As Far As I Can Tell

I’ve spent the last two weeks pushing everything else out of the way to focus on my thesis paper. I don’t have a lot of experience writing long essays, which may be the reason I write very slowly. Another factor is that I’m developing my argument as I write so half my time is spent re-reading and making notes, not actually writing.

In the last week I started using a new writing program for the Mac called WriteRoom that I highly recommend. It’s a simple text editor, but designed to block out all the things that distract you when you’re sitting at a computer. The colors are customizable, it goes full screen to cover up everything else, and it has no tool bars or icons — just your words. I customized mine to be completely monochromatic: dark gray background, white page, and black text. If you need to write, to really just focus on the words, close all your other programs and launch WriteRoom.

After a period of trial and error I also found some good music to write to. Below are the albums I’m playing on repeat in the library. Just hearing one of them now triggers a “writing mode” response in my brain.

• Telefon Tel Aviv - Immediate Action 8 + Fahrenheit Fair Enough
• Solo Andata - Fyris Swan
• E*vax - Parking Lot Music

Sometimes I also mix in:

• Savath + Savalas - Fok Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey
• Juana Molina - Son
• Cloud Mireya - Singular