Clustering. Mind-mapping. Brainstorming.
Whatever you want to call it, I LOVE it. I did my first clustering exercise today, and even though my inner editor tried to slow me down, I think it was a success. I think that the more I become comfortable with this tool, the better it will be.
I cannot believe I’d never used this tool before. I’d certainly heard of it, but somehow I didn’t make the connection as to how it could work for me. This will allow me to be free-er in my writing. I am still working on the concept of the infamous shitty first draft. I had this idea in my head that the document that I labeled “first draft”, had to ultimately resemble a publishable manuscript. I took the long scenic route to the realization. A “first draft” can range anywhere from a bunch of notecards wrapped with a rubber band, to a 200K opus. It is ground zero. It is the starting line. It is the story translated from head to paper. And once it is on paper, you the writer, shape and mold it until it ready for you to let it go out into the world.
