Picture Book Ideas

If you've been to my blog lately, you likely realize that for the month of November, I am participating in PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month. The event, in its fifth year, was started by picture book author Tara Lazar. The idea is to come up with thirty different picture book ideas in the thirty days that encompass November. There is a Facebook group to chat in, a twitter hashtag, and a blog post every day at Tara's blog (by a picture book author and/or illustrator) to inspire you!

I'm definitely having fun with it (in case you haven't guessed!). I bought some index cards attached by two ring things (yes - that IS the technical term, if you were wondering), decorated the cover, and tied a pen to it. This goes with me wherever I go - so I can jot my idea down wherever I go (and there's enough space to expand on it if the idea explodes).

As of the writing of this post (4:30pm on Wednesday - as I had a tech-free day on Thursday the 7th), I had fourteen ideas in my PiBoIdMo notebook - pretty good for six days, eh? I'm fairly certain, in foresight, that number will have increased by the time you read this post. (Friday morning update - I'm to 16 ideas now :D)I'm already halfway there (or more)!

Will every one of them become a picture book some day (on my hard drive - not even necessarily on a book shelf)? Probably not. I have one (a flip kind of book based on the game "Who What Where") that may be logistically impossible. A few others where the idea is odd at best. And some simply won't inspire me beyond the few words I've jotted down. (And I can almost guarantee that I will look at my notes for at least one or two of them and say "what does THAT mean?")

But I'm pretty certain that at least some of them (maybe my Scrabble tiles/popularity/importance idea I got on the first day - or one of the several based on a child's imagination) will grow beyond the scribbles in my PiBoIdMo notebook thing. They might become a list of ideas. A sketch/outline. A rough draft. A polished manuscript. And even - just maybe - a book you can pick up in your local bookstore, on Amazon, or "anywhere that fine books are sold."

And even if that never happens? If the first week of this challenge is any indication, I spent a month having fun, getting to know a whole bunch of picture book authors and illustrators, and learning the craft. Sounds like a good payoff to me!

Do you have a place to record ideas for your next work in progress (whatever it might be)?

 
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Check out these other "p" posts, and/or share your own!