A cartographer’s nightmare.

Mind mapping is a brainstorming technique used by artists, advertisers, programmers and members of countless other disciplines.

It’s a way to visualize connections among and between things.  It’s a way to chart the flow of a process, of a story, of an idea.

I like mind mapping and project management software.  For a while now, I have been partial to Personal Brain software—now, I guess, called just The Brain.  It’s a great way to tie together a lot of disparate items, allowing you to link to web pages, photographs and other files, notes, etc.

It’s fairly resource intensive, eating up your RAM and disk space, though, to say nothing of the overhead in maintaining it if you really want to use it well.

Still, I like it—if only for the pleasure of saying, “hold on a minute while I open up my brain.”

But I found a simpler, web-based mind mapping tool at bubbl.us.

It’s very easy to use with clear and simple directions.

So, get on over there and start planning your next novel.