Mind Mapping my organised mess - working well for less

My desk is a mess, a collection of memos, letters, reports and print-outs. My organized mess of work. You sure can't lose anything when you throw it on top of all that and somehow I like it that way.

To a certain degree, my thoughts are often jumbled up like that. Meshed together in a mess that at times may not be organized. And it is this chaotic string thoughts that I plan to organize in the coming weeks.

In my search for Mind-Mapping tools, I came across Get-It-Done's article "Manage Life with a Personal Dashboard" and it struck me with its simplicity and ability to organize chaos.

I've been using mind-mapping to map out ideas and minute meetings but I've yet to use it to manage my life by organizing thoughts and events and tasks. In my initial mind-map, I found that putting down my tasks and everyday work items into a visual form is fantastic. It allows me to see the amount of work, the number of tasks and relationship the tasks have with each other. Anything can be thrown into this mix and then organized into its own section or category. For now, I am trying hard not to complicate my current mind-map with unneccessary nonsense. Most projects start off well but get swallowed up in un-needed complexity that it grinds to a halt and ends up dead in the water.

Give this a try and see where it takes you. Free mind-mapping toosl you can use are FreeMind (Mac OS X, Windows) or MindNode (Mac OS X) or iMindMap (iPhone) or VUE.

Cheers!.

Technorati : Life, Mind Mapping, Organization, Tips, Work

Del.icio.us : Life, Mind Mapping, Organization, Tips, Work

Zooomr : Life, Mind Mapping, Organization, Tips, Work

Flickr : Life, Mind Mapping, Organization, Tips, Work

Read more...

How to choose the RIGHT language to write a novel.

Let's keep things simple. You want to write and you want to be published. So what language will you write in? It sounds like a dumb question and I can see some of you rolling your eyes and fidgeting in your seat; ready to flame my blog. But hear me out.

Language choice is a BIG decision, primarily because it can determine whether you would actually finish your novel/short story/article or love letter. Anyone can write, thats why we go to school. We learn to spell words and articulate our minds onto a medium called paper.

Yet, language will determine the feel of the story, the life of the story lies not in the writing itself (per say) but rather in the language used. Language determines the way the words are spoken by that invisible story teller, who sits in reading room of our mind and language moves us to think, to dream and to imagine.

Write in the language you think in.


If you think in Chinese, try writing in Chinese and so on so forth. Writing in the language you think creates flair in your stories. It just means, you have mastery over the language. By being a master of the language you can play with words and sentences and allow yourself to speak your mind. Remember, creative writing is about painting your mind onto a printed medium for people to read. Paint using the colors that you are sure of. Write in the language that you think in.

Now, there will come a time when you choose to write in a language you learnt..

Write in a foreign language if you want to reinvent yourself.


When I write in Bahasa Malaysia, my style changes. It becomes dead formal. My sentencing becomes rigid and it takes on an air of formality. Yet, when I do attempt to write in Bahasa Malaysia, I am not govern by the rules of the language because I don't know them. My writing takes on a flair akin to a mad-man ranting away nonsenses. So, if I ever want to write in Bahasa Malaysia, it'll probably be poetry or a compilation of short stories by inmates of the local asylum.

Write in the language you read in.


Writers are in part hugely influenced by what they read. We pick up a writer we love and in time our style matches them to a certain degree. We take on some of the way they sentence their words or speak their minds. My own style is (ironically) greatly influenced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of the Sherlock Holmes series, and lately by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Nicholas Sparks. These are the writers I read and they all write in English.

Write in the language you vocalize your stories in.


Writers need to be good story tellers. For example, imagine sitting in a coffee shop with your friends and it's your turn to tell them your story. You need to grab their attention, keep them hooked, allow them to follow the story, allow them to experience the characters. This imagery is the one I keep in my mind when I write my short stories. I imagine I'm telling the story to a friend. This is what I deem the Voice of the Writer. Every writer has their own unique voice. It's their fingerprint in the literacy world. We recognize each other by the way we speak on paper. So make it a point to try to translate how you vocalize your stories to people onto paper. Try to mimic the phrasing and sentencing onto paper and you'll find that your writing has taken on a new dimension.

So why are you still reading this? Go write something.

Read more...

Random Thoughts can lead to great stories..

I'm obsessed with my hand-phone. It is an integral part of my life and one of the most useful things it does for me, is to keep my thoughts. I get random ideas as I go about my business in the day and my hand-phone captures these thoughts. Some thoughts make it into my writings while others sit idle, bidding their time. But importantly, this frees my mind to constantly churn out ideas, thoughts or just pure nonsense.

Give it a try, turn your hand-phone into the scribe that captures your thoughts. You never know, that captured idea could be the next great story you will tell.

Read more...