On January 31, 2022, I launched a new Picture Book Writing Challenge #21DaysPB.

I want to start this post by sharing my first writing tip: Create Lots of Lists.

Picture Book Writing Tip #1: Create Lots of Lists

I create lists for everything —

• 1 Lists of Books that I have submitted for publication
• 2. Lists of New Picture Book Writing Ideas

When the soon-to-be-released link to pre-order my debut picture book, The Donkey’s Song, is available, I’ll be adding a new list:

3. List of Agents that might be interested in representing my writing.

For a couple of reasons, I haven’t even begun to seek an agent yet, but I believe that this is the year to begin that search, too,

Why I Create Lists

First, I create lists as a way to help me beat Procrastination. Perhaps, an easy way to begin to create lists is by simply making a new list each morning–to help you launch your day. Feel Free to print the following to-do list to help you in that effort.

Second, I Create Lists to Help Me Set Goals. I created the following list on Photoshop, and it is editable on my computer in Photoshop.

But I made a more easily editable list in Microsoft Word by creating and modifying a Table in Microsoft Word, and that is the quickest way that I know to create an editable table, which works as a list.

Here is How the first few days of my Microsoft Word table look:

For the table above, I added an image at the top center of a new Microsoft Word document. Beneath that, I added a table with 4 columns. The following post tells how I create a table in Microsoft Word for another purpose. The process is almost the same. If your words won’t fit in any frame, Microsoft Word will automatically enlarge the frame size to accommodate your text. Of course, you can save your document and add to it at any time.

https://x55.68c.myftpupload.com/how-to-create-a-text-dummy-for-a-picture-book-in-microsoft-word/

I also Create List to Establish & Follow Up on New Goals

The following post tells how I have used the Ipad App GoodNotes5 [Formerly GoodNotes] to create Goals:

https://x55.68c.myftpupload.com/making-my-lists-checking-them-twice-setting-goals-for-the-new-year/

In the above post, I say that I used Liz Kohler Brown’s Free Ipad Planner for 2021. The following is a link to her GoodNotes5 Ipad Planner for 2022. Believe Me, it is much simpler to create a planner in GoodNotes, if you can download a planner. You can pay a lot of money to download a planner template, but Liz Kohler Brown’s planner is free, and it is more than good.

Free 2022 Dated Digital Planner + 3 Color Options

I altered Brown’s Planner with some Clip Art in 2021, and this is how my GoodNotes calendar looked for January of 2021:

I also create planners and lists on my computer in Microsoft’s OneNote.

Here Is how January looked in OneNote at the beginning of January 2022::

The above is how my OneNote Planner page looks for February at the beginning of the month.

Again, feel free to copy and/or print anything that I am showing you in this post. Don’t forget that if you print in black and white, you can save printer ink.