Storystorm 2024 Grand Prize Winners!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
3w ago
Tara has had some temporary technical difficulties, so she thanks you for standing by! Without further ado, here are the Storystorm Grand Prize winners! I will be in touch via email later this week. I sincerely appreciate your continued patience as I am in the thick of school visit season. Mia Geiger (Liza Royce Agency) Maria Marshall (Stephen Fraser) Susan Glick (Erin Murphy) Carrie Cook (Sean McCarthy) Jennifer Schmidt (Kelly Sonnack ..read more
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How to Get Ready for the Storystorm 2024 Grand Prizes!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
1M ago
Thank you for your patience! I took a break from Storystorm duties for a while to focus on other things…and now I’m back! BOOM, KAPOW, MEOW! Firstly, please gather your ideas. Then, sort them. Separate pebbles from seeds. Sift for diamonds. Do your ideas pass the litmus tests? You may have to draw a diagram first. Are you ready? Once you have ideas that you like, start fleshing them out. If you’re a Grand Prize winner, you’ll have the opportunity to share your BEST FIVE IDEAS with a kidlit agent. They’ll respond with feedback recommending which ideas may be best to purs ..read more
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Sign the 2024 Storystorm Pledge!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
If you’ve been participating in Storystorm all month, you’ve been generating scads, scores and stacks of ideas! Luckily you don’t need stacks to “win” the Storystorm challenge. You just need 30 of them! When you have 30 ideas, you can qualify to win one of the AMAZING Storystorm Grand Prizes—feedback on your best 5 picture book ideas from a kidlit agent! (List to be announced.) This year there will be at least 5 grand prizes, and hopefully more! SWEET! In order to qualify for a Grand Prize, your name must be on the registration post AND the pledge below. If you have 30 ideas, put yo ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 31: Tara Lazar Schedules Nothing
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Tara Lazar Reading the title, it’s not what you think. I do schedule plenty of things—school visits, weeknight dinners, and birthday parties. But what I’m suggesting here is to schedule NOTHING: time, that is, to DO NOTHING. No laundry. No grocery shopping. No pickleball. (Please, no pickleball!!!) I want you to set aside at least 15 minutes every day to just BE. Stare out the window. Have a cuppa cocoa. Let your mind wander. Don’t concern yourself with any task. Don’t start obsessing over your to-do list. Your assignment is NOTHING. Yes, I want you to relax. Our lives can be tremendously ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 30: Simone Kaplan Sifts for Diamonds
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Simone Kaplan Congratulations on making it to Day 30 of Storystorm! If you have successfully completed the challenge, you will have about 30 ideas, maybe more. That’s an ample collection of ideas. A collection so large that it’s easy to become overwhelmed and unsure of what to focus on next. I’d like to offer a clear set of steps to help you go from confusion to clarity. To help you… Get a handle on your ideas Develop a manageable shortlist Decide which idea to work on first Explore your idea Get your idea out of your head and onto the page …and maintain momentum going forward. These are ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 29: Cathy Ballou Mealey’s Idea Has Already Been Done! (5 Tips for Finetuning Your Concept)
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Cathy Ballou Mealey Congratulations Storystormers, you have reached 29 days of ideas! What comes next? You could jot down a plot for your favorite story nugget, or scribble some opening lines. Maybe you will brainstorm clever titles, or look up recent comp books. That’s when you might suddenly discover—oh no!—my idea has already been done! I can practically guarantee that this has happened to almost everyone at some point in their creative journey. But it does not mean you should give up on your idea! After all, it had enough merit to have been published once, now the concept just needs yo ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 28: Josh Funk Swaps Genres
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Josh Funk Hiya, Storystormers! January is winding down and you’ve filled your notebook with so many ideas! Great work! (unless you’re still trying to figure out how to register, in which case, you can find the answer here) Storystorm is all about idea generation. And marketability should be a large part of the ideas you pursue writing come February 1st. Chances are good that not all of your ideas are blockbuster sure fire hits. But maybe they could be with just a little twist. When I lead workshops about writing picture books, I often joke that you should “stay away from the farm”—and by th ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 27: Hope Lim Savors Quiet Moments
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Hope Lim We all need a quiet moment to connect with ourselves and our ideas. The idea for SOURGRASS came to me in an unexpected way. I was sitting quietly in my backyard and spotted a single stem of sourgrass poking through the tiniest crack of our fence. Its green leaves were in our yard and the rest of the stem and roots were in our neighbor’s yard. I smiled at the delightful and whimsical sight, then started to wonder why it chose to grow that way, and if there was a reason for it to appear on a day when I was feeling anxious about all the changes in life. Within that quiet moment of w ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 26: Chana Stiefel Plays with POV
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Chana Stiefel Hello, Storystormers! This post is about YOU and I. I know, grammarians, you want to say YOU and ME. But please bear with me. Today’s challenge is to play with Point of View (POV). As Mary Kole writes in her craft book WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT, “POV is the lens through which a story is told….If you think of the story’s narrator as a camera, where is the camera?” Our POV options are first, second, or third person: I, You, or He/She/They/It/. (See? YOU and I!) Let’s start by brainstorming a story idea told in first person: Hand the camera over to a person, place, or thing and ..read more
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Storystorm 2024 Day 24: Gabi Snyder Plays Balderdash
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) | Tara Lazar
by Tara Lazar
2M ago
by Gabi Snyder Hello, Storystormers! You’ve made it to day 24 and I suspect you’ve already collected several shiny new ideas. Hooray! BUT, alas, what about those old ideas that won’t leave you alone, that haunt your sleep and follow you everywhere? Maybe you have one particular idea that’s near and dear to you. You’ve tried writing it three, five, fifteen different ways and nothing quite works. You’re tempted to bid that idea a forever farewell, and yet you know there’s a reason you keep coming back to it. There’s something there. But how can you discover the perfect way to turn that beloved i ..read more
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