Keck shares an incomprehensible mind map for some reason. (It includes an irrelevant and toothy monster)
For the last few weeks, I’ve been dealing with mainly small problems in my current novel. (Though some felt large at the time).
When I hit a larger problem (mostly just to keep my mind locked around it), I’ve been using two old tricks. The first (one I don’t often use, actually) is just to start typing my thoughts as quickly as I can think them.
When I teach kids to solve problems and generate ideas, I’ll sometimes throw this at them under a variety of guises, and it can work.
My favorite, however, has long been “mind mapping”. I’m a natural doodler and I like to be able sketch out connections. I find that even the doodling itself helps to keep my teeth in the problem as I worry away at it. My mind maps are often loaded with sketches and almost always dabbed with blobs of grey and colour.
I had a good old-fashioned half hour bash at a plot problem today and, for the heck of it, took a picture. That’s the image heads this post. The one in the pic is actually pretty simple. I started to find a vein of connected ideas that seemed to work for me. But, it’s a big piece of paper and much of the ink is blue.
So there. Now you know.
David Keck 