Writing Tool for A Writing Fool

Two major changes have made their way into my life in the last 5 years. They are very mutually exclusive and have begun battling in my head with no clear winner.

The first event was a self-diagnosed adult onset attention-deficit disorder (which merely replaced the self-diagnosed child-onset A.D.D when I became an adult at 38). The second event was the realization that I actually enjoy putting words on virtual paper. Sometimes, yes, SOMETIMES, I even enjoy stringing those words together into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs back into sentences because I scare easily. You can think of it as “literal” rock-climbing where the higher I climb, the scaredier I get.

This first event has made it nearly impossible to stay focused on the task of writing. When I open Microsoft Word (or for your Mac users, the Mac-Touch, Better-Than-Breathing, Bill-Gates-Sucks, Write-a- Novel-While-Sleeping, Pretty-Artsy-Bubbly-Interface, I-Don’t-Care-If-It-Costs-Seven-Hundred-Dollars, Edition software), I am faced with so many distractions like the ever-annoying Clippy and deciding what font to use today (I write in Wingdings).

Not to mention that the internet is always seducing me by whispering mesmerizingly in my ear “Ohhhh Dan, I need you to run your fingers over my series of tubes…” and I happily succumb. Then I feel guilty and dirty and used…but sated. So, I am quick to Alt-Tab (or just think about it for you Mac-o-philes) my way through life (How I wish I could Alt-Tab people in much the same way I do screens).

Both of my readers (BoMR) are unfortunate witnesses to this internal conflict. You may have noticed some of it in the previous 8 million words of this post just to say what I am about to say in the following 150 words.

One of the tools that I really enjoy using is called JDarkRoom. This is a full-screen text editor and offers NONE of the distractions that the fully-loaded Word does. With this editor, you do not choose fonts, underlines, paragraphs or any other formatting. In fact, the screen is simply a black screen that takes up your entire monitor’s real estate. You do not see the Task Bar, System Tray, Menu Bar, Desktop or anything else. Just a black screen with green text (You can also change the color of the screen and text if green-on-black is not your thing).

JDarkRoom has many other distraction-free features. From their website:

* Change your colour preferences, font and font size – via the settings screen (F6)
* JDarkRoom remembers the file that you were working on last time
* Support for central-european character sets
* JDarkRoom notifies you if you might have forgotten to save your changes
* Word/line/character count (Ctrl-L)
* Specify a file on the command-line for JDarkRoom to open it at startup
* Text antialiasing (where possible)
* Mouse-wheel scrolling
* Adjustable margins to fit any screen resolution (F9 to reset)
* Auto-save backups – so you never lose your work again
* Text search (F7 / Ctrl-F)
* A command-reminder strip can be displayed at the bottom of the screen

Of course, I am not sure what anti-aliasing is, but I think they are building a wall along the Mexican border and a plastic bubble over Califronia which should help with that. Honestly, I do not believe I can live without the Central European Character Set! I don’t even know where Central Europe is!

JDarkRoom is shareware, which simply means that donations are gladly and deservedly accepted. I, too, am shareware, which simply means that I am shareable.