A Quick Link and I’ll Be Back Next Week

I mentioned yesterday that I’m going to be without internet access next week. Clearly, this means no blog posts or replies to messages. I’ll be back – temporarily – on the 12th, which is a Saturday.

I do want to quickly give a link to Jeff VanderMeer’s blog, Ecstatic Days though. It’s one of my favourites and today’s post in particular felt relevant to me, with what I was saying yesterday about the distraction of the internet and my need to get away from it for a while in order to get some writing done. The whole post is, I think, one that more writers should read, particularly those who spend more time blogging about writing fiction than actually writing the fiction itself.

So, there’s something interesting for you to read. I’ll be back next week, hopefully refreshed and with a progress report.

Going On A Writing Retreat

I read a lot of blogs by fiction authors and I’ve noticed recently that a lot of them have been taking what they refer to as ‘writing retreats’. Basically, this is taking a holiday, usually travelling away from home, with the express purpose of getting some quality writing time. This is, incidentally, something that I’m more-or-less going to be doing next week. More, because I’ll be getting loads of writing done, but less because that wasn’t initially why I planned to go away.

Clearly, the idea of taking a week off, with no distractions (read: no internet) isn’t going to be something that everyone can do, or even wants to do, but it must have its positives. Even now, I get slightly misty-eyed over the thought of just spending five days typing away. Soaring word-counts, time to just think about the story with no other distractions and the feeling that, just for a few days, I’m a real writer. It sounds like absolute bliss.

Well, maybe. The problem is that I, like many writers, have spent so long developing a writing schedule that fits around all my other daily activities, that I once I’m left just writing, I fear I might get a bit bored. I’ll have no cooking, housework, gardening or general errands to do. I’ll have no internet for procrastination. There’ll be just me and my laptop and the little blinking cursor, goading me to write something.

Thankfully, I believe there’s a happy compromise to be found. You see, my ‘writing retreat’ is actually a visit to my parents, who have just moved house and have no internet connection yet. So, fewer distractions. But, at the same time, there’ll be socialising to be done, old friends to meet up with and relatives to visit. I’ll be able to lounge around watching TV and not feel guilty. I’ll even be able to catch up with some reading. At the same time though, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to write, should I choose to take them.

So, maybe that’s the answer to having a successful writing holiday. Take a trip to see someone: maybe family, maybe writer friends. Just wherever you go, make sure you’ll have at least some time to write, as well as one or two distractions for when the words aren’t coming.

What I’ve Been Playing/Reading/Writing etc. etc.

Over the last couple of days, I haven’t found time to blog properly, so tonight I’m just going to provide a general update of what I’ve been up to and hopefully get back to something more interesting over the weekend.

• What I’ve been playing: Pokemon Pearl, which arrived in the post around lunchtime, so I’ve been glued to my Nintendo DS for much of the afternoon. So far it’s pretty much as I expected, which is just fine, as it’s nostalgia for playing Pokemon Yellow that spurred me to buy this new one. I’ll hopefully get a few more thoughts up when I’ve got further into the game.
• What I’ve been reading: Currently Neuromancer by William Gibson, which I’ve been told is an SF classic. I’ve read less classic SF than I have fantasy, but I’m really enjoying it so far. The prose is very taut and it seems as if every unnecessary word has been chopped out. There’s a lesson that more writers should take note of.
• What I’ve been writing: All I’ll say is that it’s a secret project and that I’m 7500 words into an estimated 80,000. Unusually for me, I haven’t planned much for this one so I’m pretty much just taking it scene by scene. To be honest, I’m not sure how it’s going to pan out, but I’ll keep you posted!
• Other things I’ve been doing: Having picnics in the park, enjoying the sun, cooking, organising, starting to see the point in both FaceBook and Twitter.

And final thoughts… Well, it’s my 21st birthday on Thursday, so I’m probably not going to be around much over the next week. (Exacerbated by the fact that I’m going to visit my parents next week, who have no internet because they’ve just moved house – I’m using the trip as a ‘writing retreat’, which I’ll talk more about tomorrow.)

To all those who celebrate the 4th July, hope you’re having a great day. And even for those of us who don’t, here in the UK, the weather’s been fantastic today and that’s reason enough to celebrate!

Software For Writers: DarkRoom

Recently, I’ve found that I’ve been increasingly looking at writing software other than OpenOffice or Word, in order to speed up my productivity. I’ve tried a number of pieces of software which are designed specifically for novel-writing, but have either found them lacking or not different enough to a standard word processor to justify buying them. I would really like to try Scrivener, but with it only available for the Mac (prices of which seem to be several times that of a standard laptop), that’s one investment I won’t be making any time soon.

So, I was particularly pleased to come across this blog post. It’s over a year old now, admittedly, but I’d already looked at one or two programs on the list so I knew at least some of them were still available. Looking through the list more thoroughly, I’ve found one particular program that I think is worthy of note and which I’m currently testing with my latest novel.

Let me introduce you to DarkRoom (or the Mac alternative, WriteRoom). It’s a little piece of software that I’ve been very impressed with so far and it’s entirely free. It works best in full-screen mode, minimising distractions (although the opacity of the background can be altered, to allow you to see what’s running behind it, which I think is a nice feature) and the default colour scheme of green text on a black background seems easier on the eyes that traditional black on white. It also loads incredibly quickly, which is a bonus if you’re using an old, slow machine, like I am. It has, put simply, everything I could ever need to just get the words out quickly, with the addition of a word count function and easily learnt keyboard shortcuts.

It seems to me that DarkRoom is the ultimate no-fuss, easy to use – and free, remember – word processor for those who don’t need any frills. Granted, this low-key approach won’t work for everyone, but I’ve definitely found it beneficial in just getting my first draft out of my head and onto the screen as quickly as possible, without distraction from the dreaded internet. So, if you’re a writer who’s fed up with Word or its equivalents and want an incredibly simple but effective program, I highly recommend DarkRoom.