Brain Dump

Mind Mapping for Blaugust (Brainstorming Week)

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Kicking off week number two of with the topic of (BRAINSTORMING) has been interesting as I’ve seen topics all over the board so far!  With that said I have been wracking the brain on what to write about today!

I get a lot of questions around my system of note-taking, my sticky notes, and how I’ve used them to map out whatever I’m writing.   So today’s post is all about brain dumping and mind mapping.

If you are anything like me I’m sure you at one point and time struggle with the idea of what to write when to write, how to write and why would I write! Whether it’s a blog post or book….that can be a big hill to tackle on where to start.  For me, I finally just made the plunge and started writing, and a few years ago jumped in with the #NANOWRIMO group which was crazy good for getting with other writers and learning from them.

This is really where my book idea came to life as I was challenged by other writers to just jump in and begin.  Even though I had no idea really where to start, or what things looked like at the time; I did learn a system and have enjoyed the process of getting to where I am today.

A lot of people don’t write a book or blog post as they simply don’t know how to start.  They possess the idea for a book or a blog, but they don’t know what to do with it. They possess an idea for a book, but they don’t know what to do with it. They can’t imagine how they get from initial idea to a published blog post or that finished manuscript which isn’t a small feat at all so don’t think I’m playing this down.

It wasn’t until I began using the “Brain Dump” method to get my ideas that were just floating around that space in my head, to the paper so I could have a visual.  Some call this mind mapping, but for me, this is just an old fashioned Brain Dump.  Whatever you like to call it doesn’t really matter, just the methodology and way it’s used. Brain dumping will take you from a few grand book ideas to a detailed book outline you can work from to make a manuscript.  This ultimately becomes the go-to place for when you need a guide to take you from start to finish of this novel you’ve dived into.

It’s funny how our brains work as we have an analytical and creative side, so mapping those ideas out for a book or blog post when thinking about that can be tough.  Basically, mind mapping allows you to bring the two sides of your brain together in one location so that all the thoughts and information are easily visual and accessible. Once you’ve learned how to wrangle those thoughts it’s time to take a look at the actual brain dump.  This is the point where the thought has to become a reality.  So….how do you make the brain dump happen?

My favorites and staples when writing is using a large whiteboard to map out my ideas and plot pieces of the story together.  My journal is always a go-to, though lately it’s littered with sticky notes from ideas I need to go back and form into the story section I need it in.  Another favorite is the sticky note and poster board which is always fun for me as you get to move the sticky notes around and write on the poster board as well.

Examples below of my “Plot Board” and “Whiteboard”

On the left is an old push pin board my wife used to use that is currently littered with sticky notes which are all major, and minor plot points of the book. On the right is a large whiteboard that I use frequently…again with the sticky notes.  Each of the sticky notes on the whiteboard represents a portion of the book such as chapter, plot, sub-plot, character info, etc and where they fit into the timeline of the book.  May seem bonkers but visually it has helped me write clearer, cleaner and faster then I ever had before.

Maybe this is a super writing nerd kinda thing, but this is very relaxing and enjoyable for me and that’s why I’m writing this post.  I’m hoping this sparks some ideas for you as well and lights a fire so you can get to moving on that great book idea you have.

Think of the brain like this and hopefully it will help you picture what needs to happen.

Brain Dump Process

  • Creative Right Brain is where the ideas flow from and all the magic happens.  The fun stuff clicks on this side of the brain.
  • Analytical Left Brain is where the organization of all that creative material you just dumped to the paper happens.  This is where the structure of the book comes from and where your – table of contents and outline of the book will look like.

If you’ve lined everything out and keep a good record of the book and use this process then you can produce some very detailed information and great chapter outlines for your book.

Now let’s look back at the Sticky Notes and how they will help you map this book out. This is the easiest way to make a mind map of your book.

My Favorite Mind Mapping Process:

  • Grab yourself a large poster board or poster boards, or even a large whiteboard will work. Get yourself a big stack of sticky notes….multi-colored is what I like to use as I color coordinate topics to specific colors.
  • Take a single sticky note in the middle of the poster board and write your topic on it, or a book title, just depending on what you are working on.
  • Write all the related topics you can think of on sticky notes and place them anywhere on the poster board.  Sounds like chaos I know, but don’t worry about where you place them, or about organizing them, unless you are absolutely sure the topics relate to one another.
  • Fill the board with as many topics as you can possibly think of as this is the “Brain Dump” phase and when you think you’re done, look again as you will more than likely come up with more topics after taking a break, or a step back.
  • At this point, I like to take a picture of the board for reference purposes in case I have to take a break or get pulled away for something.  They are called sticky notes, not permanently held in spot notes.
  • Ok now comes the organization of the topics.  The analytical side of the brain is ready to be worked right? Look for related topics. Pick up the notes and move them around. Take a close look at what you have grouped together as they just might become the chapters of your book. More than likely, this will be the groups with the most information lumped together.  Just remember this is your book and your board so move things around how you feel fits best, and don’t be afraid to break apart groups into multiple chapters if one is too large. Just make sure you use a different colored sticky note to mark that chapter and don’t forget to name the chapter.
  • Use each of the sticky notes you have grouped together under a chapter as a sub-topic that you want to write about in that chapter.  This is where the fun begins as writing guides and book maps are a must at this point.  Sub-plots of a story can make things confusing if you don’t.

Hopefully, these few tips and my insanity have sparked some creativity for you all.  Mind mapping for me is a blast and brings a lot of enjoyment to my writing.  It takes a lot to get a story from your brain to that paper.  Sit down, start slow, find something that works for you and enjoy the process of making the next best book or blog post!

Should I Blog & How Often Do I Post?!?

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WHOA Blogosphere, it’s the day before BLAUGUST!!!!  Who’s excited for tomorrow?  The pre-show has been amazing to see as the event hasn’t even started yet and everyone is booming ideas, posting some crazy cool stuff, and brainstorming like mad!

Here is to a PHENOMENAL month of creativity, connecting with new friends and blowing the doors off the interwebs with great content.

So….as we come down to the final hours of prep week, here is my small contribution going into the event.  It’s all about scheduling, should I blog, and how often do I post….which are all major questions for anyone who has ever stepped foot into the arena of blogging has had flash through their brain before!

Do you have an insanely busy schedule but love to write and throw those thoughts on a blog?  This post is going to break down four simple steps I’ve used for years which have helped me stay organized “CHAOS” and allowed me to do what I enjoy….WRITE!  For years I struggled to find time to write and get anything past a draft status at most.  Why you might ask….well I’m a family man and as much as I love writing, I love my family more!

I’m a husband, and father to ten year old triplets….yes TRIPLETS 🙂  I have two boys and a girl who stole my heart the moment I got to see them.  Ten years ago I had to figure out how to prioritize life, my writing, and “Adult” all those things that were needed from me as a husband and father as well.  Writing being one of my biggest passions I had to put a system in place that allowed me time for all of what life was calling, and time is the one thing we don’t get more of.  24 hours in a day and it’s so easy to fill all those time slots up if we aren’t careful.  OK, enough about me and more about these four steps I talked about earlier. It took quite a long time to get a system down of when I wanted to post, what content I wanted to do, and that system isn’t perfect by any means but it works for me, and I’m hoping it might help you as well.

It takes a lot of hard work to develop something creative that you love doing, even if it’s just a hobby, you wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t love it…or I wouldn’t at least.

Hopefully these steps will help you outline some ways to condense the long hard efforts it takes to create content for a blog.

#1 Should I Blog, What Content, and How Often? 

First up is figuring out if you really want to blog and you are the only one who can answer that.  I would encourage you to experiment with it and see what might work for you.  Also, if blogging is something you want to pursue ask yourself exactly how much content you want to produce in a specific amount of of time.  Are you shooting for a daily post, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly per say.  It doesn’t matter how much you want to post or how often you post….what matters is what works for you.  Best advice I can give you on this is preset yourself a bit and plan out what you want so you give yourself enough time to research and pull material together. This will help so that you aren’t overloading the plate and playing catch up everyday.  I’ve been all over the board before….daily, weekly, etc and it was all due to my schedule and making those priorities fit together. So plan accordingly for yourself and you will have a lot more fun blogging.

#2 Categories, Categories, Categories!

Now that you know how many posts you need to write, come up with some working categories so you have a good idea of what you are going to be working with.  Pinpoint what you want to write about and keep those categories current so that multiple topics can be posted to one category.  If you only have a certain amount of posts you can publish in one month, you have to be selective on how you spend that time. That ultimately means some ideas go to the chopping block and some may get stowed away for a rainy day.

#3: Challenge The Organizational “CHAOS” Skills.

Now that you have your ideas formed and categories made, you may be wondering how on earth am I going to get all this organized and finished like I want.  It can be chaotic at times I know…. trust me I know.  I have triplets remember 😛

Organization, Organization, Organization.

Check the inventory every once in a while and see if you’ve got so much material planned you honestly can’t meet the timeline you originally had.  Don’t be afraid to cut back, and chop chop some things if needed.  A couple of key things to remember here are….

  • Research: How much time do you need for researching topics? Will it take a considerable amount of time, or is this something I’ve already got ready to go? This step can save you a ton of time and frustration if you will do it. .
  • Content and Format: Some posts are more difficult to write than others. This can be a huge frustration if not planned out well as you can spend hours getting things formatted, planned, and ready.  Do you have five posts lined up back to back that are heavy topics and take lots of research?  If so, scramble that schedule up and space those suckers out a bit.

#4 Take the Time to Review and Schedule

Take a gander at what you’ve written before you hit that submit button.  Does it play out like you want, or does it look like someone dropped a bag of scrabble letters?  It’s always nice to have things pre-planned out, but I also know that’s not always possible.  Scheduling blog posts throughout the week or whatever timeline you create is very challenging.  You put a lot of hard work into writing this content so make sure you enjoy what you’ve done.  Enjoy the process, and have fun with creating the content you are passionate about.  Once you get that down….get those posts scheduled for whenever you choose, rinse, and then repeat all four steps for next time.

I’m super stoked for the event and watching all of you blow the doors off of this years Blaugust!

Have an amazing night!

Cheers,

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Mind Mapping a Novel

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Writers-Block

Are you struggling to start your book?  I struggled with this idea for a long time before I dove into the deep end of the writing pool, and then when I dove in it was a bit overwhelming and at times felt I was drowning.

Many people don’t write books because they simply don’t know how to start.  They possess an idea for a book, but they don’t know what to do with it. They can’t imagine how they get from initial idea to finished manuscript which isn’t a small feat at all so don’t think I’m playing this down.

It wasn’t until I began using the “Brain Dump” method to get my ideas that were just floating around that space in my head, to the paper so I could have a visual.  Some call this mind mapping, but for me this is just an old fashioned Brain Dump.  Whatever you like to call it doesn’t really matter, just the methodology and way it’s used. Brain dumping will take you from a few grand book ideas, to a detailed book outline you can work from to make a manuscript.  This ultimately becomes the go to place for when you need a guide to take you from start to finish of this novel you’ve dived into.

It’s funny how our brains work as we have an analytical and creative side, so mapping those ideas out for a book when thinking about that can be tough.  Basically mind mapping allows you to bring the two sides of your brain together in one location so that all the thoughts and information are easily visual and accessible. Once you’ve learned how to wrangle those thoughts it’s time to take a look at the actual brain dump.  This is the point where the thought has to become a reality.  So….how do you make the brain dump happen?

Well multiple ways, but my favorites are using a large white board to map out my ideas and plot pieces of story together.  My journal is always a go to, though lately it’s littered with sticky notes from ideas I need to go back and form into the story section I need it in.  Another favorite is the sticky note and poster board which is always fun for me as you get to move the sticky notes around and write on the poster board as well.  Maybe this is a super writing nerd kinda thing, but this is very relaxing and enjoyable for me and that’s why i’m writing this post.  I’m hoping this sparks some ideas for you as well and lights a fire so you can get to moving on that great book idea you have.

Think of the brain like this and hopefully it will help you picture what needs to happen.

Brain Dump Process

  • Creative Right Brain is where the ideas flow from and all the magic happens.  The fun stuff clicks on this side of the brain.
  • Analytical Left Brain is where the organization of all that creative material you just dumped to the paper happens.  This is where the structure of the book comes from and where your – table of contents, and outline of the book will look like.

If you’ve lined everything out and keep a good record of the book and use this process then you can produce some very detailed information and great chapter outlines for your book.

Now let’s look back at the Sticky Notes and how they will help you map this book out. This is the easiest way to make a mind map of your book.

My Favorite Brain Dump Process:

  • Grab yourself a large poster board or poster boards, or even a large white board will work. Get yourself a big stack of sticky notes….multi colored is what I like to use as I color coordinate topics to specific colors.
  • Take a single sticky note in the middle of the poster board and write your topic on it, or a book title, just depending on what you are working on.
  • Write all the related topics you can think of on sticky notes and place them anywhere on the poster board.  Sounds like chaos I know, but don’t worry about where you place them , or  about organizing them, unless you are absolutely sure the topics relate to one another.
  • Fill the board with as many topics as you can possibly think of as this is the “Brain Dump” phase and when you think you’re done, look again as you will more than likely come up with more topics after taking a break, or a step back.
  • At this point I like to take a picture of the board for reference purposes in case I have to take a break or get pulled away for something.  They are called sticky notes, not permanently held in spot notes.
  • Ok now comes the organization of the topics.  The analytical side of the brain is ready to be worked right? Look for related topics. Pick up the notes and move them around. Take a close look at what you have grouped together as they just might become the chapters of your book. More than likely, this will be the groups with the most information lumped together.  Just remember this is your book and your board so move things around how you feel fits best, and don’t be afraid to break apart groups into multiple chapters if one is too large. Just make sure you use a different colored sticky note to mark that chapter and don’t forget to name the chapter.
  • Use each of the sticky notes you have grouped together under a chapter as a sub-topic that you want to write about in that chapter.  This is where the fun begins as writing guides and book maps are a must at this point.  Sub-plots of a story can make things confusing if you don’t.

 

Ok now get ready to write as it’s going to take a lot to get that story from your head to paper so what are you waiting for?  Sit down, start slow, think it out and enjoy the process of making that next best book anyone has ever read!