I came across Visual Thesaurus completely by accident. I was looking for software that would help me organize the chaos in my mind. I know, not an easy task but a lot of my good ideas get lost in all the muck my mind produces. I didn’t find anything that would work for me, mostly because after I found this thesaurus software I got caught up in exploring what it does different than my processors software. I found a thesaurus indispensable when actively pursuing the writing craft. We all have a tendency to use the same words over and over. By varying words that mean the same thing it can help creative writing come alive and a thesaurus can spark the mind into developing great metaphors.
What’s interesting about this software is how it displays the associated words. A long time ago I found a book by Gabriele Lusser Rico, Writing the Natural Way. The Tag line reads: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers: Clustering, Recurrence, Re-Vision, Image and Metaphor, Creative Tension, The Trial Web, Language Rhythm. It is a good book on unleashing stifled creativity through specific applied techniques. The only reason I’m mentioning this book is that the Visual Thesaurus software is using the clustering technique to display associated words.
The image is from Visual Thesaurus and they are clearly using the clustering technique, a visual display of like-meaning words, though not in quite the same way as in Rico’s book. Clustering, according to Rico, is a magical key to unlocking the secret reserves of imaginative power. It’s the first step to bypassing the logical, orderly Sign-minded consciousness to touch the mental life of daydreams, random thoughts, remembered incidents, images, or sensations.
Clustering is a nonlinear brainstorming process akin to free-association. It makes an invisible Design-mind process visible through nonlinear spilling out of lightning associations that allows patterns to emerge. Clustering is a writing exercise that accepts wondering, not-knowing, seeming chaos, gradually mapping an interior land-scape as ideas begin to emerge.
The image was taken from Rico’s book (click on the image for a larger view) and while clustering isn’t about finding a different or better word to use when crafting a story, the concept can be applied to what the Visual Thesaurus does provide. It may excite your senses enough to spawn new ideas for a story or merely offer other word choices. The software includes a definition for the main word and the little red dots also provide definitions of the words connected to them. They have a free demo. I’ve placed the free lookup search above my posts because it’s a cool tool and I liked the idea that my readers can search from my blog. It will take a few seconds for the word search to open but it’s worth the wait.
The software can be purchased and used on your desktop or you can purchase the online feature. I can’t decide which one to get. The desktop version is a one-time fee of $39.95 but you’d have to pay for any future updates. The online version is a smaller fee, $19.95 but it’s only good for one year, though all updates are included. There’s also a one month version for $2.95. I don’t think the online version would be good for those on a dial-up connection but if you have highspeed it could be the perfect choice. I may try the one month version and see if keeping everything I might use it for online is good choice or if it’s something I’d rather have on my desktop. Decisions .. decisions .. but whatever I choose will make my muse happy. She is jumping with glee because now I’m feeling an impulse to re-read Rico’s book and pen a creative thought or two.
I just had a thought … someone should create software for clustering. Not a search for a new word kind of thing but empty form fields encircling a word that can be filled in and with the ability to add more form fields attached to a word or group of words, similar to the image from Rico’s book. Now — if only I were a software developer — I could make a fortune! 
Hummm, maybe it’s been done already? I’ll have to do a search and see what’s out there in cyberdom. If anyone happens by and knows of software like this, please leave a comment. Or, if anyone tries the Visual Thesaurus, let me know what you think of it.
Clustering software already exists if you search under its more widespread definition of mind mapping. I received a demo disk of a mind-mapping program at least ten years ago, but didn’t find it useful at that time. Nothing can beat a huge sheet of paper and a marker — unless it’s a pile of sticky notes to dump ideas on. Then you cluster the sticky notes on the huge sheet of paper, drawing lines between them for your mind map.
Now that you’ve reminded me, I looked and found this promising software: http://www.visual-mind.com/ They offer a 30-day trial. Hopefully the technology has improved with age, but I’m still betting on my old way.
Cheers,
Ritergal
Hi, Ritergal
I did find mind mapping software, even some for free. I have experimented with Inspirations which also has a free 30 day trial. I had planned on writing about Inspirations but my trial is almost up and I just can’t find the time right now. What I like about this program is its ability to learn its users mind patterns. I find that fascinating on many levels. It will also rearrange your word, or phrase, clusters, thus offering an entirely different view of what you just laid out. There are other things it does but I was only exploring it’s ability to cluster free-flowing thoughts.
I have listed those I’ve found in my directory under Writers Tools. I’ll take a look at the one you linked to and add it when I have more time.
I’m with you on the pen and paper. While the Inspirations software supports a graphic tablet, I still like the feel of writing on paper.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Hi, Glo
I also like the feel of paper and pen when it comes to organizing my thoughts, but playing with a computer program can occasionally get those creative juices flowing. Of course, sometimes they’re flowing in the direction of “How in the heck does this work?” Paper and pen rarely cause that to happen.
Have you tried any of the other writing aid software? I was given one as a gift several years ago and I still can’t figure it out.
Great site, by the way.
Ms. Karen
Hi, Ms. Karen
I have played around with journal writing software but none of the other mind mapping programs I’ve found. I wrote about LifeJournal and The Journal. There is a comment under The Journal post that gives some good ideas on what that type of software can do.
I’ve never been a fan of writing related software but I’m now wondering if I’ve limited my view on how software might help in the writing process. While I don’t believe that writing software will help in writing a better story per-say, it could help in organizing and mapping out a story. I guess what I’m actually saying is, writing software will not make you a better writer but it might help a writer in the process of story building.
It does take time to learn how to use any software, not to mention a good deal of patience mixed with a large dose of desire. What software were you given?
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment.
Hi Glo,
If I recall correctly, the software was Writer’s DreamKit, although it was giving me nightmares. It is difficult to work with, especially when you’re trying to plug in something you’ve already started. At least, that’s how I felt about it.
Perhaps if I’d taken enough time to fully explore the program, I might have come away with a better feeling about it. There were some wonderful organization tools available, and that was what originally sold me on it. Using them, however, proved to be much more involved than I felt was necessary. I don’t want to work harder on figuring out the program than I do working on the manuscript.
If I ever find it and load it up again, I’ll fiddle around with it and let you know how it goes. Right now, I’m at that “in-between” place of just having “finished” a full-length manuscript and starting a new one, so this would be a pretty good time to try it again.
Karen
I found the site for Writer’s DreamKit for those who might want to see what it offers. The price is reasonable but there isn’t a free try-before-you-buy download. Too bad, I might have explored what it can do.
I took a look at your blog, Karen, and wondered if you have considered writing about your personal writing process? I think more writers should write about their own process, if for no other reason than to generate interest from other writers. Since you have a completed manuscript, how you got there could help others and by writing about your creative process, the ups and downs, you can generate interest in your novel. You never know who might be reading.
I’m amazed that you have a completed manuscript, given you have a family and a job. You’re a busy woman and the fact that you found time to write is amazing to me. I waste more time than you could possibly have to write in.
Good luck finding a home (publisher/agent) for your manuscript.
Glo:
Thanks for the encouragement. I will definitely think about writing something like that.
I am also a time-waster, especially online. My guess is that I would have more than one manuscript finished if I didn’t fiddle around on silly sites (games and quizzes to be specific). Most of that comes from being stuck and distracted.
Thanks again for visiting my blog.
Karen
Hi Glo:
In my last comment, I forgot to ask if I may put a link to your site on my blog. You have so many excellent tools for writers, and while I may not be writing solely for other writers, I know a few of them come for a visit. It would be nice to be able to offer them links to helpful sites.
Thanks.
Karen
Karen, I added a link to your blog in my sidebar. If you add more information on your blog about writing, publishing, and/or the marketing of your manuscript, I’d be glad to add your site to my directory.
Hi Karen,
Earlier you were talking about a software that allows a writer to cluster. Well, such a software does exist. It is called Inspiration. It is an awesome software. I just took a workshop on it. It is great. You can view their site at www.inspiration.com. They will even send you a 30 day demo of the CD. Many of the schools are currently using this software.
Tiggy, I’m not sure why you addressed this comment to Karen since she didn’t talk about clustering software at all. There’s already information in these comments about Inspirations software as well as the free download they offer.
It would have been more informative had you given an overview of the workshop you just attended so that my readers might have more information on the software. I’m wondering if the only reason you commented was to get a link to your site? I removed the link just in case that was your motive. If not, perhaps you’d like to offer more information on your personal experience with Inspirations?
Regarding clustering software - I have been searching for a freeform idea ‘relating’ program for years and have tried a lot of them, such as inspiration, novamind, freemind etc. But I have always found that programs that attempt to ‘mind map’ make the big mistake of not allowing the structures to be circular, in other words they always try to make a tree structure out of your ideas (and we all know that the world isn’t quite as simple as linnaeus would have us believe).
Recently however I discovered a real sweetie. It is a program called Curio (website= http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/)
In principle it enforces no order whatsoever upon your ideas, which can be epic as an entire novel or tiny as a doodle. you can drag ANY media onto a page, including sounds, movies, images, other files even pdf’s, entire websites or url’s, and of course you can write and draw too. All the while you can add hyperlinks, or activate scripts from any element. On top of all this it takes only a moment or two to learn, manages to make (nearly) everything that you do look stunning, and you can export the whole thing to html, pdf or powerpoint presentation, it also comes with freeware viewer software for sending to third parties.
The only snag for some of you reading this is that I think its mac only (but am not too sure - so check if you like the sound of it).
Anyone would think that I was trying to sell the thing - but I’m still using the free evaluation time - although have a sneaky feeling that I’ll be buying this one.
Better shut up now
Nice blog by the way
Hi, David, thanks for the info. Yes, this software is for Mac’s only. I can’t even try it since I have a PC. I can’t remember which mind-mapping software I tried that did all the things you talked about. I have a graphic tablet and I could use it with that software. It might have been Inspirations but I really don’t remember.
Thanks for the complement on my blog.
Hi Glo,
First of all, I have to tell you I just LOVE your blog… I’ve only ever read a couple of blogs when searching for something and I ended up at yours as a result of a Google search for a visual thesaurus (because I thought the Thinkmap visual thesaurus was great - but it didn’t allow me as much time to check it out as I would have liked). I’ve already spent almost two hours reading around here, your whole concept is wonderful, the ideas, information and links have kept me quite busy and I feel as though I could spend a week here, I will check back now that I’ve found you.
I would have emailed you, but I could not find a link to do so or an email address (perhaps you planned it that way)… so if you want to delete this message by all means, please do…. I know I do tend to ramble but there were a couple of things that came to mind while looking around your blog, which I thought might be interesting or worthwhile information to share with you and your other readers.
First of all, I’ll try to sum myself up as quickly as possible, so that you might see the reason that I believe my ideas may be beneficial for you to share. I love to write and consider myself a writer at heart. I feel this is something that I should do, something that I want to do, something that I was even meant to do - my purpose or calling. My dilemma is this: I don’t often write, I have a myriad of reasons or excuses as to why not, some of which are truly valid – others, well, I’m working on overcoming them. Through my personal trials and tribulations (trite, overused, expression, I freely admit), I have had made many attempts to write, and to continue writing. Over the years, there are a couple of things that have helped me to get excited and motivated or temporarily unblocked, and excuse-free. I figured there could be others who may also benefit from these experiences, which is why I thought I would share them. So, now, after too much rambling, I’ll try to get to my points.
Don Aslett is an author that has many books. I haven’t read them all, but I have seen a few and tried several of his tips. Most of his books are clutter-related. Yes, clutter, not cluster. The reason this may be useful for some, is that if your home or your life is cluttered… your mind may be cluttered also. I know my mind is, I’ve got a lot on it, can get easily side-tracked and can be inspired or motivated by things for a period of time, and then tend to let them fizzle as my enthusiasm wanes or my time runs out due to other responsibilities, or as I become frustrated with a road-block, or as I get side-tracked yet again. (Which is what has happened to me today, and is the reason you’re now getting a glimpse into MY wild mind.) I found some of the tips in Don’s books to be very useful, and after just doing a quick search just now, remember that he also has books on writing…. which I don’t specifically recall whether I looked at those or not. I can honestly tell you though, that after having read some of his work, and tried some of his ideas, I did have a better writing period. In fact, having said that, I believe it’s time for me to revisit his books.
I’ve also been in therapy for depression (one of the aforementioned tribulations). I’ve been in a few different groups, as well as one-on-one therapy, and one thing that I had never heard of before, but which I’ve subsequently learned is quite a good tool, is CBT (cognitive-behavioral-therapy). Now, I feel the need to explain why writers who are not depressed or don’t need therapy, may find this information useful. One of the things I learned during my depression is that a person can be too unwell to benefit from some types of therapy but that a person is never too well to learn from them. A person who is well can gain insight from many of the techniques and exercises done in various therapies related to mental wellness, because after all, this is an area of how our minds work and how to adapt or adjust the ways it works for those who feel the need. I’ve told you that I am easily side-tracked and also find that I sometimes hit a roadblock or lose enthusiasm for a project, which some people may legitimately call “excuses”. (I know that I do think of these things as excuses sometimes, and at other times I feel that there are very real reasons that they are not excuses, but rather, a part of my own personal journey.) CBT is a tool that can help you to change your thoughts and behaviors. For instance, if you are a procrastinator, (again, one of my many personal characteristics for better or worse) there are ways, with CBT, for you to examine your own thought processes which get you into the procrastinating phase. Why would you want to explore the thought processes that get you there? The answer is simple, once you’ve determined the thoughts that get you there, you can do exercises which will challenge those thoughts, help you to reframe them and ultimately reason through them, so that the next time you recognize you are in a procrastinating phase, you can more quickly identify it, and get out of it. Now, I admit that this is not a quick fix, and takes practice, but the tool itself can be applied to just about anything related to how you think, feel, and behave. If there is an area of your life that you feel hinders you from writing, (whether it is procrastination, writer’s block, frustration, anxiety, etc. the list is endless) then CBT might be something you’d like to explore. One book that I’ve used is called Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger, Christine A Padesky.
As I previously stated, I don’t really have any real experience or knowledge about blogs. Now that I’ve explored this one a bit, which prompted me to share my thoughts with you, I’ve realized that spending a fair portion of my day both exploring and replying here has been both a good and bad thing for me. It’s good in that I’ve found a great place to get and share information and ideas, which has inspired other ideas for me. It’s bad in that, I’ve once again been side-tracked and I’ve spent hours doing this instead of the other things that I had planned for the day. Later I will weigh the pros and cons of my day and evaluate them. As you can see, some might consider the benefits of my discovery and new ideas today a good thing; others may view it as one of my procrastination phases which keeps me from writing (personally I feel both views are valid, which is something that I can explore with a CBT exercise).
I have a question for you, how much time each day or week do you spend in maintaining and updating your blog? I’m wondering because I was considering using Yahoo GeoCities and blog myself for a while, but didn’t really know (without investing the actual time to experiment with it) whether I would find it a helpful, motivating thing for me to be doing with my time, or if it would become something that would become more of a diversion and side-track me. I realize, of course, that your experience with it will likely be different than mine would be, but I’m hoping that you’ll share your experience with me in helping me to make this decision.
Thanks for contributing to my inspiring and unusual day, and I look forward to your reply.
Ruth
I too came across the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus by accident, just an hour ago! I was just totally stuck on a sentence, Googled for a synonym generator, and found it.
I used the free trial on the word I was stuck on, and solved my sentence in minutes! Thought I’d best do another Google on reviews before impulse buying, and then found this site too.
Thanks, Glo. I’m going to buy the online month long version and give it a more thorough test drive, see how it helps me out with my novel during the next few weeks.
Okay, it’s Saturday and I’ve promised my husband I’ll come out of the study now and do ‘weekend’ couple things …
slowjocrow, thanks for leaving a comment. Once you’ve test-driven the program for awhile, please come back and let me know how well you like it.
Hi Glo!
I just realized now, although I have come back here several times, that I entered the wrong email address when I posted here the first time. I’ve corrected it now and that’s why I’m sending you this short note, just to let you know that I have continued to visit your blog and read your articles and have also spent time visiting sites to other writing resources that you have provided links to. Some of the information that I have found either from wild-mind.net or through the other resources you’ve given have been a real gift for me. There are so many ideas, opinions, observations, insights, communities, shared writing goals and set-backs and I would not likely have stumbled across half of them if I hadn’t found my way here. I just wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank you for sharing so much of yourself in making wild-mind.net such a terrific resource. I do believe that people other than myself must also find the work you share here invaluable, but can only speak for myself in saying that I truly appreciate wild-mind.net and all the time, love, and dedication that it must have taken to build it to this point.
Bravo!
Ruth
Ruth, thanks for dropping by and posting again. I did send you an email after your first comment. I will try to send it again via the correct email address. I meant to leave a reply to your comment but was waiting for a response to my email. I did wonder if your email address was correct and after a day or two, I went ahead and approved your original comment with the intent of leaving a response but got side-tracked with some problems a client was having and with setting up a FAQ section for a Web directory I work on.
When I first got online in 1996, there was very little information on the Web about the craft of writing, especially creative writing. Now there is sooooo much information it can make your head swim. Unfortunately, much of it is just trying to sell you something that writers don’t really need or want. I have no problem with anyone wanting to make money with their Internet ventures but there are just too many trying to scam writes out of their money with false promises. I really want to keep my resources clean and provide something of value to writers, whether they be serious writers or just write for themselves with no intent of ever publishing anything. So it’s really nice to have someone affirm my efforts, thank you!
Another mind mapping tool, maybe not quite as polished as some of the above mentioned ones, but still very good in my mind, and with the added benefit of being completely free is free mind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
Cheers!
Well,
I am using a free software calles freemind, and find it is very useful and handy