Writing Ideas

I have been thinking about what to write for my blog this week. I find that because I have such a chaotic life right now, I could talk about so much! I was looking at the Prewriting techniques and pondered if anyone uses any other type of prewriting ideas besides freewriting and brainstorming? Those 2 seem to be the most popular types of prewriting techniques. Sometimes when I generate ideas about a short story, the first thing I do is name the characters and list out their traits, personal, physical, and emotional. From there I will start to list story plots and scenarios and create a little universe for my characters to dwell in. I call this the "snowball" effect. I start out with something small and end up with a whole story by the time I'm finished. In other words, my small idea snowballs into a massive story complete protagonist, antagonist, climax, story plot, beginning and ending. It may not be written, per se, but I have all these ideas jotted down and directed out thus having my paper, albeit not in any certain order, ready to typed up.