write or die

 
Somebody recently asked about the program Write or Die on the Yahoo! Group, Critical Writing. I’ve heard of this before from Lori Devoti, so I decided to check it out. This isn’t a flashy wowza will-ya-look-at-that program. No intimidating interface to figure out. No outlining or submission tracking tools. No plotting or characterization modules. Not many bells and whistles at all. There are screeching violins and crying babies though.
 
There are two versions of Write or Die: the online edition which is free, and the desktop edition which is inexpensive — only ten dollars. The online edition allows you to set up a time goal or word goal as well as your consequences and grace period. I set up a word goal of just 10 words at first. I had no intention at all of actually writing ten words. I just wanted to see what the program would do. For starters, I set up a forgiving grace period and a gentle reminder. So I hit the Write button, randomly clicked a few keys to qualify as a word, and waited.
 
After several seconds of staring at the blank screen, it turned pink then gradually brightened to red. Then a pop-up window told me I’d stopped writing and encouraged me to get back to it. Meh, okay. Nice, but not exactly “wow.” I changed the settings to a strict grace period and normal consequences. This time the screen changed colors somewhat sooner, then Rick Astley began crooning that he was never gonna give me up. I giggled and decided to try other settings. The evil grace period starts changing colors almost immediately after you stop typing. The kamakazi consequences eats the words you’ve already typed. Gulp.
 
Now I’m intrigued, so I checked out the desktop edition. There are some more options you can set in the desktop edition. You can read all about them on Dr. Wicked’s web site; most of them didn’t interest me much. (There is the ability to choose your sound consequence though. I listened to every sound at least once, trying to find the best combination of annoying, funny, and oh-holy-cats-make-it-stop! to keep me motivated.) The only two options that really interested me were the disabling the backspace key and the having a Word War with a friend. Dr. Wicked, you had me at “Disable Backspace.”
 
One of my biggest problems with writing is self-editing. There is a time for self-editing — just not during zero draft. Having the option of disabling my backspace key is worth at least half the purchase price for me. No matter how many times I give myself permission to write a crappy first draft and how much I tell myself that I don’t have to be perfect, I still succumb to self-editing while I’m writing. With the backspace key disabled though, I simply don’t have the option to self-edit.
 
Well, not really. I can still self-edit. Only now, instead of deleting and re-writing, I simply re-write the same sentence over and over — which, depending on how you look at it, could inflate my word count. I can live with that though, because eventually I get tired of writing the same sentence over and over again and decide to just leave it be and move on. So as far as downsides go, this one isn’t that bad. I tried it for the first time last night, setting myself a goal of 500 words and fifteen minutes. (As the FlyLady says, you can do anything in fifteen minutes.) After nearly three weeks of zero words, I got over 1600 out last night.
 
I haven’t tried the Word War option yet, but it looks like fun. This is where you can connect with a friend (or enemy or complete stranger) and write to the same goal at the same time across the internet. If you don’t already have a friend who wants to have a Word War with you, you’re supposed to be able to find one on twitter under #wordwar.
 
There is one problem with the program. The online edition offers electric shock mode, but no matter how many times I tried to click that button, it never seemed to work. It’s not even offered in the desktop edition. Hopefully that’s a bug Dr. Wicked will be fixing soon. ;^>
 
For ten bucks, I think this is a neat little program. If you’re into bells and whistles and crafting tools, it’s not for you. But if you want a fun way to motivate yourself, and keep track of your word count, the ten bucks is worth it.