I’ve written over 13,000 words on my novel for National Novel Writing Month using JDarkRoom, and it’s definitely been a key factor in my ability to focus. JDarkRoom is a minimalist word processing application available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. It’s customizable, yet simple.

Options include the ability to change the default green text, as well as the background, cursor, and selection colors. I find light blue text on a black background to be especially soothing to my eyes. The font and font size can be adjusted as well. Basically, JDarkRoom is a full-screen word processor without the distractions of a toolbar or other tempting applications close at hand.

You really only need to memorize three simple keyboard commands to work comfortably in JDarkRoom. Ctrl+S saves, Esc exits, and F1 opens a new document. Or, if you just want to memorize one command, F5 will take you to the help screen, which tells you all the other possible commands. For NaNoWriMo writers, or anyone else obsessively checking their word count, Ctrl+L shows the line, word, and character count of your document.

Once you have the colors changed to your liking, the program couldn’t be simpler to use, especially if you’re working on a single larger project like a novel. On starting, JDarkRoom will bring up the last file you worked on. Then all you have to do is write, occasionally saving your work or checking your word count. Saving your documents as .txt files will give you the best results.

One of the benefits of using JDarkRoom to work on my novel is that when I open the program, I immediately associate the appearance of the document with this particular novel. This lets me dive right into the story with less rereading. I may use a different text color for each future novel to make the association even more compelling.

While the full-screen aspect of JDarkRoom is ideal for focusing on the task at hand, I also like to keep a notes files open on my desktop for ideas and random bits of text. I can easily switch between JDarkRoom and my notes using Alt+Tab (Apple+Tab on Mac). But I would caution you against doing this too often. It’s far too easy to switch to a browser to “research” something and not get back to JDarkRoom for hours. I find it best to jot a reminder to research an issue in parentheses right in the text, then get back to work.

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