I read about this writing application/program  called Ommwriter via Fuel Your Writing. It’s supposed to eliminate all of the distractions of writing by giving you not only a blank space, but an artistic background and pleasant sounds to accompany them. The sounds are keystrokes that don’t sound like keys, but are audible, if you wish them to be. The music is very Zen, meditation-like, and it can be turned off as well. I’m all for something useful to help writing, so I decided to download and try it. Screenshot courtesy FuelYourWriting.com I tried the inauguration run of OmmWriter tonight, running full steam with the music and the sounds and the background. I ended up turning the sounds off. Way annoying. I’m a music-while-I-write kind of writer, but not that kind of music. Maybe piano music, but definitely not whatever that was. The keyboard sounds were amusing, but after about 500 words, were also annoying. I could have handled the background as well, except the program itself was just slow. It couldn’t keep up with my typing and I had to wait for words to show up. I don’t know if that’s the program or my laptop, but it doesn’t happen when I use Word. Verdict? Nah. My distraction killer of choice, actually, is Write or Die by Dr Wicked. You set the period of time and the goal you want to hit, press start, and start typing. Nothing but blank white space nothing fancy– BYOM (bring your own music… or motivation…) If you STOP typing, after a set amount of time, the screen goes all stupid– turns red and starts honking and blinking until you start typing again. It’s actually pretty motivating for just getting words out to get started when you’re staring at a blank page. It also totally kills your inner editor. No time to stop and edit and rewrite… JUST WRITE. Tonight, I hit my 1000 word goal, but Ommwriter wasn’t very motivating so I haven’t added […]