From Blank Slate to Bigfoot

You may be wondering why I chose to write a book about Bigfoot. Well, let me be honest, that wasn’t my original idea in the beginning! It took some serious brainstorming to land on the final story.

Back when I chose to write and illustrate a children’s book for my capstone project in school, I really didn’t have any direction or story in mind beforehand. The first thing I did was create a mind map and brainstorm about the general feel I wanted to capture in the book.

That led me to figure out three main ideas for the story:

1. I wanted the story to be set in the woods and have a campy vibe.
2. The two main characters would be a bear and a bunny.
3. There would be some mysterious character as the antagonist.

This gave me a good foundation to start writing a story arc. The two things I just couldn’t land on were who would be the antagonist and what would be the conflict and resolution of the story. I had several ideas come to mind for an antagonistic character, like an ogre, a forest gnome, or some other made-up creature. However, none of those ideas really felt right or inspired me. I found myself stuck in the rut of writer’s block. This lasted for quite a bit, and I was feeling pretty discouraged at how long it was taking to settle on a story.

It wasn’t until my mom mentioned the fun Bigfoot cutout we saw lurking in the woods on a family trip we had taken to northern Minnesota that I finally got some inspiration. That memory led to us talking about the Bigfoot crossing signs we saw during a trip to Colorado, and that’s when it clicked. I’ve always had an interest in the Bigfoot-sighting stories I’ve heard over the years, so I began writing one for Bear and Bunny. Eventually, I came up with a story arc that inspired me.

Creating the story was a longer process than I expected, but I’m happy to say that the end result is a something that I am super excited to share with all of you!

We are off to a great start building a launch team for I Saw Bigfoot! As we continue to prepare for the book launch, we are still looking for people to join the team. If that sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, just drop your name and email in the form below.