Too few good options for distraction-free writing
I've done most of my video production on Linux for a while. Lately, I've had issues with Audacity crashing or refusing playback during editing projects. So, with my latest project, I switched to using my Mac but using the same FLOSS software for the production.
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
For unrelated reasons, I connected my MBA to my keyboard, mouse, and monitor at my normal desk. Having a 27 inch screen to do video editing is going to be a huge benefit.
Sometimes I write on my Mac. Sometimes I write on my main computer (Linux). Since setting up the typewriter (which is where I'm typing this from), I do the greatest amount of word count from a several-years-old, underpowered since the day before it came off the production line, Dell laptop.
I've got no GUI running on it. Despite the fact that the “refurbisher” sent me a unit with a practically dead battery, the laptop can get from 100% charge to low 70s in 5 hours of typing.
There are a lot of solutions out there for low-distraction writing. Most of them are more expensive than a $100 (or, occasionally cheaper) educational laptop running Linux.
That's not a solution for everyone. Especially not Alpine Linux. I can't get a USB drive to map on this thing. The only way I'm getting my writing off of it and onto the rest of my network is my existing NAS and a Unison profile.
It doesn't have constant nagging from Microsoft or Apple. There are no applications begging for or demanding my attention.
With the caveat that it requires a significant amount of technical knowledge to make it work in the first place, this is the cheapest and most effective way for me to do distraction-free writing.
Using this method, I was able to write just shy of 60K in the month of February. Most of that on this computer. In the shortest month of the year, without trying to, I completed a novel's worth of writing by February 22.
That's the power of cutting out distractions.
The options we as writers have for off the shelf devices to accomplish similar goals are expensive, inflexible products. I think we deserve options that aren't expensive or inflexible and don't require my level of Linux expertise to set up and maintain.