Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

I find to do lists helpful and I do use them sometimes.

Although when you have a lot on, lists can be overwhelming. Just looking at all the things you need to do! Crazy.

I’ve just downloaded an app to help with that called To Do but often I just use my notes function on the phone or a bit of paper.

I’ve tried bullet journals but I then write everything I want to do and it all gets impossible, particularly when you aim to do a bit of each thing per day.

With things like Christmas and birthdays, list can get really out of hand.

Also, when I publish a book there’s a heap of back office stuff to do and a particular order to do them in. For example, grab and ISBN and register it, then set up the book in Vellum, etc. I had a check sheet for publishing and I have no idea where it is. Time to do a new one.

Yesterday, I checked my books page and realised that all my Dani Kristoff books only have Amazon links. When I went back wide I haven’t put the other links up. Also, I found that Destiny’s Blood is not on Kobo at all. Obviously, I have some serious back office admin to do. I realised I could have just unpublished the page, kept all the links and made a new page just for Amazon. As I’ve deleted them all I have to do them from scratch. Ouch!

Balancing that with creating fiction can be hard for me. It’s a different head space. I’ve been drafting Gentleman Magician but then I remembered that I had been revising another book before my edits arrived back. So actually, I should be drafting and then revising the other book because I want to sub it. Also, the proofing changes will come through soon.

It’s a whole out of mind thing. To do list help keep things front of mind. Even here on holiday in Perth, I need to get my list together because there’s stuff I need to do on line for presents.

Also if you want achieve things, tick off things that need doing, having things crossed off the to do list is great for the morale. The queer thing that happens is that sometimes I’m doing things not on the list so have to add them and then cross them off. They are only not on the list because I’ve forgotten they are there.

Anyway, here is my poor forgotten book that I need to take care of.