The Blog:

I have not kept up with the blog, even though I know good and well there is awesome stuff in there.

My Ideas:

I have, however, kept up with my new story ideas.

My list runs everywhere from a word (Resistor) to 130 words of an idea, with details–including the fact that I had more specific points that I thought were awesome, but that I didn’t write down soon enough to remember.

One says I need to be an illustrator to do this because there are so few words. I am NOT an illustrator.

I have more than the number of stories per day. It’s the 17th and I have 26 story ideas so far. Will I stop with just 4 more? Probably not.

An Important Story Idea:

One of the stories I don’t know how to tell from any but the parents’ POV and I don’t think that will work for a children’s book and it needs to be illustrated so it can’t be a grown up novel. It’s important to me, though, so I will try to figure out how to make it work–even if I don’t have a clue right now.

That story idea came from me saying, “It’s New Year’s Day and I have to have a story. What could I have a story about?”

I thought I could write about New Year’s Eve.

Then it was about fireworks and being afraid and a girl and her dog and then…

It became about fear and how we adjust and how we cope and what a little girl (me, in real life) did with her dog (now, as a grown up) to deal with the stress of PTSD on NYE.

That is why it is important–not because it is about NYE or even a girl and her dog. It’s about a kid in a bad situation coping with fear.

One of my friends has five foster children and she has been looking for good books on foster kids. Together we’ve found 3–and 2 bad ones.

This story is designed to be about a foster child, even though it is based on a few of my own memories.

It’s important.

Sometimes important doesn’t work out. I hope this does.

Another Idea:

I also wrote the “opening line” of a chapter in a MG book called Lost and Found.

The necklace lasted longer than our relationship. Finally, though, it wasn’t worth the memories and I threw it away. OR found in the dirt/identify the hurt/once a part/now apart/thought seed/red bead

Lost and Found is another of those “I have to write this” stories. In this case, it is about adoptions. I won’t go into all the reasons I want to write this one, but know there are many and they are personal.

Not All Important:

Not all the ideas I came up with are important to me.

Marley Marigold is a goofy name I wrote. I like it. I think it is fun. But what, exactly, the story would be or who Marley Marigold is, I don’t know. She was inspired by the art of an illustrator I met at the Houston SCBWI conference in 2019–but she isn’t anything like the girl in the art or the artist.

Why?

Before I started Story Storm I already had 175 story ideas I have not yet turned into books. Yes, 175.

My husband asked me why I joined when I had so many.

I told him it was an awesome opportunity to see other writers and maybe win a prize (1:500+ chance each time, but hey, someone has to win!).

After over a month of doing very little writing