Andrew L. Van Slaars

If you are a regular reader you are aware that I am working on writing a book. Not that I have much spare time right now so every little bit of forward progress helps and if I get a spare moment, I try to take advantage of it.

Unfortunately, sometimes when I do find an opportunity to sit down to write something for my book, I find myself getting distracted with something else that needs to be done. An icon on my desktop or an alert from an application will remind me of something and I’m off in another direction. I’m keeping busy and getting stuff done, but the book isn’t writing itself.

I just discovered a great tool for writing called DarkRoom. It has very few features by design. The key to using DarkRoom is that it covers your entire screen, allowing you to focus on writing without distractions.

If you write regularly and find yourself getting distracted y other software, system messages, emails, the Internet or anything else on your Windows desktop, you should check out DarkRoom. Oh, did I mention it’s free?

You can get DarkRoom here.

Productivity, Tools, Writing blogging, Productivity, Tools, Writing

Stuff is a technical term I like to use… Ok, I just didn’t know what else to call this post.I have written about 5 entries for this blog this evening. They are almost all awful and only one of them was published. Some of them may never make it. So why write them? I haven’t been sticking to my “write something everyday” goal… I have been pretty busy for the past two weeks and I don’t want this chain of not writing to continue. I was also reminded by some of my new co-workers today that I haven’t posted lately (Thanks guys).

I found that in a couple weeks of writing everyday, my writing improved (at least in my mind) and it has gotten rusty just as quickly. I am writing a bunch of stuff to get back into it. This is my cure for writers block and being in a non-writing rut.

I’m ok with never publishing most of this stuff. I’m ok with it sitting there for another week waiting to be edited. I’m even ok looking at these posts and admitting that they are bad. They can be improved. They can be trashed. If I get back into the swing of things and start writing regularly again, they have served their purpose.

So if you ever find that your writing is getting rusty or you have writers block, just write a bunch of stuff. It seems to be helping me.

Productivity, Writing blogging, Productivity, Writing

ScribeFire is an add-on for Firefox that allows you to write notes and blog posts right from your browser.

I’m using it right now to write this and it’s pretty convenient. I’m not connected to the Internet and the browser is showing a “Server not found” message but ScribeFire works just fine and will store this locally until I am ready to publish it (which has happened already if you are reading this).

ScribeFire connects right to my WordPress blog and stores my information to allow simple posting without the need to log into the blog itself. Publishing options allow items to be posted as drafts until you are ready to finish and publish them from your blogging platform.

Productivity, Tools, Writing blogging, firefox, scribefire, Writing

The most common advice I see pertaining to improving your writing skills is to write something everyday. I have tried unsuccessfully in the past to do this and I am going for it again. I have set several goals for 2008, which I will discuss further in another post, one of which is to write something everyday. That doesn’t mean I will be posting a new entry everyday (although I would be thrilled if I could really come up with that much to write). I will be writing at least a little bit for this blog, another blog that I will be writing for in the near future, for my book or for an article everyday.

With all of this writing happening, the odds are pretty good that I will post shorter but more frequent (and hopefully better written) posts here than I have in the past (and I am including the blog I had at vanslaars.com when I say past).

In order to help me keep the chain going, I have signed up for an account at joesgoals.com. Now I get to place a check mark on each day that I write something. Right now, I have a 3 day (including today) chain going. Hopefully, it continues for a long time.

Writing goals, Writing