The Busy Writer's Book of Checklists

Copyright
©
2012 by Marg McAlister. All rights reserved worldwide.

No part of this publication may be
replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written
consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein.

Marg McAlister, Illawarra E-Publishing
PO Box 4047 Shellharbour, NSW 2529, Australia.

www.writing4success.com

Table of Contents

Copyright Information Page

Introduction

Section 1: How to Increase Your Efficiency by Creating
Your Own Checklists

Some Tips on Making Any Checklist More Effective

An Example of a Recent Checklist

Section 2 – Six Foundation Checklists for Writers

Checklist 1 – Story Ideas

Checklist 2 – Plot

Checklist 3 – Characters

Checklist 4 – Viewpoint

Checklist 5 – Dialogue

Checklist 6 – Scenes

Section 3 – Setting and Subplots

Checklist 7 – Setting

Checklist 8 – Setting Information Sheet

Checklist 9 – Subplots

Section 4 – Getting Organized

Checklist 10 – Organize Your Time

Checklist 11 – Organize Your Work Space

Checklist 12 – Organize Your Files

Checklist 13 – Organize Your Projects

Section 5 – Critique Groups/Partners

Checklist 14 – Group Meeting Checklist – Mostly Social

Checklist 15 – Group Meeting Checklist – Critique Group

Checklist 16 – Critique Feedback Checklist

Section 6 – Social Networking & Websites

Checklist 17 – Setting up a Website or Blog

Checklist 18 – Your Facebook Page

Checklist 19– Getting Started with Twitter

Checklist 20 – Your Writer’s Network

Section 7 – Getting Published

Checklist 21 – Researching Publishers

Checklist 22 – Writing a Synopsis

Checklist 23 – Publishing on Kindle

A Final Word – and a Bonus for You

Appendix 1: More Help for Writers

The idea for a writer’s Book of Checklists
popped into my head when I fine-tuning the list of titles in my Busy Writer
series. Actually, it more than ‘popped into’ my head – it was more like a
blinding flash!

You see, while I was planning the series, I
was actually checking items off a list sitting at my right elbow. The checklist
was related to my business: I wanted to link my new e-books with my long-established
Writing4Success website and Tipsheet, my writers’ e-courses and my assessment
service.

Checklists
,
I thought.
Of course!

A checklist is one of the most effective
tools any writer can use. In the past, I have used checklists for characters, plotting,
dialogue, and a whole bunch of other aspects of technique. I have used them for
step-by-step processes, such as uploading pages and products to a website, creating
sales pages and linking them to PayPal, and editing graphics and photos.

I’ve also used them for time management,
career planning, networking and dozens of other things. I have, in short, found
them to be an indispensable tool.

It's likely that you already use a
checklist in its most basic form - the good old 'to-do' list. How often do you
make a shopping list? A list of household chores? A list of debts to tackle?

When you make a list, you are acknowledging
that anything on it has to be dealt with in some way. Calling it a 'checklist'
simply infers that you need to tick off the items on it as the desired action
is completed.

Checklists ensure that: 

# you don't forget anything important

# you know (a) what you've done and (b)
what you need to do

# you build your skills in an organized
way

This book contains 23 different checklists
that you can use for your writing and your business, and I can tell you that
they are
good
checklists. (I know that after getting feedback from them
over the years. People who have made use of my checklists in the past have
asked me for another copy if they lose them, or whether I have a checklist on a
different aspect of writing. One author who bought the Busy Writer’s One-Hour
Character suggested that I add a characters’ checklist to the book – which I
will do.)

These checklists have been created to help
you check everything from your basic ideas (are they worth developing into a
plot?) to your marketing plan for your published book (how can you make sure
people
see
your book? How can you encourage them to buy?) You’ll find
checklists for plot, characters, scenes, dialogue, viewpoint, and a whole lot
more (just take a look at the table of contents!)

However, as I refined my use of checklists,
I realized that the
best
checklists (that is, the most useful) were the
ones I created myself, and in the very first chapter I talk about how you can
make a highly effective
personalized
checklist from any one of the
checklists in this book.

Let’s look at that in a little more detail:
I’ll delve deeper into how you can create your own checklists, and give you a
recent example.

With at checklist at your elbow, you can
make sure that you don’t forget something essential when you write or edit your
book (or when you’re promoting your published book).

What kinds of checklists do writers need?
Here are some possible topics:

This is the most obvious type of checklist
for a writer, and you'll get off to a great start by using the 6 Foundation
Checklists in this book:

(1) Getting Ideas

(2) Plot

(3) Characters

(4) Viewpoint

(5) Dialogue

(6) Scenes

What causes problems when you're writing?
If there are some aspects of grammar, punctuation and/or sentence structure
that continually trip you up, add them to your personal checklist. Some
suggestions:

(1) Punctuation
- commas, colons, semi-colons, quotation marks, exclamation marks,
question marks.

(2) Grammar -
past tense, present tense, past perfect tense; first person, second
person, third person; who/whom

(3) Sentence structure
- conjunctions (and, but); run-on sentences; comma splice; sentence
fragments

These are just a few suggestions.
Substitute your own particular bugbears, and add more as they are brought to
your attention. Unfortunately, you'll probably need feedback from someone else
to alert you to errors associated with grammar and language.

What do you need to do or to work on to
build your writing career? Make a list of anything that seems relevant, then
break it down into manageable chunks that you can chip away at. Some examples:

(1) Join or form a writers' group

(2) Buy a book on dialogue

(3) Do a course on plotting

(4) Research viewpoint on the Internet

(5) Attend the next writers' conference in
your chosen genre

(6) Do a writers’ workshop

(7) Send out query letters to publishers or
agents

(8) Research Indie publishing and how to
write, format and upload an e-book

(9) Do a course on public speaking; join
Toastmasters

(10) Learn how to build a website or start
a blog

(12) Create a media kit for download from
your website and/or to hand out to journalists

(1) Buy a new laptop

(2) Organise writer's reference library
(hard copy or on your computer or e-reader

(3) Buy a new printer

(4) Shop for a new chair

(5) Organise filing cabinet

(6) Investigate or upgrade software

(7) Buy new noticeboard/whiteboard

(8) Organise computer files

(9) Buy external hard drive for backup

(10) Learn how to filter email and create
folders in your mailbox

- Organise a writer's group
(e.g. organization and procedure)

- Improve your writing technique
(e.g. learning from books, courses, Internet, forum)

- Learn new skills or software
(e.g. how to do podcasts, how to create a promotional video or book
trailer for YouTube)

- Steps in building a network of
writing colleagues
(e.g. what kind of writers would
you like to know? How can you meet them?)

- Moving from 9-5 work outside the
home to freelance writing work
(step by step: what
you need to do to make the transition)

You will actually find a few checklists
in this book that fit the above examples.

(a) Make it personal!
Yes, this bears repeating. Don't leave in anything on a checklist
template that you don't need or want.
(b) Break it down into small tasks.
Do this for EVERY CHECKLIST YOU
CREATE. Keep breaking down topics until every item you have on your checklist
is achievable in one working day.
(c) If you have particular difficulty with one item, analyse it to find out
why.
Do you need to fill a knowledge gap before you can do a task? Or is
this something that you don't really want to do? If you don't, how can you make
it easier/more palatable? If you STILL don't want to do it, do you need to
think more carefully about what you really want? If you need money to achieve
it, how can you earn that money? (Sell things on eBay? Get a part-time job?
Work overtime? Have a garage sale? Ask for what you want as a combined
Christmas/birthday present from family?)

I have a number of different blogs and
websites, and I use WordPress on a lot of them. I wanted to add my Busy Writer
books to the sidebar – and, with the theme I’m using, that involves quite a few
steps. I wrote them down as I went along, and now I have a checklist to follow
every time I want to add a clickable image to any sidebar in WordPress.

Here’s what the checklist looks like:

# Using Irfanview, resize images of
book covers to 125 px wide.

# Using a new browser window, upload
book covers to Photobucket, creating a new album called 125px covers.

# Open all books at Amazon in separate
tabs in same browser window.

# Log in to blog.