a picture book, look at the end papers. In what ways could you use end papers to visually enhance your picture book? How can you use the beginning and the end to improve the overall design of your picture book?
As you celebrate PiBoIdMo and Picture Book Month, read LOTS of picture books. Comment below and share with us your favorite end papers from picture books. Here’s to Picture Books! Read * Share * Celebrate!
Dianne de Las Casas is an award-winning author, storyteller, and founder of Picture Book Month. Her performances, dubbed “revved-up storytelling” are full of energetic audience participation. The author of 22 books and the 2013 recipient of the Ann Martin Book Mark award, her children’s titles include The Cajun Cornbread Boy, There’s a Dragon in the Library, The House That Witchy Built, The Little “Read” Hen, and The House That Santa Built. Visit her website at diannedelascasas.com. Visit Picture Book Month at PictureBookMonth.com.
Dianne is generously offering a signed copy of THE HOUSE THAT SANTA BUILT to a lucky PiBoIdMo’er!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by Only two more days, everyone! Only two more days until you crack open your notebook and brilliant picture book ideas start flowing out of you!
Or…maybe not.
I want to prepare you for the possibility that your ideas might hide from you. It happens.
And it’s possible that, on Day 12 of PiBoIdMo, instead of having 12 ideas, you will be looking at a notebook with two lame ideas, while everyone around you keeps shouting about how they have 52 ideas, and three of them have already sold and one was optioned by HBO to be a series, which pre-emptively won an Emmy.
It happens.
Remember: PiBoIdMo is a competition with yourself. Those people who come up with lots of ideas? That’s great. But you should be inspired by that, because every time someone comes up with an idea, it sends out idea ripples, and pretty soon a bunch of them are going to hit you. I promise. You’ll be sitting on a park bench, and suddenly you’ll get four good ideas for picture books. (You already know that you need to have something with you at all times to write down these ideas, right? Your phone, an index card, back of your hand? And if you’re in the shower, you’re going to have to repeat “basketball-playing hedgehogs” for three minutes nonstop until you can get yourself to a pencil and paper, so you don’t forget.)
Idea ripples? Click image for the “floating vase,” Tara’s PiBoIdMo Product Pick.
I’ll tell you what won’t work: sitting at your desk, paper in hand, saying, “THINK! THINK! WHAT’S A GOOD IDEA?”
Good picture book ideas are sneaky. They like to jump on you when you’re not ready. (You’re ready, though, right? You’ve got that paper/smartphone/old envelope?)
How do you find the picture book ideas if they don’t want to be found? You have to be sneaky right back.
The first thing you need to do is get out of the house. Or away from your desk, at least. Move. Exercise. Story ideas love to jump out and scare you when you’re exercising.
The next thing you need to do is remember that picture books don’t have to be serious (although they can be) and they can have a lot of nonsense in them. And, although you might hear differing opinions, they have a lot of talking animals. Or talking crayons and pens. Or talking sausages.
So go on a walk, and imagine every non-talking thing you encounter can talk. What would it say? What does the sidewalk say (“Don’t step on my cracks!”) and the grass (“whoosh-swish”) and the snow (“I am very precise and clean and I don’t like it when the dogs stop by to…you know.”)?
What happens if you take some of these newly-talking objects and put them together into one story? Can a park bench be friends with a pigeon? Can a sneaker be friends with a toenail? What happens when a rock steals a light bulb’s banana?
These ideas might not make sense, but if you’re stuck, you have to go to the weird place sometimes.
Here’s the last thing I’ll tell you about ideas: they like to hang out together. They’re a social group. So, once you find one, you’re going to find a lot more. Those people who are talking about how they found 133 ideas? It’s because they stumbled on an Idea Class Reunion, or an Idea Flash Mob or something. But these ideas, there are a lot of them out there. Now, go be sneaky and find where they are.
Julie Falatko sneaks up on picture book ideas from her home in Maine. You can find her at WorldofJulie.com and on Twitter @JulieFalatko. Her debut picture book—which began as a PiBoIdMo Idea—Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) is being published by Viking Children’s in 2015.
Julie is offering one lucky PiBoIdMo’er a picture book critique!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 