A Writer's To Do List

Within the next few weeks I'll complete a freelance project I've been working on for a long time. I'm looking forward to spending more time with my own writing!

I also get to spend two nights away next month at a spiritual retreat with no children, no husband, no television, no internet, and enforced silence.  I won't even bring a book to read.  (For me, books are a bigger distraction than family, television, and the internet combined.)  But I'll have my laptop.

In preparation I listed all of my current projects so that I can begin to prioritize them.  Please excuse the working titles:

Writer’s To Do List 2010

1. finish Poirot excerpts and assemble Blue Screen of Death
2. re-read Blue Screen of Death, add tension to each page (remove remaining “just” and “was” excesses)
3. finish Sands Through the Hourglass (two scenes)
4. read and tidy Sands Through the Hourglass
5. read Wyoming the Witch
6. revise and edit “A Date in the Life of Gillian MacCrae”
7. submit “A Date in the Life of Gillian MacCrae” 
8. draft essay for the Becoming anthology 
9. polish “Camp Fires”
10. submit “Camp Fires”
11. edit “Mountain View”
12. write “Stranger”
13. rerewrite “Party” 
14. work on picture books for kids (flesh out current drafts)
15. read The Really Good Guy
16. finish, revise, edit The Really Good Guy
17. edit “Wonder Woman”
18. Outline Flowers (my exciting new project for this year's NaNoWriMo)

Essays, short stories, novels.  Outlines, notes, first drafts, second drafts, nearly-final drafts.  Various genres.  Various styles.  No matter what I feel like working on each day, I've got a project that matches!