I Need a Clone: Writerly To-Do List and Retreat Prep

Aaack! My to-do list includes so many Post-Its I need a list for all my lists.

Here are just a few of the tasks I must check off before leaving Saturday for the first leg of my journey to C's First Annual Vancouver Island Writer's Retreat:

1. Put out signs and sandwich boards for this weekend's church resale. Price and sort last-minute donations. Bake cake this am with a handful of other volunteers for the church's chicken ala king dinner this weekend. (This Canal Days tradition benefits church missions).

2. Finalize and submit critique group crits. (Judging by the growing length of my to-do list, I might end up doing these on the plane.)

3. Proof my Edge of the Forest articles before the June/July issue hits the cyber newsstands.

4. Decide on retreat workshop piece, make appropriate number of copies, and select potential projects to work on during the week.

5. Back-up my PC before traveling with it.

6. Print out boarding pass for the flight to Seattle where I'll spend the weekend with M, K and J before taking the ferry to Vancouver Island on Monday.

7. Pack enough clothes for nine days, raincoat and umbrella for the three-hour ferry ride, camera for whale sightings along the way, birth certificate for traveling across the border, notebooks and voice recorder for journaling and brainstorming, backpack for day hikes, pleasure books (including my current read, The Book Thief) and craft books (including Natalie Goldberg's The Essential Writer's Notebook and Noah Lukeman's The Plot Thickens.)

8. Create a detailed schedule for P so he knows where each of the girls needs to be while I'm away.