Friday, September 5, 2008

JDarkroom - a Great Tool for Writers


Any good writer will tell you that the best way to write is quickly and without thinking. Let the words flow and keep going, even if it's crap - that's what revisions are for. So what is the biggest problem for writers? That's easy - distractions. Today's computers are super machines full of interactive whatsits and clickable thingamijiggs. They can do almost anything and often leave you accomplishing nothing. In short they are one big distraction. The solution? JDarkroom.

JDarkroom is a great little freeware text editor I found that eliminates all distractions by taking out the bells and whistles and rolling back the years to give you a good old fashioned fullscreen editor. No toolbars, no scrollbars, no choice of fonts, no clickable "interactive assistant", nothing but green text on a black screen. A writer's dream.

I was somewhat skeptical, but the complete lack of any visual stimulus is very refreshing and enables me to "just write". It is an adaptation of a shareware Mac application called "WriteRoom" and runs as a Java app, which makes it platform independent. I'm running mine on an ancient Linux-powered laptop and it is super fast.

So if you find yourself struggling to complete a writing project in Word or the like, download this cracking little app and give it a go. You may be surprised at how much more productive you become.

1 comment:

stevespeirs said...

Will definitely try this...nice tip - thanks!