Can't I write and draw pictures for my ideas?

What a great idea! 

Many authors do this.  Here's what Patrick Carman told  Scholastic

"if you have some idea for a story, start making little pictures about it and writing little notes about the characters and where they are and all this kind of stuff and pretty soon it'll evolve into something interesting. And so this journal that I had started out as, well, what does this place look like? So I was drawing all these crazy little maps and things. And then who were some of the characters? And what might happen in this story? And so a good deal of the work was kind of done before I even started. I spent all this time doing all this research and all this writing on little notes to myself in this journal. And then, of course, once you start writing, everything changes."

So how about it?  If you have an idea, grab some paper or notebook and start drawing and doodling characters, places, and events. Write descriptions of characters and places. Explain relationships among characters and places (a web?). Start lists of plots.  What else could you include? action scenes? conversations? What seems like the seed of a story from your writing and drawing?

Once you have a start, share what you've done on the Ideas Journal and Us page.  If you'ld like , we can photo a page of your journal and audio record a) how you thought through your ideas and b) how that started a draft or published story so that others can learn from your journey.

Connected Pages:  Ideas Journal Ideas Journal and Us