Storystorm 2023
I originally started this blog post as an accountability post for my ideas, but seeing as how I did no such thing, I thought I would do a wrap up of the experience and why I think it’s still worth it.
Tara Lazar runs Storystorm each year in the month of January where each day you write an idea for a story. It can be any type of idea for any type of story. Each day = one idea. By the time you reach the end of the month, you have 31 new ideas with which to create new stories. It’s a brilliant idea and something I would love to do each day. If I’m being totally honest with myself, I did a terrible job this year. I had a few “catch up” days where I would come up with multiple (mostly incomplete) ideas. I’m setting a goal to do better next year.
For some reason, many of my ideas involved animals, particularly hippos, cats, and woodland creatures. I also had a very bizarre story idea that would be from the perspective of a houseplant. Of course, since it’s me, there were also many ideas for mysteries, heists, and spies with a smattering of saving the world and environmental stories. As I’m looking back through my notebook, I’m realizing many of these aren’t half bad. Perhaps there might be a story in there after all.
One of the other great parts of signing up for Storystorm through Tara’s website is the daily email. These emails include inspiration and strategies to brainstorm ideas. One of my favorites was from Rebecca Gardyn Levington who wrote about how she has playdates with words. I gave this strategy a try starting with the word immerse. I thought of all the other words it made me think of and what images came to mind. Then I found rhyming words and created a couple of fun sentences.
Immerse yourself in the biodiverse universe to converse with a nurse.
Giraffes immerse themselves in the tops of trees failing to remember the ground.
I’m looking forward to going back to some of these emails for more inspiration and new idea exercises to try, and I hope you give it a try too.
