I did National Picture Book Idea Month!

Well, as some of you may well know, this last month I did the NaPiBoIdMo, the national picture book idea month, in which you have to try and create 30 picture book ideas in a month. This was actually quite difficult and fun! It’s very helpful to have a wife that can help generate ideas for you.  In the end, I got over thirty ideas for the month. Of course, for me the most difficult thing is often taking ideas and truly drafting them in to the beginnings of a story. What was nice, was that when you signed up for the challenge you also subscribed to a blog where they had guessed writers for each day of the month. So many of their posts are also hopeful and inspirational! In addition, for the first 10 days after the end of the contest there were more blog posts about what to do with the ideas that you made. As always, the big challenge is to actually do something on your own without having someone else cajole you into action.

Of course, one expects to make 30 ideas (or at least I did!), so that’s not much of a surprise. However, it’s probably all of the extra things that I’ve not expect to receive that made the experience so interesting and fun. Probably the most surprising thing was that there was a clear benefit to thinking about a subject each and every day. Duh! Like most things in life, the more you work on a subject or think about it the more in tune you become with it. I began to see all kinds of picture book ideas everywhere. That was cool, and unexpected. It was also nice to get to read a blog post written by a professional every day on the subject of picture books. It definitely makes you feel like you’re part of a community of like minded people, and that the possibility (or even likelihood!) of getting published is actually achievable. They even had special posts from previous participants who had gone on to you as one of their ideas generated in a previous year’s challenge.

I also have to say that letting others know I was participating in the event helped make the fact that I am writing picture books seem very real—it was as if I was now responsible to others in order to live up to my own image of myself. Ha! It reminds me a little bit of the experience I’ve been having with Tasha, where she wants to wish on a star every night. When we begin to wish on the same thing each and every night, we begin to believe that it just might become real, because you begin to really make.

Anyways, I mostly want to let others, who might considering doing this challenge, know that it’s a lot of fun and well worth your time. I am definitely looking forward to the picture book marathon challenge that comes in February or March, where you’re supposed to write a draft of a picture book each day for a month straight. I figure there’s no better way to move forward than to just gets down to it… And get all those crappy picture book ideas out of the way early in the game! : P

P.S.
Hey, btw, want to know something cool? I dictated this entire post to my computer. How easy was it? LOL. Eh,it's a work in progress. But it was fun to try out!