As @reneenouveau pointed out in her recent post, National Novel Writer's Month is nearly upon us, due to start November 1st. Just because you can't start writing yet, doesn't mean you should skip out on an important phase to get you started: planning.

Where to Start

There's a TON you can think about before you write your first word, and I'm going to show you a really good tool to help organize it all, or at least just get it all on paper: Mind Maps. These handy little globs of bubbles and lines are a great way to vomit a whole lot of ideas, thoughts, and concerns so that you can analyse what you're thinking.

For some, these are old hat. For others, you may not have used one since grade school, but they're incredibly powerful. They can help with just getting your thoughts out there, and provide a certain level of "pre organization" that can come in rather handy later on. They can help identify areas you may need to think more about, or help you decide which topics or ideas to tackle just by showing you where more of your thoughts reside.

If you're like me though, a single piece of paper just wont do. My mind goes ALL OVER THE PLACE, sometimes rather uncontrollably. Here's where a wonderful little website comes to play: MindMup. MindMup is a very simple, light and versatile mind mapping program that can help get the creative juices flowing. Here's an example of my own flow chart created with just a couple of the site's many available tools:

(Interactive Page Here - Right-Click and Open In A New Tab)

In the map above you can start to see where I have the most thoughts. I'm rather concerned about time management, since I'm juggling a lot of tasks. I also have a plethora of ideas to write about. I seem to have a pretty strong handle on how I'm going to promote myself, since those areas have few thoughts and the ones that are there are pretty concrete. It's really interesting to go back and look at your mind maps from a high level when you pause or finish them, to get an idea of what you're thinking.

What Should I Put In My Mind Map?

Anything! In mine, I started with general planning (or pre-planning), and didnt go too deep into a storyline just yet. You could just as easily take any of the points in a mind map such as mine and make them a new focal point. If you already have a world you want to write in, start there! Maybe you just want to flesh out a particular character's thoughts and motivations. Or, if you feel you have the whole story ready, you might want to focus on things like time constraints or daily plans to help you reach your goal.

Conclusion

MindMup is a powerful tool with plenty of keyboard shortcuts to keep you from having to click around, and integrates easily with google drive but has other storage options available as well. You can even collaborate with others!

So whether you already have a story idea but need to make sure it branches well, are worried about time management, or just need to get some thoughts and ideas out to see what might work and what might not, I strongly encourage you to make a mind map and see where it goes.

Happy Prepping!

Image Sources
[1], [2], [3]

All other images by me.

National Novel Writing Month is an annual creative writing project that takes between November 1st and November 30th. It challenges authors of any skill-level to participate and write a 50,000 word novel before the stroke of midnight on the 30th! You can begin thinking about your story now, but don't write until the 1st!

Find more information at the website http://www.nanowrimo.org/