I have been working on an idea for quite some time now. By “working on” I mean that I thought of an idea for a story months ago but haven’t gotten around to writing it until now.

It was just a phrase I heard someone say. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just added it to the list of many other ideas that I don’t know what to do with.

Two months ago was National Picture Book Writing Week or NaPiBoWriWee. The goal of NaPiBoWriWee is to write a new first draft of a picture book everyday for a week. By the end of the week you have 7 new first drafts to play with. I did OK. I wrote 5 new first drafts during the week. One of them was using the phrase I wrote of above.

I knew at the time it wasn’t very good, so I never went back to read it. Then this week I felt the need to re-explore the idea. I came up with two versions of how the story should go. Normally I would have brainstormed until I had what I thought was the best idea and then wrote that. This time I wrote both.

Now I have 3 stories based on the same idea. What I discovered is it is so much easier to decide which direction to go when you have something real. Three rough manuscripts instead of just three ideas. Now I can really see what works and what doesn’t. I can read them. See how they flow. Feel them on the tongue.

This method takes a lot longer, but I think in the end makes my decisions much clearer. What to use, what not to use, what to combine – I can see it right in front of me.

Now a little tweaking and it’s off to the critique group.