Joining In by Jane Clarke

When I started writing picture book texts for children (at the age of 40 , I was a late starter), I didn't tell my friends. I'd snatch an hour here and there, then blindly send off the results to random publishers and keep silent when the rejections arrived. I had no confidence in myself as a writer, and no connection with anyone who was writing – as far as I was aware, I was on my own. I only admitted what I was doing to my immediate family - they were supportive, but in a vague that's-a-nice-hobby sort of way.

I don't think I'd be published now if I'd continued to be secretive about my writing.  I plucked up courage to join an Arvon Foundation  writing course. 

http://www.arvon.org

 The first Arvon course I went on was led by Pat and Lawrence Hutchins. It was inspirational to be with people who shared my passion for picture books. 

Then I joined Wordpool

http://www.wordpool.co.uk/

 and SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators)

http://www.scbwi.org/

Our own Natascha Biebow is Regional Advisor of the British branch

https://britishisles.scbwi.org/

I participated in lots of critiques, attended what conferences I could get to, and gradually made connections through them which led me to find an agent and get published. They're a wonderfully supportive bunch, too.

As time's gone on, I've become a member of the Scattered Authors Society

http://scatteredauthors.org/

 and the Society of Authors (Children's' Writers and Illustrators Group).

http://www.societyofauthors.org/childrens-writers-and-illustrators-group

It's a joy to attend writing conferences and meet up with people like my fellow PictureBookDenners. I try to give back a bit by running a monthly SCBWI drop in and chat meeting for children's writers and illustrators in Canterbury - I'll set up one in Market Harborough when I move there later this year.

It's also fun to join in with Picture Book Ideas Month in November (you can't register for 2015 until October)

http://taralazar.com/piboidmo/

The best writing choice I ever made was to stop being secretive and join in. Please share the names of other groups or organisations that you have joined that have been helpful to you.

The first two books in Jane's new series of How to... board books, wonderfully illustrated by Georgie Birkett, are out this month -yay! 

True Story Picture Books (or Creative Non-Fiction: It’s All About the Story) by Juliet Clare Bell

Are you sitting comfortably?

I’m not.

I’m itching to get up and discover. I feel like a puppy who hasn’t quite worked out which way she wants to go first and is darting from one place to another, happily, but slightly barking…

I’ve got the bug back. After feeling uninspired for quite some time, I’m very very excited about writing picture books again. I feel like I’ve re-understood something I knew a while back when I was writing my chocolate book, but had kind of forgotten.

I’m writing this in National Non-fiction November, in praise of non-fiction -although I reckon the term ‘non-fiction’ has a dry, almost negative, feel about it. Almost as if it’s not something worthy of a term in its own right, just that it is not something else. It’s not fiction, which I as an author –and reader- love. But what I love about fiction is STORY. And the best non-fiction is exactly that. So I’m re-thinking how I think of it in my head: I write picture books and at the moment, the picture books that I’m really drawn to writing are true story picture books, which sounds more fun than non-something else (to me, at least).

So what’s the real difference?

Apart from the fact that the story is true, there isn’t a great difference –if you do it really well. A great true story picture book still makes the best use of language and rhythm, repetition and sometimes even rhyme. It still makes use of the form of the picture book –exciting readers by interesting use of page turns.

The beautiful Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown, 2011).

It still exploits the rule of threes…

Story has to be at the very heart of it.

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin (Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet; Knopf; 2013)

And your heart has to be at the very heart of it too, when you’re writing it. Don’t write a true story picture book if the story doesn’t fire you up, first because your reader won’t love it, and also, because you’ve got to research and research takes time. Lots of time.


A close writer friend, Rebecca Colby, and I, were part of the Breaking into Nonfiction panel at the recent British SCBWI annual conference. Anita Loughrey blogged about the panel here.

Me on the far left, with Rebecca, next left at the Nonfiction Panel at the 2014 British SCBWI Annual Conference, Steve Rickard (Ransom), Sophie Thomson (Pearson) and Kersti Worsley (OUP).


It was loads of fun and we talked with lots of other writers and editors who were similarly fired up by the idea of beautifully crafted picture books that tell true stories. It feels like something really special is in the air… UK editors are certainly seemingly more interested now than before, but what’s changing?

I wrote about the market for creative non-fiction picture books in an earlier PBD blog post about the Cadbury book I was researching at the time. With the Common Core (adopted by almost all states in the US), 50% of texts for upper primary aged children in schools need to be informational, which means that publishers are taking on many more new true story picture books than ever before. And they’re winning prizes that have traditionally been won by fictional picture books.



And now in the UK, Nosy Crow has teamed up with the National Trust to produce children’s books that relate to National Trust properties. Although the UK market isn’t going to be as big as the US market (given their schools and library market in the light of the Common Core), I think that UK publishers are looking closely at what’s happening in the US market. It’s a really exciting time to be writing in this area.

So, what should you write about?

There are so many thousands of amazing stories out there, waiting to be told. It’s true of fiction ones, and it’s true of real life ones. What you need to do is be receptive to looking/listening out for them.
Here are some things you can do:

Talk to people

Talk to your family. What true stories did you love as a child? Growing up in our family of eight, we used to sit around for hours at the dinner table eating lots but talking even more. My parents were natural storytellers and loved telling, as well as reading, us stories. So I talked with my sister yesterday on the phone for over an hour and together we came up with over sixty ideas for true story picture books. Sixty (that’s this year’s PiBoIdMo sorted)… No wonder I’m on a crazy writing high today… My dad and his lovely new wife came up with a great idea for one, too, when we were chatting about it a few weeks ago. And today, I arranged to go on a really exciting research trip for one of these ideas in just two weeks’ time with another sister who feels similarly excited about the potential project. What a brilliant way to hang out with your favourite people and come up with great ideas/do research at the same time!

What true stories have captured your children's imaginations? What are they doing at school that’s really interesting? My ten-year-old came home from school earlier this week having seen half of a documentary about something (sorry –can’t say what, as I’ve nicked the idea for myself). They were going to watch the other half the next day. When she said to her teacher “I don’t think I can wait till tomorrow cos it’s too exciting!” her teacher said “Please don’t watch it at home [it was on Youtube]. I can’t wait to see all your faces when you see what happens!” So a topic that the children and teacher were all really excited about… Talk to your children (or other primary-aged children).

Talk to librarians and library staff.

They’re brilliant for knowing what people come in looking for and for saying what’s been covered before but not been done well. They’re also pretty fun people to hang out with (thanks to my lovely Kings Heath Library friend who I was out with last night, who told me about certain famous people who’d been written about lots but never in an exciting enough way.) Go on, you know you want to... Have fun and support your local libraries at the same time.

Given that the National Trust and Nosy Crow are now in partnership, have a look at different National Trust properties and land and think of what related stories are there to be told that really fire your imagination…

Watch telly, listen to radio programmes, read newspapers...

Check out the US Common Core -whether you're writing in the UK or the US or anywhere else.

I love stories and people. I want to understand better why people do the things they do (which is why I was a psychologist for so many years in my life-before-children). So for me, I’m fascinated by the person behind the invention/organisation/discovery...

Which inventions/organisations/discoveries fascinate you?

It could be the story behind the invention of the toilet... (Curse you, tiny toilet -I did actually have to look up 'how to draw a toilet' to get something even vaguely resembling one)

Or it could be a favourite organisation...

You can research them superficially and quickly to find which of them has a great real life story behind it. We came up with sixty ideas, seventeen of which I’m feeling really excited about. Those seventeen might result in my following up, perhaps, eight really seriously over the coming year. And mostly from brainstorming with a sister who I’d happily spend hours every day talking to about anything. This really is something you can have heaps of fun with.

Think about organisations behind the stories that you love. Is it possible that they could commission you to write a story for them? For my next book, More Than a Chocolate Factory: The Remarkable Story of the Cadbury Brothers,

Richard and George Cadbury (c) Cadbury Archive

it was Bournville Village Trust that approached me (and Jess Mikhail, the illustrator) and commissioned us rather than the other way round, but I would absolutely approach an organisation now if I felt that I loved a story that related to them and could do it justice. And I’ve loved the whole social reform and philanthropy side of the Cadbury story so much that I’m really interested in writing more stories with that at its heart.

Finally, think about stories where someone has done something against the odds. Could you turn that into a story that children will love and be inspired by?

The biggest problem may be curbing your enthusiasm. Right now I feel a bit like the guy from The Fast Show, who thinks everything is "brilliant!"
And one brilliant thought leads to another… and another…

I’ve had loads of fun brainstorming ideas and now it’s time to do the superficial research on the ones I’m too excited about not to check out now. I’ve set myself a deadline for emailing a list and a summary of a number of ideas for true story picture books that I promised I’d send to an editor. So next week I’m going to be researching all week to whittle it down to a manageable number of ideas to work with for now.

To anyone thinking of writing true stories for children, and to those who are already doing it, good luck. There are SO many stories out there, I think there’s room for lots of us to tell the amazing stories that amaze us.

(There’s a brilliant facebook group that is dedicated to non-fiction picture books: Wownonficpic, and a great four-week online course run by Kristen Fulton).

Do you have any tips for coming up with great ideas for true story picture books? If you’re happy to share, we’d love to read them in the comments below.

Juliet Clare Bell is author of The Kite Princess (Barefoot Books, recently endorsed by Amnesty International) and Don’t Panic, Annika! (Piccadilly Press, recently featured on CBeebies). Her next picture book, More Than a Chocolate Factory: The Remarkable Story of Richard and George Cadbury, was commissioned by Bournville Village Trust, and is currently being illustrated by Jess Mikhail. She has seriously got the bug for telling true stories in her favourite form, picture books.
Clare lives happily in Birmingham, UK, with her three children (always a source of inspiration for true life and fictional stories, and life in general), almost within sniffing distance of the chocolate factory which she’s written about. Which is brilliant…

www.julietclarebell.com


National Non-Fiction November is the Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ annual celebration of all things factual. Born out of National Non-Fiction Day, the brain child of Adam Lancaster during his years as Chair, the whole month now celebrates all those readers that have a passion for information and facts and attempts to bring non fiction celebration in line with those of fiction.

Quentin Blake, Picture Book Ideas Month (PiBoIdMo) and interesting facial hair. That’s right: it’s the inspiring month of November, by Juliet Clare Bell

It’s that time of year again: for some, it’s an opportunity to grow interesting facial hair

Nice

for several hundred of us, it’s the annual British Isles SCBWI Conference, with Malorie Blackman and Catherine Rayner for starters...

and for many hundred of us picture book writers throughout the world, it’s
PiBoIdMo 13! Yay!

November has turned into a month I get childishly excited about. And Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo (where you have to come up with 30 ideas for picture books in 30 days) has a whole lot to do with it. Since it’s all about inspiration and good habits for being creative, I’m going to talk about inspiration here. And where better to start than with my favourite illustrator (author and illustrator of my favourite adult book –Words and Pictures, and illustrator of one of my very favourite picture books, How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen), whom I met/saw for the first time last night (a long held ambition of mine)? It's the one and only...

QUENTIN BLAKE

Photos taken by fellow groupie, Dave Gray.

In the presence of great greatness...

The lecture was brilliant. He talked about the illustrations he’s been doing ‘beyond the page’ in the last ten years or so, on buildings, art gallery and many different hospital walls and on buses for education projects (his book Beyond the Page, is beautiful and is always on my desk for inspiration...).

An illustrated book bus in Ghana.

So how does this fit with PiBoIdMo?

Well this year, I want to try specific ways of coming up with my picture book ideas as well as just writing down ideas that come to me in the course of a day.

So where do you go looking for ideas?

...from pictures

Not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking about pictures today. In bed this morning, one of my children, apropo of nothing, started talking about how the Paul Klee picture on the wall made her think about a story, which she proceeded to tell me.

This prompted my youngest to imagine a story coming from the other picture in our room...

Picture from the cover of One Hundred Years of Solitude

So one place I’m looking for ideas this month is in pictures –wherever I can find them. On walls, waiting to be hung in our new office, from notecards, in Quentin Blake and Shaun Tan books, the children’s (as always)....

...from books

This year, I’m going to practise what I preach. I teach writing picture books and it’s been too long since I’ve gone through my favourite picture books and tried to capture the essence of what it is I really love about them. Often, there's really interesting use of metaphor, as in Not Now, Bernard, by David McKee. I'd really like to play around with this more for this year's PiBoIdMo ideas... Quentin Blake talked about this in the lecture, using the example of The Story of the Dancing Frog, and how he was using a metaphor for bereavement but that he could just have easily had the main character learning to play the cello instead.

I love the idea that as an illustrator you can choose the metaphors you use in picture books partly based on your desire to draw that particular thing (he didn’t say that specifically in this example but he’s talked about it in other books before). As an author who doesn’t illustrate or know who the illustrator for my stories are going to be until after I've written them, it’s a slightly different game but I’m going to look at themes I’d like to explore and come up with visually different metaphors and see whether that leads to fresh story ideas.

... exercises I do in school visits with children

I’m going to...
make up silly stories on the hoof the same way I get children to do collectively in school assemblies and see if any germs of ideas for something more substantial come (I’m the character in their story. Someone in the audience chooses what I am –it can be anything at all; someone else chooses a name; then what I most want to do in the world –or beyond- that day; what’s getting in my way, etc.. Because it’s all done quickly by different people, no one thinks about it much or feels self-conscious);

...play the name game that inspired Don’t Panic, Annika! where you come up with characteristics of a character based on their name, using rhyme or alliteration. And when you’ve got those characteristics you work out what needs to change by the end of the story in order to make it satisfying/funny etc.;

...play the What If? game I play in the classroom where we look around at the room, or the playground and turn ordinary objects or scenes into something quite extraordinary by saying: this may look like an ordinary whiteboard/wall display/teacher, but what if... (and similarly with objects taken from a bag).

And I’ll be reading Tara Lazar’s blog daily and follow the exercises that the guest bloggers suggest.

Basically, I’m going to allow myself to play for a month.

Do more creative pursuits that aren’t writing

This month, I’m trying out a local close-part harmony group. I joined a choir for one concert about twenty years ago but before that I’d not sung collectively since being in school, and although I love singing with the children, and in the shower, I’ve not done anything since. Again, inspired by Quentin Blake, as a non-drawer, I’m going to do five minutes of drawing each day throughout November just for the fun of it. And I’m attending the first in a series of traditional arts storytelling workshops, run by local storyteller, Graham Langley . And, since the death of my mother earlier this year, who was a prolific reader, and whose inscription is in many of the books that I have, I’ve started reading novels again in a way that I haven’t for almost twenty years. I do actually feel as if something has reawakened in me (so thanks, Mum, for that).


Different writing environments. Writing alongside others...
If you’re a member of SCBWI and PiBoIdMo etc., writing really isn’t the lonely occupation many think of it as. There’s such a huge, welcoming community out there. But a lot of it is online and this year, I’m arranging to do more writing alongside others. It started with a writing retreat last year where a fellow picture book author, Rebecca Colby, and I booked a cottage for a week and just wrote, usually in our own beds during the day, and then in the evenings, sitting together at the dining room table. We were joined for a couple of days by another children’s author (Addy Farmer), and it was an incredible week.

Whilst it’s extremely hard to get away for a week, I was really keen to try and replicate something of that communal environment, so from this month, once a month, our local SCBWI is going to host a free day-long write-in in the fantastic new Library of Birmingham...

where anyone can come along and write/sketch for the day together on their separate projects.

The children's section of the library, where all artwork, including the prints on the beanbags, is by Laura-Kate Chapman, who illustrated our last picture book, The Kite Princess!

I’ve also recently moved into an office over the road from our house, with another children’s author and fellow SCBWI-er, Leila Rasheed, which is brilliant. It’s freed up loads of space in our respective houses and has provided us with a fantastic working space. And from January, we’ll be running fortnightly day-long write-ins in one of the large meeting rooms there where writers and illustrators can come and write/illustrate for the day.

As always, November is going to be a busy month (especially in the run-up to the conference where I organise the mass Friday night critique with seventy-plus critiquers) and this year I’m also writing a commissioned book for which I’m doing loads of really interesting research/interviews at the moment, but that’s the joy of PiBoIdMo. It doesn’t actually have to take much time at all. You just need to do it every day and get yourself into good habits (and this year, I've actually bought index cards and a box to put them in, which is an exciting if unusually organised step to have taken). To finish with the wonderful Quentin Blake again...

“I don’t wait for inspiration. I’m not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I’m sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival,” (Words and Pictures, p100).

Inspiration enough.

Happy November.

Do you have any PiBoIdMo tips or hints? Please leave them in the comments section below -and have a fruitful month.

Juliet Clare Bell is currently researching for a picture book based around the Cadbury chocolate factory and Bournville in Birmingham, which so far has been extremely interesting and very tasty...

Online writing communities for picture book writers: inspirational or distracting? A look at some gems including PiBoIdMo, 12 x 12 in '12 and online critique groups that really work. By Juliet Clare Bell

Me with one of my books that was brought to life by an online writing community. No really.

The romantic notion of the lone wolf writer, hidden away in some shed (or tucked up under a warm duvet in bed), scribbling away without distraction, may be true for some of us some of the time, but for many of us, the reality is that we’re usually sat at a computer (and often with lots of other things going on around us).

(Unfortunately, the 'other things' as I write tonight include a small child and a sick bowl.)

Are we writing our stories with the internet switched off? How often do we switch between our manuscript and email or FaceBook (just for five minutes. If I were at work, I’d talk to someone every so often, wouldn’t I?)

Well, there are loads of things to distract us online. But just in case you’re not quite distracted enough, I thought I’d share some more with you. Only these ones are so valuable to me as a picture book writer that I’m sharing them not so we can all be distracted together and share the guilt, but because if you haven’t already discovered these online writing communities and you also write picture books, then you might find them helpful too…

I love November. I really do. And a growing number of children’s picture book writers –published and working-towards-being-published- are also finding the cold, dark and wet month of November inspirational. But why…?

(or HoItNoAg -Hooray, it’s November again! –but don’t remember this acronym. I just made it up)

I appear to be a fan of groups with acronyms that no one is quite sure how to pronounce. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators is an amazing organisation with almost as many ways of pronouncing the acronym as members (ok, well perhaps not –there are well over 20000 members worldwide, but it’s called, Scooby or Scwibby or Scibwee with such confidence by various members, that I can’t side with any of them and spend twice as long pronouncing it ESS-CEE-BEE-DOUBLEYOU-EYE). PiBoIdMo is Picture Book Ideas Month. I’ve always pronounced it Pie-Bow-Id-Moe. It turns out others call it something else. But actually, who cares? It’s an online thing and although you may end up writing it loads online, you’ll probably rarely say the word out loud to anyone other than yourself.

This is not another NaNoWriMo where you’re expected to write a novel in a month (and there are many opinions on the merits or otherwise of NaNoWriMo). Picture Book Ideas Month works very differently. It simply encourages every person who signs up to it to attempt to come up with thirty ideas for picture books in thirty days during November. It sounds simple, right? And something you don’t need an online community for –any writer can set himself or herself that task alone, do it and have plenty of ideas to pick and choose from for the coming year… Except PiBoIdMo is so much more than that –because of the online community that it has become. I asked creator, Tara Lazar (author of The Monstore) about it.

Incredibly, she managed to get back to me in spite of being caught up and powerless in Hurricaine Sandy:

I had no idea PiBoIdMo would grow this popular--we have almost 700 participants this year. When it began in 2009, I thought I'd maybe get 10 people to try it with me. The enthusiasm that writers have for the event has blown me away. Plus I keep hearing about success stories--PiBoIdMo ideas that have gone on to win contests, grants and publishing contracts. I'm truly amazed by the creativity of our community and grateful to the guest bloggers and participants for their contributions to picture books.

If you write or illustrate picture books, I would highly recommend checking it out (and looking back over previous years’ posts, too). We’re six days into it and I’ve already got seventeen picture book ideas. Well, ideas may be a grand way of describing them, but they're seeds, and I'll keep reading through them and adding bits as the weeks go on. Not all of them will end up as picture book manuscripts. If I find five or six ideas to work on out of forty or so I've come up with by the end of November, then I’ll be very happy.

Of my 2011 ideas, a couple, which I worked into stories, are under consideration with a publisher; a couple I can safely say I’m unlikely to pursue (Day 8 and Day 27 spring to mind…). And about fifteen of them I still like and am waiting for the right time for them to develop into something more than an idea. It could take weeks, or it could take years. But they’re there and waiting for me.
Penny Morrison, one of the commenters on today’s PiBoIdMo post, said something similar:

…writing picture books seems to be about waiting. A bit of planting and watering, but mostly waiting.

PiBoIdMo has guest blog posts every day throughout the month, from authors, illustrators, editors and agents. Some are great for generating ideas; some inspire; some provide that all-important introduction to an editor or agent (and there are giveaway critiques with some of the editors and agents for those who are signed up).
I love the posts where I'm encouraged to generate ideas in certain ways, which in previous posts has included going through photos...

Any ideas, anyone?

Or children's drawings (try looking at them first and then ask the child what it's actually about. It can be illuminating)...

Anyone like to guess what this story is about? (OK -first, the doorbell rings -DING DONG- then the boy answers the door. He sees that it's a witch (who looks very cute and smiley in the picture but it's obviously an act) and thinks about his toaster. Then he thinks 'I can put the witch in the toaster!' and all is ok once more...)

Now this one looks more straightforward...

But perhaps it's not...

PiBoIdMo participants include those with lots of books under their belts and those writers who are just starting out.

Corey Rosen Schwartz, author of The Three Ninja Pigs, wrote up her idea number 28 and it was bought by Putnam (I quite like my no. 28 from last year, too. I might still write that into a story. But my no. 27? Now that's unlikely to have been quite as successful…).

I love PiBoIdMo. I always get 30 ideas (at the very least) in 30 days and I feel like I'm part of something at the same time. And it gets me back into good habits about being present and receptive to any hints of a story in my surroundings. But where do you turn to next online, once you've got your creative juices flowing and have all those picture book ideas...?

I came up with the idea for 12 x 12 as a way to increase my own PB-writing output using all of the great ideas I was mining in PiBoIdMo. I figured if I needed the motivation of a challenge, maybe others did too. So I sent out the notice and let people sign up. I expected maybe 50 people to join me.

Well, 400 signups later, 12 x 12 has become much more than a writing challenge. It has become a genuine community where participants learn from each other, help one another and offer support and encouragement… We keep each other going.
Julie Foster Hedlund

And what do other writers say about it? Susanna Leonard Hill, author of April Fool, Phyllis! and Can't Sleep Without Sheep:

There are always things I can do better and ways I can improve my craft. So I joined … PiBoIdMo partly for all the excellent author interviews and tips on writing. But the main reason I joined both [PiBoIdMo and 12 x 12 in ’12] was for the community, the camaraderie, and the inspiration. Writing can be a lonely business sometimes, and it's nice to feel like you're part of a group who understands all the joys and frustrations.

There are plenty of people in the group who will end the year with twelve manuscripts.

Yay!

I won’t be one of them

Oh no. Really?

–I should end up with nine. But that doesn’t matter. I’ll still have written more than I would have done without it.

Hooray!

–as will Deb Lund

With marketing books, revising a middle-grade novel and doing school visits and conference presentations, it's not always easy to find time to write. With PiBoIdMo pestering—um, encouraging—me to keep up with new ideas, and the 12x12 deadline—um, encouragement again—I wouldn't be writing as many new pieces or getting to know the wonderful creators and participants. I'm looking forward to writing a post on the PiBoIdMo blog later this month, and to having thirty more picture book ideas than I would have had if not for also being a participant.

For Lori Degman, author of the award-winning 1 Zany Zoo:

the most valuable thing about both PiBoIdMo and 12X12 - the people! I have learned so much from the creative and generous authors and illustrators in this group and I feel I've made a lot of friends, though we may never meet in person.

You can sign up for 2013's 12 x 12 here.

Is it any coincidence that these writing communities have sprung up in the US? With so many people spread over such a huge area, belonging to online communities may be much more realistic than in-person ones. Penny Klosterman (Barbara Karlin 2012 runner up) says of the online 12x12 community:

This is extremely beneficial to a gal who would have to drive 3 hours one way to meet a regional chapter of SCBWI.

And this brings me onto my third online writing community (since Penny is a member of this group, too): my online critique group.

In an online critique group where you don't ever meet in person (with the majority of the group, at least) it's (almost) all about the books...

I probably spend an hour and a half a week on this group, and it’s a very important part of my life. And yet I’ve only met two of the other members (there are eight of us). In fact, I wouldn’t even recognise five of them if they past me on the street (which is unlikely since they live in the States and I’m in the UK) and yet I have a really special bond with them. It’s taken a while to find the perfect online group, but it’s absolutely worth it.

But what makes it work? Rebecca Colby, Winner of Barbara Karlin, 2011:

While we're spread out over two continents and divided by an ocean, we are united in our love of picture books and our confidence in and support of each other's work. We may not be on each other's doorsteps, but we communicate more often than most in-person friendships… Every success is celebrated and every rejection is commiserated amongst friends that can truly empathise. I'd be lost without my critique group… I'm sure I could embrace an in-person picture book critique group, but it is rare to find so many people writing for the same age group in one area and at the same stage of their writing career.

And that’s crucial: no one feels like they’re putting more into it than they’re getting back. It works because we’re all at a similar level and everyone knows how we can help each other progress.

We bounce ideas off each other, push each other to think beyond the first few solutions that come to mind. We are quick to encourage but also brutally honest.
Kristin Gray

They are my support system. They continue to push me to become a better writer... Sherry Dargert

There are a great many more online writing communities, including joint blogs like PictureBookDen, which I love being a part of. And I’m a huge advocate of SCBWI (hmmn, did I ever mention that before?). But fortunately, for me, with the UK being small, I do see lots of SCBWI members throughout the course of a year (and especially at the annual conference -the other reason I love November). Our online communications, through a Yahoo group (for which you have to be a member) and the FaceBook group (for which you don’t –anyone can join) are really important and form a regular part of my day to day working environment but PiBoIdMo, 12 x 12 in ’12 and my critique group are truly online in that I’m unlikely ever to meet the vast majority of these people I spend so much virtual time with.

Online writing communities don’t always work. I know I spend too much time on Facebook for example, even though the majority of my FaceBook friends are writers, and I am guilty of kidding myself into thinking things are work that actually aren’t… And there have been upsetting stories about internet trolls recently, one where much loved picture book author and illustrator, Debi Gliori, has been bullied as a result of a complete misunderstanding of the nature of ideas and copyright.

One of my all-time favourite picture books: Debi Gliori's No Matter What. And for any of you over in the States reading this blog, I urge you to get hold of the original UK version which deals with death in a beautiful way (but which had to be changed for the US edition).

But it can work brilliantly and help us to be more creative and feel less isolated.

What are your experiences of online writing communities? Have you got any favourites you’d like to share? And in the spirit of helping out other picture book writers as happens so much in online writing communities such as PiBoIdMo and 12 x 12 in 12, do you have any discarded PiBoIdMo ideas that you’re happy for others to use? Let's see if anyone can get a decent idea for a story (you don't have to share the idea, just whether you've got one) from other people's discarded ideas... you're welcome to my 2011 ideas no. 8 and 27, though they're not the best: 'underwater pants' [8], and ‘I wish I was made out of recycled paper’ [27]). Do you have any success stories from virtual groups you belong to? How do you get the balance right between checking things like blogs and groups online and actually writing?

I’d love to hear from you.

Juliet Clare Bell is the author of Don't Panic, Annika! (illustrated by Jennifer E Morris; Piccadilly Press); Pirate Picnic (Franklin Watts) and The Kite Princess (illustrated by Laura-Kate Chapman and narrated by Imelda Staunton; Barefoot Books).
Click on the links for tips on how (not) to write a rhyming picture book; editing your manuscript and making the most of feedback. www.julietclarebell.com