How Lists Inform Our Writing, Our World

Earlier this week, at this site, I featured a post by Cyndy Etler on how list-making can help you manage the overwhelming process of trying to write a memoir, or any story about your life.

The universe is working serendipitously this week, because Yelizaveta P. Renfro just published a piece over at Glimmer Train on the magic of list making. She says:

A novel I’m working on began two and a half years ago as an eighty-four-word list divided into nineteen “items” that became chapters…. Slowly, each of the nineteen items expanded into its own list, a nesting-doll regression to smaller and smaller units, to scenes and paragraphs and sentences, until each word was in place.

Related (and nearly a decade ago), I learned about an important productivity method—perhaps the most important I’ve ever learned—and it boils down to this: Never create a to-do item that is actually a project. Instead, use to-dos that are specific action steps. In other words, you would never have the following to-do items:

• Buy a house
• Write my first novel
• Build a website

Instead, you would break these enormous projects into the smallest possible components, starting with to-do items such as:

• Research real estate agents in my area and create a list of candidates to contact
• Visit the library and see what books are available on novel writing for beginners
• Visit writers’ websites that I like and make notes on what I want my site to do and look like

Breaking large projects down into small steps (into lists!) makes them less intimidating, and—most importantly—helps you make progress with less anxiety. As Anne Lamott says, you tackle things “bird by bird.”

Also this month in Glimmer Train:

• On Form by Peter Ho Davies
• The Secret Lives of Novellas by Daniel Torday

Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.

Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.