Author Diary Entries
Author Diary Entries (formerly known as the Indie Author Weekly podcast) features your host, Sagan Morrow, as she shares diary-style personal stories of life as an indie author and her behind-the-scenes journey of writing and publishing books as an authorpreneur.
You’ll learn more about the books Sagan writes, her insights and stories of being an author and a multipassionate creative, and a peek behind the curtain of a writer's life.
The Author Diary Entries podcast is hosted by Sagan Morrow, a Kamloops-based writer with more than a decade of experience as a small business owner. She is also a hobbyist burlesque dancer and performs on stage as Babe Maverick.
Sagan started out as a blogger and freelance writer (and editor) around 2008. In 2016, she began teaching other freelancers how to improve productivity and time management through her online courses. She is an internationally board-certified Success & Life Coach who specializes in personal fulfillment, solopreneurship, and anti-hustle productivity.
Sagan writes the Polyamorous Passions romantic comedy series, and has published several business books in addition to her work as a romance novelist. She published her first work of fiction in 2018.
RECOMMENDED STARTING POINT: "Ep 179: Author Update (one year later)" AND "Ep 140: Welcome back to the podcast!" AND "Ep 50: What made me start writing the Polyamorous Passions series" AND "Ep 53: Top 5 episodes from the first year of podcasting on Indie Author Weekly (and why I started this podcast)".
The first 12 episodes of this podcast were originally published on a “secret” platform only for email subscribers, but you can tune into all of those original episodes right here. Access bonus materials to go along with podcast (including cheatsheets and spreadsheets relevant to the episode topics), plus full episode transcripts, sample chapters of her novels, and additional resources, at https://saganmorrow.com/secretpodcast. This podcast was rebranded from "Indie Author Weekly" to "Author Diary Entries" in April 2025.
Learn more about Sagan’s published works and upcoming novels at https://saganmorrow.com/books/. Connect with Sagan on Instagram & Threads: @Saganlives
Author Diary Entries
044: How to use mind mapping to write a book
Learn how to use mind mapping to write a book in this episode, featuring a real-life example to make it easier for you to visualize and tips for creating your own mind map. Use these mind mapping tips for authors and make it easy and fun to write your book!
When your host Sagan Morrow isn't writing romance novels and hosting this podcast, my day job involves teaching productivity tips and action-oriented strategic planning to multi-passionate creatives.
I recently published an article about how to use mind mapping in your business on the SaganMorrow.com blog, and in that article, I talk about how mind mapping is a handy—and fun—tool for saving time, getting clarity, improving focus, and working more efficiently on your projects. And I’ve included a step-by-step guide in that blog post for how to use mind mapping in your business. If you’re interested in checking that out, visit SaganMorrow.com/mindmap.
Right now, I’m slowly getting started with writing Her Bad Idea, which is Book 7 in my Polyamorous Passions series, and I decided to take my own advice… and use mind mapping as a tool to write the book!
I thought it would be fun for this episode of Indie Author Weekly to share a bit about that process for mind mapping as an author.
Mind mapping is a very straightforward practice. Basically, it’s a sort of organized brain dump and brainstorm of ideas. You’re getting a whole bunch of thoughts and ideas all in one space, and mapping them out to connect the dots between your ideas.
It’s one thing to have all of your ideas for a book in your head or even in a Google doc, but it’s a whole other things to have them laid out visually and in a single space. With that in mind, I decided to use mind mapping to write Book 7 in the Polyamorous Passions series. I took out a large piece of poster paper, which is propped up on a handy stand, and I grabbed a handful of colour-coded markers and went to it.
Okay, I’m now going to explain to you what this particular mind map looks like, but if you want to see an actual photo of it as a work in progress, then you can get that on the “secret” version of this podcast at SaganMorrow.com/secretpodcast. So, go check that out if you want to see the real-life visual of it as I’m explaining it here.
All right, we have our poster paper and our colour-coded markers...
Tune into this episode to learn about mind mapping for creative writing!
Resources & links mentioned in this episode:
- Mind mapping tutorial (with step-by-step guide) at SaganMorrow.com/mindmap .
- Learn more about all of Sagan's books at SaganMorrow.com/books .
- Episode 40 of Indie Author Weekly: connectivity in writing (my 2020 word of the year: connection) .
- Tune into Indie Author Weekly on your favourite podcast platform at SaganMorrow.com/podcast .
- Rate & review this podcast on iTunes .
Let's chat about this episode:
- @Saganlives on Twitter and Instagram .
- Hashtag: #IndieAuthorWeekly .
- Email hello@saganmorrow.com .
- Share your thoughts (or submit requests for future episode topics) in this survey at SaganMorrow.com/question
