Today I excited to share the third part of my series on bullet journaling: collections to add to your writing bullet journal.
But before we jump in, if you aren’t familiar with Bullet Journaling read part 1. I’ll wait.
Ok, ready to rock your bullet journal? Here we go!
What is a Collection?
Just in case you skipped over the intro to bullet journaling (tsk tsk) – a collection is a place in your journal where you can gather together information around a theme — usually a page or a spread of pages dedicated to a particular topic.
I’ve gathered together collection ideas for all kinds of writer needs:
- Must have collections for every writer
- Collections to organizing your writing
- Collections for events and projects
- Collections to help your writing grow
- Useful Collections
This post covers collections to organize your writing life. I have free printables of many of these collections in my Free Printable Bullet Journal Inserts.
Must-Have Collections
1. Goals and Habits
At the very front of my bullet journal, right after the Index and Calendex, is a spread dedicated to goals and the habits I want to form. That’s because I want to state up front what my intentions are for my writing life this year. I start there so that through the year, those intentions will keep me on the path to my goals.
Some tips for goal setting:
- Be SMAART: If you’ve been a New Year Resolution drop out in years past (guilty), take heart. Research says if you set SMAART goals you’ll be much more successful. Check out these tips for setting goals.
- Take Control (when you can): Keep your goals firmly centered on the things you can control. You can’t force an editor to give you a book contract, but you can work your hardest to produce a book that will tempt them.
- Form Habits of Excellence: Big goals are accomplished by forming small habits. Books are not written in one day – the habit of regular writing is what gets you to THE END. The same applies to most other goals you might want to achieve. So think of what daily habits you can build to launch you to your dreams.
2. Accomplishments
Let’s face it: writing is hard. You spend years writing a book, then revising, querying, and more revising before you get the joy of holding it in your hands. That’s a long time to work for proof of your progress.
Marking the small accomplishments along the way will show you the progress you’re making (especially when you feel like you aren’t getting anywhere). I always create a collection to record small (but significant!) accomplishments like:
- Writing a rough draft (for a picture book)
- Writing a chapter (for a novel)
- Giving critiques
- Receiving critiques
- Writing blog posts
- Reading a craft book
- Completing a writing class
- Watching a free webinar
- Attending a conference or workshop
- Giving a talk/author visit
- Submitting a manuscript to an agent or editor
- Entering a contest
- etc.
Even if you’re early in your writing journey, you can still find a fair number of these to add to your list. There are a wealth of free webinars and other resources online to help you develop your writing muscles. You’ll be surprised at how long your list gets by the end of the year.
3. Ideas
I think every writer has had this experience: you’re trying to fall asleep or sitting at a red light and an amazing idea springs into your head. It’s so amazing that you’re sure you could never forget. Think again.
I’ve been known to jot ideas on scraps of paper, in my phone notes app, or even send it to my husband as a voice-to-speech text — anything to get the idea down before it leaks out of my brain. But it’s easy to lose tracks of those ideas even when they’re written down, so later (when I’m not driving or trying to sleep) I move them to this collection.
At the end of the year, I migrate these to Evernote to make them easier to find later.
4. Business Collections
If you take your writing seriously (and you should), then you need to treat it like a business.
These are collections you will want to have somewhere. I prefer to keep them in Google Docs or Evernote (mostly because I dislike copying over lots of data), but they could easily be collections in your bujo.
- business income and expenses
- manuscript submissions (it can be easy to lose track of submissions!)
Collections to Organize Your Writing
5. List of Manuscripts
In early 2018, I was struggling with finding a way to keep track of all my manuscripts. I wrote 8 picture book drafts in 2016 and 12 in 2017, plus I had a novel and a middle grade nonfiction book in the works. I was drowning in my own work!
I came up with this simple list to track them. I list each manuscript with a status – work in progress, draft, done, or retired. In my post on my magical monthly spread, I discuss the writing process I use to keep track of projects. But not every project makes it to that list. This collection is where I track EVERY manuscript – even the ones that get tossed in a (metaphorical) drawer as soon as the rough draft is done.
On retiring manuscripts: some manuscripts don’t work. One of my goals is to write 12 picture book manuscripts a year – not to produce 12 query-ready pieces. Only a few turn out to be gold nuggets, but ALL of my writing improves for the practice.
At the end of the year, I migrate this list to Evernote for permanent storage. So I start the year with just the manuscripts I will be working on and add new manuscripts as I complete the first draft.
6. Blogging
If you have a blog, you can use your bujo for managing your blog. I keep a simple list of blog post ideas and use my blogging platform for everything else.
Some bloggers prefer to use their bujo more heavily in blog planning.
You could consider adding collections for:
- blog topic ideas
- tags you use
- posting schedule
- a table of all blog posts
- page view statistics
- post sharing to social media
Need inspiration? Tiny Ray of Sunshine has an excellent post on organizing a blog with a bullet journal.
7. Your Work In Progress
There is a lot of information to track when you’re writing a manuscript: characters, settings, research, mentor texts, etc.
In a later post, I will cover this topic in more detail but remember that you can always make a collection to hold all the information about your WIP. Or a collection for a particular type of information about your WIP – like a character sheet or scene list.
Collections for Events and Projects
8. Book launch and marketing
Publishing a book is a big event in the life of a writer! It’s also a lot of work. There are a ton of things to do before and after.
Even though I Pray Today didn’t come out until September of 2018, I was already working on marketing in January. I made this collection to hold onto all the information about the book release – including these notes from a meeting with my lovely editor and marketing director.
It also housed the list all the things I wanted to do before the book released: a website overhaul, setting up a blog tour, etc.
Later, the blog tour got its own collection where I kept track of dates, topics, and posts. As I cleared details with my hosts, I checked them off: when we agreed on a date, when we agreed on a topic, when the blog post was finished and sent off. A blog tour is a lot of work!
9. Conferences and Workshops
When I plan to attend a conference or workshop, I make a collection to track all the pieces of information relevant to it: date, time, location, reminders, to do lists, etc.
I’ve already got a spread for SCBWI’s Wild, Wild Midwest 2019 with the date, location, and registration date listed. (our regional conferences fill up FAST.) Later I will add more information I need to keep track of: the sessions I register for, the hotel I’m staying at, dinner dates with friends, etc.
10. Author Events
Like a conference collection, this is a place to park all the relevant information: time, date, schedule of events, contact person, payment, etc. In October of 2018, I got to be a visiting scholar at Purdue University for four days. I used this collection a lot that week!
11. Project management
I’ve been writing a work-for-hire picture book series with the folks at Purdue University since 2016. Right now I’m in the middle of writing a second batch of books for the series. This deadline cheat sheet was so helpful for writing the first book that I copied it over into my 2019 bujo to keep it handy as I finish the next two.
12. Meeting notes
When I have meetings about my books (like the marketing meeting notes for I Pray Today above) or my contract work, I keep all the notes in my bullet journal.
When the meeting is scheduled, I make it a collection so I can jot down all the relevant information (time, date, location, etc.) On meeting day, it becomes a place to jot down notes.
Collections to Help Your Writing Grow
13. Books you Read/Want to Read
Most writers are also avid readers. If you aren’t, you should consider picking up the reading habit since it will improve your writing.
Many bullet journalers track the books they read or plan to read in their bullet journals.
I prefer to use Goodreads since it’s less time consuming to keep track of the 300 or so books I read a year.
If you have time fitting in reading, check out these six tips to squeeze more reading into your busy schedule.
14. Critique groups
A critique group is a fabulous thing! As a writer, getting critical feedback from fellow writers is one of the best things you can do for improving your writing.
I’m currently in three critique groups. That’s a LOT, and I need a way to keep track of it all. I give each group its own collection. In the header, I list the names of the members and the meeting schedule.
Each month, I jot down what I submit and list each member who submits. As I do critiques, I underline or cross off the names so I can easily see which critiques I still need to do.
15. Writing Challenges
I love writing challenges! They aren’t for every writer, but for me, they give me a push to achieve my goals.
I give each writing a challenge its own collection. Here I can write any relevant information like deadlines, websites, etc. And since writing challenges often require writing, I put that here, too.
There are a ton of writing challenges out there – you could easily spend all your time on challenges and never do any writing, so be choosy. Pick the challenges that bring you joy and help you achieve your goals.
I devised this spread last year to track my monthly progress in the 12×12 writing challenge. I write down the working title of each manuscript I write or revise as I complete them. When I watch a webinar and use one of the special submission opportunities, I check the box. It’s immensely satisfying to get to the end of the year and see this page all filled out.
I have a free printable bullet journal spread just for my fellow 12x12ers.
More Useful Collections
16. Social Media
Facebook groups, posting schedules, etc. If you need to track it, you can make a collection for it. There are some lovely examples like this one from Journal Tea.
She explains the spread in a blog post on managing social media with a bullet journal.
17. Books to Review
In 2018 I started reviewing books every month. As I was reading through the year, when I came across a book I loved I would add it to the list. I never had trouble coming up with topics!
18. Pen Test Page
It’s super annoying to write one page only to realize it bled through the page and now the backside is unreadable. Grr. You can prevent this by testing each new pen or marker before using it in your bullet journal. Bonus: if you fall in love with a pen or ink, you have all the information to buy it again.
Here’s the pen test page in one of my bullet journals.
Pen Test
When you flip it over, you can see how much bleed through and ghosting you get from your pen.
Note: Learn from my mistake. Don’t use the very last page, because when you flip it over, it’s against the dark cover, so it’s harder to tell how much ghosting you will get when it’s against a page. This year I’m using the second to last page.
Now that you know how to use Collections in your bullet journal, you can download my free printable. It has many collections pre-made for you!
Next time I’ll be sharing how I use a bullet journal to help me organize novel writing.
Love it! Very helpful and thorough!!
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So helpful!!!