: Re: Do fullscreen writing environments help for writing? Why? I recently found out about full-screen writing applications like OmniWriter and DarkRoom and I'm interested in using them, but I'm skeptical

In general I find that discussions over the tools associated with writing are distractions from writing itself, in much the same way that I used to distract myself with endlessly tweaking my IDE/text editor when I was an undergrad CS major. We do this because tweaking and experimenting is easier than doing the thing itself. It's a form of procrastination, but it's a "productive" kind of procrastination--unlike gaming--we're better able to fool ourselves into thinking that we've accomplished something.

(This phenomenon's close cousin is incessant checking of social networks, IMing people, refreshing email, etc.)

All that being said...

My preferred tool is determined by the type of writing I'm doing. When I'm writing fiction (rare), I like a fullscreen environment, specifically DarkRoom, because it's just me and my characters. That being said, Notepad is my favorite writing application. I compose emails, replies to people (like this one, for instance), and I even wrote ~85% of my thesis in Notepad before moving it to Word.

Why Notepad? Well it's basically pure writing. There's nothing between you and your words: no UI bells and whistles. No distractions, no formatting beyond what you can do with whitespace and capital letters. (That's really all you need when you're doing an initial draft, anyway.) But you can look at other open windows, which is helpful when I'm composing a reply to someone, or need to reference another document or webpage.

One of these days I'm doing to re-write it to get rid of the bugs that've been in it since at least Windows 95. One of these days...

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: In my experience, you're not likely to find much of anything useful without paying. The Association of American Publishers has some statistics for free (2009 Preliminary Estimates), but you'll

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: Publishing is the act of printing and distributing writing in physical or electronic form. It may refer to the commercial publishing industry, small press, self-publishing and on-demand publishing.

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: Why do hardcover books retail for more than three times the cost of softcover books? One thing I've noticed while browsing bookstores is that hardcover books tend to cost more than softcover

: Re: Do fullscreen writing environments help for writing? Why? I recently found out about full-screen writing applications like OmniWriter and DarkRoom and I'm interested in using them, but I'm skeptical

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: In my experience, you're not likely to find much of anything useful without paying. The Association of American Publishers has some statistics for free (2009 Preliminary Estimates), but you'll

: What are some appropriate uses of readability tests? Do you use readability metrics (such as Gunning fog or Flesch-Kincaid) as you're working on a piece? If so, how do you use them, and what

: Publishing is the act of printing and distributing writing in physical or electronic form. It may refer to the commercial publishing industry, small press, self-publishing and on-demand publishing.

: Why do hardcover books retail for more than three times the cost of softcover books? One thing I've noticed while browsing bookstores is that hardcover books tend to cost more than softcover

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