What Feels Different about StoryStorm this Year

Well, first of all, the name is different. The last time I participated and went for my 30 ideas in 30 days, it was called PiBoIdMo. It was in November, too, which is a crazy month to try and get ANYTHING done–so happy Tara Lazar moved us all over to January.

Other things feel different this year. I know we are only on Day 3, and I know by the end of the month, I will be scrabbling for and accepting ANY “idea” to add to my notebook. Still, here’s what’s going on for me so far:

• I’m committing morning time to actually thinking about ideas. I wake up pretty early, and instead of playing around online or giving myself some extra reading time, I’m idea-hunting.
• I’m not just reading the blog posts and commenting; I’m USING the suggestions in the blog posts. And they are working. Not instantly, not without some stick-to-it effort, but by the time I head off to the day job, I’ve had at least one idea.
• My ideas are better. Not better like, oh, wow, THIS will get me an agent or better like, THIS will get me past every craft challenge I have ever had. Better in the sense that I can see an actual story…I can see a want, I can imagine a basic structure of threes, and I have a glimpse of the first (of many, I know) ending and premise to try out. I have five ideas so far. Three of those are stories I actually want to write. One of them I already turned into a first draft. (Another one terrifies me–so, you know, balance.)

Some of you are saying right now, well, duh. Of course the first two differences are adding up to the third difference. And, in part, you’re right.

But I think it’s also the work I have done since I last participated–the writing and revising and reading and learning. If we talk about having a bucket for each idea to fall into, a bucket with some size and shape and functionality to it, then I have built myself a much stronger, much more sturdily made bucket.

Like I said, if course it’s going to get harder. Of course, at the end of the month, I won’t be excited about writing 3/5 of all my ideas. But…it still feels like a huge difference. And it feels like another reminder of where we can go if we keep putting in the time–baby steps or giant steps, I don’t think it really matters. We just need to take steps.

And if you needed another reminder of what we can accomplish, look what is happening today. THIS is where our steps together have taken the country.

Welcome to 2019.