Storystorm 2024 Day 21: Teresa Ho Robeson Smashes Ideas Together

by Teresa Ho Robeson

According to my “Ideas” notebook, I’ve been participating in Storystorm since 2014 (back in its PiBoIdMo days), though I swear I’ve been doing it for longer.

In those nine years, I’ve written down about 270 ideas from the random ones floating in the universe like dandelion fluff (according to Elizabeth Gilbert in her BIG MAGIC book).

Of those 270 I managed to capture in my notebook, I have drafted eight, thanks to 12×12, the other challenge besides Storystorm that help me keep my ducks writing life in a row.

Even though I haven’t sold any of those eight manuscripts, and nine other ideas have already appeared as books by others (Elizabeth was right!), I still find myself with an abundance of ideas on my list and not enough time to write them all. After all, even if I only took a month to write and polish one picture book from an idea, it would take me over twenty-two years to write all 270+ of them. And I keep accumulating more from doing Storystorm year after year.

But there is a solution of sorts! And I stumbled upon it unexpectedly.

I was recently approached by a publisher to write a nonfiction middle grade book for a fun concept an illustrator thought of. While drafting the book, seven story ideas from various years of brainstorming managed to show up at the party and became a part of that book. Also, two more ideas ended up in another nonfiction middle grade book (my own concept this time) I’m writing for a different editor! And I didn’t even realize I had included those ideas until I flipped through my notebook and noticed them after drafting both books.

That’s when I smacked my forehead and had a eureka moment.

Who said that each Storystorm idea had to lead to a single story? Surely not Chief Lazar of the Storystorm Police Department. Instead, why not consolidate two or more ideas into a single manuscript?

I had already done this, by accident, but now I plan to do it on and with purpose. When I’m wanting something new to write, I will read through my entire notebook of ideas and try to smash things together like an author cyclotron.

Sometimes I might put similar ideas with each other to create a thesis for a longer work (as in the NF MGs I mentioned above). But other times, I can randomly pair wildly disparate ideas to create really cool and unique plots or situations for fiction, too.

So, by the power vested in me by the State of (Writerly) Affairs, I hereby grant you permission to do the same! At the end of the year’s challenge, when you look back on all your wild and wonderful ideas, if single ones aren’t leading to worthwhile stories, smash a bunch of them together to create BIGGER MAGIC, and possibly better stories.

Teresa Ho Robeson is giving the winner the choice of either a signed copy of WHO IS TIBET’S EXILED LEADER? THE 14TH DALAI LAMA (Penguin Workshop) or a critique of a nonfiction picture book manuscript under 1,000 words.

You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm 2024 participant and you have commented only once on today’s blog post.

Prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of Storystorm.

Teresa Ho Robeson is an Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Picture Book Award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction books on science, nature, and her own culture, from her debut QUEEN OF PHYSICS: HOW WU CHIEN SHIUNG HELPED UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THE ATOM (Union Square, illus. Rebecca Huang) to the upcoming CLOUDS IN SPACE: NEBULAE, STARDUST, AND US (MIT Kids/Candlewick; illus. Diana Renzina).

When not writing or teaching at The Highlights Foundation, SCBWI, and other conferences, she keeps busy with her family growing, and canning, much of their own food on 27 acres, as well as knitting, sewing, drawing, and sometimes making soap.

Visit her at TeresaRobeson.com or follow her on Bluesky @teresarobeson or Instagram @tmrobeson.