focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
April 16, 2008
Let’s say you have a deadline to write 30,000 words in a month and a half – in 6 weeks! Unless you’re Monika and can do this in a week (!), you may need some assistance to focus. I don’t know about you, but I tend to have a lot of applications open at any given time. This can be very distracting when I’m trying to write a new blog post, or work on one of my books. I’ve seen articles on productivity that recommend closing all programs except for your writing program. Leo Babauta suggests doing this in How to Write Without Distractions.
Yes, I could easily do that. The unfortunate problem with this for me is that it disrupts my work flow. I don’t want to have to remember what I was doing before I started writing, and then have to start it up again when I’m finished. Or perhaps, if I’m in the middle of writing and then remember I have to email somebody, it is nice to just switch over to my browser and send a quick Gmail.
So I’ll have to disagree with the productivity experts on this one. I paid good money for a state of the art computer with 3 gigabytes of memory, and there’s no reason I cannot leave everything running in the background.
It just seems to me sometimes that I was more productive back in the 80’s and 90’s running WordPerfect for DOS. There was only simplicity and focus. A black screen, plain text and a flashing cursor. So what to do?
Go back to the future!
Quite some time ago, I ran across a slew of programs that could be called “writing programs”. Some are very minimalist and intended to help the writer focus on simply writing. Others are much more powerful, and can help the writer organize and plan a story.
Today I’d like to talk about the programs that tend towards the minimalist end of the spectrum, and I’ll save the fancy programs for another article.
One of my favourites is called Q10.
Q10 is freely available for download, and can either be installed to your hard drive, or run as a portable application from a flash drive.
Upon startup, you are presented with a black screen that covers the entire display, amber text and a blinking cursor. At each keystroke, a lovely typewriter sound clicks from your computer (unless you prefer to turn this off).
It is a very visceral experience and I love it. Q10 can be set up to auto save after a certain length of time or a certain number of paragraphs, and upon startup can be set to load the last file worked on by the user. It has a spell checker and a word count built in which is handy, and it displays the time (although the status bar can be turned off if you wish).
Another program I often use is called Dark Room. It has a slightly different feature set from Q10, but basically operates the same way in that it starts up to a black screen with plain text. Once again, it is freely available for download. One thing that Dark Room does offer over Q10 is proper multi-monitor support, thus I tend to use it at work. Dark Room will blank out the other screen and it can be easily moved from one screen to another (press Escape to put it in “windowed” mode, move it, and then press Escape again to set it to full screen).
Q10 and Dark Room are Windows only. There are a few other similar programs available, such as JDarkRoom if you prefer a Java-based program, or DarkCopy if you want to use a web-based program.
Interestingly enough, all of these programs can be traced to WriteRoom on the Mac. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Q10, Dark Room, JDarkRoom and DarkCopy could be considered very sincere indeed, as they are quite faithful to WriteRoom. I note that WriteRoom is the only program I’ve mentioned today that isn’t freeware, although it isn’t that expensive.
So do they work for me, and can they work for you? Yes! I have a very busy life – I have a full-time job as a nuclear engineer, I have a great wife and four beautiful children, I have lots of friends, and I still manage to write every day, whether it be for my books, or my blogs. In 2007 for National Novel Writing Month, I wrote just over 30,000 words in four weeks. I didn’t hit 50k, but that doesn’t matter. I’m proud of myself, and I know that Q10 helped me to focus and get as far as I did.
I also use Dark Room at work to compose my documents, rather than struggling with Word and the unstable custom templates we have to use. Once I have my text in shape, I transfer it into the template of my choice and format everything.
One other thing to note – programs such as Twitter, or the various instant message applications, tend to have pop-up notifications and these will still pop up and cause distractions, so you may have to do something to prevent this. Again, rather than close these programs, I find the setting in the Properties of each one where I can disable pop-up notifications.
So there you have it – it is possible to relive 1989 all over again, get your work done and have a little bit of fun doing it.
*click click click*
Next time – some of the more advanced programs that can help you to plan your work.
What an interesting idea! I’m going to give it a shot. Today, in fact. One of my biggest challenges as a writer is the dadburn e-mail and Twitter notifications. It’s not that I can’t turn them off, I just don’t think to do it. Before you know it, I’m 500 words behind on the day.
Bob Younce at the Writing Journey’s last blog post..The Number One Reason People Read Food Blogs
Hi Bob! I’m glad that you found my post interesting, good luck with Q10 as per our Twitter conversation, and let me know how you like it. I know that these programs all revolve around a simple concept, but sometimes that is just what we need to get the job done. I find when I’m using Q10 or Dark Room I can just hammer out the words.
I can’t do these programs – it reminds me of being in an isolation room with a white jacket on
James Chartrand – Men with Pens’s last blog post..Drive-By-Shooting Sundays: Strong White Papers
Dammit James, now I have to clean up a big coffee spill
Perhaps one of the fancier programs I’ll talk about in the next installment will be your cup of tea. Or not!
The main thing is, keep on cranking out the great writing that you do over at Men with Pens. And I know you will.
I need something like this. I turn off my voume so I can work in silence, so the click, click, click wouldn’t work. I don’t want to know how many e-mails are stacking up, but I like to keep my IM open in case my husband and I want to chat about something. so I don’t want to disable everything.
I don’t have twitter popping up, I check it when I want to. It’s too much the other way around. As it is, the comment notifiers are stacking up my e-mail enough! I could spend all day just running back to e-mail to see who said what next at the Pen men and never write a darn thing!
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..Amazing Mountains
Hi Wendi,
This might be the ticket for you then. With Q10 you could also just hit Ctrl-P to pull up the settings, then select Misc and untick the “Active” box for Sounds. I sometimes do that rather than hit the mute button. The other programs don’t have the clicky sound though, so you could consider one of them.
Brett,
Thanks for notice of these programs.
I have been really struggling with this this past week. I just turn everything off, but then I get distracted, or want to get distracted, I should say, then turn everything on again.
I’m looking forward to reading your novel!
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Ugly Duckling Blogger
Ellen,
My pleasure, I hope that you may find them as useful as I have in my work. Although programs like Q10 don’t solve the focus problem completely, they are helpful in that it makes the work seem as though it is in a different space.
Just you, and your words.
Thank you! I’ll keep you posted, I’m making steady progress… slow and steady wins the race.
If you ever want to exchange novels let me know. It’s good to get other’s opinions – what do you like, where did you lose interest…etc. Of course, you have to finish first! But I would be more than happy to read it.
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Ugly Duckling Blogger
Ellen, I’ll definitely put you on the reviewers list then, and I’d be happy to do the same for you. I’ve been reading Amy’s book for a while too (I like it quite a lot). I agree with you, it is a great way to get “real world” feedback. So once it is in suitable shape, I’ll let you know.
Thanks Brett, I do appreciate it. And don’t worry about being nice. I will still like you if you don’t like it! I just need the honesty, and I will do the same for you. It’s good to find people you trust to read your stuff.
The head of my old writing group created a great review sheet to use when reading people’s work. Are you doing that with Amy’s book, or are you just reading it? Sorry, I probably should be emailing you all this, since I’m getting off topic here. E
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Ugly Duckling Blogger
Well, if you like, please feel free to email me your manuscript and the review sheet, it would be my pleasure to have a look. I’m just reading Amy’s book right now to get a feel for it, but I will be giving her some thoughts as I move through it.
Once my first draft is complete, I will forward it to you as well.
(Don’t worry about being off topic, that’s the fun part about these comments sections!)
I just read your About Section. It is so beautful Brett – really nice! Where is your email? I’ll send my novel later, it’s so nice out today, I have to get out with my camera and see if I can get shots of these deer.
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Ugly Duckling Blogger
Thanks for the heads-up on these programs! Microsoft Word got me through most of my current project. Q10 sounds like something fun and different to try.
cool dad’s last blog post..I’ll try not to screw this up
@ Ellen, thank you for saying that. I’ll be sure to update the About section to include my email (I have to fix the font too
), for now you can contact me at:
brett DOT legree AT gmail DOT com
Yes, please do send your novel when you can – for now, make sure to get outside and enjoy the day. It is beautiful out there where I am, and hopefully for you as well.
@ cool dad: I still use MS Word a lot myself (obviously at work, and for various other things at home) – it does have an important role to play and is often the last stop for things I write, to polish them up prior to PDF’ing or whatever.
For pure writing though, do give Q10 or one of the others a try, and you’ll smile
Wow! Brett, I love the ‘mindset’ and the ‘concept’ of your blog and you have some fab content!
I generally work well with distractions. Having raised two children alone while studying at uni, I’m used to working to a deadline and ignoring chaos in the background when I have to, and I find it very hard to work in total silence. I’m the same on the computer, if the creative juices are flowing I can ignore almost anything. And when they’re not, all the distractions might trigger them off again.
But I’m going to try Q10 … I love the idea of the typewriter clicking away! Thank you!
Dianne Murphy-Rodgers’s last blog post..The Freelance Writing Learning Curve
Thanks for the heads up on Q10. I’m a WriteRoom user and had never heard of Q10, and the flash drive option intrigues me.
Hee, NaNoWriMo! For some reason I “join” every year, but I never write a thing. I just think it sounds fun! Or maybe I just like to witness others’ pain
@ Diane, thank you very much for the kind compliments! I just had a peek at your blog, and can I say “holy cow!” lots of great stuff over there too. You have a new subscriber as of right now, and that’s just one of your blogs… will check out the others too.
My children usually don’t distract me
I just have a problem in that I’m interested in pretty much anything other than the task a lot of the time, not a good thing. So for me, programs like Q10 or Dark Room represent a “modal shift” and tell my brain it’s time to get serious.
The *click click click* is an added bonus – have fun with it!
@ Nicole, you are welcome! I’ve used WriteRoom as well (I have two old Macs) and I like it very much. I expect to be going back to it soon as I’ll be purchasing a Mac shortly (looking forward to that!), although I can see myself running Q10 via Vmware Fusion just for the clicky clicky
PortableApps is a really nice way to go and I was happy when Q10 brought out a version. I carry it with me on my iPod everywhere I go, to be honest
(I also keep JDarkRoom on the iPod, in case I wanted to run it on a Linux machine – assuming that Java is installed on there, of course.)
Yes, NaNoWriMo is a lot of fun, even if you just want to watch the rest of us squirm LOL
Thanks very much to both of you for stopping in to say hello today!
Ooo, new tools! I’m looking forward to playing with these
When blogging, I always have windows open for the pages I’m linking to and resources I’m working from. They’re a kind of visual outline for me. They’re usually sorted in the order I’ll refer to them, and I close the window/tab when I finished. When Wordpress is all that’s left, I’m done!
I imagine I’d use one of these apps when I write for school, though. It’s online, so the LMS has a writing area, but the white background is wayyyy too bright to use full screen. I suspect it will be more comfortable to work with these.
Many thanks for the digi-nummies!
Crystal’s last blog post..Picking and Poking at Poverty Mind
Crystal,
Glad you like them and hope you have fun trying them out
they are great.
I’ll often start out a blog post in Q10, then paste into Windows Live Writer to tweak it some more, then upload the draft to WP and finalize it. Or sometimes I do it just as you do, all in the browser.
For pure writing though, books and documents, these things are great (unless you’re James, in which case they’ll take you away on a stretcher…)
Enjoy! Until next time, when I’ll show some other goodies…
A nuclear engineer? I thought you were a computer programmer/engineer. I sure do learn something new every day! I don’t know what a nuclear engineer does it but it sure sounds impressive.
Brett, are you going to do NaNo this year too? I’m planning on signing up…
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..How to Spot a Poetry Fraud
Melissa,
My secret’s out!
By training, a chemical engineer, by experience a nuclear engineer… but by personal interest, computer engineer would have been more of a fit. I just love all things to do with computers.
Well, we do lots of things. We make medical isotopes for cancer treatment, for instance (I used to do that). Another group where I work did the primary analysis of the O-rings from the Challenger disaster, back in the 80’s. Oh, and we make nuclear reactors too
Although my passion is writing, and helping other people. So that’s where I’m going…
Definitely doing NaNo again this year. I plan to hit the 50k mark this time, and I know you will too!
@Brett & Melissa – Do you think this NaNo thing is worh it? I hear you guys talking about it all the time. And I have yet to check it out. I wouldly like to hear your expertise. Do you get a prize?
Ellen Wilson’s last blog post..Ugly Duckling Blogger
@ Ellen: I think it is definitely worth it, just to say you were part of it. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t hit the 50k mark, it is just fun to see how many words you can write. I got a lot done on one of my books that way. They send you emails to encourage you throughout the month.
No prize, but if you beat 50,000 words you get recognized.
@Ellen, There is no prize but you are a NaNo winner if you hit the 50k mark and they have banners for your website and a great support system. I think the main purpose is to get a massive amount of writing done by setting a goal and being part of the community. Even if you don’t participate in the social side, just knowing all those other people are furiously trying to hit their target helps encourage you to do the same.
From what I’ve heard from past participants, who seem to return to NaNo year after year, it’s a great experience and a good way to hammer out a rough draft.
Oh, and one of the other purposes is to turn off your inner editor while writing your rough draft.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..How to Spot a Poetry Fraud
I wanted to do that NaNo last year and didn’t get around to it. To be honest I just wasn’t being disciplined about writing every day no matter what. Now that I have that habit down better, I would really like to do it this year.
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..The Pie Theory: A Story About Pie.
Wow! Thanks, Brett that’s great to hear!
Have tried downloading Q10 but hit a problem! It might be me doing something silly, it’s getting late after a hectic day and my head hurts … will try again tomorrow. Looking forward to trying it!
Dianne Murphy-Rodgers’s last blog post..The Freelance Writing Learning Curve
@ Melissa: that’s right, the thing to remember is to just write like mad, and then spend December editing. I can’t wait to do it this year, and it will be fun doing it with you
@ Wendi: well, seeing how prolific you are now, I have no doubt that you’ll be there, and you’ll probably put me to shame as well!
I love the pie story, very thought provoking.
@ Dianne: I know what you mean about hectic, I’ve been poking around your blog but haven’t had time to comment (yet). I’m sure you’ll be able to get Q10 downloaded and running soon enough.
I’ve been reading about NaNoWriMo for over an hour, and while I don’t have a novel in me (that I know of), I think it is the hippest of hip projects. So nice to see a contest/challenge that’s about endurance moreso than speed.
Many thanks for the introduction to the mad mad world of novelists
Crystal’s last blog post..Build It Better: eBooks and My PDF Peeves
Crystal,
Even if you don’t have a novel in you, I believe you certainly have an e-book in you, or something like that. You have a lot of *great* stuff to say, maybe if you like you can put it all together this year. Then again, you’ll probably have it ready before then
I actually can’t concentrate when things are so….bare-bone. It kind of makes me want to get up and putz around the house. I do much better with a movie playing on one monitor, while writing on the second. Heh, I know that it’s a bit strange, but it works for me
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
RLD: not strange at all! The thing is to do whatever works best for you – best tool for the job. Lots of people wouldn’t like this software for various reasons (ask James!)
What do you use to write?
This question applies to everyone else reading the comments too – what does everyone else use?
Depends on what I’m doing. If I’m transcribing German handwriting, I use Wordpad – I like being able to type in a tiny window, b/c I usually have the original document magnified by 300. Otherwise for writing like a normal person, I use MS word.
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
RLD,
I know what you mean, I am happy to be able to use two monitors at work, and I’ll often do something similar, typing on one screen while taking from references on the other.
Hi Brett,
That was a wonderful suggestion on these tools. I actually heard of the Dark Room before but not the Q10 and might give them a test run soon.
I’m also terribly sorry for the late reply here (I seem to do that a lot lately, but guys I’m really so deep in work right now that I don’t have time to do my daily rounds much).
It sucks as I miss the interaction but there will come a time when I’m back in the fold. Thanks for the generous link too Brett.
I love how you choose your topics, they are always so thought provoking.
Monika Mundell’s last blog post..A Few Hickups
Hi Monika,
I’m glad that you enjoyed reading about these programs, as I enjoyed writing about them very much! Let me know what you think once you’ve had a chance to try some of them.
You are welcome for the link, and thank *you* as well for the link back from your blog today – your words are very kind!
Thanks for taking the time to stop by today and say hello – we do miss you very much out here, Monika, as you always add inspiration and insight to the conversation.
Talk with you soon my friend – Brett
First thing on the Q10 page:
“Q10 runs under Windows.
No version for Linux or Mac is planned.”
I think I feel a blog post welling up
Tony Lawrence’s last blog post..A thousand meanings never meant by Anthony Lawrence
Tony,
I thought that one would get you
I use all three platforms and prefer the two that are not Windows if at all possible…
Nothing says you couldn’t run it via WINE or Crossover or virtualization, I suppose – I hope you do write a blog post about this, I like the way you write.
I especially enjoyed your recent post about installing Vista Home Premium. I feel your pain… why any version of Linux or BSD can install on my A7N8X-X mainboard with all chipset drivers supported, and Vista… well, blame nVidia actually. But that’s another story, maybe for a comment at your blog!
Thanks for stopping by – Brett
Well, I’m not sure I need Q10 anyway, and yes I could run it under Parallels, but it’s the “no version planned” that annoyed me – so if OS X keeps gaining at the same rate it has been and overtakes Windows next year or the year after these folks STILL won’t port their app (and how hard could that possibly be anyway)?
I got curious about how many words I write and grabbed the raw text from my last month of site postings. It came to 29,119 words. Of course since some of that is screen pastes and the like I really wrote less than that, but I don’t think that 5,000 words a week is unusual at all.
I’ve been posting to my website for more than ten years now – I just ran the raw text through “wc -w” and got the astonishing figure of 3,880,318 words – something right around 30,000 words per month – so that’s more evidence that it isn’t particularly unusual. And of course that isn’t anything close to full time writing – it probably represents about eight hours weekly.
I bet if you counted up what you actually write you might be surprised to find yourself closer to Monika’s output than you thought.
Tony Lawrence’s last blog post..A thousand meanings never meant by Anthony Lawrence
You’re right Tony, I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to port at all, and the way that OS X is accelerating I think a lot of folks will start considering it. I just read yesterday or the day before about an internal group at IBM testing MacBook Pros since October 2007, and most of the testers will keep using them. IBM will be porting a lot of their stuff to OS X it seems.
There are big changes happening right now with regards to OS platform and it will be good for all of us.
You know, you made me think – I’ll have to look closer at my output, I do type very quickly and if I were to concentrate my efforts into a project (and scale back my commenting everywhere
) I could move mountains.
Thanks for the great thought!
I never heard of most of the programs you mentioned.
Thanks for sharing this information.
Hi Terry,
Nice to hear from you again, thanks for stopping in to say hello. I hope that you will have a chance to try out some of the programs, and that they will prove to be as useful to you as they have been to me.
-Brett
I plan to keep them a try. thanks