Mind mapping a story

I recently completed a writing course by C.S. Lakin called, "The 12 Pillars of Novel Construction - Your Blueprint for Building a Strong Story". It was excellent and I recommend it to anyone who is putting a book together.

I have mentioned in the past that I'm still in the learning stages of being a writer. If it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to be an expert, I figure I'm half way there. So I found this course to be great since I had written enough to understand where she was going,  but still learned a ton of  new information along the way.

One concept she introduced to me is the idea of "Mind Mapping". She described how she does it and it's one of those processes that everyone does a little different and there really isn't a wrong way to do it. I'll tell you how I did it, but you will work out your own way I'm sure.

I bought a piece of Coraplast about 24" x 18". Any business store sells them for making light weight signs. A piece if bristol board would work too. I used Coraplast so I could reuse it.

Now, either by drawing directly on the board, or using coloured sticky notes as I did, map out your story. Create a spot,, near the center, for each of your primary characters and put your ideas for your story on the board in a way you can move them around. Draw connecting lines between characters and plot points. As you go along, you will begin to see patterns form and linkages come together. You can add little character traits (or flaws) and connect them to the character.

I'm very much a pantser, not a plotter. However, my current WIP is more complicated than any of my previous projects and I find my Mind Map helpful with keeping the story moving forward. All those ideas that coming floating from The Muse at inconvenient times can be jotted down and placed on your Mind Map and then moved to the correct place later.

Each time I sit down to write, I start by looking over my Mind Map to orient myself in the story. I'm just doing the first draft now, so when I beging to edit, I'll keep my Mind Map handy to ensure I can keep the story flowing in the way as I want it and that I don't forget any of the tidbits The Muse sends me. Also, I'm finding it is keeping me on track as I work through the middle of the story. As many of you know, this is where writers go to die.

Hopefully this is something you find helpful.

Happy writing.

Writing during a pandemic ...

I'm sure, like many  of you, I'm spending more time on social media than I should. My socil media "flavour of choice" is Twitter. I have been tweeting since 2008, back when dinosaurs still ruled the earth. I started during the Arab Spring movement since I found it interesting what the journalists on the ground had to say versus what was published in the news. I also find there are more writers on Twitter.

I need to share a tweet I saw a couple of days ago. "This is a leap year, so Feb has 29 days, Mar has 300 and April is 5 years." I know how they feel and I bet you do too. Staying at home is necessary but it isn't a whole pile of fun.

As I mentioned before, I live in a small town where getting out for a walk, and maintaining social distancing is quite easy. If you can doo this, please do. It's good for you. However, as my wife and I finish up our 5th week of working at home, I'm finding I'm getting a little shack wacky.

I have more time to write (and still get my work done) however, I feel I'm getting flat creatively.  I do have a semi-productive solution that I'll share with you. It works for me and it might work for you as well.

Since I've never had the opportunity to write full time, I have a tendency to work on several things at once. I keep a couple of journals just to record random ideas and thoughts so that I don't forget them - I have a good memory but it's short and we all know that ideas can come from anywhere and at anytime.

Sometimes, some of these ideas connect together and then I start a journal for that specific story and all the ideas related to that story go in there. Finally, I have one manuscript that is officially my work in process (WIP).

So with my WIP, I push that along in the journal until the story gets to a rudimentry form, almost a skeleton of the story with a few bones missing. This is draft 0.25. From here, I write with pen and paper to get a first draft in place. I think of this as draft 0.5. Finally I type draft 0.5 into my lapyop to create my first draft.

I'm not the type of writer that can do a completed manuscript in two drafts. Not my talent, might not ever be. I write and polish and add and edit and cut and add again until I'm done - at least as far as I can go, with the talent I have. Manuscript three and four are in that state at the moment. Once I go back and rewrite on more time, I need to find an agent willing to help me go forward to get these published.

So, what I'm saying is that I purposely have several places to work on my writing, depending on how sharp I feel. Sometimes I work on new stuff, sometimes I just type draft 0.5 into the laptop. Each is a necessary part of the writing process for me and it allows me to do something productive regardless how sharp I feel at the time. If you are working at your writing part time, this may give you an option to do some writing regardless.

Be well and stay safe.

Working from home - it's not as easy as it looks!

So we have all been working from home for about 3 weeks to a month - depending when you started to self quarintine - and I think we are all getting a bit shack happy. My wife is working out of her office upstairs and I have set up in the dining room.

Things are going reasonably well, for example she hasn't killed me yet, but I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to stay motivated.

I'm of an age that I grew up "going to the office". Even in my surveying days, I went to the office before going out to do whatever survey job we were doing. Since switching over to real estate about 28 years ago, I have always had an office.

My wife always worked from the office. She is an introvert by nature, but she is missing her friends at the office. I guess everyone is going through this in one way or another.

Work full time at home is a challenge. Sometime in the next few years, I plan on retiring from my current position and becoming a full time writer, so I'm trying to see this as good practise. For example, I have already learned that I will need to find a spot to where the cats can't help (see Luna helping in the above photos). What is it about cats and notebooks or keyboards. Merlin, Luna's brother, likes to help my wife by sprawling across her keyboard, or just walking across it causing all sorts of havoc.

Now before anyone says anything, my recognize that my problems are so very small compared to some people. None of my family are front line workers, their jobs are safe, and they are as safe as any of us are. We have enough money and we can pay for our food and homes. Anything after this, is really just a bonus.

Like my previous blog I reiterate for everyone to try to help out where you can, even if it's just a kind word of thanks to a grocery store clerk or a thumbs up and thank you to a front line worker. If you can, support a local restaurant by getting some take out. Try to down load some music or buy a book on-line. Everything you can do will help.

This pandemic is going to change us all, much the way 9-11 did. This time I hope it changes us all for the better. Be safe, be healthy.