Thursday, February 23, 2012

How do you get anything done when you have too many things to do?



I have so many things on my to-do list, I can't choose what to do first. What do you do in situations like this?

Here it is:

TO-DO LIST


1. Edit Ride of Your Life--keep notes of where everything is in the Amazing Lands Theme Park so you can draw a map of it.

2. Outline Dream. Write. Publish. in three sections of 10,000 words each. The first section should be about the dream to write. Why do people want to write a book? What are the right reasons? What are the wrong reasons? The wrong reasons--like wanting to achieve the kind of financial success that J.K. Rowling has had or because you think writing is easy--will prevent you from realizing your dream before you've even begun. But the right reasons--to educate, inspire, entertain or help readers in some way--will motivate you more. We're used to not giving ourselves what we want, but it's harder to let someone else down. And you have to give yourself little dreams along the way. You should also choose dreams that depend only on you, not others. NaNoWriMo is a good example. The second section about writing would be about letting go of your internal editor, different ways to find time to write, ways to motivate and reward yourself, editing, and recommended books on writing. And the last section will be about the different options writers have when it comes to publishing, how these apply to your dream, and how to make that dream come true.This will be followed with a list of resources about making your dreams come true, writing, publishing, and marketing. 

3. The best books for author visits are hardcover picture books, so pick one of mine to turn into both a paperback and a hardcover book. Make sure the hardcover isn't priced higher than $17.95 retail. Which book should it be? Alphabetical Disorder, Click the Dog, Fay Fairy's Very Big Problem or one I haven't illustrated yet, like The Glass Butterfly, Green Dreams, Can You Talk Like the Animals? or Princess Lucy, the Fairies & the Goblins? It might be better to work out which one in reverse--work out what would make a good author visit, and then create a book around that. Then create a lesson plan for an author visit.

4. Design swag for Toren the Teller's Tale, like t-shirts expressing the magic of stories. What about your other books? You want to be able to give out stuff like that during author visits or contests.

5. Write a story for Purim and come up with a lunch menu that fits the theme I've chosen. (Purim is a Jewish holiday where people give food to their friends. Every year I try to come up with a fun theme. This year I'm doing a garden theme, and I have an idea for a story involving Esther and a bee, which would tie the theme together.)

6. Reread We Are Not Alone: The Writer's Guide to Social Media, and try to figure out how to utilize social media better. Create a plan and put it into action.

7. Write a three-part series on my blog on Amazon's future brick-and-mortar store. Part one: collect all the rumors and my ideas of the reason for these rumors. Part two: explain all the pitfalls Amazon would encounter in a brick-and-mortar store, and how I think Amazon can overcome them. Part three: a design of an Amazon store I think could work (possibly with drawings to illustrate my ideas).

8. Finish reading Class Act, and make a plan of action based on it so you can start making money from author visits.

9. Create a Geek Stuff section on my blog.

10. Take the lessons I've been teaching my daughter on how to make a comic book and turn them into blog posts. Also consider turning them into a book.

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