Picture Book Ideas... Fifteen Days and Counting

PiBoIdMo is well underway and if you have been following the blogs and Facebook, you know that most of us have been successful at finding some neat ideas. Now that we are approaching the middle of the month the idea river might be dwindling.

Here are a few thoughts on keeping the well from running dry.

• Grab ideas from a totally different topic pool. If you love writing about animals as main characters, try switching it out to biography ideas about animal trainers. Pick a nonfiction topic if you most often write fiction and do the same if your ideas tend to be mostly nonfiction, then choose a crazy loony fiction topic.
• Planes, trains, and automobiles....biographies, histories, counting books, how to books, games, any topic with these vehicles that will grab the interest of male readers.
• Interested in weather? How about how to make a rain collection device, monitor and track the temperatures on graphs, what makes a tornado so devastating, and the list goes on. Find a twist on weather that hasn't been overdone and run with it.
• Cultural diversity is a big topic and has thousands of twists and turns that a story idea could develop from. Ancient history of a culture, folktales retold, holiday celebrations, being bullied because of ethnic background, fears, teen traditions including marriage choices, and again the list goes on.

With 15 more days to go, you may have to dig deeper for your ideas.  Look around, read the news, or visit your librarian. New ideas are everywhere. See what you can find.