OmmWriter

There’s life beyond Microsoft Word. Among the countless word precessors available, I’d like to introduce you today to the most bucolic of them: OmmWriter.

This curious software is designed to help you relax and focus on what you initially intended to do when you sat in front of the computer, which was not to get distracted reading blogs like this one, but to write. OmmWriter hides your desktop, plays backgroudn music and leaves you alone with your ideas.

There are no distracting options, barely four font types in four sizes and the load and save options. You can’t even use italics. You can, however, choose among a small selection of background music and images, three of each in the free version Dana I, a few more in the full version Dana II, including some backgrounds based on the theories of chromatherapy.

Surreal? Yes.

But it works.

Available for Mac and PC

You won’t put up with so much relaxation for longer than an hour or so, but who has more time to write anyway? Before you realize, and by lack of anything to do in front of that blank landscape where nothing happens, you’ll have initiated a story, sketched a character o portrayed a situation. You won’t write your novel on OmmWriter, but you may plant its seed, or write some microfiction, o a scene that you’ll eventually use somewhere else. If you use it regularly, it’s quite likely that you’ll end up with a folder of unconnected fragments that, six months later, will surprise with real pearls that -you’ll have forgotten- were once in your head.

I recommend, at least, giving the experience a try. And then share it with us.