Words on a page

In the past, I've blogged about writing and publishing with LyX (here and here, to be exact). While it's definitely not for everyone, LyX can be a powerful tool for writing and publishing theses, reports, and books. I've used it to write a number of professional reports which have pleased my clients.

The one thing that I have yet to do is author and publish a book using LyX. I've had a couple in the planning stages for a while, and everything except the content is ready to go in LyX. After reading this article, I might just have to get going!

The article looks at using LyX to create a book that will be published and sold on Lulu.com. I don't see why the information in the article can't be adapted for use with other services, like CafePress.com, or for publishing a work that you'll sell on your Web site.

Labels: Open Source, publishing, software, writing

The other day, someone asked me an interesting question about the minimalist writing tools I advocate: "Do these things make you a better writer? If not, why use them?"

The first part of the question ... well, that's a mistake many people who don't write, or who've just started out in the wacky world of smithing words, make. No software will make someone a better writer. That's up to the person.

So, why do I advocate and use tools like Writeboard and JDarkRoom? Sometimes, I just want to get words down quickly and without any distractions. And I can put in the formatting later. With Writeboard (or even Google Docs, which isn't that minimal), I can do it no matter where I am.

Labels: software, tools, writing

A while back, I wrote about a piece of software called WriteRoom. It's a full-screen editor that enables you to write without distractions from other applications, the Web, or whatever. The only problem for me is that WriteRoom is a MacOS-only application.

But last autumn, I discovered a Java application called JDarkRoom. It works a lot like WriteRoom, but on any operating system that uses Java. In the crush of the last few months, I forgot about JDarkRoom until I was leafing through my bookmarks earlier today. I downloaded the latest version, fired it up, and started writing. In fact, I wrote the first draft of an article using JDarkRoom this afternoon.

Writing with it was so easy. I just started typing, and the words began to flow. No distractions, nothing. This is definitely a keeper.

Labels: software, writing