NaNoWriMo

It's that time of the year again. The month when all your writer friends disappear into some underground burrows, others sniff disdainfully and light up another cigarette, and much crankiness and coffee happens. It's almost as bad as exam season. It's NaNoWriMo!

The first time I joined NaNo was in 2006 or 2007. I don't remember. Since then, I have participated on and off, but I've never actually finished. This is all you need to know.

Today's post is about software. I usually do all my writing by hand. Nietzsche is said to have marvelled at how using a typewriter changed is style so much, and indeed, I think what we use to write can affect our style. To me, there's nothing like pen and paper. I'm oddly specific about it, too.

On the other hand, I seldom type. The only things I type up directly are fanfiction and essays for university. Oh, and blog entries. Other than that, I just try to avoid typing anything. I don't like what it does to my style.

Finally, I have a typewriter (an old light blue Corona that comes in what looks like a suitcase) but I rarely use it. It's clunkier than a computer keyboard, and I'm not that much of a hipster to sacrifice comfort for style (even though I'm also the person who has a mini-collection of quills and calligraphy pens, and loves the way they scratch the paper).

When I use my computer, I often go for plain and simple Microsoft Word. I don't use half of its features, but it's still basic enough, unlike lots of writer-specific software out there that does everything but plan the story for you. I don't like that. Microsoft Word is also useful when I need to write essays with tons of footnotes and quotations.

My favourite word processor, however, is Q10. It's incredibly basic. You can't format your text beyond changing font style and colour (same for the whole text, you can't make certain words different from others) and the background. On the other hand, those things are insanely easy to configure, and it takes up the whole screen, so you can be overwhelmed by neon pink or blinded by fluorescent yellow if you so desire. That means it's considerably less distracting, because you can't see the handy browser shortcut right by your Start menu, waiting for you to click it and spend five hours on tumblr without doing any writing done, staring at shirtless men in the name of "research" (hey, my novel is about shirtless men and religious discussion). At the bottom of the screen, there's a small black bar with things you can activate, like a word count meter, character count, page count (even though there are no visible breaks between pages), clock, and even a timer, among other features. You can also choose to activate sounds like typewriter keys when you type, or to write in complete silence. It backs up your files if you wish, and you can also set it to load your current project as soon as you open it.

Best of all? It's insanely portable. It's tiny, so it loads very well, and you can also stick it in your dongle (there, I said dongle) and take it everywhere.

On the NaNo Technology forum, where I seldom post but sometimes lurk, someone mentioned ommwriter. It looked really beautiful from the previews, so I decided to check it out. It's similar to Q10, except you can also add background music that sounds like those "zen" CDs targeted to middle class white women who like yoga and organic yogurt. There's also a variety of backgrounds, including textures and images, and you can make them change automatically according to your mood or something. The interface looks really clean and pretty, and you also get to choose the sound of your keystrokes. It's like if hipster scientists were bored of tumblrs with tiny unreadable fonts and icons, and instead decided to breed a word processor and a mood ring just for fun.

It looks great, it's true. Even though the free version is very limited, you can buy the most recent Dana whatever for about $4.11 or something. I tried the free version, was instantly bored with the backgrounds, and all the prettiness was distracting. There is no word meter, which is a feature you want around when you're doing NaNo, and the whole thing almost makes me forget that none of my characters is a middle-aged Reiki fiend or a yerba mate addict.

It's also bigger, so it takes longer to load, you have to install it, and it's generally a bore.

No, give my Q10 any day. Its lack of features and old school visuals are ideal for things like NaNo and essays that I keep proscrastinating or with stubborn introduction paragraphs (oh Aristophanes, you and whatever point I was trying to make about you!). It's not pen and paper, but it's still very simple and unassuming, without lots of annoying features.