Every year I make a new resolution to write a bunch of manuscripts and get published. Usually I fall short, but last year something changed. I joined Storystorm in January.
Storystorm is a challenge for picture book writers to come up with 30 picture book ideas in 31 days. That sounded easy. Small steps. Big rewards.
Now normally I would be coming up with ideas and writing them down in notebooks. But I had never counted them. And I definitely didn’t keep them in one place. I’d write down an idea and forget which notebook I wrote it in.
Was it the sparkly notebook with dolphins? Was it the composition book with stickers of starfish? I have so many I can’t keep track.
So after joining Storystorm, I created a Word document to keep track of my ideas. It was a lifesaver. I was no longer losing my ideas. I knew where to find them.
I put all my ideas into a table. Many rows with just one column. The computer even helped me number my ideas. I also color coded my ideas. When I liked an idea, I’d fill the cell with yellow.
Then when I finished my manuscript, I’d change the cell color to green. This was like a little celebration that kept me writing.
Storystorm has guest bloggers write about idea generation. Sometimes when I’m stuck, I’ll reread a post to help spark ideas.
If you remember to sign up in January, you also get a chance to win cool prizes. Even if you forget to sign up, all the posts from past Storystorm bloggers are archived like a treasure chest.
Open one up and you never know where it will take you. Once Storystorm is finished, you can also join Julie Hedlund’s 12 X 12 Challenge to write 12 picture books in 12 months.