Write without distraction – a round-up of First Draft Pro's focus features
Ah, the elusive magic of focus. Writers strive endlessly to minimize distractions. Whole books have been written on the topic! But, how does one summon it? Do you need crystals? Candles? Should you develop the ritualistic practice of wearing the exact same sweater, at the exact same time of day, with your overworked laptop angled exactly 45 degrees to the left of your favourite spoon?
Creating an environment for focused writing was a big priority for First Draft Pro. We wanted to make sure that writers were getting all the power of novel writing software, as well as the clean interface of focus and productivity apps.
In this post, we'll be covering the First Draft Pro features designed to help you increase focus, reduce overwhelm, and minimise distraction.
How to focus with First Draft Pro
🏆 Keep your eye on the prize
Stay focused with goal setting. Chart your progress and keep up your motivation with daily word count and project goals:
- Set a target word count to get you typing every day and build consistency into your writing practice.
- Set project goals to monitor your overall progress and make sure you stay on track.
🧭 Never lose track of your plot
Working on a twisty thriller? Thrill your readers with your mind-bending plot and still retain your sanity. Here's how to keep track of what you're writing in each scene:
- Create an outline. Plan your story and sketch out your pivotal scenes with First Draft Pro's outlining features. If something’s not working, you can drag and drop cards to move chapters and scenes around at any time.
- Use scene prompts. View your outlined scene sketches in the panel on the right of your page and use these as prompts as you write. Always see what scene is coming next, so that you know exactly what you’re writing towards.
💆♀️ Minimise context switching
When you’re in the writing zone, there’s nothing more annoying than having to shuffle your notes around, scroll back to the previous chapter, or search 50 open browser tabs for some crucial detail.
First Draft Pro removes these barriers, making it easy to seamlessly navigate between your outline, manuscript, and project notes. No more needless context switching!
🎯 Concentrate on the words
Create more space for your writing. Collapse the right side menu to cut out the clutter and streamline your working environment. With First Draft Pro's beautiful interface, you can focus on your story instead of fussing with fonts and page layouts.
🌴 Write from anywhere, offline
Offline editing allows you to work on your manuscript when you don’t have WiFi – or if you just need to tune out Twitter for the day. Activate it either automatically or manually:
- First Draft Pro will automatically switch into offline mode if your connection drops. As soon as you're back up and running, it will automatically go back online.
- If you want to switch into offline mode, simply use the toggle at the bottom right of your screen. While you're offline, your changes are saved locally and will sync to the cloud as soon as First Draft Pro is online again.
Is distraction always bad?
Helping you to create a writing environment without distraction is our core goal, but is distraction always the worst thing?
Please allow us to present two exhibits to the jury:
“To be with the one I love and to think of something else: this is how I have my best ideas” – Laurence Sterne
“Distraction arises from an excellent quality of the understanding, which allows the ideas to strike against, or reawaken one another. It is the opposite of that stupor of attention, which merely rests on, or recycles, the same idea” – Diderot
Isn't it lovely to think of distraction as creatively productive? Getting distracted is, after all, just being interested. We notice things, we pay attention. Which is to say: we're writers.
So: stare out the window. Notice the birds and the way the light hits the leaves. And, when you come back to the work, let First Draft Pro help you to create a (slightly) more focused writing practice.
