R.S. Hunter's Blog

Talk It Out: How I Chose What Project to Work On

Lately I’ve been going through a real rough patch with my writing. The world’s on fire so at times making the words happen is a struggle. But it’s been more than that too.

For a good portion of 2018 my mind has thrown every variation of “You’re a poseur writer” “You’ll never come up with any additional good ideas or concepts” “You basically had three ideas and you’ve done them already” at me.

Spoiler alert: even if it’s categorically untrue, it doesn’t make those thoughts hurt any less.

But then something happened that helped. I talked about my writing!

My wife Erin and I were taking our dog for a walk when I shared that I was beating myself up mentally. That by itself is a big deal.

And in the course of our walk-n-talk I described some of the works in progress I have…in the works. Again, this is also a big deal.

A detour if you will ’cause maybe some of you other writers feel the same way. Do you ever feel almost “ashamed” to talk about what your books are about? Especially with people like coworkers who either A) don’t know you’re a writer and/or B) don’t read/like your genre? And you’re describing what your book is about and it just sounds so, so silly and ridiculous and cringe-worthy? I don’t mean cringe-worthy in the sense that your book has problematic rep (though that’s always a possibility!), but just that somehow people will judge you for liking this kind of stuff, let alone creating it.

Wow okay, that’s a lot of shamebaggage to unload on you all. Solidarity if you feel the same way. Solidarity.

Anyway, I talked to her about some of my projects. And to my surprise she stops and says, “That sounds awesome!”

*record scratch*

What? One of my ideas sounds good?

We talked some more as we wrapped up our walk. And just that 15 minutes of discussion gave me such a boost. (It also helped that I put this particular project on the shelf after hammering out a very, very rough draft a little over a year ago). But still!

Talking about a project–highlighting what you want to do with it, the thing that got you excited about it in the first place–as a way of restoring your writerly morale. Who knew that would work?!

Of course, YMMV, but I’m so grateful that I have somebody in my life who will listen to me ramble about my ideas without judging how “cool” they are. And yes I mean cool as in the tool-cool-for-school-caring-about-things-is-for-losers kind of way.

If you’re looking for a way to quiet down those doubting voices, try talking.

 

Portland Snow – Feb. 20-22, 2018

Been snowed in and sick for most of the week. Made progress on the writing front despite losing and accidentally deleting a document that had material I wanted to use. All things considered I’m pretty pleased that I’ve written over 4,000 words this week.

Please enjoy a few pictures I took of the snow.

See you around, space cowboy.

 

 

Book Playlists and Why They Don’t Work for Me

The other day I saw a fun conversation going around about author’s creating playlists for each book they write. It was fascinating because I love hearing about others’ writing processes. It took me to Delilah S. Dawson’s fantastic post. (Seriously, go check it out) But it got me thinking: I’ve never created a playlist for any book I write. Why is that?

I opened up the ol’ Spotify and tried to put together a playlist for my current WIP. Right away, I ran into a problem: what sort of music works with a secondary world fantasy novel? An orchestral score of some kind? That’s not really my jam. I knew the mood of the book I’m working on. It’s a sword and sorcery novel starring an older woman who’s been around the world a time or two, who’s struggling to figure out what’s next, and how to do what’s best for her found family. And what happens when what you think is best doesn’t line up with what your family members think is best? Oh yeah, and there’s some political intrigue, some magic, annnnnd fantasy equivalents of weapons of mass destruction.

K. Cool. I got all that in my mind. How does that translate to music?

*shrug*

Fuck if I know.

Now to be fair, I gave into one of my worst habits: stopping when hitting a minor wall. I stopped trying to come up with a playlist for my WIP.

Now to be unfair (and let me rationalize), after I did that I saw down to analyze why the exercise was so difficult for me.

One: Spotify is overwhelming.

Spotify is great when you have a starting point in mind. You go to an artist (or an artist from an already existing playlist) and then you can explore the “Related Artists” and then just keep going. Plus Spotify shows you an artist’s top songs. Once you got a starting point, an initial artist for your book playlist, it should be relatively easy to keep adding to it.

But what if you don’t know where to start? You could potentially try searching some keywords and see what other user-generated playlists come up? But that just seems overwhelming. You could crowdsource this and ask social media? Again that just seemed overwhelming to me.

Okay, but that’s kind of a surface level rationalization. It’s one that with sufficient time and willpower, I could overcome.

But then I went a little deeper.

Two: I am a visual learner

I’m a much better visual learner than an auditory one. When I read something it sticks in my brain much better than if I’d listened to it. I don’t know why that is. That’s just how I work. If I need to learn something I like to read it or watch somebody show me how to do whatever the thing in question is.

How does that connect to writing and music and playlists?

I like to construct scenes visually as I write them. Sometimes I go so far as to draw out diagrams or blueprints of how a place looks and how the action occurs. That’s just how I process the information, and it helps me get it onto the page.

I love listening to music as I write, but! I do it more as a distraction. Strike that. Distraction’s not the right word. It’s more of a certain noise (pleasant noise! though some might call death metal unpleasant) threshold I like to have while working. Words or no words, the music gives me that background buzz.

It doesn’t matter what kind of scene I’m working on. I don’t connect the music to it. Sometimes I even put my headphones in and forget to turn something on. Just that slight dampening of real life helps me get into that creative space.

To Each Their Own

And now the thousand dollar question: should I try to connect my music to my writing more?

This is a bit of a cop out, but fuck if I know.

Part of writing is learning what process works for you and when to try shaking it up. If I was starting a new project or felt like I was in a creative rut, that feels like it could be the right time to try and change how I use music with my process.

But now? In the middle of a WIP in the middle of a series with one entry already done*? It doesn’t feel like the right time.

Maybe when I finish this draft and start on a brand new sci-fi novel I’ll try to find some killer synthwave music to work as a soundtrack.

Right now, I got some tunes to jam to and some ink to sling.

How ‘Bout You?

Writers, authors, heck even painters, illustrators, and other artists: how do you use music as part of your creative process? Does it help you find a mood for whatever you’re working on? Or is it more of a “block out the world” kind of thing? A combination of both? Or do you not listen to music while you create at all?

Oh and if you’re curious about what I’m listening to (please don’t judge me), I’m here on Spotify. And here is my greatest playlist.

Enjoy. Remember, no judging.

2017 Writing Year in Review

I saw this going around Twitter and Mastodon yesterday: lots of the writers I follow listing things they’d accomplished in 2017. I was happy for those who had a good year career-wise. But I didn’t want to try and compile anything because I was sure that I wouldn’t measure up by comparison. (Note to self: writing is not a zero-sum game. You don’t have to compare yourself to others in that way).

But then I made a quick spreadsheet, did the math, and had a moment of pleasant surprise. Turns out I wrote way more words in 2017 than I thought I did.

So inspired by Alex Acks’ format, here’s what I wrote/did in 2017.

Writing This Year

Novels: 2

I finished a draft of Red Magic* and Terraviathan. Both need to spend some time in the trunk, but they are finished drafts. They’re the first drafts I’d finished since mid-2015.

*Title subject to change

Total words: 257,500

This total was much higher than I thought it was going to be! I was barely expecting to break six figures. Considering everything that happened this year, I managed to put more ink on the page than I expected. It wasn’t until I started going through documents and adding them all up that I realized Holy dang, you wrote a lot of words! Is it the biggest total out there among all the writers I follow? Absolutely not! But that doesn’t matter. This word count total is mine, and I’m damn proud of it.

Publishing This Year

Queries: 0

Rejections: 0

Acceptances: 0

I didn’t submit anything in 2017, so no surprises there. Basically I knew I needed to finish new material before I could start the agent search again. Kace Alexander had some good advice on that front, in between trying to navigate floating platforms in Destiny 2.

Works Published: 1

I touched up The Exile’s Violin and my wife redid the cover (so good!!). And I put that thing back up on Amazon.

Life This Year

Jobs Changed: 3

I quit the job I’d been at for the past two years in March 2017. I started a new job in April and was laid off from that in September when the company got rid of over 10% of its workforce. I was unemployed for about a month and a half. Finally, I started my current job near the end of October.

 

Despite 2017 being a shitty year, I wrote more than I thought. And I’m going into 2018 with some very clear goals:

Finish this Song of Siya sword and sorcery book
Replot book 1 of aforementioned sword and sorcery book
Submit to agents again
Write a sci-fi novel. (It’s been too long since I’ve written about space ships n’ shit)
Stop being scared and go after what I want

That’s pretty much it. See you all in 2018.

How I Started a Writing Habit

Disclaimer :  This post is about how I, personally, started a writing habit. It’s not a writing every day sort of thing, but near enough. However, I know that this doesn’t work for everyone. Every writer has a different process, and this is not supposed to be prescriptive in any way. Ultimately, you gotta do what works for you! (And that may change from project to project)

I’m lazy. I have a tendency to take the path of least resistance. In some cases, that’s actually not a bad quality to have! When it comes to my writing… *handwaves and ehhhhhh noises*

I should do some writing BUT I just got home from work and I’m tired and I need to make dinner and take care of the dog and now it’s like 9 pm and I’m tired and the couch looks comfy and there’s a new episode of Chopped on and look at that now it’s bedtime I’ll just have to write tomorrow but I have that errand to run and well we can write the next day then okay yeah sounds good.

Repeat ad infinitum. The specifics of the stuff after the BUT would be swapped out depending on the day.

I’ve tried writing everyday before, but any time I’d fall behind I’d beat mentally myself up. That would create a cycle where writing just wouldn’t happen.

I tried creating spreadsheets to track daily word counts. And I set goals and deadlines. But again those didn’t work for me. I think they didn’t work because they didn’t account for time spent thinking and plotting. Those activities don’t always result in words on the page in the rough draft. Sometimes they are just thoughts. Other times they get written down as notes. But ultimately I couldn’t figure out how to work them into my idea of progress as measured by Excel.

So what changed? How do I now have a (probably premature to say this) successful writing habit?

I changed what counts as success. And I changed what I use to track progress over time.

Gamify Your Life!

Okay, annoying attempt at a marketing tagline aside, this helped. I’ve always been drawn to to-do lists, checklists, what have you. So I knew I needed an online way to do that.

Enter Strides.

Ignoring the marketing bullet points, Strides gave me what I needed; a way to:

a) set goals online with a variety of metrics to choose from

b) track progress

c) see that progress over time

Instead of just having a word count goal, I set up a “Writing X of Times per Week” goal. From past experience I knew trying to write 7 days a week wouldn’t work. I settled on 4 days per week. It’s a little over half, gives me a “weekend” off if I want it, and seemed–this is important–like an achievable goal.

 

There were no other strings attached to this goal. And even the name is a misnomer. The goal wasn’t necessarily writing four days per week, but just focusing on my work-in-progress on four days (non-consecutive even!) during a week.

Added a few paragraphs to a rough draft? Success!

Worked on an outline for later chapters? Success!

Spent an hour doing character sketches or some worldbuilding in a notebook? Success!

This system allowed me to place greater value on the creative parts of writing a novel, not just the “writing” part. And it worked! There were a couple of weeks, especially in the beginning where I was still building this habit, where I missed the mark. But right now I am at 20 consecutive weeks where I’ve hit that goal of working on my novel projects at least four times a week.

I’m using the free version of Strides, so it only keeps my data for small periods of time. But it works!

And now that I got that habit on its way to being entrenched, I added another goal. I did what had gone so wrong before: I created a word count goal.

For whatever reason, telling myself that rough drafts can be bad has finally stuck. This time my word count goal isn’t hindering my progress. If I write only add 50 words to my draft, I record that. It’s okay. It counts toward my 4 times per week goal, and it adds to my word count total.

Back to those Caveats

This post is what I found worked for me. Maybe something similar would work for you? Stride is (kind of) flexible so you might be able to add your goals to it. There are other gamify goal tracker to-do list apps too. For example, Cat Rambo references Habitica in this post. As a big ol’ RPG nerd, I’m definitely going to check it out.

And hey! Maybe none of these works for you. Maybe you don’t need a system to codify your progress, or you work better without a set schedule. I know Kameron Hurley’s talked about how she works well by writing in big chunks on the weekends.

Like I said before, experiment. Find out what works for you for that particular project. And good luck!

Addendum 8-1-17

Since I started this post, I’ve made a couple of changes to how I track my writing habit. I still use the “4 Times per Week” goal, but I’ve added a more traditional “Word Count Goal” as well. I did that because deadlines occasionally motivate me, so I set a goal to write 75,000 words before 8/31 in this hybrid outline/draft thing I do.

Ignore the Daily Goal part. That’s a bug in Strides that they’re fixing.

I think part of the reason why an “X Words by Y Date” goal worked for me this time is because I’d already spent months laying the groundwork. I built the momentum of writing every day, so I was able to set a word count goal without it causing me to shut down.

This is also a special case because I’m reworking an old draft. So I’m able to copy and paste large chunks of text in between new sections. This definitely inflated my word count, but *insert I don’t caaaaaaare gif here*

 

Unstructured Thoughts on the Tethys Chronicles

I had some thoughts about writing a series–especially over a long period of time–ever since Magen Cubed did a Twitter thread about this sort of thing. (I can’t find the exact one, but here’s one about “pulp” that’s great. Go follow her. And buy her books (superhero or fucky)! I wanted to do something similar, but I don’t know if Twitter’s the best venue for it. Instead, I’m going to write out some rambling, unstructured thoughts about The Exile’s Violin, its sequels, and my weird, tangled emotions about coming back to the series after a hiatus.

Basically my Tethys Chronicles books have had a long, complicated history. I wrote The Exile’s Violin while I was in college. Then, because I was young, dumb, arrogant I shopped it around. No agents wanted it. No big publishers wanted it (see comment about agents). So I “sold” it to a small, independent publisher. I made a little bit of money, but overall it wasn’t a good fit.

When the company went out of business, I got the rights back. I followed the advice of a few authors I knew and re-published it with another independent press. That was an even bigger disaster, and a lot of their decisions just showed how predatory and unprofessional they were. It really, really should have been a red flag that they used to be a vanity press before going “traditional.” HA!

Again see: impatience, youth, and arrogance.

It didn’t work out. By the time I got out of that contract, I had zero motivation to work on anything Tethys-related. In that time frame I’d also: gotten married to the love of my life and long-term girlfriend (*waves at her*), moved in with her parents for the 2nd time, quit a job with an abusive, manipulative boss, up and moved to Oregon in the middle of a blizzard, fallen into horrible debt, and then just now in 2017, finally started to get our lives on track. (We’re not even touching the 2016 election and onward, but holy shit that’s a whole clusterfuck of its own).

Long story short, it’s been over a year since I’ve wanted to even look at the Tethys Chronicles. But now, in the Year of Luigi 2017, I’m ready to finish this series through self-publishing. (Side note: wife has done an amazing job re: cover layout. I’m ridiculously excited to reveal it soon)

Well! That was 400+ words of preamble. Now we get to those “unstructured” thoughts.

It’s fucking weird to be rewriting/editing a novel you originally wrote in 2011.
I’m a different person than I was then
How much do I change to fit who I am as a person/writer now?
I “purposely” avoided “hard” swearing in Exile’s Violin, but now I want to include a fuck or two in the sequels. Is that “allowed”? I don’t know.
There’s so much shit that’s cringe worthy in the first book and this draft. I want to fix it all. But I won’t, on purpose.
I didn’t rewrite Exile’s for this third edition. Part of me feels like I need to “preserve it” because that’s what it was and that’s who I am when it first came out.
Do I have an obligation to preserving the “feel” of a series that’s only one book long? Can I experiment? Ultimately, these are my damn books, right?
All that aside, it feels good to be writing Jacquie and Clay again. It’s pretty easy to slip into their voices
I am excited for the direction this draft of Terraviathan is going. It’s going to be better than it was in 2011 and better than Exile’s
I’m also excited to self-publish this series. Is it going to be a best-seller? Probs not. But do I want it out in the world? Absofuckinglutely.
I hate the editorial notes for Terraviathan I got earlier that said Jacquie needed to be nicer. No. Fuck that. Why does a woman character need to be likable? Go read some Kameron Hurley or N.K. Jemisin and get back to me. Am I as skilled as them? LOL. No. But the point stands.
Part of this introspection–and anger–yes I admit it. I’m fucking angry about my series, about my mistakes, about my writing process, and about my fears, is inspired from K. C. Alexander. (Not that I’m mad at her) She reinvented herself and her writing in a way I wish I had the courage to. And while I’m at it. Go read Necrotech . Learn a thing or two about unlikable but got-damn compelling protagonists. Then read the sequel when it comes out.
Don’t really have a 13th thing. Just wanted to end on that note.

So there ya go! Messy as heck thoughts about The Exile’s Violin, writing, and where this weird little steampunk series is going. Hope you stick with me!

The Exile’s Violin 3rd Edition in the Works

It’s been a little over a year since I wrote this post about the future of my Tethys Chronicles books. I needed that time to distance myself from the series and the ridiculousness of PDMI. (Seriously, I count myself lucky getting out when I did. It could have been much, much worse)

I used the past year to work on a few different projects. Unfortunately I haven’t sold any books or landed an agent in that time. But if I’m being honest, I don’t consider this time wasted at all.

What I’ve Been Up To

Since May 2016, I worked on trying to get an agent for The Song of Siya series. Got real close, but no cigar. The feedback I got from the agents who requested to read Gifts of the Earth made me realize that the book is just too damn complicated. It’s got like two separate origin stories/starting points, and three or four different storylines all jammed into about 90K words.

So The Song of Siya got put on a shelf temporarily. My plan is to split my current manuscript into two separate books and go from there. I have three definite novels planned out for that series with a fourth that’s still germinating.

Also in that year I worked on Red Magic (title not yet confirmed). It’s a story of magic and blood set against the backdrop of a revolution. Think a fantasy version of the Holy Roman Empire where the Protestant Reformation didn’t happen mashed up with the French Revolution / Revolutions of 1848.

I finished a rough, very rough draft of that and set it aside because it’s not the book I want to write right now. It’s got good bones, but there’s just something off with the characters and the ending. It needs to marinate for a while out of sight, out of mind.

Coming Back to Jacquie’s Story

And part of the reason why I put Red Magic aside is that back in February of 2017, I had an epiphany. I knew exactly how I could fix the issues I encountered when revising Terraviathan. As soon as that happened, working on the Tethys Chronicles again was all I could think about.

This is just a very long-winded way to say: I’m going to self-publish a third edition of The Exile’s Violin with new formatting and a new cover! My wife’s handling the cover layout, and she’s done a phenomenal job!

I’ll post the official, third edition cover as soon as she finishes it.

And that’s not all! I’m also smack-dab in the middle of rewriting Terraviathan.

The feedback I’d gotten on it in the past was helpful, but I struggled to weave it into the story. And then in February of this year it hit me–the perfect solution. It was a great fit, but I’ll need to rewrite a lot of the book. Not a problem! It needed to happen anyway, but I wasn’t in the right headspace to do it when the book was under contract with the previous publisher.

TL;DR

The Exile’s Violin is coming back! Third edition, woo! New cover layout, tweaked art, and new interior formatting.
Terraviathan is coming too! I’m working on revisions as I type. (Not literally because I’m typing this post.) It’s too early to set a release date, but my guess is late 2017 or early 2018.

Catch y’all on the flipside.

How I Learned to Give Scrivener a Chance

I’ve long been a holdout on the Scrivener front. I tried a free demo over a year ago, and I immediately bounced off the steep learning curve. Then in 2016 I bought a license when it was on sale during NaNoWriMo. I tried to use it–this time trying the introductory/training materials–but again I just couldn’t do it. I was too in love with my personal wiki for worldbuilding and Microsoft Word for writing my drafts.

It took a few tweets–with screenshots–from author John Hornor Jacobs for me to see how Scrivener could combine my worldbuilding and drafting documents into one program.

Armed with this knowledge, I dove back into the UI monster that is Scrivener. The program comes with some pre-made templates, but with a little bit of Google-Fu, I found out that you can import templates into Scrivener.

I found a few templates that were organized and had folders for worldbuilding, for outlines, and for rough drafts. As soon as I saw that, I had a faint inkling of hope–that this could work. That maybe this time I could at least get into Scrivener long enough to give it a fair shake.

So here’s what I did in case anybody’s in a similar situation.

Import Template

With Scrivener, you can create templates that can be used across different projects. So with some quick Google Fu, I found some templates I wanted to try.

Once you’ve downloaded a template you want to use (save it to somewhere easy to find like your desktop), go ahead and import it into Scrivener. Start a new project and then import that template under the options menu.

Import Word Docs

Once you have a template you like, there’s another crucial thing you need to do. If you’ve worked with Word documents in the past, copying and pasting into Scrivener is going to be a pain in the ass. You’ll definitely want to get accustomed to “paste without formatting” which on Windows is CTRL + SHIFT + V. (Mac I think is just APPLE + SHIFT + V).

But also Scrivener lets you import documents so you have them as part of your “collection.” Go ahead and import any Word docs you’ve used as your worldbuilding documents, outlines, or drafts. Once they’re in Scrivener, it’ll be a lot easier to copy and paste their stuff into your Scrivener files based on the template you’ve imported.

Go to Town

Once you have everything set up, all that’s left to do is to go to town! Personally I love working with the “vertical split” option enabled.

That way I can have my current chapter open in one half of the window with my applicable worldbuilding or outline files open on the right half of my screen. Yes you can do this with multiple Word files, but what I’ve come to enjoy with Scrivener is that all of this is accessible within the same program.

Keeping Track of Your Worldbuilding Part 3: Wikis

Last week. month. year. ohmygodit’sbeentoolong time, I covered mind maps as a tool for fantasy and science fiction writers can use to keep track of their worldbuilding. And we’ve already covered plain ol’ Word documents. Now we come to what I currently use: personal wikis.

You know Wikipedia, right? Or maybe you have a favorite show or video game that maintains a wiki? Then you’re familiar with the concept.

This method is like creating your own encyclopedia, but trust me–it’s more fun than it sounds! (Or maybe I’m just a big ol’ dork. Probably that one)

Pros

Flexibility. There are different programs out there that allow you to create an online or offline personal, private wiki. Building it online may require some light coding/markup knowledge, but you’ll be able to work on your worldbuilding anywhere you have an internet connection.

I personally didn’t want to deal with any of that, so I went for the offline option. With a lightweight program, I was able to create a wiki and upload its folder to my Dropbox. (You can use other cloud storage services like Google Drive or iCloud too).

So while I need to have my wiki editor program installed on the computer I’m using, I’m still able to have almost all the portability offered by building an online version thanks to theeeeee cloooooooud.

Cross-linking is another pro for personal wikis. Each character, culture, continent, other things that start with “C” gets its own page in your wiki. And then the fun part! You get to link–same as you would with an internet hyperlink–between them.

So for instance, if I was making a wiki for The Tethys Chronicles, I’d make a page for all my notes and info about Jacquie Renairre. Then I’d do the same thing for her uncle Serge. I’d fill up his page with everything I’ve come up with for him (things that the reader may or may not ever see). I’d make sure to link his page to Jacquie’s, probably with anchor text that indicates he’s her uncle. Now you’re cookin’ with gas!

You get the idea. This is my favorite way to write down what I know about all the parts of my novel/world and not their relationships to each other without an overwhelming mind map that’s too big to use.

Cons

I already mentioned a potential con if you decide to create an online personal wiki–you’re limited by your internet access. You may be able to download an offline version of your wiki, work on it, and then upload it once you’re connected again. That would depend on the specifics of whichever platform you choose.

Another con–at least for the desktop wiki program I use–is that formatting options are rather limited. You can bold and italicize text, and there are a couple levels of “headers” so you can organize your info. However, color-coding isn’t really an option. This may be an issue for the more visual writers out there.

A Note About Scrivener

I know that some people use Scrivener to write their manuscripts and keep track of their worldbuilding at the same time. Great! That’s a completely valid approach. I’m not going to write about that option at length simply because I have very little experience with Scrivener. I purchased the program, have tried it on a couple of projects, and found it just didn’t fit my writing style. If it works for you, awesome! If it doesn’t then maybe some of the alternatives in my posts will do the trick.

 

Keeping Track of Your Worldbuilding Part 2: Mind Maps

Last time we talked about using multiple Word documents as a system of keeping track of your worldbuilding. For some, that system is the be-all end-all. I used Word documents to keep track of the worldbuilding for my first two novels. But over time, as the series went on, trying to work with multiple, often conflicting documents didn’t work.

So what’s another system authors can use to keep track of their worldbuilding? Mind maps.

Maybe you remember using them in school during group projects, probably when your teacher wanted everyone to brainstorm ideas.

Simply put, they’re just a visual way to represent ideas, concepts, and the connections between them.

Pros

So how does this help you keep track of your fantasy or science fiction universe? It can let you group important aspects of your worldbuilding together, color code them, add notes, and then show their connections in a visual way.

There are a lot of free programs out there, but the one I used the most is XMind.

I used a mind map while writing Terraviathian, the unfinished third book in the Tethys Chronicles, an unpublished sword and sorcery novel, a fantasy novel, and partway through an urban fantasy novel. I got a lot of mileage out of my mind maps.

With just a little bit of effort I was able to list characters on one side of the mind map while charting all my countries, cultures, locations, whatever on the other.

Plus color coding!! Using color to group certain things together appealed to the organizational freak within me. And it looked pretty.

Cons

It sounds like mind maps are the perfect choice for the budding (or experienced) author trying to keep track of their worldbuilding, right? To that I say “Maybe…?” and offer you a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally, my mind maps got more and more elaborate as I used the same file for multiple books in a series. As I added more and more stuff to them, they got too big for me to handle. There were hundreds of entries, and some of them became outdated as I wrote. So I tried to mark them to separate them somehow. Or others were placeholders. And there were duplicates. Plus I wasn’t sure where to put info sometimes. Did bits about the history of a city belong in the “Locations” section or in the “Culture” section?

Maybe you’ll have better luck tackling these issues. Or maybe you won’t put so many entries in a single mind map.

I’ve moved on from mind maps, but maybe they’re just what you need!

Come back next week whenever I get around to writing the next installment about…wait for it… personal wikis!