DavidGoodman.Net

With the first steps into writer-dom, there’s often an obsession with tools, settings and process. Most beginning writers are convinced that if they only get everything right, they’ll be able to turn out writing that makes the angels weep. The elements vary from person to person, but there’s an internet-wide obsession with places you can write, software and hardware you can write with and the endless different ways to approach the blank page. In fact, I think I’ll write a few more posts about all the things wannabe writers do and buy to avoid actually writing.

I must admit, I’ve got my own bridge to cross in this regard. Point 10 of Hugh McLeod’s How to Be Creative puts it well, when he says

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

But that hasn’t stopped me obsessing over what I should be using to write.

Having limited funds, I don’t get to indulge in a shared writing office or anything so grand as that. And Scalzi’s scathing coffeeshop jibes have certainly put the kibosh on that kind of ‘check it out - I’m WRITING’ silliness.

No, my weakness is far more geeky and can be indulged regardless of where you are, as long as there’s a web connection - you see, I’m all about the writing software.

I wrote my first and so far only novel entirely in Microsoft Word, and the fundamental flaws of that software are legion. Once you’re producing anything over a couple of thousand words, Word becomes incredibly frustrating to work with. These days I use NeoOffice, a Mac-specific fork of OpenOffice.Org, but I don’t do first drafts in it, because I realised there’s far better tools out there to produce draft material than a standard WYSIWYG word processor.

These days, I use Scrivener for heavyweight drafting, as well as for journaling and storing notes and clips. Scrivener is one of those perfect tools, because it’s so adaptable and beautifully executed that it blows other applications out of the water. With loads of different ways to outline, organise and otherwise structure your work, it wouldn’t be surprising if the actual text editing was underwhelming, but it’s not - it’s just as customisable as everything else. Want to type away on a fullscreen turquoise background with puce letters? Go right ahead, it’s simple! You can draft away to your heart’s content, with everything saved in cross-OS text files, all wrapped up in a beautiful, useful interface.

It took me a while to get to Scrivener. If there’s a free writing app for Mac, I’ve probably tried it. I’ve been particularly enamoured of full-screen editors, and I’ve tried everything from tapping away in Pico on a Linux command line to trying (and running away from) vi and emacs. Frankly, I’m a bit sick of real techie types telling me I *need* to use something like emacs or vi (the two main factions of the Editor Wars), saying those wonderful techie phrases like ‘it’s so powerful, customisable and extensible”. All good, I thought, til I read it and realised I’d have to write my own mini-app in LISP just to get a word count. Fuck that.

You see, I’m a writer, whether of short fiction, novels, blog posts or non-fiction. My ‘coding’ needs are limited to hacking a little PHP on my website (and by ‘hacking’ I mean changing font sizes) and inserting hyperlinks into blog posts. So I don’t need my text editors to syntax highlight for fucking FORTRAN.

What I do need is a way to limit distractions. Something that lets me screen out blinking icons and doesn’t let me fiddle with formatting or line spacing or anything else. So when the new vogue for full-screen editors kicked in, I was delighted.

The first one was Hog Bay Software’s WriteRoom, and it both epitomises what is right about this idea, and wrong too. It’s a slick little app, even if Mark Pilgrim dismisses it saying

“These programs aren’t for serious writers at all. They’re for the writer’s equivalent of script kiddies - people who want to go to Starbucks and pick up chicks with their Macbooks and their iPods and their glowing full-screen text editors.”

Him and all his ‘I was writing in angle brackets way before Facebook, kid’ buddies. Yeah, thanks for that, but I don’t really fancy learning fifteen different key bindings to write a ten line blog post. The downside is that it costs you $25 to get rid of the little nag screen that pops up every time you use the damn thing, and frankly, it’s not really worth all that, especially when the much more fully featured Scrivener is only ten bucks more.

I use DarkRoom, a windows equivalent, to write at work, and someone did a cross-platform version called JDarkRoom. I think there’s even an in-browser version (which takes things a bit far, frankly). What all of these have in common is that they strip the writing experience way down. For a while there, I even toyed with the idea of getting a Neo. Yeah, so I lack self-control. What’s your point?

Anyhoo, I’ve finally found an answer for the times when I want to tap something out, but don’t necessarily feel like booting up Scrivener, starting a new project etc etc. It’s a fantastic, free and customisable text editor called Smultron. And when you pair it with the Firefox extension It’s All Text, find the (newish) full screen option and set it up so it’s easy on the eye, it’s an instant, distraction-free and fun to use way of producing writing for the web. If you just want to use it for dashing off quick things like emails or notes, just use Quicksilver to make it appear and disappear fast. Free, and awesome, just the way I like it.

So, that’s my toolkit for producing lots of luvverly text on the web and elsewhere. I’ll refine it, and doubtless I’ll try other editors, but Scrivener and Smultron are my two big hitters.

What do you use?