“There are millions of distractions that the modern day writer has to put up with in order to get their ideas out there. Twitter, Facebook, your feed reader, they’re all conspiring to distract you from getting your writing down on the page.”

Thus begins an essay on what the author terms a “method of pure writing flow” for a blog called Write to Done. Minimize online distractions and don’t edit yourself as you let words flow, advises Everett Bogue. Bogue writes a blog on Minimalism called Far Beyond The Stars and uses a program that I just began using called WriteRoom for the Mac. (I still use Word on my PC.)

WriteRoom claims to be:

for people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a distraction-free writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you’re used to, WriteRoom lets you focus on writing. Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later

This software or TextEdit or any simple text editor that seems to remove our writing efforts from opening Firefox or the internet helps the flow, Bogue urges.

What works for you? I’m at ease with the internet, and enjoy using the ready reference abilities when writing. Perhaps I have more time for distractions than others, or perhaps I haven’t tapped into some latent creative ability, but I doubt that exists.