The Journey Continues

I have been struggling with PiBoIdMo. I started off completely gung-ho, sure I would get at least one idea down per day.

Then life happened. And between one thing and another, I haven't had time to write down, let alone think of, a picture book idea in five days.

I wrote down my idea for today and then had much mental gnashing of teeth for the lost five days. Then for some unknown reason, I clicked over to my other blog (which I don't necessarily keep active) and saw that my one post that I wrote over two years ago FOR ME AND ME ALONE has about quadruple the number of hits as my next highest post. I so wrote that for me and me alone that I didn't even put any search labels on it. I just knew that I needed to have a post that would bring me calm just looking at the photos, which are of my personal haven. The photos wouldn't even mean anything or have any emotional impact to people who don't know the place.

So why the 1,200 hits? I don't have a clue. I'd be interested to know, but still, the purpose of that post was for me.

This got me thinking about my gnashing of teeth over my five day lull in PiBoIdMo. I'm participating in PiBoIdMo for me. My participation is for me and me alone. If I can keep up with an idea a day, that's great. If not, well, okay. It's just for me.

And to take this concept larger, the picture books (or MG or YA) I write should be FOR ME. They should speak to MY heart and give a piece of myself. If I write an idea because it was cute, fluffy, funny, it's a 'hot topic' at the moment or it seemed acceptable at the time, but it doesn't speak to MY heart and isn't a piece of ME that I am giving, I think there is far less chance that it will 'work'.

Just When I needed a Magic Idea Generator...

... there it was!

I'm very excited to be participating in Tara Lazar's PiBoIdMo for the first time this year. PiBoIdMo, or Picture Book Idea Month, is for writers along the lines of NaNoWriMo. For PiBoIdMo, you use November to think of a picture book idea each day.

One idea each day for a month? Just one? Phhht! I got this! I have millions of book ideas popping into my head all the time!

Welllll. That's what it felt like anyway. When those ideas were flapping and cavorting riotously through my head for weeks on end.

Turns out there were three ideas for picture books. Three. So here it is, November 9, and I have been barely coming up with additional ideas. Shaky ones at that.

Now, I do have a method. I put my picture book idea with the date on the 'front' of each page in my notebook. And then, (since it seems some of those cavorting ideas were MG/YA ideas filling up my brain and making the whole idea room in my brain feel pretty full) I put my MG/YA idea on the back of that same page.

Then I print out writer/artist/editor/book pro guest posts from Tara Lazar's blog that I think will really help my writing process and put them in the back of my notebook.

My coolio notebook which is actually one of my son's discarded composition books from last semester's classes

I also left room in the back of the notebook for making lists that may end up generating writing ideas.

So November 4 comes. Patting myself on the back for my organization, puffed up to be participating in PiBoIdMo this year, no sweat I'll pull millions of ideas out of my fabulous head! Millions, I tell you! Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnd . . . (cue clunker car engine death rattle wherein I write down one or two clunker ideas) . . . I'm out of ideas.

What I need is a genyoowine idea generator. Yep. A good, old fashioned, genyoowine idea generator.

Poof! And there it was!

Splendiferous. Check out the George Stanley Idea Generator from Jennifer Arena on PiBoIdMo Day 7.

I closed my eyes and dropped my pencil point on one idea. Dragon. Then another. Dinosaur. Dragon Dinosaur? How am I going to make a picture book idea out of that??  Dragon .....Dinosaur.  Dragon... Dinosaur?

I then cheated. Pumpkin. Dragon Pumpkin. Dragon Pumpkin? Dragon Pumpkin! I can make an idea out of that!

The George Stanley Idea Generator. Try it, you'll like it!

And I'm taking ideas for Dragon Dinosaur. Ahem.

PiBoIdMo time!

Have you heard of PiBoIdMo? I only found out about it this past summer. Author Tara Lazar started in 2008. In her own words, from her blog, Writing For Kids (While Raising Them):

"What is PiBoIdMo? Why, it's Picture Book Idea Month!

Tired of watching novelists have all the fun in November with NaNoWriMo, I created PiBoIdMo as a 30-day challenge for picture book writers.

The challenge is to create 30 picture book concepts in 30 days. You don't have to write a manuscript (but you can if the mood strikes). You don't need potential best-seller ideas.

You might think of a clever title. Or a name for a character. Or just a silly thing like "purple polka-dot pony." The object is to heighten your picture-book-idea-generating senses. Ideas may be built upon other ideas and your list of potential stories will grow stronger as the days pass.

Daily blog posts by picture book authors, illustrators, editors and other kidlit professionals will help inspire you. By the end of the month,  you'll have a fat file of ideas to spark new stories."

Awesome idea, right? She has a fabulous line up of guest bloggers for November who are authors, illustrators and picture book professionals. Prizes are involved. Squeee!

It starts November 1, so get registered now!

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Sender's Remorse

A few weeks ago, I sent in my picture book manuscript to Lee and Low's New Voices Award Writing Contest. As mentioned previously, this was my first venture in picture book writing.  While I am proud of myself for finishing it and sending it in, I love my story and my heart is in those pages, I now have sender's remorse.

I am told that it is par for the course for writers to have a flood of doubts about their writing. Here is part of my tsunami: Why did I send this in a month early? I should have waited until the last minute - divine inspiration might have struck to make it better! What makes me think I am ready to submit any picture book? This is my first try; I'm sure writers have submitted to this contest year after year before winning or receiving any positive response. Why did I think I could do this? My book is beginner's drivel, I'm sure, compared with the other entries. I should have waited until I got better at this.

I have to remind myself of two things:

and

Picture Book Writing is HARD!

I have trouble finishing my novel manuscripts. I am the Queen of Unfinished Manuscripts. I have a lot of great starts, and even middles - but no endings. Yet (she said hopefully).

So last spring, I thought I'd try a picture book instead in hopes that I could actually finish a manuscript. I thought it would be easier. I know all picture book writers out there are either rolling their eyes or are tempted to throw a brick at my head right now. But yes, I thought that. Wrong! Could not have been more wrong.

The basic conundrum of picture books: How do you get your point across, beautifully, in hardly any words?

This is very different from novel writing, where you can, and should (at some points), describe people and places and give details and you have thousands of words in your word count limit.

In trying to wrap my head around this, I turned to my friends on the Blue Boards at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Here is their advice on writing picture books:

• Picture books are an equal marriage of the text and the illustrations. The art will tell half (or more) of the story. Leave room for the illustrator. This means your text should describe the action but not the visual details. The illustrator will add those the way they 'see' them from your text. You and the illustrator are creative partners - let the illustrator bring something to the story.
• Think more about the art. What words are left out to leave room for the art? What story does the art tell and how does it enhance or expand the story? 
• To get your word count down, try writing the book as an outline or just the bones of the story at first. Outline as poetically as possible. Then, take each action in the outline and write that as a line in your book.
• To get your word count down, cut back anything you can picture - descriptions, emotions, even some actions.
• Write in poetry. Not literally, unless you are writing a poetry book. But write the way you would write if you were writing poetry - the techniques that get meaning across beautifully in a few words.
• Think in picture instead of words.
• Have exciting page turns to make the reader want to continue reading.
• Each page needs to show something new that moves the story forward - new action, new character, new emotion.
• Read the story. If it is complete without needing any pictures to tell the story, your manuscript may be better suited as a short story.
• Read your manuscript out loud to yourself. You will catch awkward places that don't roll easily off the tongue this way.
• Make a dummy. There are lots of online sources for picture book story boards. Here's a great one with explanation from Tara Lazar's blog Writing for Kids While Raising Them. When you do this, also think about what illustrations you visualize on each page. You won't be illustrating them (unless you also happen to be a children's illustrator), but this will help ensure that there is a great picture for each page of your manuscript. You can also think about how your pages lay out in book form and think about your page turns this way. Are they exciting or boring?

These golden pieces of advice helped me tremendously on this adventure!

And now I know just how hard writing a picture book is! I'd describe writing my first draft on this first attempt at a picture book kind of like sitting in front of my laptop and bleeding from the eyeballs. Squeezing those words out in blood through my eyeballs! This was just my first attempt - maybe it gets easier?