How do YOU use mindmapping software?

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Glen: You might be interested in some old software called Papel, which is a kind of mind map with text involved when you click on the icons. Years ago, I had lots of fun creating my own icons; this has just the right amount of difficulty and internet-crawling to keep you away from writing for hours.
http://papel.teiru.net/papel/index.html

I've been saved from even more time wasting! (I admit to being a software junkie)

Papel looks wonderfully complex and obtuse, a sort of tweaker heaven but while the web site is still up, the download links are inactive.

[BookCat]

Glen: I was puzzled by your comment so went to the site and tried to download the installer. I had no problems.

This program has long been abandoned, but it still works.

If you trust this site, it's also available at Softonic:
https://papel.en.softonic.com/?ex=BB-527.1

I'm currently using it on Windows 7

[GlenBarrington]

Hmm, I couldn't get the DL link to work. I think I'm gonna leave it at that! I've just done a purge of my Desktop to get rid my curiosity downloads. I really, REALLY, want to finish this novel. It might actually make sense this time!

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by gmw

Sometimes? The secret benefit of all this "writer help" software, blogs, books and courses is guilt reduction. We writers will always find ways to procrastinate, but normal methods of procrastination - things that have nothing to do with our craft - leave us feeling dejected and guilty. Enter "writer help" in all its forms. Now we can waste as much time as we want but still feel good about it because it all - seems to be - part of honing our skills, developing our craft and expanding our tool-set.

Those phrases may sound familiar to those of you who have been on management training courses. It's the same principle: guilt-free time wasting.

You're right, of course.

I've been playing around with screenplays (mostly short screenplays, which are almost worthless except for the fun of writing them). During this last year I've been learning, and practicing, and perfecting how to write screenplays in a text editor (Jstar using the Fountain format) and saving them to PDF or formatted text from the CLI (command line interface). Very proud achievement! And it doesn't matter that free screenplay writing software is available (KIT Scenarist is pretty amazing for free) and that it would do all this with a nice WYSIWYG front-end — it's the "challenge" that counts! Meanwhile, I think I've written about two or three short scripts all year.

To be fair, however, the only reason I started fooling around with screenplays in the first place is because I liked the way ScriptThing (later Movie Magic Screenwriter) worked. It made writing fun. I've probably written three or four hundred of these things — all pretty much a waste of time (used to post them on the screenplay newsgroups). But I've enjoyed myself, it's fun writing short stories in screenplay format.

[gmw]

Of course my previous post was partly - but only partly - tongue-in-cheek. The only way to find useful (to you) software is to hunt around and try things. ... It's just that it's so easy to lose vast amounts of time in the process.

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Hmm, I couldn't get the DL link to work. I think I'm gonna leave it at that! I've just done a purge of my Desktop to get rid my curiosity downloads. I really, REALLY, want to finish this novel. It might actually make sense this time!

Good luck with it. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel really is the way out!

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by gmw

Of course my previous post was partly - but only partly - tongue-in-cheek. The only way to find useful (to you) software is to hunt around and try things. ... It's just that it's so easy to lose vast amounts of time in the process.



Good luck with it. Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel really is the way out!

So . . .I should just move towards the light? Gramma? is that you?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

So . . .I should just move towards the light? Gramma? is that you?

When I said "the way out" I didn't mean quite that far out.

[BookCat]

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rcentros

You're right, of course.

I've been playing around with screenplays (mostly short screenplays, which are almost worthless except for the fun of writing them). During this last year I've been learning, and practicing, and perfecting how to write screenplays in a text editor (Jstar using the Fountain format) and saving them to PDF or formatted text from the CLI (command line interface). Very proud achievement! And it doesn't matter that free screenplay writing software is available (KIT Scenarist is pretty amazing for free) and that it would do all this with a nice WYSIWYG front-end — it's the "challenge" that counts! Meanwhile, I think I've written about two or three short scripts all year.

To be fair, however, the only reason I started fooling around with screenplays in the first place is because I liked the way ScriptThing (later Movie Magic Screenwriter) worked. It made writing fun. I've probably written three or four hundred of these things — all pretty much a waste of time (used to post them on the screenplay newsgroups). But I've enjoyed myself, it's fun writing short stories in screenplay format.

You can write screenplays on Scrivener too I believe.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by crich70

You can write screenplays on Scrivener too I believe.

You can write them (and Scrivener comes with a screenplay template), but they suggest exporting to Final Draft or something like that for the formatting. I experimented with Scrivener for a while, specifically to see how it would handle the screenplay format. I was able to get the margins, etc., pretty close to standard.

There are two "permanent" Linux beta versions of Scrivener available for download on their site (if you look in their forums). For me Scrivener is too complex, but I know some people love it.