Quick Fix: To-Do Lists

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

2020 was a tough year for most of us and sometimes the writing didn't come as easily to me as it usually does. It didn't mean that I stopped writing and gave in to it, though. I tried different approaches (one of them, working in longhand, I talked about in this December post. ) Some of my favorite workarounds for getting stuck didn't work so well in 2020…getting out of the house and working in a coffee shop or the library, for instance.

One thing that did help me out was a very simple tool: the basic to-do list.

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, since I'm something of a list fanatic. I use them daily for everything from taking care of the pets, running errands, and tracking word count and social media tasks. I've also used them for fitting writing into short periods of free time.  Lists also help me with layering different book elements in or tackling revision.  I've written about tips for better list-making, too.

Lists help me stay organized but they also help with overwhelm. And writing a book while handling everything life throws at us can definitely be overwhelming.

So I decided to apply my list-making to my story since I was feeling overwhelmed by it.

This wasn't like my outlining process. I already had a working outline that I was going off of. And it wasn't quite like my mini-outlines, either, that I use for picking up with my story quickly the next day.  This was more like getting me through the next few pages and quickly covering what I needed to do to get myself there.

It looked a little like this: 

Georgia finishes talking about Sterling and Fletcher.

Posy says things have been so quiet at home with Cork gone.

Bonnie comes in like a whirlwind and acts like her previous conversation with Beatrice didn't happen.

Transition occurs: Days pass. Wyatt is asked by Petunia's family to officiate at the funeral.

It was sort of like bullet notes on a to-do list. The problem it fixed is that where my outline may have vague spots, the above list gives more of a concrete direction for me to head in for the next writing session.

Have you worked through any writing issues lately? Any tips for the rest of us?

Using a To-Do List to Keep From Getting Stuck:
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