Writing Tools: Freemind

I envy linear people.  It must be so easy to store and catalog information, making retrieval easier.  I am not linear.  I am a cluster.  As I think about plots and people, it is more like a pinball machine than an orderly progression of ifs, thens, and therefores.  Which is fine, but how do you hold on to every cluster of thought for use later when there is nothing linear happening up there?

Freemind.  Mind-mapping software.  It’s free.  Avail yourself immediately, my non-linear friends.

The entire TCR world is mapped out in there.  Willow’s birthday, parents, which of the loose factions she is affiliated with, the history of the New Republic of America…  Ven, Ianthe, their associations and histories.  Plus ongoing themes, ideas I want to explore.  Reference points, continuity hooks, random thoughts.  And no end to the hierarchies, subcategories, or configurations…

I use it for everything.  To help think about personal situations in a somewhat systematic way.  To monitor goals.  Whatever.  It is an infinitely flexible way to think on (virtual) paper.  I would be drowning in snippets and notes without it.  It is the secret to my sanity…  Well, that and a great deal of talking to myself.