Cathy C. Hall Writes

In keeping up with Picture Book Idea Month, another SCBWI Southern Breezer stepped up to share how a couple of ideas came to her. Jo S. Kittinger has written a ton of children’s books, she’s a Co-Regional Adviser for Southern Breeze, and she’s a much-in-demand speaker. How does she ever find time to get a picture book idea? I’ll let Jo explain how she catches up with her flitting ideas!

Picture book ideas are like hummingbirds. They zip through my mind on a regular basis. Some I catch and cage in my idea file, some get by before I write them down and are quickly forgotten, others land on my computer and demand to be written.

Rosa’s Bus: the Ride to Civil Rights was one that landed in my office. On my phone to be exact. Donny Williams, who owned Bus #2857 before it was sold to the Henry Ford Museum, called me up out of the blue and asked if I could direct him to a children’s writer that might be interested in writing a book about the bus! He had worked on an adult book dealing with the civil rights movement and his editor was interested in a children’s book about the bus. It turns out that his editor declined the manuscript I wrote, as it was not what she had envisioned. But some time later, after Larry Rosler (editor at Boyds Mills Press) spoke at a Southern Breeze SCBWI conference, I submitted the manuscript to him and he quickly accepted it.

The House on Dirty-Third Street, to be released Spring 2012 with Peachtree Publishers, was a humming idea that came from a slip of the tongue. My husband, Rick, and I were traveling and looking for an address when I stumbled trying to say 33rd Street. It came out Dirty-Third Street and I began wondering what type of place that would be. This picture book has been many years in the making. Thomas Gonzales created fabulous illustrations and I can’t wait to see the finished book!

Of course, there have been hundreds of idea birds that escaped, flitting past while I was pre-occupied. I’m sure 2-3 were likely award winners! Those seem to be the hardest to catch! But I’ve learned to keep a window in my mind always open to welcome ideas.

And P.S. I happen to know that Rosa’s Bus won a 2011 Crystal Kite Member Choice Award. So if I were you, I’d keep that window WIDE open and hope a hummingbird idea flits in!

First, a moment to listen to Bachman Turner Overdrive’s Taking Care of Business because I bet your brain went there.

And now to take care of “end of the year business.” (Yeah, I know that there’s an entire month following November, but I also know that my brain is hijacked by the holidays. Frankly, my brain’s kinda been hijacked by Bachman Turner Overdrive right now…)

Anyway, here’s a handy checklist of Things To Do (If You’re a Writer) for Taking Care of End-of-the-Year Business.

*Check your blog and/or website for dead links to your online work.

*Consider cleaning out some of those old, tired links and adding links to recent work. This simple step will give your blog and/or website a freshness as well as get rid of that static vibe.

*Find your Goals for 2011 (You did write down your goals somewhere, right?) and review. You’ll still have time to work on the goals you completely forgot, and you’ll end the year feeling wonderful about the goals you accomplished. (If you can’t find your Goals for 2011 then I have a suggestion for what your very first goal for 2012 should be.)

*Take a mathematical look at your blog stats. Compare what posts generated excellent traffic to those that did not. Extrapolate and use the results to improve your stats next year. (I was looking at a picture of Albert Einstein right before I wrote this post.)

*Make a list of the writing books and/or business tools you’d like the Beneficent Mr. Hall to stuff under your tree. Of course, he’ll probably only stuff those goodies under my tree. But hey, you can ask.

*Clean your desk, work space, cubbyhole, whatever or wherever you work. You’ll start the new year with an organized perspective. (And you’ll probably be shocked at what you find amongst the mess. Well, I assume you’ll be shocked. My desk hasn’t looked that clean and organized since I took that picture a couple years ago. But I never said I take care of all my business.)