Hi all,

Haven’t been around in a while, but writing and other duties have kept me very busy.  The first three chapters of Mandate are now posted for free reading at www.jackriston.com, under the New Projects tab.  I suppose I should say that all the existing chapters are posted, as there are only the three, although 4 and 5 are under construction and many of the others, yes…including the ending chapter…are pretty well mapped out.

It’s that “mapping process” that caused me to come back here again.  Like most, I was struggling with my story when I accidentally ran into an article about an Outliner program, a freebie, called KeynoteNF.  You can google it, if you’re interested.  Then, another one showed up called WhizFolders, which is not free, but is reasonably priced.  I’ll try to attach a screenshot of WhizFolders, if the Mr. Bearly will allow it.  

If you have never used an Outliner, it’s pretty much what the name implies, but with the ability to attach notes, links, descriptions, anything you wish, to your outline entries.  Then, you can insert new outline (“nodes” they are called) entries to your folder…move them around to be in any order you like….demote or promote them to make them “children” or “grandchildren” of other entries, or simply make them stand alone as separate entries.

This is an electronic version of the old paper outline, but I can’t begin to tell you how easily it lends itself to organization of your thoughts, snippets of conversation or narrative, storage of pictures, drawings, or whatever is going to be in your book.  Well worth checking out.

Another FREE piece of software I ran across is FreeMind.  This one is difficult to describe to someone who has never used MindMapping software.  You may simply have to go to Freemind.com, read the narrative, look at the screenshots, and view the video to see just what it can do for you.  However, the upshot of it is a free-form place to put notes and form relationships between items in your writing work.  Again, I’ve got a screenshot I’ll try to attach.

After just a couple of weeks of using these programs, I can tell you that I now can’t live without them….and, not just for writing purposes.  I’ve even put To-Do lists into WhizFolders, important numbers, addresses, family birthdays…in short, all of that “stuff” that I’ve had either in small Word files on the computer, or on sticky notes on my dry erase board above the desk.  

Organization is really scary sometimes, but I’m finding fewer and fewer excuses to get back to writing, and even finding enough time to come back here and add an article about these finds.

Hope these might be of some use to you!

Keep writing!

Jack Riston

www.jackriston.com