NaBloMo - what?

Well, it turns out that it's National Blogging Month - and although I'm a week late and not even close to having a regularly interesting blog the likes of my good friends at The Sporadic Post and Bread n Jam for Frances, I'm going to try to up the ante here and eek out a few posts this month, either here or on my other blog as my mommy self. I know these posts show up on various forums such as Facebook, Google Reader, etc. (where I usually read other people's blogs), but I would say that going to the sites directly will give you a more pleasurable viewing experience potentially - and you can see the design changes I made recently. Although, really, does anyone actually go to people's actual blog sites anymore, with all of these alternative access routes?

To follow up on my previous post, I did actually get to try WriteMonkey and I completely love it. I've used it several times now, both on the very large monitors of my home computer and on the small screen of my netbook at a coffeeshop, and was impressed both times with the productivity and focus that resulted. Basically WriteMonkey takes over the screen, making a black canvas that display only the words you type. No formatting buttons, no Windows taskbar below, no distractions. It discourages excessive editing - so I can hit Ctl + I and italicize, but the text won't actually show up that way, just _like this_. I tend to obsess about corrections and overedit, thereby routinely stunting my own creativity and smothering my ideas before they even make it onto the page. This solution really seems to be doing the trick, especially since I don't see the little browser buttons below on my taskbar, daring me to check my email again. I've written several pages of my dissertation on it so far - so mission accomplished! Who knew a black page with rows of green letters could be so beautiful and soothing? Well, I guess they did.

Here's a screenshot from PC Magazine - which included WriteMonkey in "The Best Free Software of 2011":

Sometime soon I'll also need to try out organizational software to put together all of the bits and pieces that I'm writing on WriteMonkey and elsewhere, but right now I'm mainly sorting them in files on my computer by chapter and on Google Docs. I can already sense things getting lost in the mix, though - so I'll probably report back soon with word on one of those writing organization programs that work for PCs.