I use three peices of software to write my novel and it's pretty much divided into the sages of writing - planning, writing and finishing.
Planning
The most flexible planning tool I find is Mind Mapping. Haven't heard of mind mapping? Mind mapping is a free association way of organising any sort of information together. You take a big, big sheet of paper and write your main focus in the middle, in my case "Miss Lyon", and circle it. Then you draw a line to another circle and write your next idea, thought, peice of information.
Now, I find drawing permanent lines on a peice of paper too restrictive. Some people use sticky notes instead, which works, but I'm a techie, so I prefer to use software to do it.
I'm using a free peice of software called FreeMind and it's good.
The learning curve was pretty simple (at least to do what I want) and I was up and running very quickly. You can type anything in a node, including web addresses, which is handy for research. Child nodes can be dragged and dropped onto other places.
Below is a screenshot for my Miss Lyon mind map. It looks good, doesn't it.
You can download your own free copy of FreeMind from its Wiki page. Let me know what you think.
2 comments:
I think that I wish I was an organized techie type of person that could enjoy using such awesome tools.
Alas, I am anolog by nature. I still cant switch the tv to dvd and then back to the dish. I have to beg the kid or husband to do it for me.
I feel pretty darn fancy/techie/challenged just using Word effectively.
Have a happy weekend and Valentines day!
Heya Lola, it's just as effective to do it on a wall with sticky notes. It's really the mind mapping stuff I find powerful.
Hope you had a great valentines day as well.
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