The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting 28 Sept 2010

Writer's Digest, December 2007, pages 46-49, have an article with the title, "Mapping Out Of a Block" by Greg Korgeski, Ph.D. This is basically an article about mind mapping or concept mapping. The basic notion is to let yourself record and organize words and phrases in a visual . Some people do it on paper, some people use whiteboards or Post-it notes, and there are various software programs available.

Greg starts by suggesting three guidelines for your idea mapping.

1. However you do it, think about convenience and aesthetics. Paper, sticky notes, software -- whichever works for you. It should be easily accessible, and fast and easy for you.
2. Do a brain dump. Some people start in the middle, with the keyword phrase your question, and then work out from there. Or you can just start putting ideas down, randomly scattering them. Circles, boxes, arrows, question marks, use whatever helps you to think. Write down all the bits and pieces you can think of related to your project or question.
3. Sort and organize. With a lot of ideas laid out, you'll start to see ways they fit together. Draw lines, use a red pen, move things around. Add labels to lines. Tinker with it until you've got clusters and some kind of sense. Relationships, patterns, connections often pop out of this.

Greg also suggests using mind mapping at different levels. He gives three examples -- a single piece of writing, a writing program, and thinking about your writing career. You can use a mind map to build an outline. Or when you've just got too many ideas for one piece of writing, lay out a program. Let the clusters on the mind map be multiple pieces. Finally, you might want to try mapping your writing career. Look at the things you'd like to write about, look at the things you've already written, look at your areas of expertise, and look at your dreams or goals or passions. What kind of a mind map, what patterns, and links, and points of intersection come up?

Some of the mind mapping software available listed in this article includes:

Curio http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/
final draft http://www.finaldraft.com/
mindjet mindmanager http://www.mindjet.com/
scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
supernotecard http://www.mindola.com/
tinderbox http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/

So here's a way to organize your ideas, using visual clustering.