I'm going through this right now for nanowrimo. ;) At first I used word (very lame, I know), but a friend recommended Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.

I'm going through this right now for nanowrimo. ;) At first I used word (very lame, I know), but a friend recommended Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html) to me a while ago, and I've been using that instead, but it's an OS X only tool. I love it. I'm not a writer, but I really needed some tools to help me finish nanowrimo, and scrivener is it. I've occasionally used mindmapping tools for occasional papers I've written, if it's extremely chaotic you may want to look into that, although I don't know how much help it might be.