Each January, author Tara Lazar organizes Storystorm, a month-long brainstorming challenge for children’s book creators eager to jumpstart their creative engines. Participants write down a story idea every day in a ritual that results in 30+ new ideas that may or may not become books. Much like a muscle-building exercise, it’s a tune-up for our brains as the year kicks off. It’s also a wonderful event for the broader kidlit community with excellent blog posts by authors and illustrators who share a peek underneath the hood of their processes. (Hmmm…how many exercise and car references can one person slip into one paragraph?)

Tara, has written several books for children—most utterly hilarious—including our own collaboration, PARTY ANIMALS which is out March 11th. I was honored when she asked me to contribute the post for January 30th. I reveal how I immersed myself in the inner lives of our motley crew of characters, including the “dossiers” pictured above. I hope you enjoy it! Here’s a link.