On the Mac side, there are a lot of writing apps that provide fullscreen mode. My personal favorite is StoryMill from Mariner, which also offers MacJournal with full screen mode. Scrivener for Mac does too. These apps do more than just full-screen, so you will want to consider them based on their other merits as well. WriteRoom is nice, and while a bit spendy for what you get, its spare feature set may be part of its attraction. For a few bucks more, I prefer the range of StoryMill. But all these apps offer great benefit over the bloat of Word, which I spend more time fighting with when I do have to use than getting actual work done.

I'd be surprised if such isn't also ubiquitous on the Windows side.

The attraction of just typing on a blank screen and slowly (or quickly) filling it with words is great. I spend most of my time in full screen mode in StoryMill. Lack of distractions definitely helps me.

Full-screen mode is an option in most word processing programs. It certainly helps.

But for me the greatest distraction is the internet and all the other apps on the computer. So I stick with my 1989-era Poqet. It runs DOS 3.3 and has a card for WordPerfect 5.1 (the best word processor ever made). I type and save on a PC series I card (holding 512K) which I then pop into my laptop PC slot to print or transmit. The Poqet runs on two AA batteries that last for weeks. It also has no boot-up time: press the "on" button and you are exactly where you were.

Of course, the Poqet was discontinued soon after it was introduced. Fujitsu bought it and then killed it. It was too good!

"If only there were a way to magically convey the words from page to screen to e-mail to editor."

With Adobe Acrobat, you can create a .pdf from scanned pages. There's probably the added bonus (to the writer) of the editor not easily changing the text.

I admit that most "professional" word processors are full of bloatware. Word is a horror. Style sheets were supposed to make things easier, but don't work at all.

But what you guys are advocating is available free as Wordpad with Windows. If you're paying for a deliberately crippled and stupid word processor, instead of the one you've already got...well, I don't know what to say. Maybe you should dump those fancy graphic design programs on your computers and go back to printing naked girls with ASCII art on your Teletype printer.

I briefly looked at the links to WriteRoom and Dark Room provided in the article.

I found it ironic that WriteRoom has so many customizable features - considering it's supposed to reproduce that old-fashioned, pre-technological feeling of distraction free writing. (?!)

But, here's an already-installed and "free" (because it comes bundled) full-screen writing app: Notepad!

Try it. You might like it.

To echo part of captcrisis's sentiment, I too greatly enjoyed WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. There is much to be said for sweeping aside all the distractions of a GUI, including graphical fonts. Of course, WP5.1 was downright hellish as soon as you started trying to position graphics or create complicated layouts, but the simple stuff still worked great.

Considerable information on how to get WP5.1 (and WP6.x) working on modern systems can be found by clicking my sig.

The rat-a-tat-tat of the keyboard was hypnotic. Some people write in silence, others need noise. That sound took me out of my daily world and into that of the imagination. I also liked seeing the pages pile up and being able to look at more than one page at a time.

About nine months ago, I was living in Seattle (didn't work out, which sucked, but I got published for the first time). I was lamenting the passing of the typewriter to my roommate, and she came in the next day with a case "For art and dreaming" she said. It was a manual portable she noticed at a garage sale. With one dollar, she'd restored my happiness.

Granted, I was used to the late 80's electric with white out a keyball (is that the right word?) rather than the old fashioned keys that got all stuck together. But who could complain? That sound of the keys sparked my imagination and unleased a flood of creativity I hadn't felt in years.

Typewriters are our friends.

Know what I'd like to have? A modern equivalent of the typewriter itself. No, a PC doesn't cut it, because it's too damn distracting. Having the capacity to run all kinds of programs defeats the purpose of a machine that is dedicated solely to writing.

What I'd like to have is a nice, sleek, contemporary version of the old Wang machines. A simple word processor that runs only one program, one designed to write text. In a small laptop size - hell, a fold-out just big enough to pair a screen with a comfortable keyboard would be great. I'd be willing to pay $300 or so for a machine that I could carry in my backpack or briefcase, could whip out whenever I wanted to do some writing, and which would prevent me from getting lured away by text messaging, the internet, video games, and all those other little gewgaws that can tempt one away from the work.

Of course, a pad and pencil would do the same, but the fingers aren't as strong as they used to be, and one's thoughts do run so fast...

I'm digging these replies, especially from fellow typewriter fans. And true-true, there's Notepad but it doesn't go full screen with wide margins like paper. And yep, WriteRoom has a number of options but not too many - which is why I skipped the mention of the other products like Scrivener and a few others that *do* have typewriter-like full screen modes, but way too many extra features for things like outlining and characters and whatnot. Which isn't to say those aren't great things for some or many writers, but for me the simpler the better in order to just get the words out with little fuss... oh hell, like right now - I've got another post to turn in. Back to the make-believe keyboard. Thanks for so many great and varied comments, good times, and I'll be sure to mention in the next post that I invite readers to share their specific favorites and equivalents to what I describe that post and others to come. -JH