A fun and useful tool for writing

I'm not sure who first told me about Write or die, but I didn't pay any attention to them. It took two or three other people mentioning it before I took a look at the website, and I have to say I'm very glad I did.

[Time for a disclaimer: I am not associated in any way with the company, developers, etc., just a happy user.]

It's a free web app (with a desktop edition you can buy if you like it) that gives you some discipline in terms of writing. It comes in three levels, from mild encouragement to outright punishment if you don't write, but since you can choose the level, you can customize it to be precisely what you want—or need. The web page is kind of cluttered, but the actual app itself is in the right-hand column where you choose your settings, then click "Write." And you're on your way!

What makes this app different from just writing? When you slow down, it reminds you to keep going, with flashing background colors or some crazy sounds. You can choose the delay before the "nudging" starts. I choose a pretty long one, so I don't end up writing crap just to keep the program happy. And you can disable the SAVE function until you meet your goal, which is what I do. It forces me to keep writing and not give up, since I can't save what I've got until I hit my 350 words. I see a pattern where I like to stop around 300. I'm so close! Just a few more sentences! Then next thing I know, I'm generally at 500 or more. And the ideas keep flowing and the word count piles up.

I'm one of those people who thinks about what they are going to write a lot before I manage to get any words written. I think and plan and plan and think. I learned that it's much easier to finish my projects if I write and then edit, rather than think too much in advance. As someone (help me, who?) said, "I'm a crappy writer but an excellent rewriter." The main point being you can't edit or revise it if you haven't written it first.

So for me, using Writeordie has been a great way to get some words down. You can choose a word count goal or a time goal. Being a sandbagger, I tend to choose a really easy word count goal of 350-500 words. I know I can get that much down at any one time easily. It's just starting that seems to frighten me.

I choose my goal, click WRITE and start writing. I invariably find myself getting to 750 or even 1000 words pretty quickly. I just needed the push.

In the last few weeks, on the days I wasn't swamped with edits and proofing, I tried to do one Writeordie session in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's allowed me to get 1500-2000 words a day down, when most days I might not gotten half that without using the program.

I liked it so much I paid $10 for the desktop version which lets me track my stats, including WPM, avg count per session and similar. I'm kind of a stats junkie so I like to kep checking that and try and outdo my previous records. But if you hate stats, you don't even have to look at it.

On the days I don't have even the germ of an idea for a scene to work on, I may decide to give myself a backstory prompt about one of my characters, like What's Tobin's coming out story, or why does Reed hate his dad? I just try and get my 350 words down and usually it turns into something good, something I hadn't expected.

Even if you hated those timed writing sessions at the start of every writing class, you are likely to find something about Writeordie to like. I definitely hated them! But I also know I always surprised myself how much I can write when I focus on just a small do-able task.