After reading this post about a conceptual app called Blockwriter for Macs, I got to thinking. I work in IT consulting, and so spend most of my working days immersed in Powerpoint, which, for better or worse, tends to get used for everything. However, in the evenings, like thousands of others, I do my creative thang by knocking out short stories, blog posts and even a novel. At home, I have a dedicated writing machine, which is a non-networked iMac, running on Linux. No internet, plus the fullscreen setting on OpenOffice means that I can happily type away for hours without getting distracted.
Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time away from home in various hotels. I write on the evenings on my work computer, which unfortunately is web-enabled to the Nth degree, plus has a bunch of other things on it to distract me, not least work stuff which sits there in the background, taunting me. I find it really hard to get into the same 'flow' state as I can at home, and the Blockwriter suggestions above got me thinking - is there something similar for Windows? I currently use a combination of Google Sidebar's Scratch Pad, and
Editpad Lite, but they're not covering all the bases here.
Anyone have any ideas? Of course, free would be good, but for something like
Ulysses, I might consider creaking open the wallet.
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Have you considered creating an alternate log-in on your work computer? You could set it up so that it launches with none of the bells and whistles of your primary account (no programs at start-up, wifi disabled by default, no access to all of the really tempting software in the business account, etc.). It seems that logging-in to this austere personal account when you want to be creative would go a long way to reducing distractions. Having to log-off and log back on might be just enough of a annoyance to keep you going.
posted by oddman at 6:45 AM on May 23, 2006