#PiBoIdMo 2012 and #PiBoIdMoBrainFlush! and IDEAS!

Hello! It's NOVEMBER again! (Well, almost.)


AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT NOVEMBER MEANS???


It's Picture Book Idea Month! Invented and hosted by the lovely Tara Lazar!

*ta daaaaaaaaa!!!* (this means, GO HERE ---> http://taralazar.com/)

It's a pledge, taken by writers, to come up with THIRTY (30) new picture book ideas, one for each day of the month of November. And we put them all into a fancy journal and keep them for future picture book idea usage. So we will always have a new story to be working on, all year long! Woo!

Here is my shy, quiet little PiBoIdMo journal:



shhh... it's sleeping

it's been around the block a bit...

And inside are... BAM!!!! IDEAS!!!!

HA! I'm not showing you my ideas, Silly!

Although this book works just fine for now, I just ordered (from Shutterfly) some custom matching journals for future use. I might even transfer over all of my ideas into those books, so I might come up with more ideas while I'm thinking! Who knows? WE DON'T KNOW!

Okay, now that you know more of what PiBoIdMo actually is, SIGN up and DO it! Not sure how to start? Go here ----> registration-begins-now-sign-up-here and then read this nice little Pre-PiBoIdMo Post! ----> pre-pibo-day-1-kathy-ellen-davis-and-the-three-little-ps/ by Kathy Davis.

In addition to the neat things Kathy Davis recommends doing to prepare yourself, I have my own personal favorite... the Pre-PiBoIdMo Brain Flush. This little method/game/process is from my own genius mind (me so smaht!). Because it almost feels like cheating when I start off my PiBoIdMo journal with a TON of "new" ideas that I've been brewing on but never had the chance to write them down. So I write down ALL the stuff and bits of things that are floating in my head until my brain is empty.

Yep. It's empty all right.   -_-

Also, I have been keeping track of new ways to get new ideas, so I can keep them in my journal for emergency brain fart removal.

I'd like to share with you some ideas on how to get ideas... but I don't have my whole list ready yet. I'm getting ideas from other people, too! And when I've got them all down in my new, shiny Idea Book, I shall show them to you! (I'm even going to TYPE them up, muah ha haa haaaaaa!)

Anyway, that's what I'll be doing this month. Time to go wait on some tables!
ttfn!

Much Ado About Language

This week in my Writing for Children class, we have been asked to re-work our manuscripts while paying more attention to language and words.  It sounds almost silly when I put it that way, but there is a lot more to a story than just the story itself.  The words need to have a rhythm, a cadence, and a flow to them.  We need to pay special attention to certain Literary Devices in our stories, and make sure that the way we use them also fits our story's theme or topic.

Some specific Literary Devices we've discussed:
Alliteration, Assonance, Repetition, Metre, Mood, Onomatopoeia, Rhyming, Dialogue, and the Rule of Three.  I won't go into detail on those, because I'm not a literary pro by any means, and I don't want to teach anyone out there who might be reading this the wrong stuff.  But you're welcome to look it up!

More information on other Literary Terms and Devices can be found here:  http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_a.htm

Some books that have specifically good Literary Device and Language usage:
"Where the Wild Things Are," by Maurice Sendak
"Wind-Wild Dog," by Barbara Joosse, Illustrated by Kate Kiesler
"Anna's Table," by Eve Bunting
"The Great Fuzz Frenzy," by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
"Here They Come!" by David Hyde Costello

Now it's time for me to get back to work!  Chop chop!