I’ve been struggling a bit with my motivation and concentration recently. I know what to do – I’m doing rewrites and edits on the second draft of my second book – but I’m just finding it so hard to acutally sit down and do it recently.

So I figured I’d do something else and write a little post about a few tricks I have up my sleeve, to focus and get the work done.

Remember, these aren’t softwares or programs to actually help you do the work – I might do a post about that later, though I mostly just use Word at the moment, (pretty old schoold I know) – no these are just things to help me relax and concentrate.

Rainy Mood

I’m not sure I can remember the time before I knew about Rainy Mood. It’s essentially all there in the name, it’s a website full of rainy sounds. There’s an app as well, and they’ve done quite a lot of work on it since it was first launched, adding different types of rain, background music and thunder. It’s great for all those days when you want to sit inside during a storm and write, but the fucking sun is out, burning everything to a crisp.

Nosili

Nosili is similar, except it’s not all rain. There’s different types of sound you can turn on and off, giving you that motivating background noise you’ve always dreamed of. You can even press ‘Random’, ‘Productivity’ or ‘Relax’ to get a few standard modes (well the random one isn’t standard I suppose, but you get it). Not sure if there’s an app version of this, but I imagine there is. Personally, I love the fan noise, second to bottom, on the left. The background hum is amazing.

Tabletop Audio

This one is amazing. Probably more useful for actually writing than editing or rewriting, but it’s essentially lots of different soundscapes to a variety of different settings/scenarios. Need to write a shotout in a big city? Or a battle in an elven forest? Or whatever else you’re writing, you’ll find a backing track for your thoughts here. As far as I know, it was for DnD players to set the mood for their games, and it bloody works.

Twilight

This last one is an extra one for reading. Have you ever heard that people say you shouldn’t stare at a screen before bed? Because the blue light keeps your brain awake? Well this app (which I use on an android device, but now that I’m thinking about I wonder if there’s one for my pc I can use when writing), let’s you override your screen and dim it. You can also make it more red, which is better for your eyes, and won’t mess up your sleep cycle. I love it, and I haven’t stopped using it since I found it – being cursed with insomniac dendencies for years, it’s a blessing. Only problem is, I keep falling asleep while reading.

That’s it. If you haven’t heard of these, go check them out, and if you have – well good for you. Also, let me know about other things you use that I might not have heard of.