PiBoIdMo: 8 this time! 3 more days!

Whew, PiBoIdMo. Almost done, but I don’t want to be!
But isn’t that my problem? I’m busy with so many other things that I can’t spend too much time on picture book writing.

But that was my choice.
School is going great.
In fact, today I’m off to Sacramento to start three weeks of student teaching/ practicum with 6th graders! Happy to be spending some time with some older kids…maybe they’ll kick start me back up on all those middle grade novels I started…

Anyway, great week.
Super relaxing, informative, and fun!
This week alone I

• made 298 things, 297 of which are Christmas presents
• Watched two movies (considering my average is one every two months, this is impressive)
• learned a whole bunch about Sonoma
• started a thankful journal (more to come on that later!)
• and had my best day ever! 15 ideas!

Ok, on to the posts for this week:

 

Love this advice. I always worry there is not enough room for my story, and wonder, “Who would actually buy it?”
This could be because I don’t buy that many picture books, but there is a good reason for this: I am on a really tight budget. And I do buy lots of books before the conferences in the summer. My new bookshelf rule is I can only keep it if it was an amazing deal, or if it is signed to me. If not, it gets passed on to a kid friend who will get more use out of it.

This week I actually got to read a lot of picture books to children on Thanksgiving. I started reading and SHOOM! All the kids came over and parked next to me. It was a good feeling. I need to read aloud to children more! (Instead of just reading aloud to my sock monkey. But he appreciates it all….)

ANYWAY….

I love not worrying about the number of words you start with, and the idea that cutting out things that don’t need to be in the story help you to find the voice. I need to remember that next time I worry about cutting something that I think  is important. Maybe it is important, but maybe not to this story. If not, I can toss it into the idea vault and go shopping for it later!

Mmm….creative food makes me think of many things that get me in the writing mood, mainly, coffee! and ice cream!

Hooray for the funny post!
This summer at the conference, we exchanged manuscripts during one of the classes.
I was mostly with YA writers, which was a great experience for me.
We were directed to just read and then after five minutes, talk to each other.

How delighted was I  to hear the woman who was reading my manuscript chuckling behind me! She was laughing out loud and apologized to everyone else, saying, “Sorry, it’s just so funny!”

When she got back to me with comments, she said, “You are so funny! You’re like the female version of Jon Scieszka!

Ok, I know that’s not really true, but it felt good to hear it!
I’m not so much funny as I am punny, and dorky, but hey, that works as humor for children!
Excited about going back through my manuscripts so I can ask myself these questions!

As an ex-journalist (I got a minor in it in college) I can really relate to this post. I’m still trying to find ways to tie in my journalism with writing for children, because I enjoy writing stories in the style of news stories. I just like when I get to make up what I’m writing about! We’ll see…

I met Diandra Mae at the SCBWI conference illustrator night, and loved her work right away! (And her hair! It’s great!) I absolutely love the idea of not letting the negativity take over. It’s so true! Part of the reason I started a thankful journal. I will have to remember this when school is over and I get back into the throws of editing and revising and really writing a lot! Thanks Diandra!

Day 25 had two posts, and they were both great! Loved the idea of mining your real life for picture book ideas! I may even do a post on that one later….and I know for a fact I’ve been trying to do that with a shocking event that hit me a while back. I’ve written about it in a journal kind of way just to get some of it out, but I think I need to get to the deeper emotion of it and see if I can get a picture book text out of it. We’ll see….

Ahh endings!
I needed this post!
I know what I want to happen at the end, but I’m not good at tying it up.
Look at my life: When I do programs for work, my ending takes forever.
I am horrible at leaving long drawn out voice-mails.
I’m horrible at goodbyes.

So this post proved very useful. I never thought of changing up the ending and seeing what it does to the whole story. Maybe because I’m afraid to change it? But your idea is going in, essentially, for a job interview. You want to dress it up the best way you can.

Wow. GO me! I’m gonna write that down!

Oh yeah, just did.

And, last but not least:

Non-fiction rocks!
I’ve got a lot of ideas about some non fiction topics from work (I bring history to live everyday for 600 kids a week!), from calendars at people’s houses, and from things I just want to know about. I need to read more non fiction to get the groove down. These are great places to look for ideas though.

WHEW!
I have loved this month so far.
I’ve been busy, yes, but I’ve carved at least a little bit of time out each day to jot down ideas.
I can’t wait to go back through the idea book and build on some ideas later in the year.
Well, probably next year, since I’m student teaching, have tons of homework, and am getting ready to head over to the other coast for two weeks of vacation.

But honestly, that’s not too much for an over-achiever like me 🙂

ok, have to go!
Read and write on!
KE