No Chromatherapy Needed

As an beginning writer, I have come across many gimmicks offers urging me to try this new software, read this new book, eat this new cereal, sleep this many hours, etc. I fortunately, am not easily susceptible to the most blatant gyps.

“Ommmmm…”

But then there’s Ommwriter Dāna II.

Interesting name, huh? That’s probably what first drew me in. “Ommwriter . . .? What, is it like ‘typewriter,’ but with an ‘omm?’ And what is ‘omm?’ Dāna?”

One week later, and I still don’t know what “omm” means. Maybe it’s like those hippie yoga people. *Cue candlelight and rain forest rhythms* “Ommmmmmmmm. Ommmmmmmmm.”

I did learn, however, that Dāna is Sanskrit for “giving.”

Created by a team of Barcelonians, Ommwriter Dāna II is a whole new “writing environment.” In other words, it’s a word processor.

Unlike other word processors, when you open Ommwriter, you are taken to full screen mode. The only way to exit is to hover in the upper left corner and click the tiny, tiny x that appears. This full screen mode is meant to free you of any distractions, namely the internet.

Also, to soothe your overactive mind and encourage your novel along, endless music plays in the background.

You can also choose to have special clicks sound off each time you press a key. Thank God, these keyboard clicks can be turned off. One of them is literally the sound of supermarket scanner making that horrible “beep” scan noise. And, for the music, one “tries to simulate the sounds that an unborn child would hear inside the mother’s womb.”

Not to mention, you can pump up the “chromatherapy,” and have colors change and swirl in the background. This has been deemed as “LSD vision” in my family.

Chromatherapy in action

And don’t let me forget about the cursor. The cursor on Ommwriter is not vertical, but horizontal so that words flow freely instead of “hitting a wall.”

Also, no italics, boldface, or spellcheck. Because they are considered huge distractions.

Yes, Ommwriter Dāna II is a gimmick.

Yet I still use it. I don’t know, maybe it’s giving off some placebo effect. But, either way, it isn’t worth the $6.11 I spent on it (don’t ask me why, but the Ommwriter team convinced that my purchased needed to end in a one—no lie).

I’m just happy I didn’t buy Scrivener, another word processor, for forty bucks. I can recover from $6.11 lost.

Really, what matters with writing is not fancy software or pretty music or cotton-candy colors.

What matters are these things:

Imagination
Desire
Creativity
Wherewithal

Is that it? About so.

And what’s great about these four things is that they are free. You just have to find them inside yourself.

And, trust me, everyone, everywhere has these four things inside of them. Whether these four things are meant for a writing life, well, that’s up to the individual. But each person already has everything they need for success.

No chromatherapy needed.

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