In the course of writing this paragraph, I have checked Facebook twice (two new notifications, a friend request, an event reminder), opened Twitter (a new follower mysteriously named “The Stranger”), clicked on a link listing reviews of new bars and restaurants in Delhi. For date night, don’t head to Tamasha, in Connaught Place, I’m warned; “it’s really for a rendezvous with the Tinder hook-up you’re never going to see again.” Meanwhile, someone has emailed me pictures of a naked hamster posing with his favourite food. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (an online compendium of invented words written by John Koenig) has informed me that “Zenosyne” alludes to “the sense that time keeps going faster.” Especially when trying to meet writing deadlines, I wish to add. Then there are cat videos. Videos of dogs befriending cats. Of cats sleeping. Chasing string. Annoying babies. A Google search for “folk music India” (research for an article) has led me to a page on “Tropical Body Language.” On my phone, one WhatsApp message tinkles in after another. While Will Self is worried about the “serious novel” dying because of there being no readers, I’m more concerned about there being few writers. Writing anything. Because look, here’s another 27-hour-long cat video.

I have options, of course.

ZenPen offers a “minimalist” online writing zone “where you can block out all distractions and get to what’s important. The writing!” Not sure how that’s meant to work considering it’s one of many browser tabs I have open. (Twelve. Because I quickly, surreptitiously closed nine.) The OmmWriter app, on the other hand, calls itself a “writer’s haven”. It promises “your own private writing room where you can close the door behind you to focus on your writing in peace.” You can choose between a variety of coloured “chromotherapy” backgrounds, audio tracks to “focus your mind on your words”, and keystroke sounds to “support your every move on the keyboard.” All this for a minimum of $5.11. For a few dollars more, there’s Hemingway, that in addition to a clean, streamlined interface, will (I kid you not) critique your prose. So it highlights long sentences in yellow, complex ones in red, passive voice in green, and adverbs in blue so you can “get rid of them and pick verbs with force instead.” I am in awe. (And quite certain the app would drive me crazy.)

For the most part, though, these writer’s apps seem to concentrate on sparseness — the key phrases being “fuss-free menus”, “lightweight tools”, “stripped down workspace”. Some, like iA, have introduced “focus” modes that dim everything apart from the paragraph, or even the sentence, you’re working on. Although, I would think a “distraction-free word processor” would be one that goes full screen and suppresses all pop-ups and notifications from email or other apps. To ensure that, however, I can install Freedom to “block distractions, be productive, and start accomplishing more.” “Absolutely brilliant,” flashes a quote from Nick Hornby in the feedback banner. I’m not tempted until I see praise from Naomi Klein “I love Freedom. If I ever finish writing my book this is why.” But would it work? Surely it was simple to just not switch it on. Or switch it off. And the writing apps seemed to be minimalistic variations of Word or Scrivner. Everything that goes full screen can be minimised. So easy to switch between applications, at the flick of a finger.

Enter Flowstate.

An app that will delete everything if you stop writing. “The way out is through” their website dourly informs me. “Obstructions. Not options.” This sounds like the literary equivalent of a nasty gym teacher who sends you for another seven rounds of the track when you can’t even finish one. Unlike other writing programmes, Flowstate apparently “features a sacred space for initial creation, with rigid laws enlisted to unleash a person’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas like water.”

In despair, I elicit the help of a few writer friends. Some have installed writing apps. A few, Freedom. “But the diversions can also be within you,” says one philosophically. Another feels these apps themselves are obstructions. That they’re all a step too far. “We must depend on our own resilience,” he says. “How?” we query faintly. This is what he does: for two hours every morning, he switches off the internet, turns off his phone. And writes.

That’s a sound strategy, we mutter approvingly. Except every morning my resolution withers.

Perhaps, though, all is not lost. I realise I’ve written the rest of this article, miraculously, sans distractions. I was in, what Flowstate promises, “the zone”. I’d switched nothing off. I’d used Word. And the only sound was of my fingers hitting the keyboard. The fact that I had a deadline helped, of course. But is that all? What is the space where writers go when they write?

Beyond all temptations and trickeries. I realise it’s not online or offline, but in. Where only we exist. The words and me.

Janice Pariat is the author of Seahorse; @janicepariat

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW