Monday, April 25, 2016

Distraction-Free Writing?

Do you frequently have trouble resisting the siren call of social media, email, internet searches, or games when you should be writing? The Freewrite, just released earlier this month after a successful Kickstarter campaign a year and half ago, might be your answer.
Billed by the company as "the world's first smart typewriter," the Freewrite has an e-ink screen (much like a Kindle) and a front light, so you can type inside in low light conditions or outside in the sun. It can save up to a million(!) pages within its memory. Transferring work to a computer is done with cloud syncing via wifi. And there's absolutely nothing to distract you here.

I have to admit, I'm pretty tempted. I definitely have a problem with distractions when I should be writing. The idea of a device dedicated to drafting and nothing else sounds pretty good. But there are two things that make me hesitate (although they may not be a problem for someone else!).

First, the price is pretty high at $499.00. While this is a third of what my MacBook cost, it's still a hefty chunk of change for something that only has one function. More of a deal breaker for me is the lack of a cursor or touchscreen to let you navigate within your WIP. I usually do a bit of editing on the fly as I draft, so I have a feeling this would just frustrate me.

What do you think? Would you try the Freewrite?

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